OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
When you think how many people each job gives huge sigh of relief to - immediate family, friends, neighbours - that is several million people personally delighted by that number.
Top effort in lifting the spirits to all concerned.
Over 4m tests in just 7 days? In some ways that is the most incredible statistic of them all. An absolute transformation of performance over the last 6 months. It also demonstrates that there is masses of further capacity to deliver vaccines if required and supply remains the limitation.
Also cases now seem to be below the peak before Lockdown2® which is fantastic. Another few weeks at this rate and we'll be approaching zero.
There was a good piece in the FT linked to yesterday, I think by @CarlottaVance , which explained that what we would see would be things seeming to move relatively slowly and then quite quickly as we reach tipping points. I think that point when things start to improve fast is 3-4 weeks away.
But they are already improving fast, at least on the cases front. Of course hospitalisations and deaths lag 2+ weeks after that.
The gradient of decreasing cases is so much steeper than I would have imaged. We're already past the half way point to effectively zero in 1 month. I of course do not expect that rate of change to persist but if it does we'll be facing a very healthy position at the end of February with negligible COVID in circulation. Remember it's decreased 30% in 1 week!
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
"I have no evidence, but what I do have in its place ... "
Politico.com - Trump’s top impeachment lawyer has left his team Butch Bowers and another lawyer are no longer set to defend Trump during his impeachment trial, which is just days away.
"Former President Donald Trump has lost his top impeachment lawyer just days before his trial is to begin, a person familiar with his legal strategy and two attorneys close to the team confirmed on Saturday night.
Butch Bowers, a South Carolina lawyer who was reportedly set to play a major role in the Senate’s trial of the former president, is now no longer with the team. Deborah Barbier, another South Carolina lawyer, won’t be either. The person described it as a “mutual decision” and said new names will be announced shortly.
In addition, CNN reported on Saturday night that a third member of Trump's prospective legal team, Josh Howard, was also leaving. The network reported that the ex-president had wanted his lawyers to focus on erroneous arguments of mass election fraud rather than the constitutionality of impeaching an ex-president. . . . . ."
Butch Bowers sounds like the name of a gay porn star.
Not having a lawyer whose name is a like porn star will help Trump's defence.
TSE, you ignorant Brit! Here in the US of A, Butch is a quintessentially American nickname. Indeed, THE quintessentially American nickname. For example, Butch Cassidy (pal of the Sundance Kid) and Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho. (Not sure about the Gov but positive that Cassidy never starred in one of your "entertainments".)
AND on your own (admittedly puny) shores, am guessing you are also ignorant of the fact that "Butch" is was his comrades called Sir Arthur Harris, that is before the called him "Bomber"? (Admit I didn't know it until I dredged it up from Wiki)
Thus two great nations (at least) mourn your folly!
I think @TSE is letting his fantasies get the better of him...
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
It’s one of those situations where you get the most political capital from doing nothing, because the situation speaks for itself. Rubbing your opponents’ noses in it would lose political capital.
And anyway, the EU's silence speaks volumes coming after a well-publicised raid to try and find evidence to substantiate their claims.
My friend who works for a JCP said one of the most common conversations over the last year is from middle class people saying 'I never knew JSA/UC was so low.'
What is wrong with these people?
I guess unemployment benefits is an abstract concept until you apply for them for the first time.
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
“You know you have fucked up on an epic scale when Sinn Féin, the DUP and the Archbishop of Canterbury are united in condemning you,” an EU source conceded of the extraordinary events that soon transpired.
If you want to feel really old, type the name of a song you like followed by "reaction" into the YouTube search, and will probably find several videos of twenty-somethings listening to it for the first time, often with amazement. When the song is a little known hit called "Bohemian Rhapsody" you can also tell which of them have seen Wayne's World when it gets to the appropriate point...
Lost in Vegas is great reaction channel on youtube. The guys are great, but the best bit is despite being hip-hop fans they do all sorts of metal and prog rock.
Over 4m tests in just 7 days? In some ways that is the most incredible statistic of them all. An absolute transformation of performance over the last 6 months. It also demonstrates that there is masses of further capacity to deliver vaccines if required and supply remains the limitation.
Also cases now seem to be below the peak before Lockdown2® which is fantastic. Another few weeks at this rate and we'll be approaching zero.
There was a good piece in the FT linked to yesterday, I think by @CarlottaVance , which explained that what we would see would be things seeming to move relatively slowly and then quite quickly as we reach tipping points. I think that point when things start to improve fast is 3-4 weeks away.
But they are already improving fast, at least on the cases front. Of course hospitalisations and deaths lag 2+ weeks after that.
The gradient of decreasing cases is so much steeper than I would have imaged. We're already past the half way point to effectively zero in 1 month. I of course do not expect that rate of change to persist but if it does we'll be facing a very healthy position at the end of February with negligible COVID in circulation. Remember it's decreased 30% in 1 week!
You're right. This must be the effect of the post Christmas lockdowns and it is greatly encouraging because I had reluctantly concluded that lockdowns just didn't work against the Kent variant. Just maybe we will see a sort of normal summer, albeit with restrictions to countries that have not been so fortunate. A lot of staycations could help get our hospitality industries off the floor.
My friend who works for a JCP said one of the most common conversations over the last year is from middle class people saying 'I never knew JSA/UC was so low.'
What is wrong with these people?
I guess unemployment benefits is an abstract concept until you apply for them for the first time.
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
Presumably one of the unlucky ones not to be on furlough. Still seems unfair to effectively have two classes of benefits.
Met a girl called Trinity the other day "after someone in an old film".
There are very few topics that don't get an outing on PB, but one that has been severely lacking of late is any discussion of Bill & Ted 3, and how awesome it is on every level.
It is most triumphant in every way, and an outstanding addition to the canon.
There is a video Comic-Con panel chaired by Kevin Smith with some of the cast and crew, where they discuss the fact that Gen X saw Ted morph into John Wick, while millennials saw the reverse.
And to your point, Bill's daughter saw Ted fighting with her uncle...
10,621 2nd vaccinations yesterday. Compares with a steady 7 day daily average of 1,710 previously.
Interesting. Might this be the first sign of a so far unpublicised switch in progress towards using available Pfizer vaccines to slow down the growth in the numbers who have had 1 but not 2 Pfizer vaccines? 10k isn't much in itself, but it might herald the start of something more substantial.
My friend who works for a JCP said one of the most common conversations over the last year is from middle class people saying 'I never knew JSA/UC was so low.'
What is wrong with these people?
I guess unemployment benefits is an abstract concept until you apply for them for the first time.
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
They should also thank themselves lucky they live in a developed country where they can claim non contributory unemployment benefits which are not time limited provided they are looking for work still.
Even in some other developed countries like the USA and Canada, Spain and Italy that is not the case
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
My friend who works for a JCP said one of the most common conversations over the last year is from middle class people saying 'I never knew JSA/UC was so low.'
What is wrong with these people?
I guess unemployment benefits is an abstract concept until you apply for them for the first time.
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
Presumably one of the unlucky ones not to be on furlough. Still seems unfair to effectively have two classes of benefits.
It is, there's all sorts of people not eligible for furlough.
However, around 1.8 million self-employed people and around 700,000 company owner-managers are not eligible for support through the scheme.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
I was within 2 weeks of going to Ghana with work when we locked down. Not sure how good or bad that would have been.
Portugal's Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva has defended European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and called for unity, after a week that saw tensions over the EU’s handling of its vaccine shortage crisis.
"There is no reason for the leaders of Europe to argue. It is very important that we keep united," he told the BBC.
"As holders of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, Portugal fully supports Ursula von der Leyen - she’s doing a great effort to address the shortfalls of production of vaccines by first Pfizer and now AstraZeneca.
I would hate to see what it would be like if she was doing poorly....
Beyond doing lots of stamping their feet, and making accusatory public statements about AZ and UK for domestic political consumption, i genuinely hope that they are beneath the surface actually taking some meaningful steps to improve vaccine manufacture and supply to address the shortfalls. Even if they don't bear fruit for a few weeks/months.
The other issue to put in place is a delivery system. From what I have seen, no-one in Europe (with the possible, partial, exception of Germany) has put the systems in place to go for vaccination rates of 0.5% or 1% of the population per day.
Such system do not accidentally come into existence. Even the in US chaos, there was a very considerable effort to align their enormous healthcare system (however badly) to deliver.
Didn’t someone post last night to flag how relatively low flu vaccine success was in most EU countries compared to us? Delivery mechanisms etc.
At least 27 different delivery systems. Maybe Belgium is blessed with two? Clearly the solution is More Europe. And retraining squaddies to give jabs may be an issue in countries such as France and the Netherlands where they are still fully employed fighting the citizenry.
Just seen on FB Spain has received a delivery of 52K Moderna vaccine with another 800K by the end of February. Utterly pathetic. Worse still it's presented as some kind of achievement!
That's not even a day and a half at our rates - scaled up to our population, it means the entire vaccination network would sit on their hands from 3rd to 28th February, with no new jabs.
You can understand why the EU Commission has gone bat-shit crazy.
Or it could be that they've stabilised. What if suppression in Wales is ahead of the rest of the UK, they have achieved as much as they can (at least until vaccination becomes much more widespread,) and both cases and hospital admission are therefore levelling off?
If I'm right then Scotland may soon track back up towards 1 as well, if the situation in the region around Glasgow improves in line with the rest of the country.
The weekend effect may be (almost certainly is) exaggerating the improvement but that is...better.
Using a seven day moving average for the UK to smooth out noise and the weekend effects gives: New cases R=0.67 (halving every 12 days) Deaths R=0.95 (halving every 90 days) The Rs are steadily reducing so the "days to halve" are too.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Where's the Moral High Ground in a member of the demographic that's certain to be jabbed telling the other half of the population to sacrifice their health and freedom indefinitely for the sake of said jabbed person's abstract principles?
We can protect our own people - all of them - and claim the moral high ground by donating to COVAX and giving away our surplus to the developing world. I reckon that'll be good enough for the vast majority of the voting public to go along with.
The 1st para is reductive and personalizing. Back into the old "if you favour higher taxes, why don't you donate to HMRC?" territory. So I will pass on that. But the 2nd, no, I can happily say I disagree in principle. I don't think it should be a fixed objective come what may that we vaccinate every adult in the UK before releasing supply to others. I just do not see it that way for reasons previously explained. I think this comes down to what you and I feel being a citizen of a particular country entails. Which is different. Not enlightened vs less so, I stress, please don't think that. Just different.
10,621 2nd vaccinations yesterday. Compares with a steady 7 day daily average of 1,710 previously.
Interesting. Might this be the first sign of a so far unpublicised switch in progress towards using available Pfizer vaccines to slow down the growth in the numbers who have had 1 but not 2 Pfizer vaccines? 10k isn't much in itself, but it might herald the start of something more substantial.
Vaccinations started on the 8th December. The 12 week thing is the limit, not the target.
Most before the new year got the second vaccination already, but not all.
So we can expect increasing numbers of second vaccinations in the next few weeks
Or it could be that they've stabilised. What if suppression in Wales is ahead of the rest of the UK, they have achieved as much as they can (at least until vaccination becomes much more widespread,) and both cases and hospital admission are therefore levelling off?
If I'm right then Scotland may soon track back up towards 1 as well, if the situation in the region around Glasgow improves in line with the rest of the country.
I hope not because it's nowhere near as low as what we had over the summer.
Politico.com - Trump’s top impeachment lawyer has left his team Butch Bowers and another lawyer are no longer set to defend Trump during his impeachment trial, which is just days away.
"Former President Donald Trump has lost his top impeachment lawyer just days before his trial is to begin, a person familiar with his legal strategy and two attorneys close to the team confirmed on Saturday night.
Butch Bowers, a South Carolina lawyer who was reportedly set to play a major role in the Senate’s trial of the former president, is now no longer with the team. Deborah Barbier, another South Carolina lawyer, won’t be either. The person described it as a “mutual decision” and said new names will be announced shortly.
In addition, CNN reported on Saturday night that a third member of Trump's prospective legal team, Josh Howard, was also leaving. The network reported that the ex-president had wanted his lawyers to focus on erroneous arguments of mass election fraud rather than the constitutionality of impeaching an ex-president. . . . . ."
Butch Bowers sounds like the name of a gay porn star.
Not having a lawyer whose name is a like porn star will help Trump's defence.
TSE, you ignorant Brit! Here in the US of A, Butch is a quintessentially American nickname. Indeed, THE quintessentially American nickname. For example, Butch Cassidy (pal of the Sundance Kid) and Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho. (Not sure about the Gov but positive that Cassidy never starred in one of your "entertainments".)
AND on your own (admittedly puny) shores, am guessing you are also ignorant of the fact that "Butch" is was his comrades called Sir Arthur Harris, that is before the called him "Bomber"? (Admit I didn't know it until I dredged it up from Wiki)
Thus two great nations (at least) mourn your folly!
Butch Otter really doesn't work in English English.
There's a bit in Money by Martin Amis where a film star called Spunk Davis has to be told his name is not going to work in the UK market. He eventually concedes and says OK, what do you suggest instead of Davis?
Politico.com - Trump’s top impeachment lawyer has left his team Butch Bowers and another lawyer are no longer set to defend Trump during his impeachment trial, which is just days away.
"Former President Donald Trump has lost his top impeachment lawyer just days before his trial is to begin, a person familiar with his legal strategy and two attorneys close to the team confirmed on Saturday night.
Butch Bowers, a South Carolina lawyer who was reportedly set to play a major role in the Senate’s trial of the former president, is now no longer with the team. Deborah Barbier, another South Carolina lawyer, won’t be either. The person described it as a “mutual decision” and said new names will be announced shortly.
In addition, CNN reported on Saturday night that a third member of Trump's prospective legal team, Josh Howard, was also leaving. The network reported that the ex-president had wanted his lawyers to focus on erroneous arguments of mass election fraud rather than the constitutionality of impeaching an ex-president. . . . . ."
Butch Bowers sounds like the name of a gay porn star.
Not having a lawyer whose name is a like porn star will help Trump's defence.
TSE, you ignorant Brit! Here in the US of A, Butch is a quintessentially American nickname. Indeed, THE quintessentially American nickname. For example, Butch Cassidy (pal of the Sundance Kid) and Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho. (Not sure about the Gov but positive that Cassidy never starred in one of your "entertainments".)
AND on your own (admittedly puny) shores, am guessing you are also ignorant of the fact that "Butch" is was his comrades called Sir Arthur Harris, that is before the called him "Bomber"? (Admit I didn't know it until I dredged it up from Wiki)
Thus two great nations (at least) mourn your folly!
Butch Otter really doesn't work in English English.
There's a bit in Money by Martin Amis where a film star called Spunk Davis has to be told his name is not going to work in the UK market. He eventually concedes and says OK, what do you suggest instead of Davis?
But he won. In London. Twice. As a Tory. And then he won the Brexit referendum against the entire establishment. And then he won the leadership of the Tories. And then he won an election with an 80 seat majority, the largest Tory win since 1987. That's my evidence, what's yours?
We get excited and contemptuous that he ran away from Andrew Neill. The general public couldn't give a toss.
No, he has enjoyed that one thing all politicians need and that is luck.
He has faced poor or divided opponents and played his hand astutely but then one could say the same about Thatcher or Blair.
He has yet to face real unpopularity - neither did Blair in all honesty though Thatcher did in 1981. He has also yet to face a real opponent who can challenge him - whether Starmer is that opponent remains to be seen but there will come a day when the record in office acts as an anchor and to be blunt every PM has a shelf life - we all get tired of the same face, the same voice, the same clichés day in day out.
My friend who works for a JCP said one of the most common conversations over the last year is from middle class people saying 'I never knew JSA/UC was so low.'
What is wrong with these people?
I guess unemployment benefits is an abstract concept until you apply for them for the first time.
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
Presumably one of the unlucky ones not to be on furlough. Still seems unfair to effectively have two classes of benefits.
It is, there's all sorts of people not eligible for furlough.
However, around 1.8 million self-employed people and around 700,000 company owner-managers are not eligible for support through the scheme.
But hundreds of thousands of those who are self employed have had about £20K worth of grants so far. To be eligible you need to be earning less than £50k a year and have had some accounts so you can show a Covid effect. In some ways it was far more innovative and world leading than the furlough scheme which owed a huge amount to the German Kurzabeit.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Not a queue. Help the countries that have nothing first.
SKS is obviously a massive improvement on Corbyn. He is not stupid, racist, bigoted or anti-western, It is not hard to imagine him as a PM although it is pretty difficult to imagine several of his current shadow cabinet holding down the main job, including his Chancellor.
For me he has 3 problems. The first is Boris who is an excellent campaigner who is brilliant at building big enough tents to give him a majority. Secondly, Boris is also funny and Starmer isn't. This is a major problem with the UK populace who don't take politicians remotely seriously themselves and expect a bit of entertainment when their lives are interrupted.
But surely the biggest problem is that we have no idea what kind of a country he wants, other than one run by him. Does he want more taxes? What does he think of our education system? How are we going to develop the industries and employers of the future? Is a balanced budget important or irrelevant? What are his plans for social care?
The likelihood is that by 2024 the UK economy will be about the same size as it was a year ago, maybe a little smaller. Money is going to be tight. The debts left by Covid are going to be horrendous. Several sectors will be very badly hit. What are our priorities in this difficult but completely foreseeable position? He really should get around to telling us.
This has of course occurred to Labour, but our judgment is that new policies will at best not get a serious hearing (we had a go with his regional proposals - remember those? No, right?) and at worst be seen as a distraction from the business of the day, getting rid of Covid. Suppose Labour now put forward well-considered proposals for improving schools from 2024. Teachers might be interested; nobody else will care.
The strategy is to be sober, constructive and occasionally critical of the Covid effort, and await the moment when people say "OK, that's largely out of the way. What now?" The parallel is wartime - Labour said very little about future plans, if they had any, in 1941, but by 1945 the "Now win the peace" slogan was irresistible. Very different times, perhaps not a guide - but it perhaps illustrates the strategy.
I think the problem there Nick is that Starmer and his team are not really demonstrating they are capable of big, bold policies which change the public conversation. I agree it's hard at the moment for them given both the vaccine rollout and also that the Government's furlough schemes and business lending have stopped mass unemployment and enabled businesses to survive in a "deep freeze" element, and people give the Government credit for that. But, as others have said, what exactly is Starmer offering? It is too early for detail but it would be nice to have an idea of his broad brush view on the world. The only thing that sticks in my head at the moment is him taking the bended knee.
The reason it's the only thing that sticks in your head is you are unusually exercised by BLM.
Maybe you can provide an example of what sticks in your head when it comes to SKS?
It's actually not a particular image or quote. It's his fluent and articulate way with words.
But pushed for a specific - which you have - I'd go with his controlled fury and contempt when responding to Johnson's jibe about "cancelling Christmas". More of that would be good.
My friend who works for a JCP said one of the most common conversations over the last year is from middle class people saying 'I never knew JSA/UC was so low.'
What is wrong with these people?
I guess unemployment benefits is an abstract concept until you apply for them for the first time.
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
Presumably one of the unlucky ones not to be on furlough. Still seems unfair to effectively have two classes of benefits.
It is, there's all sorts of people not eligible for furlough.
However, around 1.8 million self-employed people and around 700,000 company owner-managers are not eligible for support through the scheme.
But hundreds of thousands of those who are self employed have had about £20K worth of grants so far. To be eligible you need to be earning less than £50k a year and have had some accounts so you can show a Covid effect. In some ways it was far more innovative and world leading than the furlough scheme which owed a huge amount to the German Kurzabeit.
See that IFS report.
For some of these people, it is technically very difficult for the government to provide targeted support. This is the case for owner-managers and newly self-employed people.
This is not the case for the 1.3 million self-employed people who have less than 50% of their income coming from self-employment, or for the 225,000 people who have profits in excess of £50,000. The government has actively chosen to exclude these people from SEISS.
There are clear injustices in the way these people are excluded, not least in the hard cut-offs which mean someone with profits of £50,000 can claim the maximum available while someone with £50,001 can claim nothing. Equally, someone with 51% of declared income from self-employment can claim the maximum, while someone with 49% can claim nothing.
But he won. In London. Twice. As a Tory. And then he won the Brexit referendum against the entire establishment. And then he won the leadership of the Tories. And then he won an election with an 80 seat majority, the largest Tory win since 1987. That's my evidence, what's yours?
We get excited and contemptuous that he ran away from Andrew Neill. The general public couldn't give a toss.
No, he has enjoyed that one thing all politicians need and that is luck.
He has faced poor or divided opponents and played his hand astutely but then one could say the same about Thatcher or Blair.
He has yet to face real unpopularity - neither did Blair in all honesty though Thatcher did in 1981. He has also yet to face a real opponent who can challenge him - whether Starmer is that opponent remains to be seen but there will come a day when the record in office acts as an anchor and to be blunt every PM has a shelf life - we all get tired of the same face, the same voice, the same clichés day in day out.
Oh indeed:
Nothin' lasts forever And we both know hearts can change And it's hard to hold a candle In the cold November rain
When you think how many people each job gives huge sigh of relief to - immediate family, friends, neighbours - that is several million people personally delighted by that number.
Top effort in lifting the spirits to all concerned.
More than that - other people can see their turn approaching and see hope on the horizon - and they also look at other parts of the world not doing quite so well and feel doubly thankful.
It's more like a massive lotto game for rich and upper-middle class families.
A £100k flat? In London?! Bought outright for offspring by the Bank of Mum & Dad, sold almost immediately for £350k, unearned profit banked or used to buy a proper house in the commuter belt. Skip 30 years of mortgage slog and go straight to homeowner heaven; eventual inheritance can thus be spent entirely on a luxurious retirement taken at 55. Existing inequalities triumphantly maximised. Not sure how you'd prevent it.
My friend who works for a JCP said one of the most common conversations over the last year is from middle class people saying 'I never knew JSA/UC was so low.'
What is wrong with these people?
I guess unemployment benefits is an abstract concept until you apply for them for the first time.
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
Presumably one of the unlucky ones not to be on furlough. Still seems unfair to effectively have two classes of benefits.
It is, there's all sorts of people not eligible for furlough.
However, around 1.8 million self-employed people and around 700,000 company owner-managers are not eligible for support through the scheme.
But hundreds of thousands of those who are self employed have had about £20K worth of grants so far. To be eligible you need to be earning less than £50k a year and have had some accounts so you can show a Covid effect. In some ways it was far more innovative and world leading than the furlough scheme which owed a huge amount to the German Kurzabeit.
See that IFS report.
For some of these people, it is technically very difficult for the government to provide targeted support. This is the case for owner-managers and newly self-employed people.
This is not the case for the 1.3 million self-employed people who have less than 50% of their income coming from self-employment, or for the 225,000 people who have profits in excess of £50,000. The government has actively chosen to exclude these people from SEISS.
There are clear injustices in the way these people are excluded, not least in the hard cut-offs which mean someone with profits of £50,000 can claim the maximum available while someone with £50,001 can claim nothing. Equally, someone with 51% of declared income from self-employment can claim the maximum, while someone with 49% can claim nothing.
One of my friends, a newly qualified advocate, should have been eligible for the grants but couldn't apply because his accountant had failed to do his accounts timeously. He sued of course.
So yes, inevitably there were some rough edges but even although it means I got nothing directly* I can't complain and those earning over £50k really should be able to cope.
*full disclosure, I did get some furlough money for my wife in the early months when there was very little happening and nothing for her to do in helping me.
Or it could be that they've stabilised. What if suppression in Wales is ahead of the rest of the UK, they have achieved as much as they can (at least until vaccination becomes much more widespread,) and both cases and hospital admission are therefore levelling off?
If I'm right then Scotland may soon track back up towards 1 as well, if the situation in the region around Glasgow improves in line with the rest of the country.
I hope not because it's nowhere near as low as what we had over the summer.
Yes, but we must be realistic. Firstly Kent Covid probably has spread into Wales, so the virus itself is more transmissible and the point at which any suppression measure has no further effect will come sooner, and secondly it is Winter not Summer. We have to give it more time.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Or indeed start a little bit before. But I don't want to get bogged down in details or false precision. We don't know how things will develop on rollouts and new variants etc. My point is this is a golden chance to set a "feel tone" for post Brexit Global Britain that is more Remainy than Leavey. And that this will pay political dividends, both internationally for the country and domestically for the Conservatives.
That's my one and only point. And it's a new point. I haven't made it before. Nobody has. I don't want to revisit all that reductive and personalizing "Why do you want to save foreigners before Brits?" stuff again. No good can come of such a debate.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Or indeed start a little bit before. But I don't want to get bogged down in details or false precision. We don't know how things will develop on rollouts and new variants etc. My point is this is a golden chance to set a "feel tone" for post Brexit Global Britain that is more Remainy than Leavey. And that this will pay political dividends, both internationally and domestically. That's my one and only point. And it's a new point. I haven't made it before. Nobody has.
I don't want to revisit all that reductive and personalizing "Why do you want to save foreingners before Brits?" stuff again. No good can come of such a debate.
Vaccinating people is more "remain" than "leave"? What are you on about?
India is a country that has not really been mentioned in this but it seems to have sufferd an almost exact, normal distribution, Farr's Law, curve with one peak. This would cause a horrific toll in the west but with a younger and (dare I say it) less obese population India appears (fingers crossed) to be heading out the other side.
“I am hopeful that the worst is over,” says Dr Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and a member of the government’s Covid-19 task force. “In certain areas, like large cities, we may have come close to achieving a good amount of immunity — if not herd immunity, close to it.”
“The reported cases are not even remotely a reflection of true cases — they only reflect people who got tested,” says Vikram Patel, a professor of global health at Harvard Medical School. “For reasons that we don’t fully know, the virus has spread like wildfire in India — more than in any other country in the world.”
"In cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, sero-prevalence studies — which measure antibodies that suggest a previous exposure to the virus — have indicated that more than half of residents have already been exposed to the virus. One such study in Karnataka state estimated there were 31m infections there by mid-August, including 44 per cent of the rural population and 54 per cent of the urban population."
"Yet many people with antibodies have no recollection of being sick at all. “The estimates are that 30 to 40 per cent of individuals may have had asymptomatic or mild infections and not gotten tested,” says Dr Guleria. “Many who had developed mild symptoms may have had Covid-19 without realising it.”"
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Or indeed start a little bit before. But I don't want to get bogged down in details or false precision. We don't know how things will develop on rollouts and new variants etc. My point is this is a golden chance to set a "feel tone" for post Brexit Global Britain that is more Remainy than Leavey. And that this will pay political dividends, both internationally and domestically. That's my one and only point. And it's a new point. I haven't made it before. Nobody has.
I don't want to revisit all that reductive and personalizing "Why do you want to save foreingners before Brits?" stuff again. No good can come of such a debate.
You don't want to revisit it because it comes down to folk asking you how many dead brits you are happy to have for your feel good virtue signalling.
As always with your principles it relies on others giving up stuff to fund your dystopia
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Or indeed start a little bit before. But I don't want to get bogged down in details or false precision. We don't know how things will develop on rollouts and new variants etc. My point is this is a golden chance to set a "feel tone" for post Brexit Global Britain that is more Remainy than Leavey. And that this will pay political dividends, both internationally and domestically. That's my one and only point. And it's a new point. I haven't made it before. Nobody has.
I don't want to revisit all that reductive and personalizing "Why do you want to save foreingners before Brits?" stuff again. No good can come of such a debate.
Vaccinating people is more "remain" than "leave"? What are you on about?
He is referring to the feel good factor for remainers of helping out europeans
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Not a queue. Help the countries that have nothing first.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Or indeed start a little bit before. But I don't want to get bogged down in details or false precision. We don't know how things will develop on rollouts and new variants etc. My point is this is a golden chance to set a "feel tone" for post Brexit Global Britain that is more Remainy than Leavey. And that this will pay political dividends, both internationally for the country and domestically for the Conservatives.
That's my one and only point. And it's a new point. I haven't made it before. Nobody has. I don't want to revisit all that reductive and personalizing "Why do you want to save foreigners before Brits?" stuff again. No good can come of such a debate.
India is a country that has not really been mentioned in this but it seems to have sufferd an almost exact, normal distribution, Farr's Law, curve with one peak. This would cause a horrific toll in the west but with a younger and (dare I say it) less obese population India appears (fingers crossed) to be heading out the other side.
“I am hopeful that the worst is over,” says Dr Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and a member of the government’s Covid-19 task force. “In certain areas, like large cities, we may have come close to achieving a good amount of immunity — if not herd immunity, close to it.”
“The reported cases are not even remotely a reflection of true cases — they only reflect people who got tested,” says Vikram Patel, a professor of global health at Harvard Medical School. “For reasons that we don’t fully know, the virus has spread like wildfire in India — more than in any other country in the world.”
"In cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, sero-prevalence studies — which measure antibodies that suggest a previous exposure to the virus — have indicated that more than half of residents have already been exposed to the virus. One such study in Karnataka state estimated there were 31m infections there by mid-August, including 44 per cent of the rural population and 54 per cent of the urban population."
"Yet many people with antibodies have no recollection of being sick at all. “The estimates are that 30 to 40 per cent of individuals may have had asymptomatic or mild infections and not gotten tested,” says Dr Guleria. “Many who had developed mild symptoms may have had Covid-19 without realising it.”"
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Not a queue. Help the countries that have nothing first.
Absolutely
But also remember that if you ship the Pfizer vaccine to Uganda, it may end up wasted because of the storage and distribution requirements.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Not a queue. Help the countries that have nothing first.
Absolutely
But also remember that if you ship the Pfizer vaccine to Uganda, it may end up wasted because of the storage and distribution requirements.
I think we could hope that we would distribute spare vaccines in a way that it could be adequately used
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Not a queue. Help the countries that have nothing first.
Absolutely
But also remember that if you ship the Pfizer vaccine to Uganda, it may end up wasted because of the storage and distribution requirements.
Whelp, they're done. Had some good times while it lasted.
New brand required.
Mission Accomplished anyway surely? Should have disbanded upon Biden's inauguration.
Well that really depends on whether they believe Trump is finished, and whether those who enabled the kind of politics Trump embodied are going to dominate.
Or it could be that they've stabilised. What if suppression in Wales is ahead of the rest of the UK, they have achieved as much as they can (at least until vaccination becomes much more widespread,) and both cases and hospital admission are therefore levelling off?
If I'm right then Scotland may soon track back up towards 1 as well, if the situation in the region around Glasgow improves in line with the rest of the country.
I hope not because it's nowhere near as low as what we had over the summer.
Yes, but we must be realistic. Firstly Kent Covid probably has spread into Wales, so the virus itself is more transmissible and the point at which any suppression measure has no further effect will come sooner, and secondly it is Winter not Summer. We have to give it more time.
There is one place which has definately had Kent covid. Kent. R here is in keeping with, or slightly better than, our surrounding counties.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Can you give us an example of how Blair's Government which used exactly this argument or indeed the 0.7% overseas development commitment accrued the UK's soft power?
The essence of soft power means it isn't linked to specific "wins". Hence why it doesn't exist in the "transactional" mindset.
Over the summer, the story on Weaver’s predatory actions had multiple setbacks as victims dropped out, claiming they feared it would hurt their future job prospects. Without someone willing to go on record, the story was dead. Publications wouldn’t touch it because of fear that they’d be sued.
Yep - the fact Section 5.4 mentioned the UK doesn't mean the EU get's priority access to the UK manufactured stock that has already been paid for by the UK
To a large extent I would quite like AZ to point out that they've breached the confidentiality clause in the contract and so the contract is now invalid and the EU need to renegotiation.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Not a queue. Help the countries that have nothing first.
Absolutely
But also remember that if you ship the Pfizer vaccine to Uganda, it may end up wasted because of the storage and distribution requirements.
Other vaccines may be available......
Well yes, my point is that sending something that will almost certainly be wasted to the third world is virtue signaling.
Personally, I'd sell any excess doses to the highest bidder. You could then donate any profits to CoVax if you so desired.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Can you give us an example of how Blair's Government which used exactly this argument or indeed the 0.7% overseas development commitment accrued the UK's soft power?
The essence of soft power means it isn't linked to specific "wins". Hence why it doesn't exist in the "transactional" mindset.
Actually the essence of power is it is linked to "wins".
"Soft" power is ust a different kind of power to "hard" power, but power is power. Simply being "soft" isn't power.
A big increase in second doses - possible shift in policy with Pfizer supplies at risk ?
Might be that more people are now meeting the 'urgent need' or whatever it was calculation - that is, there were some who it was never felt could wait 12 weeks, but could 8 or so.
That's certainly possible.
I've always expected that the 12 weeks would be a maximum and that they would bring people in from around 8 weeks in case of missed appointments or other difficulties.
Could also be that some vaccination centres are finding it harder to find people amongst the priority cohorts, and are taking the opportunity (if permitted) to use spare vaccines on second doses.
That's certainly possible as well.
Didn't PB have anecdotes of people under 70 now receiving appointments ?
One poster (unfortunately I don't remember which one) was quite categorical about being in their late 60s and having been invited - can't recall if they'd actually had the jab or just the appointment, but either way it does look like that's started happening, and we shouldn't be too surprised. The rate of progress is rapid (and may even be increasing, if today's numbers are anything to go by,) and it's not the same everywhere. If a GP has a certain number of doses available and too few patients left in cohort 4 willing and ready to take them, then they're obviously going to move on to cohort 5 straight away.
I can confirm that I had it yesterday. This was not a last-minute invitation. The doctor who administered it confirmed that they are now working through Group 5 patients by date of birth.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Not a queue. Help the countries that have nothing first.
Absolutely
But also remember that if you ship the Pfizer vaccine to Uganda, it may end up wasted because of the storage and distribution requirements.
Other vaccines may be available......
Well yes, my point is that sending something that will almost certainly be wasted to the third world is virtue signaling.
Personally, I'd sell any excess doses to the highest bidder. You could then donate any profits to CoVax if you so desired.
I think I would prefer to donate and let the richer nations sort themselves out.
Assuming we have vaccines suitable for transport to and use / storage in the end location
India is a country that has not really been mentioned in this but it seems to have sufferd an almost exact, normal distribution, Farr's Law, curve with one peak. This would cause a horrific toll in the west but with a younger and (dare I say it) less obese population India appears (fingers crossed) to be heading out the other side.
“I am hopeful that the worst is over,” says Dr Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and a member of the government’s Covid-19 task force. “In certain areas, like large cities, we may have come close to achieving a good amount of immunity — if not herd immunity, close to it.”
“The reported cases are not even remotely a reflection of true cases — they only reflect people who got tested,” says Vikram Patel, a professor of global health at Harvard Medical School. “For reasons that we don’t fully know, the virus has spread like wildfire in India — more than in any other country in the world.”
"In cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, sero-prevalence studies — which measure antibodies that suggest a previous exposure to the virus — have indicated that more than half of residents have already been exposed to the virus. One such study in Karnataka state estimated there were 31m infections there by mid-August, including 44 per cent of the rural population and 54 per cent of the urban population."
"Yet many people with antibodies have no recollection of being sick at all. “The estimates are that 30 to 40 per cent of individuals may have had asymptomatic or mild infections and not gotten tested,” says Dr Guleria. “Many who had developed mild symptoms may have had Covid-19 without realising it.”"
India currently gearing up to vaccinate in a DAY the amount of people the EU does in a month.
I think that the prognosis for Covid in the developing world is too pessimistic for two reasons. Firstly life expectancy is so much lower there that there are simply not, proportionally, as many victims compared to us aging and overweight westerners - as the article I link to from the FT implies the virus may have ripped through whole countries without them much noticing. Secondly they are far more used to this sort of mass vaccination programme than we are. The smallpox vaccination campaign in India in the early 70s for example.
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Excellent.
Lets vaccinate everyone in Brazil, after we've done the UK.
Why stop there? We want the world to be vaccinated by UK manufactured vaccines developed in this country. And I can see few reasons now why this is not going to happen.
Yes, Ghana after Brazil etc etc.
France and Germany go to the back of the queue as Obama once said right?
Putting a rhetorical 'right?' at the end of your posts which you invariably do makes you sound like a thug. Just thought I'd let you know
OT The thing I can't understand about the whole vaccination fiasco is why Johnson and Gove aren't jumping up and down trying to make political capital about this. Their fanbois on PB on Friday evening were in ecstacy about it all. I wonder if there is something in the argument that AZ unofficially diverted some jabs into the UK pile. I remember in the news back in December/January it was announced that there would be a shortage of jabs anyway due to underproduction. This doesn't seem to have become apparent, so perhaps there may have been a little back scratching going on.....
They have made political capital out of it by doing exactly what they have done - saying nothing unless absolutely necessary. First and foremost this was an argument between AZN and the EU. By standing aloof until it directly threatened us - such as banning exports or invoking article 16 - and then simply registering concern, they have done for more for both their cause and the British position in all of this than if they had started shouting and making overt capital out of it.
It is far more adult a position than I ever expected from Johnson. I fear it won't last.
Agree with you, Richard. Whether the EC do or do not have a case against AZ - and I do not share the certainty of some on here that they don't - the reaction of our government has so far been absolutely spot on. Mature. Peaceful. No British Bulldog. No warrior rhetoric. It is both the right response and it works.
And I wish to widen and develop this point. There is much sentiment along the lines of "We've done great on vaccines and should reap the full reward. Let's not even think about helping out others until we've jabbed every man jack of our own."
I totally get this. But imo we should not take that approach. The Moral High Ground beckons here and I think we should take the opportunity to occupy it. Forget about bleeding hearts, I know that isn't popular. Forget about my previous argument that you have to fight a global pandemic globally. I know that isn't popular either.
Here's the new argument. The MHG has great value. It accrues soft power. And what a great time it is for the UK to grab some. Brexit has supposedly given birth to something called Global Britain. We keep hearing this. Well, by leading on global vaccination, we can at a stroke turn it into something tangible and positive. Something to be proud of. We can set the tone for what sort of country we want to be - are going to be - outside the EU.
And the real kicker is it will on the whole appeal more to Remainers than Leavers. People like me will applaud and be reassured about what Brexit means. Most Leavers OTOH will be spitting feathers and wondering WTF is that all about. Why are we helping foreigners? The only ones who won't be pissed off will be the sort of liberal ones like you who clog up PB.
So, point is, it will be giving Remainers a Brexit Dividend, thus proving them (us) wrong to assume it would bring nothing but negatives apart from cheaper tampons. It will reduce the polarization in the country and at the same time benefit the Cons because it would attract more Remainers than the Leavers it would lose. Leavers being more sticky. A political masterstroke, in other words, which I commend to the House.
Can you give us an example of how Blair's Government which used exactly this argument or indeed the 0.7% overseas development commitment accrued the UK's soft power?
The essence of soft power means it isn't linked to specific "wins". Hence why it doesn't exist in the "transactional" mindset.
Hence COVAX is about giving away vaccine on a vast scale.
Not 100m doses in return for an order for 100 armoured personnel carriers - in the style of French foreign aid.
On topic (as I missed the debate earlier) Starmer needed to wage war against the loony left, failed to do so, and self-emasculated himself. He appears to be making tactical decisions and frankly getting them wrong, when instead he needed to be thinking strategically.
I honestly don't see how he recovers the situation. He isn't fully in command of his own party.
I am surprised nobody told the Trumpster about this bloke involved with Lincoln Project...he would have been all over it and the Q nutters used it as more "proof" of the sex crazed lizard people.
Comments
Top effort in lifting the spirits to all concerned.
The gradient of decreasing cases is so much steeper than I would have imaged. We're already past the half way point to effectively zero in 1 month. I of course do not expect that rate of change to persist but if it does we'll be facing a very healthy position at the end of February with negligible COVID in circulation. Remember it's decreased 30% in 1 week!
She tells me of convos of like 'I've just been paid £320 for my UC payment for the month, I thought it was £320 a week, how am I meant to live on £320 a month?'
in that quote, though, right?
From case data
Hospitals
Their reaction to Rush's 2112 is fabulous.
CLOSE THE GRANDPARENTS
have I got that right, lads?
It is most triumphant in every way, and an outstanding addition to the canon.
There is a video Comic-Con panel chaired by Kevin Smith with some of the cast and crew, where they discuss the fact that Gen X saw Ted morph into John Wick, while millennials saw the reverse.
And to your point, Bill's daughter saw Ted fighting with her uncle...
They will receive a huge welcome here and in Switzerland
Interesting. Might this be the first sign of a so far unpublicised switch in progress towards using available Pfizer vaccines to slow down the growth in the numbers who have had 1 but not 2 Pfizer vaccines? 10k isn't much in itself, but it might herald the start of something more substantial.
Even in some other developed countries like the USA and Canada, Spain and Italy that is not the case
However, around 1.8 million self-employed people and around 700,000 company owner-managers are not eligible for support through the scheme.
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/15276
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53272408
Not sure how good or bad that would have been.
You can understand why the EU Commission has gone bat-shit crazy.
Panic.
If I'm right then Scotland may soon track back up towards 1 as well, if the situation in the region around Glasgow improves in line with the rest of the country.
New cases R=0.67 (halving every 12 days)
Deaths R=0.95 (halving every 90 days)
The Rs are steadily reducing so the "days to halve" are too.
Most before the new year got the second vaccination already, but not all.
So we can expect increasing numbers of second vaccinations in the next few weeks
There's a bit in Money by Martin Amis where a film star called Spunk Davis has to be told his name is not going to work in the UK market. He eventually concedes and says OK, what do you suggest instead of Davis?
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1355921549753262083
depends on what sorts of clubs you go to.
Or is it £10bn per house?
He has faced poor or divided opponents and played his hand astutely but then one could say the same about Thatcher or Blair.
He has yet to face real unpopularity - neither did Blair in all honesty though Thatcher did in 1981. He has also yet to face a real opponent who can challenge him - whether Starmer is that opponent remains to be seen but there will come a day when the record in office acts as an anchor and to be blunt every PM has a shelf life - we all get tired of the same face, the same voice, the same clichés day in day out.
New brand required.
But where are you going to get the land to build them.
But pushed for a specific - which you have - I'd go with his controlled fury and contempt when responding to Johnson's jibe about "cancelling Christmas". More of that would be good.
For some of these people, it is technically very difficult for the government to provide targeted support. This is the case for owner-managers and newly self-employed people.
This is not the case for the 1.3 million self-employed people who have less than 50% of their income coming from self-employment, or for the 225,000 people who have profits in excess of £50,000. The government has actively chosen to exclude these people from SEISS.
There are clear injustices in the way these people are excluded, not least in the hard cut-offs which mean someone with profits of £50,000 can claim the maximum available while someone with £50,001 can claim nothing. Equally, someone with 51% of declared income from self-employment can claim the maximum, while someone with 49% can claim nothing.
Nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain
But not yet, I fancy.
A £100k flat? In London?! Bought outright for offspring by the Bank of Mum & Dad, sold almost immediately for £350k, unearned profit banked or used to buy a proper house in the commuter belt. Skip 30 years of mortgage slog and go straight to homeowner heaven; eventual inheritance can thus be spent entirely on a luxurious retirement taken at 55. Existing inequalities triumphantly maximised. Not sure how you'd prevent it.
So yes, inevitably there were some rough edges but even although it means I got nothing directly* I can't complain and those earning over £50k really should be able to cope.
*full disclosure, I did get some furlough money for my wife in the early months when there was very little happening and nothing for her to do in helping me.
Nice trolling of the EU
That's my one and only point. And it's a new point. I haven't made it before. Nobody has. I don't want to revisit all that reductive and personalizing "Why do you want to save foreigners before Brits?" stuff again. No good can come of such a debate.
Rooting for him to get through it and live to see the end of the pandemic!
“I am hopeful that the worst is over,” says Dr Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and a member of the government’s Covid-19 task force. “In certain areas, like large cities, we may have come close to achieving a good amount of immunity — if not herd immunity, close to it.”
“The reported cases are not even remotely a reflection of true cases — they only reflect people who got tested,” says Vikram Patel, a professor of global health at Harvard Medical School. “For reasons that we don’t fully know, the virus has spread like wildfire in India — more than in any other country in the world.”
"In cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, sero-prevalence studies — which measure antibodies that suggest a previous exposure to the virus — have indicated that more than half of residents have already been exposed to the virus. One such study in Karnataka state estimated there were 31m infections there by mid-August, including 44 per cent of the rural population and 54 per cent of the urban population."
"Yet many people with antibodies have no recollection of being sick at all. “The estimates are that 30 to 40 per cent of individuals may have had asymptomatic or mild infections and not gotten tested,” says Dr Guleria. “Many who had developed mild symptoms may have had Covid-19 without realising it.”"
https://www.ft.com/content/07988f31-d511-4af4-8b78-03ecaf2d4df7
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1355921244613455874
As always with your principles it relies on others giving up stuff to fund your dystopia
https://twitter.com/SpinningHugo/status/1355129141444681730
The Lincoln Project’s Predator
Over the summer, the story on Weaver’s predatory actions had multiple setbacks as victims dropped out, claiming they feared it would hurt their future job prospects. Without someone willing to go on record, the story was dead. Publications wouldn’t touch it because of fear that they’d be sued.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-lincoln-projects-predator/
To a large extent I would quite like AZ to point out that they've breached the confidentiality clause in the contract and so the contract is now invalid and the EU need to renegotiation.
Personally, I'd sell any excess doses to the highest bidder. You could then donate any profits to CoVax if you so desired.
https://twitter.com/c2des/status/1355647489735618563/photo/1
"Soft" power is ust a different kind of power to "hard" power, but power is power. Simply being "soft" isn't power.
Assuming we have vaccines suitable for transport to and use / storage in the end location
Not 100m doses in return for an order for 100 armoured personnel carriers - in the style of French foreign aid.
I honestly don't see how he recovers the situation. He isn't fully in command of his own party.