I don't think so. The key thing is he says "used to" - he just needs to say clearly how much respect he has for Her Maj and that it serves the country well etc. etc.
Of course it's going to be a fucking problem. This is the new patriotism. If you don't gush about how the Queen has served the nation for 60 years by being driven to the races in a Bentley and selflessly accepting 40,000 bunches of flowers you are fucked.
He will just have to hope the Queen rolls a two before the next GE as republicanism will be very much in vogue once we have King Gobshite and his nervous wreck heir.
Perhaps it can be fought off with more flags. Which is another reason not to go ape on flags now. You have to leave yourself somewhere to go. Some gears unused.
Thankfully SKS seems to have only a single flag habit at the moment. Keep a beady eye open for any increase, and casually placed models of aircraft carriers.
The model was only yesterday, Keir hasn't had a chance to retaliate yet. It' s coming.
My bet is a miner's helmet in the corner, next to a model of a WW2 tank.
- A super Churchill (tick) - A shout out to ethnic minorities (tick) - A shout out to Royalty (tick) - A finger flick at the French (tick)
Great knowledge, love it!
The history of British tank design in WWII is a wonderful opportunity to study dysfunctional organisations, the lunatics that reform them and the bizarre engineering attracts that get produced.
Britain must have been the only country producing tank designs with non sloping armour in the latter half of the war.
Ironically, the success of our fighter building programme came at the expense of tanks because Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production (familiar to older PBers as the model for our calls for vaccine and PPE tsars) had grabbed all the material and factories.
Some say that - but we succeeded in making tons of crapulent tanks. We built 1700 Covenanters. A tank that had one small defect. Actually driving it caused massive overheating in the engine.
I am permanently bemused by the "Soviet tractor stats" smear, because the same production technique produced Soviet T34s. They were not false positive T34s, and they were a lot of the reason why we are not having this conversation in german.
It's also a good side note to the patriotism and the left discussion; WWII Soviet factory workers pulled of some stupendous feats of production involving unpaid overtime, 14 hour shifts, contributing their wages towards the cost of an eg T34. Most industrialised countries had some version of this of course and there may have been a certain element of it being done at the end of a PPSh, but there was also a huge amount of genuine patriotism involved.
Hence the "Great Patriotic War"
Casts a long shadow. There was some functionary of the current Russian regime being interviewed the other day on the Navalny case and he stated that one of his crimes/failings was not being sufficiently respectful of the sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War.
Fairly easy trivia question: if WWII was the "Second Great Patriotic War", what was the First Great Patriotic War?
Shit, I was reading something that mentioned this the other day but no fact anchored in my heid! Will have to resort to Google.
As a hint, this is one of the things that helped end it:
kudos for knowing what that is. How anyone could look at those horses and think they constituted a light brigade...
It is interesting that the two greatest cavalry charges in British military history were both, to a greater or lesser extent, fuckups which ended in the cavalry getting destroyed as a viable unit in each case.
Though the Charge of the Heavy Brigade (including Scots Greys) just before that of the Light was a great success, in fact if the Light Brigade standing by had joined in it could've turned into a route of the Russians and a good many more of them would have been alive at the end of the day.
It always tends to be glorious failure that enters mythology I guess.
Disclaimer: most of my knowledge of the period comes from Flashman books.
My knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars is from a combination of the Sharpe novels and the Patrick O'Brian ones.
Just to add a point about the Sharpe books: one of the things I particularly like about them is the bit at the end where he tells you which bits actually happened (at least as far as history recorded at the time they were written) and which bits he made up to make it a good story.
Completely minor point, but I heard Cornwell on the radio a few months ago and he seemed an entirely decent cove, shouldn't make a difference but it does. I've read a bit about O'Brien and he seems a very complicated not to say tricky character.
I expect most writers have, as you put it, complex lives. Lovecraft, for instance, was someone that early 20th century white Americans thought was a bit on the racist side.
Never mind him, try Philip Larkin. In both cases I find it possible to forget and ignore.
O'Brien's problem was that he wasn't Irish and thought he was. Auto-racism, or something.
I don't think so. The key thing is he says "used to" - he just needs to say clearly how much respect he has for Her Maj and that it serves the country well etc. etc.
Of course it's going to be a fucking problem. This is the new patriotism. If you don't gush about how the Queen has served the nation for 60 years by being driven to the races in a Bentley and selflessly accepting 40,000 bunches of flowers you are fucked.
He will just have to hope the Queen rolls a two before the next GE as republicanism will be very much in vogue once we have King Gobshite and his nervous wreck heir.
Perhaps it can be fought off with more flags. Which is another reason not to go ape on flags now. You have to leave yourself somewhere to go. Some gears unused.
Thankfully SKS seems to have only a single flag habit at the moment. Keep a beady eye open for any increase, and casually placed models of aircraft carriers.
The model was only yesterday, Keir hasn't had a chance to retaliate yet. It' s coming.
My bet is a miner's helmet in the corner, next to a model of a WW2 tank.
- A super Churchill (tick) - A shout out to ethnic minorities (tick) - A shout out to Royalty (tick) - A finger flick at the French (tick)
Great knowledge, love it!
The history of British tank design in WWII is a wonderful opportunity to study dysfunctional organisations, the lunatics that reform them and the bizarre engineering attracts that get produced.
Britain must have been the only country producing tank designs with non sloping armour in the latter half of the war.
Ironically, the success of our fighter building programme came at the expense of tanks because Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production (familiar to older PBers as the model for our calls for vaccine and PPE tsars) had grabbed all the material and factories.
Some say that - but we succeeded in making tons of crapulent tanks. We built 1700 Covenanters. A tank that had one small defect. Actually driving it caused massive overheating in the engine.
I am permanently bemused by the "Soviet tractor stats" smear, because the same production technique produced Soviet T34s. They were not false positive T34s, and they were a lot of the reason why we are not having this conversation in german.
It's also a good side note to the patriotism and the left discussion; WWII Soviet factory workers pulled of some stupendous feats of production involving unpaid overtime, 14 hour shifts, contributing their wages towards the cost of an eg T34. Most industrialised countries had some version of this of course and there may have been a certain element of it being done at the end of a PPSh, but there was also a huge amount of genuine patriotism involved.
Hence the "Great Patriotic War"
Casts a long shadow. There was some functionary of the current Russian regime being interviewed the other day on the Navalny case and he stated that one of his crimes/failings was not being sufficiently respectful of the sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War.
Fairly easy trivia question: if WWII was the "Second Great Patriotic War", what was the First Great Patriotic War?
Shit, I was reading something that mentioned this the other day but no fact anchored in my heid! Will have to resort to Google.
As a hint, this is one of the things that helped end it:
kudos for knowing what that is. How anyone could look at those horses and think they constituted a light brigade...
It is interesting that the two greatest cavalry charges in British military history were both, to a greater or lesser extent, fuckups which ended in the cavalry getting destroyed as a viable unit in each case.
Though the Charge of the Heavy Brigade (including Scots Greys) just before that of the Light was a great success, in fact if the Light Brigade standing by had joined in it could've turned into a route of the Russians and a good many more of them would have been alive at the end of the day.
It always tends to be glorious failure that enters mythology I guess.
Disclaimer: most of my knowledge of the period comes from Flashman books.
My knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars is from a combination of the Sharpe novels and the Patrick O'Brian ones.
Just to add a point about the Sharpe books: one of the things I particularly like about them is the bit at the end where he tells you which bits actually happened (at least as far as history recorded at the time they were written) and which bits he made up to make it a good story.
Completely minor point, but I heard Cornwell on the radio a few months ago and he seemed an entirely decent cove, shouldn't make a difference but it does. I've read a bit about O'Brien and he seems a very complicated not to say tricky character.
I expect most writers have, as you put it, complex lives. Lovecraft, for instance, was someone that early 20th century white Americans thought was a bit on the racist side.
Nicely put.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
Why doesn't the sun set on the British Empire? Because God doesn't trust them in the dark!
The Arabs preferred:
It is better to be an enemy of the British than their friend. They buy their enemies - and sell their friends
Interesting that the Egyptians are separated from the Arabs ...
The original inhabitants of what we now call Egypt were early migrants from the South. Some of them migrated on in Arabia and, as Arabs, for some reason moved back.
Of course you can be left-wing and patriotic. Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Clement Atlee, George Orwell, etc.
Telling that one has to reach for figures from 40, 50, and 80 years ago...
Yep. Before we became an oligarchy.
Now anybody who threatens the ruling class's grip on assets is attacked on "patriotic" grounds (I suppose they always were, but now there's really no right or power of reply).
It works, of course. Look at the dumbass flag-waving even on here, among people who are quite erudite and measured on many matters.
Unfortunately for your thesis, the Corbyn period demonstrated quite clearly that the types who want to steal our assets are very often also anti-patriots. Tell the British that you want to take their cash and their country, and those supposed 'few' will crush you at the ballot box in their millions.
Well that's a bit of revolving bow-tie nonsense. In 17 it was close and 19 was a quasi rerun of the Brexit referendum in a climate where the only question was how big the Con majority would be.
It's just as valid to say that 19 was not close and that 17 was a quasi rerun of the Brexit referendum in a climate where half the electorate wanted to give the Tories a good kicking by any means necessary, and the usual non-voters who swung the referendum for Leave went back to their usual patterns of Not Turning Up.
A very fair comment. Brexit flattered Labour in 17 and killed them in 19. Their "par score" (if you will) was between the two - but nearer 17 since Brexit was a stronger factor in 19 than it was then. So about 250 seats. A Left Labour offering with a wildly unsuitable leader scores 250 seats. This means if you replace the leader with an upgrade (done) but stay to the Left (although not with exactly the same policies) you can win. You might not, but you most certainly can. That's my analysis and it's bulletproof. No amount of waffle or facetious one-liners from Tory Story propaganda merchants changes a damn thing about it or detracts from its essential truth.
I can't tell.
Starmer may make Labour acceptable (not for me, because dangling off TU apron strings and the remaining cabal of very questionable MPs anti-semitism wise are show stoppers for me), but the next Election is the Tories' to win or lose.
Which will be determined imo by if they deliver (Red Wall needs to have seen something tangible - one reason the South-shifting Council Tax proposals look interesting), and there are COVID effects, and Post-Brexit effects.
I have no idea how it will turn out, which is why I stopped betting on Elections after a slightly expensive 2017.
I don't think so. The key thing is he says "used to" - he just needs to say clearly how much respect he has for Her Maj and that it serves the country well etc. etc.
Of course it's going to be a fucking problem. This is the new patriotism. If you don't gush about how the Queen has served the nation for 60 years by being driven to the races in a Bentley and selflessly accepting 40,000 bunches of flowers you are fucked.
He will just have to hope the Queen rolls a two before the next GE as republicanism will be very much in vogue once we have King Gobshite and his nervous wreck heir.
Perhaps it can be fought off with more flags. Which is another reason not to go ape on flags now. You have to leave yourself somewhere to go. Some gears unused.
Thankfully SKS seems to have only a single flag habit at the moment. Keep a beady eye open for any increase, and casually placed models of aircraft carriers.
The model was only yesterday, Keir hasn't had a chance to retaliate yet. It' s coming.
My bet is a miner's helmet in the corner, next to a model of a WW2 tank.
- A super Churchill (tick) - A shout out to ethnic minorities (tick) - A shout out to Royalty (tick) - A finger flick at the French (tick)
Great knowledge, love it!
The history of British tank design in WWII is a wonderful opportunity to study dysfunctional organisations, the lunatics that reform them and the bizarre engineering attracts that get produced.
Britain must have been the only country producing tank designs with non sloping armour in the latter half of the war.
Ironically, the success of our fighter building programme came at the expense of tanks because Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production (familiar to older PBers as the model for our calls for vaccine and PPE tsars) had grabbed all the material and factories.
Some say that - but we succeeded in making tons of crapulent tanks. We built 1700 Covenanters. A tank that had one small defect. Actually driving it caused massive overheating in the engine.
I am permanently bemused by the "Soviet tractor stats" smear, because the same production technique produced Soviet T34s. They were not false positive T34s, and they were a lot of the reason why we are not having this conversation in german.
It's also a good side note to the patriotism and the left discussion; WWII Soviet factory workers pulled of some stupendous feats of production involving unpaid overtime, 14 hour shifts, contributing their wages towards the cost of an eg T34. Most industrialised countries had some version of this of course and there may have been a certain element of it being done at the end of a PPSh, but there was also a huge amount of genuine patriotism involved.
Hence the "Great Patriotic War"
Casts a long shadow. There was some functionary of the current Russian regime being interviewed the other day on the Navalny case and he stated that one of his crimes/failings was not being sufficiently respectful of the sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War.
Fairly easy trivia question: if WWII was the "Second Great Patriotic War", what was the First Great Patriotic War?
Shit, I was reading something that mentioned this the other day but no fact anchored in my heid! Will have to resort to Google.
As a hint, this is one of the things that helped end it:
kudos for knowing what that is. How anyone could look at those horses and think they constituted a light brigade...
For a war horse, you need a breed that is calm and responds well to distractions. That implies a fair bit of draft blood. It got me thinking about which breeds I'd use. The modern Event Horse - mostly Thoroughbred (for speed) with about ⅛ draft (for intelligence and demeanor) and ⅛ warmblood (for athleticism) - would seem ideal. Indeed, in French, Eventing is called Militaire.
So, it turns out that most cavalries of the time (Napoleonic Wars) did use one breed or another of draft. This is a fascinating article about the evolution of the war horse over the course of history:
If you wanted to recreate that today you'd be using Irish drafts. Or Percheron crosses, post-Brexit and to avoid the queues at Dover.
We use Irish drafts, with a bit of Hanoverian, and the rest blood. We have a Master Imp baby as our stallion.
Good mix.
One of the joys of Brexit here is that Irish imports suddenly cost 20% more in VAT plus vet certificates and a week in a queue at the Irish ports.
Luxury!!! Here in the States, it's an about $7000 flight, a week in quarantine, vet inspections, and shipping from the quarantine centre. The US is trying to improve its domestic breeding for event horses and has a couple of programmes in place. We've had a couple of babies do well in the Young Event Horse competitions, and we have one qualified for this year's Futurity.
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
The elderly in Scotland being more likely to vote against separatism, so their good sense already demonstrated.
The rest of the UK appear to have vaccinated both deep and wide whereas the SNP have messed around and then reached for the first excuse they could.
Has anyone asked Sturgeon to compare her vaccination rollout with NI or Wales who both have been faster than hers?
98% of older care home residents have been vaccinated in Scotland.
There is an urgency to protect those aged 70 and older who are at most risk of a severe outcome. Because of the ongoing concern regarding rates of community COVID-19 transmission and hospitalisation, NIAC recognises that the best vaccine anyone can receive at this time is the vaccine that can be soonest administered. Everyone is strongly urged to accept whichever vaccine is available.
There is an urgency to protect those aged 70 and older who are at most risk of a severe outcome. Because of the ongoing concern regarding rates of community COVID-19 transmission and hospitalisation, NIAC recognises that the best vaccine anyone can receive at this time is the vaccine that can be soonest administered. Everyone is strongly urged to accept whichever vaccine is available.
I don't think so. The key thing is he says "used to" - he just needs to say clearly how much respect he has for Her Maj and that it serves the country well etc. etc.
Of course it's going to be a fucking problem. This is the new patriotism. If you don't gush about how the Queen has served the nation for 60 years by being driven to the races in a Bentley and selflessly accepting 40,000 bunches of flowers you are fucked.
He will just have to hope the Queen rolls a two before the next GE as republicanism will be very much in vogue once we have King Gobshite and his nervous wreck heir.
Perhaps it can be fought off with more flags. Which is another reason not to go ape on flags now. You have to leave yourself somewhere to go. Some gears unused.
Thankfully SKS seems to have only a single flag habit at the moment. Keep a beady eye open for any increase, and casually placed models of aircraft carriers.
The model was only yesterday, Keir hasn't had a chance to retaliate yet. It' s coming.
My bet is a miner's helmet in the corner, next to a model of a WW2 tank.
- A super Churchill (tick) - A shout out to ethnic minorities (tick) - A shout out to Royalty (tick) - A finger flick at the French (tick)
Great knowledge, love it!
The history of British tank design in WWII is a wonderful opportunity to study dysfunctional organisations, the lunatics that reform them and the bizarre engineering attracts that get produced.
Britain must have been the only country producing tank designs with non sloping armour in the latter half of the war.
Ironically, the success of our fighter building programme came at the expense of tanks because Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production (familiar to older PBers as the model for our calls for vaccine and PPE tsars) had grabbed all the material and factories.
Some say that - but we succeeded in making tons of crapulent tanks. We built 1700 Covenanters. A tank that had one small defect. Actually driving it caused massive overheating in the engine.
I am permanently bemused by the "Soviet tractor stats" smear, because the same production technique produced Soviet T34s. They were not false positive T34s, and they were a lot of the reason why we are not having this conversation in german.
It's also a good side note to the patriotism and the left discussion; WWII Soviet factory workers pulled of some stupendous feats of production involving unpaid overtime, 14 hour shifts, contributing their wages towards the cost of an eg T34. Most industrialised countries had some version of this of course and there may have been a certain element of it being done at the end of a PPSh, but there was also a huge amount of genuine patriotism involved.
Hence the "Great Patriotic War"
Casts a long shadow. There was some functionary of the current Russian regime being interviewed the other day on the Navalny case and he stated that one of his crimes/failings was not being sufficiently respectful of the sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War.
Fairly easy trivia question: if WWII was the "Second Great Patriotic War", what was the First Great Patriotic War?
Shit, I was reading something that mentioned this the other day but no fact anchored in my heid! Will have to resort to Google.
As a hint, this is one of the things that helped end it:
kudos for knowing what that is. How anyone could look at those horses and think they constituted a light brigade...
It is interesting that the two greatest cavalry charges in British military history were both, to a greater or lesser extent, fuckups which ended in the cavalry getting destroyed as a viable unit in each case.
Though the Charge of the Heavy Brigade (including Scots Greys) just before that of the Light was a great success, in fact if the Light Brigade standing by had joined in it could've turned into a route of the Russians and a good many more of them would have been alive at the end of the day.
It always tends to be glorious failure that enters mythology I guess.
Disclaimer: most of my knowledge of the period comes from Flashman books.
My knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars is from a combination of the Sharpe novels and the Patrick O'Brian ones.
Just to add a point about the Sharpe books: one of the things I particularly like about them is the bit at the end where he tells you which bits actually happened (at least as far as history recorded at the time they were written) and which bits he made up to make it a good story.
Completely minor point, but I heard Cornwell on the radio a few months ago and he seemed an entirely decent cove, shouldn't make a difference but it does. I've read a bit about O'Brien and he seems a very complicated not to say tricky character.
I expect most writers have, as you put it, complex lives. Lovecraft, for instance, was someone that early 20th century white Americans thought was a bit on the racist side.
Nicely put.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
I reread Kim the other day, and came away thinking that in real life there is no way he would have got past p.20 without being raped and murdered by one of the dozens of creepy unmarried older men among whom he gets passed around. It patronises the whole of India. When Orwell got it wrong, he got it wrong.
Why doesn't the sun set on the British Empire? Because God doesn't trust them in the dark!
The Arabs preferred:
It is better to be an enemy of the British than their friend. They buy their enemies - and sell their friends
Interesting that the Egyptians are separated from the Arabs ...
The original inhabitants of what we now call Egypt were early migrants from the South. Some of them migrated on in Arabia and, as Arabs, for some reason moved back.
Bye for now!
And certainly around Alexandria that was a huge Greek influence too. But the modern-day Egyptians really do think of themselves as the quintessential Arab, the natural leaders of the Arab world. Not that any other Arab country would agree to either assertion.
In US politics, if someone demands gun control, it usually turns out that they possess an arsenal. If they demand a crack down on illegal immigrants, all the staff at their house.... etc. etc.
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
If Gove was unable to confirm this morning, what magic trick managed to change it.
He was able to confirm that.
What he can't confirm is how many residents refused the vaccine. If you're asking how many have gone into the arms, that's what you're asking. The care home rollout in England is complete but some residents will refuse the vaccine and they have the right to do so.
There is an urgency to protect those aged 70 and older who are at most risk of a severe outcome. Because of the ongoing concern regarding rates of community COVID-19 transmission and hospitalisation, NIAC recognises that the best vaccine anyone can receive at this time is the vaccine that can be soonest administered. Everyone is strongly urged to accept whichever vaccine is available.
And if and when the UK Government is in a position to provide vaccines to ROI significantly quicker than they can be provided by the EU, I hope the same common sense approach prevails.
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
The elderly in Scotland being more likely to vote against separatism, so their good sense already demonstrated.
The rest of the UK appear to have vaccinated both deep and wide whereas the SNP have messed around and then reached for the first excuse they could.
Has anyone asked Sturgeon to compare her vaccination rollout with NI or Wales who both have been faster than hers?
98% of older care home residents have been vaccinated in Scotland.
Regardless of if he had to be pulled away or not, nobody is denying he has got rather upset about Boris' comment. Why? PMQs quotes are thrown about all the time and often taken out of context. He has done it to Boris before, that's the game.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza. He said it would be a bad idea to leave the EMA and / or we shouldn't throw away the good that institution does. By the sorts of stuff people have said from both sides over Brexit, it is nothing more than Boris scoring some PMQ points.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
Of course you can be left-wing and patriotic. Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Clement Atlee, George Orwell, etc.
Telling that one has to reach for figures from 40, 50, and 80 years ago...
Yep. Before we became an oligarchy.
Now anybody who threatens the ruling class's grip on assets is attacked on "patriotic" grounds (I suppose they always were, but now there's really no right or power of reply).
It works, of course. Look at the dumbass flag-waving even on here, among people who are quite erudite and measured on many matters.
Unfortunately for your thesis, the Corbyn period demonstrated quite clearly that the types who want to steal our assets are very often also anti-patriots. Tell the British that you want to take their cash and their country, and those supposed 'few' will crush you at the ballot box in their millions.
Well that's a bit of revolving bow-tie nonsense. In 17 it was close and 19 was a quasi rerun of the Brexit referendum in a climate where the only question was how big the Con majority would be.
Except for the fact that Corbyn's best seat total barely beat New Labour's worst, and the Tory result in that election was better than what Cameron achieved against Brown.
And the main thing that cost May her majority and made it close at all? Promising to steal people's assets. We just don't like it.
We can all slice and dice like that. In other metrics - e.g. votes which are quite important in a democracy - he smashed Miliband and Brown. And at one point in the early hours he went fav - FAV - for PM. God, can you imagine! Anyway, whatever, he's gone and that's good. And, yes, it is ironic in the true alanis morrisette sense of the word that the objectively best policy in May's manifesto - not "theft" but a serious attempt to start to come to terms with the funding crisis in social care - cost votes. It's like many Tory voters are not interested in adult stuff like that. It's like they can't see beyond the end of their own nose. In which case what can you do? You tell me.
Of course you can be left-wing and patriotic. Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Clement Atlee, George Orwell, etc.
Telling that one has to reach for figures from 40, 50, and 80 years ago...
Yep. Before we became an oligarchy.
Now anybody who threatens the ruling class's grip on assets is attacked on "patriotic" grounds (I suppose they always were, but now there's really no right or power of reply).
It works, of course. Look at the dumbass flag-waving even on here, among people who are quite erudite and measured on many matters.
Unfortunately for your thesis, the Corbyn period demonstrated quite clearly that the types who want to steal our assets are very often also anti-patriots. Tell the British that you want to take their cash and their country, and those supposed 'few' will crush you at the ballot box in their millions.
Well that's a bit of revolving bow-tie nonsense. In 17 it was close and 19 was a quasi rerun of the Brexit referendum in a climate where the only question was how big the Con majority would be.
It's just as valid to say that 19 was not close and that 17 was a quasi rerun of the Brexit referendum in a climate where half the electorate wanted to give the Tories a good kicking by any means necessary, and the usual non-voters who swung the referendum for Leave went back to their usual patterns of Not Turning Up.
A very fair comment. Brexit flattered Labour in 17 and killed them in 19. Their "par score" (if you will) was between the two - but nearer 17 since Brexit was a stronger factor in 19 than it was then. So about 250 seats. A Left Labour offering with a wildly unsuitable leader scores 250 seats. This means if you replace the leader with an upgrade (done) but stay to the Left (although not with exactly the same policies) you can win. You might not, but you most certainly can. That's my analysis and it's bulletproof. No amount of waffle or facetious one-liners from Tory Story propaganda merchants changes a damn thing about it or detracts from its essential truth.
The one factor that I think you're missing is whether the damage done by Corbyn et al after 17 proves to cause longer term damage to Labour's credibility in the North, that Starmer isn't capable of reversing purely by being an upgrade. But otherwise I agree completely with your analysis.
Regardless of if he had to be pulled away or not, nobody is denying he has got rather upset about Boris' comment. Why? PMQs quotes are thrown about all the time and often taken out of context. He has done it to Boris before, that's the game.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
Perhaps that's what he's trying to do. He has been fiercely criticised for being too 'reasonable' with Boris and the Tories. Perhaps this is PR.
Brother got his first Pfizer vaccine shot today. Hooray!
In London, though. In group 6.
Meanwhile surgery here is saying that despite having done all their Group 1-4 people, they are waiting for NHS England to tell them when they can get more vaccines so that they can continue. Cumbria had its allocation cut by a 1/3rd. Hence the pause.
(Honestly! Bloody Londoners stealing our vaccines. Just like the Commission. We Red Wall voters get ignored. Grumble grumble.... What's the point of Boris if he won't level us up, etc etc ...... (Am I doing this right @HYUFD?))
London (Particularly inner London) has less pensioners than elsewhere, so they are probably getting through the groups a bit quicker.
I think the reason my Dad was vaccinated weeks before my Mum, despite them being the same age in London, was that my Dad has a Labour MP and my mother a Tory.
I'm guessing that the vaccine allocation has been done on basis of age demographics, but in some areas you have a lower uptake of the vaccine due to the ethnic mix, and so they are getting through the categories faster.
Hopefully people will come forward later after being initially reluctant.
Regardless of if he had to be pulled away or not, nobody is denying he has got rather upset about Boris' comment. Why? PMQs quotes are thrown about all the time and often taken out of context. He has done it to Boris before, that's the game.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza. He said it would be a bad idea to leave the EMA and / or we shouldn't throw away the good that institution does. By the sorts of stuff people have said from both sides over Brexit, it is nothing more than Boris scoring some PMQ points.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
Regardless of if he had to be pulled away or not, nobody is denying he has got rather upset about Boris' comment. Why? PMQs quotes are thrown about all the time and often taken out of context. He has done it to Boris before, that's the game.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
Perhaps that's what he's trying to do. He has been fiercely criticised for being too 'reasonable' with Boris and the Tories. Perhaps this is PR.
Yes, but that isn't the way you get good PR for being critical. That is just like Jezza who used to get all snarly when people picked him up on his past. It just looks bad.
You get the good PR by presenting strong arguments well, so much so, the government U-Turn.
I don't think so. The key thing is he says "used to" - he just needs to say clearly how much respect he has for Her Maj and that it serves the country well etc. etc.
Of course it's going to be a fucking problem. This is the new patriotism. If you don't gush about how the Queen has served the nation for 60 years by being driven to the races in a Bentley and selflessly accepting 40,000 bunches of flowers you are fucked.
He will just have to hope the Queen rolls a two before the next GE as republicanism will be very much in vogue once we have King Gobshite and his nervous wreck heir.
Perhaps it can be fought off with more flags. Which is another reason not to go ape on flags now. You have to leave yourself somewhere to go. Some gears unused.
Thankfully SKS seems to have only a single flag habit at the moment. Keep a beady eye open for any increase, and casually placed models of aircraft carriers.
The model was only yesterday, Keir hasn't had a chance to retaliate yet. It' s coming.
My bet is a miner's helmet in the corner, next to a model of a WW2 tank.
- A super Churchill (tick) - A shout out to ethnic minorities (tick) - A shout out to Royalty (tick) - A finger flick at the French (tick)
Great knowledge, love it!
The history of British tank design in WWII is a wonderful opportunity to study dysfunctional organisations, the lunatics that reform them and the bizarre engineering attracts that get produced.
Britain must have been the only country producing tank designs with non sloping armour in the latter half of the war.
Ironically, the success of our fighter building programme came at the expense of tanks because Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production (familiar to older PBers as the model for our calls for vaccine and PPE tsars) had grabbed all the material and factories.
Some say that - but we succeeded in making tons of crapulent tanks. We built 1700 Covenanters. A tank that had one small defect. Actually driving it caused massive overheating in the engine.
I am permanently bemused by the "Soviet tractor stats" smear, because the same production technique produced Soviet T34s. They were not false positive T34s, and they were a lot of the reason why we are not having this conversation in german.
It's also a good side note to the patriotism and the left discussion; WWII Soviet factory workers pulled of some stupendous feats of production involving unpaid overtime, 14 hour shifts, contributing their wages towards the cost of an eg T34. Most industrialised countries had some version of this of course and there may have been a certain element of it being done at the end of a PPSh, but there was also a huge amount of genuine patriotism involved.
Hence the "Great Patriotic War"
Casts a long shadow. There was some functionary of the current Russian regime being interviewed the other day on the Navalny case and he stated that one of his crimes/failings was not being sufficiently respectful of the sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War.
Fairly easy trivia question: if WWII was the "Second Great Patriotic War", what was the First Great Patriotic War?
Shit, I was reading something that mentioned this the other day but no fact anchored in my heid! Will have to resort to Google.
As a hint, this is one of the things that helped end it:
kudos for knowing what that is. How anyone could look at those horses and think they constituted a light brigade...
It is interesting that the two greatest cavalry charges in British military history were both, to a greater or lesser extent, fuckups which ended in the cavalry getting destroyed as a viable unit in each case.
Though the Charge of the Heavy Brigade (including Scots Greys) just before that of the Light was a great success, in fact if the Light Brigade standing by had joined in it could've turned into a route of the Russians and a good many more of them would have been alive at the end of the day.
It always tends to be glorious failure that enters mythology I guess.
Disclaimer: most of my knowledge of the period comes from Flashman books.
My knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars is from a combination of the Sharpe novels and the Patrick O'Brian ones.
Just to add a point about the Sharpe books: one of the things I particularly like about them is the bit at the end where he tells you which bits actually happened (at least as far as history recorded at the time they were written) and which bits he made up to make it a good story.
Completely minor point, but I heard Cornwell on the radio a few months ago and he seemed an entirely decent cove, shouldn't make a difference but it does. I've read a bit about O'Brien and he seems a very complicated not to say tricky character.
I expect most writers have, as you put it, complex lives. Lovecraft, for instance, was someone that early 20th century white Americans thought was a bit on the racist side.
Nicely put.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
I reread Kim the other day, and came away thinking that in real life there is no way he would have got past p.20 without being raped and murdered by one of the dozens of creepy unmarried older men among whom he gets passed around. It patronises the whole of India. When Orwell got it wrong, he got it wrong.
Kipling was, from reading him, a very variable person. In one story in the volume I mentioned, he describes a English writer noticing the child of the lowest gardener building a fantasy in mud and pebbles. The whole story is about how the child becomes a real person to the teller of the tale.... the empathy and compassion in it was very apparent.
A few pages on, Kipling describes going out with the police in patrol in a big city. He comes across a white British woman living with a Indian. The next page or so could have been written by Julius Streicher.
Another very encouraging update from Israel. Of course, their rollout is much quicker than ours, and comprises Pfizer with 2 doses, but the clear downturn in the prioritised over-60s relative to the under-60s is very marked. It's hard to tell from these charts how much of the downturn occurred before most of the over-60s had their 2nd jabs. Edit: Here's the update!
Regardless of if he had to be pulled away or not, nobody is denying he has got rather upset about Boris' comment. Why? PMQs quotes are thrown about all the time and often taken out of context. He has done it to Boris before, that's the game.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
Perhaps that's what he's trying to do. He has been fiercely criticised for being too 'reasonable' with Boris and the Tories. Perhaps this is PR.
There is an urgency to protect those aged 70 and older who are at most risk of a severe outcome. Because of the ongoing concern regarding rates of community COVID-19 transmission and hospitalisation, NIAC recognises that the best vaccine anyone can receive at this time is the vaccine that can be soonest administered. Everyone is strongly urged to accept whichever vaccine is available.
Why doesn't the sun set on the British Empire? Because God doesn't trust them in the dark!
The Arabs preferred:
It is better to be an enemy of the British than their friend. They buy their enemies - and sell their friends
Would be good to see a translation of what exactly was asked in each language. “Trust” might have been interpreted as “do what they tell you they are going to do”. Our worst enemies would agree with that.
I don't think so. The key thing is he says "used to" - he just needs to say clearly how much respect he has for Her Maj and that it serves the country well etc. etc.
Of course it's going to be a fucking problem. This is the new patriotism. If you don't gush about how the Queen has served the nation for 60 years by being driven to the races in a Bentley and selflessly accepting 40,000 bunches of flowers you are fucked.
He will just have to hope the Queen rolls a two before the next GE as republicanism will be very much in vogue once we have King Gobshite and his nervous wreck heir.
Perhaps it can be fought off with more flags. Which is another reason not to go ape on flags now. You have to leave yourself somewhere to go. Some gears unused.
Thankfully SKS seems to have only a single flag habit at the moment. Keep a beady eye open for any increase, and casually placed models of aircraft carriers.
The model was only yesterday, Keir hasn't had a chance to retaliate yet. It' s coming.
My bet is a miner's helmet in the corner, next to a model of a WW2 tank.
- A super Churchill (tick) - A shout out to ethnic minorities (tick) - A shout out to Royalty (tick) - A finger flick at the French (tick)
Great knowledge, love it!
The history of British tank design in WWII is a wonderful opportunity to study dysfunctional organisations, the lunatics that reform them and the bizarre engineering attracts that get produced.
Britain must have been the only country producing tank designs with non sloping armour in the latter half of the war.
Ironically, the success of our fighter building programme came at the expense of tanks because Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production (familiar to older PBers as the model for our calls for vaccine and PPE tsars) had grabbed all the material and factories.
Some say that - but we succeeded in making tons of crapulent tanks. We built 1700 Covenanters. A tank that had one small defect. Actually driving it caused massive overheating in the engine.
I am permanently bemused by the "Soviet tractor stats" smear, because the same production technique produced Soviet T34s. They were not false positive T34s, and they were a lot of the reason why we are not having this conversation in german.
It's also a good side note to the patriotism and the left discussion; WWII Soviet factory workers pulled of some stupendous feats of production involving unpaid overtime, 14 hour shifts, contributing their wages towards the cost of an eg T34. Most industrialised countries had some version of this of course and there may have been a certain element of it being done at the end of a PPSh, but there was also a huge amount of genuine patriotism involved.
Hence the "Great Patriotic War"
Casts a long shadow. There was some functionary of the current Russian regime being interviewed the other day on the Navalny case and he stated that one of his crimes/failings was not being sufficiently respectful of the sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War.
Fairly easy trivia question: if WWII was the "Second Great Patriotic War", what was the First Great Patriotic War?
Shit, I was reading something that mentioned this the other day but no fact anchored in my heid! Will have to resort to Google.
As a hint, this is one of the things that helped end it:
kudos for knowing what that is. How anyone could look at those horses and think they constituted a light brigade...
It is interesting that the two greatest cavalry charges in British military history were both, to a greater or lesser extent, fuckups which ended in the cavalry getting destroyed as a viable unit in each case.
Though the Charge of the Heavy Brigade (including Scots Greys) just before that of the Light was a great success, in fact if the Light Brigade standing by had joined in it could've turned into a route of the Russians and a good many more of them would have been alive at the end of the day.
It always tends to be glorious failure that enters mythology I guess.
Disclaimer: most of my knowledge of the period comes from Flashman books.
My knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars is from a combination of the Sharpe novels and the Patrick O'Brian ones.
Just to add a point about the Sharpe books: one of the things I particularly like about them is the bit at the end where he tells you which bits actually happened (at least as far as history recorded at the time they were written) and which bits he made up to make it a good story.
Completely minor point, but I heard Cornwell on the radio a few months ago and he seemed an entirely decent cove, shouldn't make a difference but it does. I've read a bit about O'Brien and he seems a very complicated not to say tricky character.
I expect most writers have, as you put it, complex lives. Lovecraft, for instance, was someone that early 20th century white Americans thought was a bit on the racist side.
Nicely put.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
I reread Kim the other day, and came away thinking that in real life there is no way he would have got past p.20 without being raped and murdered by one of the dozens of creepy unmarried older men among whom he gets passed around. It patronises the whole of India. When Orwell got it wrong, he got it wrong.
Kipling was, from reading him, a very variable person. In one story in the volume I mentioned, he describes a English writer noticing the child of the lowest gardener building a fantasy in mud and pebbles. The whole story is about how the child becomes a real person to the teller of the tale.... the empathy and compassion in it was very apparent.
A few pages on, Kipling describes going out with the police in patrol in a big city. He comes across a white British woman living with a Indian. The next page or so could have been written by Julius Streicher.
There are some truly gruesome little haiku-length WW1 poems. So gruesome I can't face searching for or linking to them.
Regardless of if he had to be pulled away or not, nobody is denying he has got rather upset about Boris' comment. Why? PMQs quotes are thrown about all the time and often taken out of context. He has done it to Boris before, that's the game.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
Perhaps that's what he's trying to do. He has been fiercely criticised for being too 'reasonable' with Boris and the Tories. Perhaps this is PR.
Anything short of duel - does anyone care?
Either way, my money is on Boris in a fight. Well, him or someone he gets to do it for him.
Regardless of if he had to be pulled away or not, nobody is denying he has got rather upset about Boris' comment. Why? PMQs quotes are thrown about all the time and often taken out of context. He has done it to Boris before, that's the game.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
Perhaps that's what he's trying to do. He has been fiercely criticised for being too 'reasonable' with Boris and the Tories. Perhaps this is PR.
Anything short of duel - does anyone care?
Either way, my money is on Boris in a fight. Well, him or someone he gets to do it for him.
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
The elderly in Scotland being more likely to vote against separatism, so their good sense already demonstrated.
The rest of the UK appear to have vaccinated both deep and wide whereas the SNP have messed around and then reached for the first excuse they could.
Has anyone asked Sturgeon to compare her vaccination rollout with NI or Wales who both have been faster than hers?
98% of older care home residents have been vaccinated in Scotland.
The number is immaterial actually, since it is as large as it can possibly be without forcing people to take the vaccine.
Why then are unionists whining constantly about it
I don't think they are whining about that, rather they are wondering what the hold up is getting everyone else the jab when both countries were able to get the care homes done at about the same time.
You don't have to look that hard to find Starmer statements / actions at odds with his current inage. I mean he played up how much of a leftie he was during the leadership race, then immediately switched.
Starmer is a "nice guy" but views politics as a real-time tactical challenge of presentation and triangulation.
He risks losing everyone with that approach.
And the risk isn't all to his right. Too much RW chasing could lose support in the MML (which is bigger than the RW). For example, on PT you told me that in order to win an election these days a Labour Party core value needs to be not just "loving your country" - which makes me squirm a bit but I can totally live with - but something rather more and rather different.
It must be OPENLY loving your country (you said).
I don't like that. I don't like that one bit. If that becomes a core Labour value I won't be voting Labour.
Lol - there goes the majority. Purity, purity and keep the naffs out.
You seem to make the same response regardless of what you're responding to. It's a neat trick. Frees up much time, I imagine.
Just in your case - why would I waste the time?
But it's not just in my case, is it? Anyway, just an observation. And tbf it is only on certain subjects.
Stalker alert! Help!
Yes, Felix. I am observing you quite closely at the moment. And even if I'm not it's safest to assume I am.
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
The elderly in Scotland being more likely to vote against separatism, so their good sense already demonstrated.
The rest of the UK appear to have vaccinated both deep and wide whereas the SNP have messed around and then reached for the first excuse they could.
Has anyone asked Sturgeon to compare her vaccination rollout with NI or Wales who both have been faster than hers?
98% of older care home residents have been vaccinated in Scotland.
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
The elderly in Scotland being more likely to vote against separatism, so their good sense already demonstrated.
The rest of the UK appear to have vaccinated both deep and wide whereas the SNP have messed around and then reached for the first excuse they could.
Has anyone asked Sturgeon to compare her vaccination rollout with NI or Wales who both have been faster than hers?
98% of older care home residents have been vaccinated in Scotland.
The number is immaterial actually, since it is as large as it can possibly be without forcing people to take the vaccine.
Why then are unionists whining constantly about it
I don't think they are whining about that, rather they are wondering what the hold up is getting everyone else the jab when both countries were able to get the care homes done at about the same time.
No idea , but for sure there will be some logistics delays with distances , however they were up 59% yesterday so looks like they are getting there, it is not a competition. The whining from England is most unedifying and is just a smokescreen to divert from the horrifying death rates and other failures like borders etc.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
Kipling was an absolutely fantastic and very varied writer, nothing like the caricature of him which has become accepted wisdom in the UK. Definitely worth anyone's time: Kim is sheer genius from beginning to end, enjoyable on so many different levels (and an amazing introduction to India, one which remains relevant even today). Plain Tales from the Raj and the other short stories of that era are wonderfully sly observations of the British in India. And the late short stories are different again, the diametric opposite of tub-thumping Jingoism of which he's wrongly accused. Some of them are small masterpieces of anti-war polemic, like this wonderfully chilling and thought-provoking gem:
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
The elderly in Scotland being more likely to vote against separatism, so their good sense already demonstrated.
The rest of the UK appear to have vaccinated both deep and wide whereas the SNP have messed around and then reached for the first excuse they could.
Has anyone asked Sturgeon to compare her vaccination rollout with NI or Wales who both have been faster than hers?
98% of older care home residents have been vaccinated in Scotland.
The number is immaterial actually, since it is as large as it can possibly be without forcing people to take the vaccine.
Why then are unionists whining constantly about it
I don't think they are whining about that, rather they are wondering what the hold up is getting everyone else the jab when both countries were able to get the care homes done at about the same time.
No idea , but for sure there will be some logistics delays with distances , however they were up 59% yesterday so looks like they are getting there, it is not a competition. The whining from England is most unedifying and is just a smokescreen to divert from the horrifying death rates and other failures like borders etc.
Yep, only a couple of days in it really. And honestly if the situation is reversed I'm sure you'd be adding it to the list of failures of HMG.
The Good Friday Agreement was a clever sleight of hand to allow everyone to believe what they wanted and to give them an excuse to back out of a violent way of life of which they had tired
It was designed in the context of both countries being part of the EU.
The mistake which the EU made was trying to use it as negotiating leverage. They said “the GFA is inviolable” thinking this would mean that the UK would have to stay in the customs union.
What they should actually have done is to figure out what the GFA was designed to achieve and come up with a new structure that achieves the same outcome in a situation where the UK is not part of the EU.
That can be fine but it takes patience and time. And the EU should not be part of it - ironically too much history 😊. It should be a discussion between the UK, RoI and the communities in NI.
For now they should extent the grace period for 4 years and figure it out without pressure of artificial deadlines. And if you have to extend again then so be it. This doesn’t upset anyone except EU purists.
Theresa May had a point, it turns out.
No - essentially she said that the GFA was more important than the UK's democratic freedom to leave the Customs Union.
Everyone's had it offered. People have the right to refuse it though. Do you want them to jab people who've refused it?
What kind of frigging point are you trying to make? Have Scottish doctors been jabbing people who refused to give consent? Is that a difference?
I agree it is problematic to force people to have a vaccine, particularly one that only has EUA. But it still would be useful to have the data as to what percentages of residents and what percentages of staff have been vaccinated per home, and to track that against infection rates going forwards. It could provide invaluable insights as to the lower limit of vaccination required to achieve herd immunity, and perhaps even whether there is a differential based on vulnerability.
Everyone's had it offered. People have the right to refuse it though. Do you want them to jab people who've refused it?
What kind of frigging point are you trying to make? Have Scottish doctors been jabbing people who refused to give consent? Is that a difference?
Calm down, you're not even on your 12th coffee yet. Shouldn't you be asking what frigging point is Ch4 journo Alex Thomson trying to make?
Not sure what your obsession is about my coffees lately. I haven't mentioned coffee in ages. I've probably only had about 6 or 7 so far today, but I don't keep count. Typically 1 an hour on average for most of the day, what's the big deal about that? 🤷🏻♂️
The Good Friday Agreement was a clever sleight of hand to allow everyone to believe what they wanted and to give them an excuse to back out of a violent way of life of which they had tired
It was designed in the context of both countries being part of the EU.
The mistake which the EU made was trying to use it as negotiating leverage. They said “the GFA is inviolable” thinking this would mean that the UK would have to stay in the customs union.
What they should actually have done is to figure out what the GFA was designed to achieve and come up with a new structure that achieves the same outcome in a situation where the UK is not part of the EU.
That can be fine but it takes patience and time. And the EU should not be part of it - ironically too much history 😊. It should be a discussion between the UK, RoI and the communities in NI.
For now they should extent the grace period for 4 years and figure it out without pressure of artificial deadlines. And if you have to extend again then so be it. This doesn’t upset anyone except EU purists.
Theresa May had a point, it turns out.
No - essentially she said that the GFA was more important than the UK's democratic freedom to leave the Customs Union.
Given the current situation is it possible that the GFA is a pre-existing treaty that makes leaving the Customs Union impossible?
Everyone's had it offered. People have the right to refuse it though. Do you want them to jab people who've refused it?
What kind of frigging point are you trying to make? Have Scottish doctors been jabbing people who refused to give consent? Is that a difference?
I agree it is problematic to force people to have a vaccine, particularly one that only has EUA. But it still would be useful to have the data as to what percentages of residents and what percentages of staff have been vaccinated per home, and to track that against infection rates going forwards. It could provide invaluable insights as to the lower limit of vaccination required to achieve herd immunity, and perhaps even whether there is a differential based on vulnerability.
Everyone's had it offered. People have the right to refuse it though. Do you want them to jab people who've refused it?
What kind of frigging point are you trying to make? Have Scottish doctors been jabbing people who refused to give consent? Is that a difference?
Calm down, you're not even on your 12th coffee yet. Shouldn't you be asking what frigging point is Ch4 journo Alex Thomson trying to make?
Not sure what your obsession is about my coffees lately. I haven't mentioned coffee in ages. I've probably only had about 6 or 7 so far today, but I don't keep count. Typically 1 an hour on average for most of the day, what's the big deal about that? 🤷🏻♂️
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
Kipling was an absolutely fantastic and very varied writer, nothing like the caricature of him which has become accepted wisdom in the UK. Definitely worth anyone's time: Kim is sheer genius from beginning to end, enjoyable on so many different levels (and an amazing introduction to India, one which remains relevant even today). Plain Tales from the Raj and the other short stories of that era are wonderfully sly observations of the British in India. And the late short stories are different again, the diametric opposite of tub-thumping Jingoism of which he's wrongly accused. Some of them are small masterpieces of anti-war polemic, like this wonderfully chilling and thought-provoking gem:
There's a very good TV drama of the tragedy of his son in WW1 with Daniel Ratcliffe. Kipling apparently pulled strings to get his son enlisted after he was initially turned down on health grounds.
The poor young man then either perished or went MIA on the Western Front.
Gove was floundering on GMS this morning , could not answer the question re vaccines , usual Tory lies where they count the fact that they have it on a spreadsheet as it has been done. They don't have the bollox to admit they just wanted to get all the low hanging fruit vaccinated to divert from their appalling record and the massive daily death rate. Union Jack had same issue on Sunday re availability of vaccine.
NS: "That's a deliberate choice the Government has made. It is a legitimate choice to have first of all focused on overall numbers, but if that is at the expense of the uptake in the groups most clinically vulnerable, it's not a choice I would've wanted to make." NS: "I heard Michael Gove on the radio this morning not able or willing to give a figure for how many residents in care homes in England have actually been vaccinated as opposed to being offered the vaccine." NS: "Scotgov has followed an approach that very deliberately concentrated on getting the most clinically vulnerable groups vaccinated first, and achieving as high an uptake in these groups as possible."
It has been confirmed that 'offered' means a GP going in to the actual home with actual vaccines and offering. One assumes that the situation in Scotland was the same - unless the jabbers in Scotland were under order to forcibly vaccinate the biddies whether they wanted it or not.
If Care home uptake has been higher in Scotland, that reflects well on the good sense of the elderly here, not badly on the English vaccine roll out.
The elderly in Scotland being more likely to vote against separatism, so their good sense already demonstrated.
The rest of the UK appear to have vaccinated both deep and wide whereas the SNP have messed around and then reached for the first excuse they could.
Has anyone asked Sturgeon to compare her vaccination rollout with NI or Wales who both have been faster than hers?
98% of older care home residents have been vaccinated in Scotland.
The number is immaterial actually, since it is as large as it can possibly be without forcing people to take the vaccine.
Why then are unionists whining constantly about it
I don't think they are whining about that, rather they are wondering what the hold up is getting everyone else the jab when both countries were able to get the care homes done at about the same time.
No idea , but for sure there will be some logistics delays with distances , however they were up 59% yesterday so looks like they are getting there, it is not a competition. The whining from England is most unedifying and is just a smokescreen to divert from the horrifying death rates and other failures like borders etc.
Yep, only a couple of days in it really. And honestly if the situation is reversed I'm sure you'd be adding it to the list of failures of HMG.
Rob, both of them have failures and trying to get one up either way is pathetic. PS: The whole childish UK political system is broken and badly needs sorting.
The Good Friday Agreement was a clever sleight of hand to allow everyone to believe what they wanted and to give them an excuse to back out of a violent way of life of which they had tired
It was designed in the context of both countries being part of the EU.
The mistake which the EU made was trying to use it as negotiating leverage. They said “the GFA is inviolable” thinking this would mean that the UK would have to stay in the customs union.
What they should actually have done is to figure out what the GFA was designed to achieve and come up with a new structure that achieves the same outcome in a situation where the UK is not part of the EU.
That can be fine but it takes patience and time. And the EU should not be part of it - ironically too much history 😊. It should be a discussion between the UK, RoI and the communities in NI.
For now they should extent the grace period for 4 years and figure it out without pressure of artificial deadlines. And if you have to extend again then so be it. This doesn’t upset anyone except EU purists.
Theresa May had a point, it turns out.
No - essentially she said that the GFA was more important than the UK's democratic freedom to leave the Customs Union.
That was only the May backstop. She was trying to leverage it to achieve something in the final trade deal that might look like the kind of pragmatic compromise you have in mind.
The Good Friday Agreement was a clever sleight of hand to allow everyone to believe what they wanted and to give them an excuse to back out of a violent way of life of which they had tired
It was designed in the context of both countries being part of the EU.
The mistake which the EU made was trying to use it as negotiating leverage. They said “the GFA is inviolable” thinking this would mean that the UK would have to stay in the customs union.
What they should actually have done is to figure out what the GFA was designed to achieve and come up with a new structure that achieves the same outcome in a situation where the UK is not part of the EU.
That can be fine but it takes patience and time. And the EU should not be part of it - ironically too much history 😊. It should be a discussion between the UK, RoI and the communities in NI.
For now they should extent the grace period for 4 years and figure it out without pressure of artificial deadlines. And if you have to extend again then so be it. This doesn’t upset anyone except EU purists.
You can only have a solution which allows people to believe what they want to believe if practical reality doesn't get in the way of those beliefs.
It's the EU's insistence that the border must be enforced which is the issue.
NI is part of the UK customs zone. Have a "trusted trader" process that allows shipping from NI to RoI.
The amount of "non-compliant" product that will be smuggled from the UK to the EU via NI and RoI will be minimal. But if volumes start going up suspiciously in Belfast then you take action at that point.
No, just a certain kind of lunatic, looking for attention.
Trying to make the most absurdly shocking statement possible.
Totally out of order. Jesus. Some people.
Mind you, I watched the TV coverage yesterday of Captain Tom's passing and I was struck by the complete absence of balance. Quite right to give prominence to the side of the argument that maintains he was a great great guy and the source not only of serious funds for the NHS but of inspiration to the whole country at a very dark time - which is how I happen to feel - but where were the Captain Tom skeptics? Not a single one was granted a platform on any of the channels, as far as I could see. Felt a bit uncomfortable about that aspect.
The shameless self promoting efforts of our leaders to jump on the hagiography bandwagon have been distasteful. And my mother, who is old enough to remember the war, was deeply unimpressed by the relentless quantity of coverage.
The Good Friday Agreement was a clever sleight of hand to allow everyone to believe what they wanted and to give them an excuse to back out of a violent way of life of which they had tired
It was designed in the context of both countries being part of the EU.
The mistake which the EU made was trying to use it as negotiating leverage. They said “the GFA is inviolable” thinking this would mean that the UK would have to stay in the customs union.
What they should actually have done is to figure out what the GFA was designed to achieve and come up with a new structure that achieves the same outcome in a situation where the UK is not part of the EU.
That can be fine but it takes patience and time. And the EU should not be part of it - ironically too much history 😊. It should be a discussion between the UK, RoI and the communities in NI.
For now they should extent the grace period for 4 years and figure it out without pressure of artificial deadlines. And if you have to extend again then so be it. This doesn’t upset anyone except EU purists.
Theresa May had a point, it turns out.
No - essentially she said that the GFA was more important than the UK's democratic freedom to leave the Customs Union.
Indeed.
And your smart solution means that you negotiate the UKs trade with the EU first then transition and figure out a way to make that work with NI.
Theresa May's ridiculous sequencing is what landed us in this mess. Trying to "sort out" Northern Ireland before future arrangements had been agreed was never a viable solution.
Of course you can be left-wing and patriotic. Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Clement Atlee, George Orwell, etc.
Telling that one has to reach for figures from 40, 50, and 80 years ago...
Yep. Before we became an oligarchy.
Now anybody who threatens the ruling class's grip on assets is attacked on "patriotic" grounds (I suppose they always were, but now there's really no right or power of reply).
It works, of course. Look at the dumbass flag-waving even on here, among people who are quite erudite and measured on many matters.
Unfortunately for your thesis, the Corbyn period demonstrated quite clearly that the types who want to steal our assets are very often also anti-patriots. Tell the British that you want to take their cash and their country, and those supposed 'few' will crush you at the ballot box in their millions.
Well that's a bit of revolving bow-tie nonsense. In 17 it was close and 19 was a quasi rerun of the Brexit referendum in a climate where the only question was how big the Con majority would be.
It's just as valid to say that 19 was not close and that 17 was a quasi rerun of the Brexit referendum in a climate where half the electorate wanted to give the Tories a good kicking by any means necessary, and the usual non-voters who swung the referendum for Leave went back to their usual patterns of Not Turning Up.
A very fair comment. Brexit flattered Labour in 17 and killed them in 19. Their "par score" (if you will) was between the two - but nearer 17 since Brexit was a stronger factor in 19 than it was then. So about 250 seats. A Left Labour offering with a wildly unsuitable leader scores 250 seats. This means if you replace the leader with an upgrade (done) but stay to the Left (although not with exactly the same policies) you can win. You might not, but you most certainly can. That's my analysis and it's bulletproof. No amount of waffle or facetious one-liners from Tory Story propaganda merchants changes a damn thing about it or detracts from its essential truth.
I can't tell.
Starmer may make Labour acceptable (not for me, because dangling off TU apron strings and the remaining cabal of very questionable MPs anti-semitism wise are show stoppers for me), but the next Election is the Tories' to win or lose.
Which will be determined imo by if they deliver (Red Wall needs to have seen something tangible - one reason the South-shifting Council Tax proposals look interesting), and there are COVID effects, and Post-Brexit effects.
I have no idea how it will turn out, which is why I stopped betting on Elections after a slightly expensive 2017.
No, me neither. I have not developed an intuition of any sort about GE24. It's ages away. Could be another Con landslide, could be a Labour outright win, could be a hung parliament. The only thing I've ruled out is a Labour landslide. The core of Tory/Leave support precludes that. Re betting, I'm starting to place modest money on Cons largest party at 1.8 (which I think is too big) but that's all.
I don't think so. The key thing is he says "used to" - he just needs to say clearly how much respect he has for Her Maj and that it serves the country well etc. etc.
Of course it's going to be a fucking problem. This is the new patriotism. If you don't gush about how the Queen has served the nation for 60 years by being driven to the races in a Bentley and selflessly accepting 40,000 bunches of flowers you are fucked.
He will just have to hope the Queen rolls a two before the next GE as republicanism will be very much in vogue once we have King Gobshite and his nervous wreck heir.
Perhaps it can be fought off with more flags. Which is another reason not to go ape on flags now. You have to leave yourself somewhere to go. Some gears unused.
Thankfully SKS seems to have only a single flag habit at the moment. Keep a beady eye open for any increase, and casually placed models of aircraft carriers.
The model was only yesterday, Keir hasn't had a chance to retaliate yet. It' s coming.
My bet is a miner's helmet in the corner, next to a model of a WW2 tank.
- A super Churchill (tick) - A shout out to ethnic minorities (tick) - A shout out to Royalty (tick) - A finger flick at the French (tick)
Great knowledge, love it!
The history of British tank design in WWII is a wonderful opportunity to study dysfunctional organisations, the lunatics that reform them and the bizarre engineering attracts that get produced.
Britain must have been the only country producing tank designs with non sloping armour in the latter half of the war.
Ironically, the success of our fighter building programme came at the expense of tanks because Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production (familiar to older PBers as the model for our calls for vaccine and PPE tsars) had grabbed all the material and factories.
Some say that - but we succeeded in making tons of crapulent tanks. We built 1700 Covenanters. A tank that had one small defect. Actually driving it caused massive overheating in the engine.
I am permanently bemused by the "Soviet tractor stats" smear, because the same production technique produced Soviet T34s. They were not false positive T34s, and they were a lot of the reason why we are not having this conversation in german.
It's also a good side note to the patriotism and the left discussion; WWII Soviet factory workers pulled of some stupendous feats of production involving unpaid overtime, 14 hour shifts, contributing their wages towards the cost of an eg T34. Most industrialised countries had some version of this of course and there may have been a certain element of it being done at the end of a PPSh, but there was also a huge amount of genuine patriotism involved.
Hence the "Great Patriotic War"
Casts a long shadow. There was some functionary of the current Russian regime being interviewed the other day on the Navalny case and he stated that one of his crimes/failings was not being sufficiently respectful of the sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War.
Fairly easy trivia question: if WWII was the "Second Great Patriotic War", what was the First Great Patriotic War?
Shit, I was reading something that mentioned this the other day but no fact anchored in my heid! Will have to resort to Google.
As a hint, this is one of the things that helped end it:
kudos for knowing what that is. How anyone could look at those horses and think they constituted a light brigade...
It is interesting that the two greatest cavalry charges in British military history were both, to a greater or lesser extent, fuckups which ended in the cavalry getting destroyed as a viable unit in each case.
Though the Charge of the Heavy Brigade (including Scots Greys) just before that of the Light was a great success, in fact if the Light Brigade standing by had joined in it could've turned into a route of the Russians and a good many more of them would have been alive at the end of the day.
It always tends to be glorious failure that enters mythology I guess.
Disclaimer: most of my knowledge of the period comes from Flashman books.
My knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars is from a combination of the Sharpe novels and the Patrick O'Brian ones.
Just to add a point about the Sharpe books: one of the things I particularly like about them is the bit at the end where he tells you which bits actually happened (at least as far as history recorded at the time they were written) and which bits he made up to make it a good story.
Completely minor point, but I heard Cornwell on the radio a few months ago and he seemed an entirely decent cove, shouldn't make a difference but it does. I've read a bit about O'Brien and he seems a very complicated not to say tricky character.
I expect most writers have, as you put it, complex lives. Lovecraft, for instance, was someone that early 20th century white Americans thought was a bit on the racist side.
Nicely put.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
I reread Kim the other day, and came away thinking that in real life there is no way he would have got past p.20 without being raped and murdered by one of the dozens of creepy unmarried older men among whom he gets passed around. It patronises the whole of India. When Orwell got it wrong, he got it wrong.
Kipling was, from reading him, a very variable person. In one story in the volume I mentioned, he describes a English writer noticing the child of the lowest gardener building a fantasy in mud and pebbles. The whole story is about how the child becomes a real person to the teller of the tale.... the empathy and compassion in it was very apparent.
A few pages on, Kipling describes going out with the police in patrol in a big city. He comes across a white British woman living with a Indian. The next page or so could have been written by Julius Streicher.
One of the things I think people forget is how extreme "norms" were, and how comparatively recently.
For example, I *could not* give my beloved Topper Annual 1978 to my daughter (unsupervised) because of "Captain Bungle" and his adventures in the Jungle. Not even Britain First types would use the images concerned, as it would do their cause direct harm.
The Good Friday Agreement was a clever sleight of hand to allow everyone to believe what they wanted and to give them an excuse to back out of a violent way of life of which they had tired
It was designed in the context of both countries being part of the EU.
The mistake which the EU made was trying to use it as negotiating leverage. They said “the GFA is inviolable” thinking this would mean that the UK would have to stay in the customs union.
What they should actually have done is to figure out what the GFA was designed to achieve and come up with a new structure that achieves the same outcome in a situation where the UK is not part of the EU.
That can be fine but it takes patience and time. And the EU should not be part of it - ironically too much history 😊. It should be a discussion between the UK, RoI and the communities in NI.
For now they should extent the grace period for 4 years and figure it out without pressure of artificial deadlines. And if you have to extend again then so be it. This doesn’t upset anyone except EU purists.
Theresa May had a point, it turns out.
No - essentially she said that the GFA was more important than the UK's democratic freedom to leave the Customs Union.
Given the current situation is it possible that the GFA is a pre-existing treaty that makes leaving the Customs Union impossible?
No. We've left the Customs Union and the voters of NI could terminate the NI Protocol.
It is politics not law that landed us with the Protocol. It should be abolished now.
I dont believe it. Starmer, physically accosting Johnson?
It's not like Johnson's annoying, or anything.
Not an excuse, still not acceptable if Starmer did clock him, which I doubt.
It is an excuse and it is acceptable.
Theres no way he did it, but no it wouldn't be. Someone being a twat is not justification to be a bigger twat in response. That would mean they are justified to retaliate in turn.
Everyone's had it offered. People have the right to refuse it though. Do you want them to jab people who've refused it?
What kind of frigging point are you trying to make? Have Scottish doctors been jabbing people who refused to give consent? Is that a difference?
Calm down, you're not even on your 12th coffee yet. Shouldn't you be asking what frigging point is Ch4 journo Alex Thomson trying to make?
Not sure what your obsession is about my coffees lately. I haven't mentioned coffee in ages. I've probably only had about 6 or 7 so far today, but I don't keep count. Typically 1 an hour on average for most of the day, what's the big deal about that? 🤷🏻♂️
Lol!
Cool latte art. I can make some patterns but not that.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
Kipling was an absolutely fantastic and very varied writer, nothing like the caricature of him which has become accepted wisdom in the UK. Definitely worth anyone's time: Kim is sheer genius from beginning to end, enjoyable on so many different levels (and an amazing introduction to India, one which remains relevant even today). Plain Tales from the Raj and the other short stories of that era are wonderfully sly observations of the British in India. And the late short stories are different again, the diametric opposite of tub-thumping Jingoism of which he's wrongly accused. Some of them are small masterpieces of anti-war polemic, like this wonderfully chilling and thought-provoking gem:
There's a very good TV drama of the tragedy of his son in WW1 with Daniel Ratcliffe. Kipling apparently pulled strings to get his son enlisted after he was initially turned down on health grounds.
The poor young man then either perished or went MIA on the Western Front.
It's the EU's insistence that the border must be enforced which is the issue.
NI is part of the UK customs zone. Have a "trusted trader" process that allows shipping from NI to RoI.
The amount of "non-compliant" product that will be smuggled from the UK to the EU via NI and RoI will be minimal. But if volumes start going up suspiciously in Belfast then you take action at that point.
Just turn a blind eye to the small abuses.
Which provisions of the EU Treaties would give the Commission or the Republic the power to do that?
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
Kipling was an absolutely fantastic and very varied writer, nothing like the caricature of him which has become accepted wisdom in the UK. Definitely worth anyone's time: Kim is sheer genius from beginning to end, enjoyable on so many different levels (and an amazing introduction to India, one which remains relevant even today). Plain Tales from the Raj and the other short stories of that era are wonderfully sly observations of the British in India. And the late short stories are different again, the diametric opposite of tub-thumping Jingoism of which he's wrongly accused. Some of them are small masterpieces of anti-war polemic, like this wonderfully chilling and thought-provoking gem:
There's a very good TV drama of the tragedy of his son in WW1 with Daniel Ratcliffe. Kipling apparently pulled strings to get his son enlisted after he was initially turned down on health grounds.
The poor young man then either perished or went MIA on the Western Front.
It haunted Kipling until his own passing, sadly
A dead statesman
I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?
Started at Kier Starmer and a question about his patriotism then headed off via the failure of British Tanks and the Great Patriotic War to Waterloo (with a dead end to the Charge of the Light Brigade) and the Sharpe books before careering off to HP Lovecraft and Rudyard Kipling. So we are now sat in India at the time of the Great Game looking over the Himalayas towards Russia and almost back full circle.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
Kipling was an absolutely fantastic and very varied writer, nothing like the caricature of him which has become accepted wisdom in the UK. Definitely worth anyone's time: Kim is sheer genius from beginning to end, enjoyable on so many different levels (and an amazing introduction to India, one which remains relevant even today). Plain Tales from the Raj and the other short stories of that era are wonderfully sly observations of the British in India. And the late short stories are different again, the diametric opposite of tub-thumping Jingoism of which he's wrongly accused. Some of them are small masterpieces of anti-war polemic, like this wonderfully chilling and thought-provoking gem:
There's a very good TV drama of the tragedy of his son in WW1 with Daniel Ratcliffe. Kipling apparently pulled strings to get his son enlisted after he was initially turned down on health grounds.
The poor young man then either perished or went MIA on the Western Front.
It haunted Kipling until his own passing, sadly
A dead statesman
I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?
Comments
O'Brien's problem was that he wasn't Irish and thought he was. Auto-racism, or something.
Which brings us to an interesting point - his overtly racist stuff is de-emphasised or not published. So younger, recent readers don't realise quite you bad some of his stuff is.
Bit like Kipling. I found a complete works of his, in a library sale, years ago. The stories in India and the journalism range from insightful and very empathetic to stuff that was Der Sturmer grade.
https://twitter.com/Otto_English/status/1356988806658994176?s=20
Bye for now!
But which one?
Starmer may make Labour acceptable (not for me, because dangling off TU apron strings and the remaining cabal of very questionable MPs anti-semitism wise are show stoppers for me), but the next Election is the Tories' to win or lose.
Which will be determined imo by if they deliver (Red Wall needs to have seen something tangible - one reason the South-shifting Council Tax proposals look interesting), and there are COVID effects, and Post-Brexit effects.
I have no idea how it will turn out, which is why I stopped betting on Elections after a slightly expensive 2017.
There is an urgency to protect those aged 70 and older who are at most risk of a severe outcome. Because of the ongoing concern regarding rates of community COVID-19 transmission and hospitalisation, NIAC recognises that the best vaccine anyone can receive at this time is the vaccine that can be soonest administered. Everyone is strongly urged to accept whichever vaccine is available.
https://rcpi-live-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/NIAC-Recommendations-to-CMO-Re-AZD.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/03/lin-wood-georgia-voter-fraud/
In US politics, if someone demands gun control, it usually turns out that they possess an arsenal. If they demand a crack down on illegal immigrants, all the staff at their house.... etc. etc.
What he can't confirm is how many residents refused the vaccine. If you're asking how many have gone into the arms, that's what you're asking. The care home rollout in England is complete but some residents will refuse the vaccine and they have the right to do so.
And in this case, they have him banged to rights. And it is really tame compare to the sorts of stuff they used to pin on Jezza. He said it would be a bad idea to leave the EMA and / or we shouldn't throw away the good that institution does. By the sorts of stuff people have said from both sides over Brexit, it is nothing more than Boris scoring some PMQ points.
By making such a scene over it all, he is just drawing more attention.
I'm guessing that the vaccine allocation has been done on basis of age demographics, but in some areas you have a lower uptake of the vaccine due to the ethnic mix, and so they are getting through the categories faster.
Hopefully people will come forward later after being initially reluctant.
You get the good PR by presenting strong arguments well, so much so, the government U-Turn.
A few pages on, Kipling describes going out with the police in patrol in a big city. He comes across a white British woman living with a Indian. The next page or so could have been written by Julius Streicher.
Not an excuse, still not acceptable if Starmer did clock him, which I doubt.
https://twitter.com/alextomo/status/1356992140375707650?s=20
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-s-misleading-ema-remarks
https://twitter.com/MattHighton/status/1356991693552316423
His task really is extremely difficult.
https://twitter.com/OptusSport/status/1356867769354964999?s=20
Everyone's had it offered. People have the right to refuse it though. Do you want them to jab people who've refused it?
What kind of frigging point are you trying to make? Have Scottish doctors been jabbing people who refused to give consent? Is that a difference?
Shouldn't you be asking what frigging point is Ch4 journo Alex Thomson trying to make?
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1356836849533284352?s=20
https://theshortstory.co.uk/classic-short-story-mary-postgate-by-rudyard-kipling/
The poor young man then either perished or went MIA on the Western Front.
It haunted Kipling until his own passing, sadly
PS: The whole childish UK political system is broken and badly needs sorting.
NI is part of the UK customs zone. Have a "trusted trader" process that allows shipping from NI to RoI.
The amount of "non-compliant" product that will be smuggled from the UK to the EU via NI and RoI will be minimal. But if volumes start going up suspiciously in Belfast then you take action at that point.
Just turn a blind eye to the small abuses.
And my mother, who is old enough to remember the war, was deeply unimpressed by the relentless quantity of coverage.
And your smart solution means that you negotiate the UKs trade with the EU first then transition and figure out a way to make that work with NI.
Theresa May's ridiculous sequencing is what landed us in this mess. Trying to "sort out" Northern Ireland before future arrangements had been agreed was never a viable solution.
For example, I *could not* give my beloved Topper Annual 1978 to my daughter (unsupervised) because of "Captain Bungle" and his adventures in the Jungle. Not even Britain First types would use the images concerned, as it would do their cause direct harm.
It is politics not law that landed us with the Protocol. It should be abolished now.
There is the Limitation Act 1980: is that what you meant?
Its called the twat cycle.
Why is drinking coffee funny to you?
https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1356988508343312391?s=20
http://www.telelib.com/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/DebtsandCredits/gardener.html
https://xkcd.com/500/
Someone's set up a playlist for pretty much every episode of the Brittas Empire here.
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0yYA9IlBHjARLQejGhIX-MBoDj6OkbDC
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
Started at Kier Starmer and a question about his patriotism then headed off via the failure of British Tanks and the Great Patriotic War to Waterloo (with a dead end to the Charge of the Light Brigade) and the Sharpe books before careering off to HP Lovecraft and Rudyard Kipling. So we are now sat in India at the time of the Great Game looking over the Himalayas towards Russia and almost back full circle.
It's like a PB game of Mornington Crescent.