Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Wasn't the UK heavily involved in writing the food and farming standards documents.
Absolutely and, as I am sure Nick P will confirm, in some areas we were and are well ahead of the EU in matters such as animal welfare. The issue is alignment in the future as either side chooses to change those standards.
Precisely.
There's not a single legitimate reason the Joint Committee can't recognise where the UK and EU are currently aligned and say there's no risk on those issues since alignment exists; then if standards diverge the Joint Committee could deal with that then with us saying that either they need to meet our standards or we'll cease to recognise them or vice-versa.
There's no possible reason that either party needs to commit to future alignment, except that the EU are trying to entrap us to doing so for their own motives, not because as @RochdalePioneers insists that its required.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
Exactly. And since somebody is so fond of shoving any old polling stats down our throats, this:
Synopsis: Only 32% of English voters surveyed opposed independence for Scotland, just 20% were strongly opposed, and more English voters now oppose bribing Scotland to stay with even more money than are in favour.
The numbers will only turn against the Union, on both sides of the border, more and more as time progresses. The younger age groups in Scotland are strongly pro-secession, and the English are either apathetic about the survival of the Union or fed up with it. It is finished. Just a matter of time. And the idea that there'll be any appetite in England at all to keep hanging on to Northern Ireland once the Union fractures is for the birds.
Utter rubbish, you also deliberately ignored the fact that more English voters still oppose Scottish independence than support it even on that poll
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Effiedeans is an absolute fruitcake. Like, Murdo Fraser has stepped in and called them out on their fruit cakery.
The SNP wouldn't exist if Scotland hadn't played against England in 1872 because there was no form of Scottish nationalism at the time and scotland forming a football team by mistake triggered it all is a special take even deans.
Things are not proceeding optimally. I had hoped once we actually left the clear, obvious mutual self interest of cooperation would prevail but it is at best a mixed bag with more emphasis on pomposity and grandstanding than progress. I would say that this is mainly the French and there is some hope that the example of scientific cooperation where many countries told them to calm down and behave might become more common but that is by no means certain.
What I am seeing on both sides in many cases is a hardening of attitudes. A lot of people I speak to, even those that voted remain, are now very relieved that we have left. It seems likely to me that EU exports to the UK are going to take a very serious hit. We are looking for our own path, particularly through the TPP. The EU don't like that we are no longer supplicants and are playing hard ball.
Sadly, they have plenty of opportunities to do so because the NI protocol was simply never going to work. It was not so much a sticking plaster as a convenient lie and the government's lies are now being exposed. It is uncomfortable.
Visible from space category of prediction, but agree things have turned out largely as I expected them to.
It occurs to me that the good thing about the Johnson deal from the government’s POV was not that it solved any of the inherent paradoxes of Brexit - the iron triangle remains in place after all - but rather that it enabled the government to blame the consequences of their failing to keep to the terms on the EU, who inevitably be placed in the position of having to enforce consequences for breaking it’s terms if the government failed to keep to them.
Had the government been honest about their intentions from the outset, they would have been forced to sign a different deal. “Oh no, the terrible EU is being mean & refusing to be pragmatic about things” is /so/ much easier to sell to an electorate that wants to believe it than “this is the inevitable consequence of the oven ready deal we sold you so enthusiastically”.
It’s entirely in keeping with Johnson’s character to sign a deal that he had no intention of keeping. Being able to spin the consequences of failing to keep to the terms as being the fault of the other party is a neat political trick though; we’ll have to see whether it works out.
Blaming the EU for the consequences of their own decisions was pretty much baked in from the start. If anything the surprise is Leavers' inability to win the Remain voting part of the population to their view as the latter continue to blame Leavers for their decisions, not the EU for failing to make it easy for them.
Johnson negotiating the Northern Ireland Protocol was a real curveball for me, but I am not convinced the "No alignment ever" is a sustainable position, nor is refusing to honour your own treaties, arguments with all European and North American countries, incitement in a fragile Northern Ireland and then finally there is still the Scottish "problem". As you say, the iron paradox is still there.
One under-discussed aspect of threats by the U.K. government to breach/ignore the I/NI Protocol: it needs to be remembered that non-compliance with the Protocol is also non-compliance with *domestic* U.K. law which the U.K. government has no *domestic* power to over-ride. https://twitter.com/GeorgePeretzQC/status/1404002714879762433
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Realpolitik kicks "whatever bollocks the EU comes up with" down the road. It is not a problem for now. Nor do we have to stay aligned with EU standards - like any standards they are a minimum. We can improve our standards above theirs and still be compliant. As having better standards is government policy this shouldn't cause problems.
People keep demanding the other side compromise whilst refusing to even do the "compromise" of recognising the status quo. And then wonder why the rest of the G7 think we are twats.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Effiedeans is an absolute fruitcake. Like, Murdo Fraser has stepped in and called them out on their fruit cakery.
Voting for George Galloway levels of nuts.
I love the way she prefaces the whole piece by telling us that she has zero interest in sport and won’t be watching the tournament. She also seems to imply that the EU should field a single team.
In short, crackers. I’m amazed that @hyufd cited her to be honest!
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
Extraordinary this...Biden links arms with Macron and the EU not our PM. It is not the US relationship with the UK that is special now, it is the US one with leaders of the EU. https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1404005189384867844
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
But if the EU had been more flexible in its interpretation of the Single Market, particularly with regard to Freedom of Movement, we wouldn't have left in the first place, and they'd still have our hundreds of millions a week to waste. Nor would the Swiss have told them to shove it a few weeks ago.
The EU keeps shooting itself in the foot, but learns nothing each time.
Or alternatively, they weighed up the possibilities and decided that the compromises needed to keep the UK on board were a price not worth paying, net contributions and all.
Arrogant? Definitely. But so is one large country demanding that 27 countries should change the agreed rules in a way that the one wants and the 27 don't particularly.
I'm not saying that the EU right in their calculation, but it's not totally obvious that they're wrong either.
Of course, the one thing more frustrating than hatred is indifference.
They never thought the UK would leave. Until it did.
Cameron told them that he would win his referendum easily so they didn't think they had to give him anything (not that he bothered asking).
Then after the referendum they convinced themselves that it would be ignored one way or another - after all that was what had happened every time previously a referendum had produced a result they didn't like.
And throughout they were being told by their friends and 'experts' what the mood was in the 'Islington wine bar' as if that was representative of the country as a whole.
But it wasn't the Islington wine bar where the 2019 general election was decided but the Grimsby chip shop.
Things are not proceeding optimally. I had hoped once we actually left the clear, obvious mutual self interest of cooperation would prevail but it is at best a mixed bag with more emphasis on pomposity and grandstanding than progress. I would say that this is mainly the French and there is some hope that the example of scientific cooperation where many countries told them to calm down and behave might become more common but that is by no means certain.
What I am seeing on both sides in many cases is a hardening of attitudes. A lot of people I speak to, even those that voted remain, are now very relieved that we have left. It seems likely to me that EU exports to the UK are going to take a very serious hit. We are looking for our own path, particularly through the TPP. The EU don't like that we are no longer supplicants and are playing hard ball.
Sadly, they have plenty of opportunities to do so because the NI protocol was simply never going to work. It was not so much a sticking plaster as a convenient lie and the government's lies are now being exposed. It is uncomfortable.
Visible from space category of prediction, but agree things have turned out largely as I expected them to.
It occurs to me that the good thing about the Johnson deal from the government’s POV was not that it solved any of the inherent paradoxes of Brexit - the iron triangle remains in place after all - but rather that it enabled the government to blame the consequences of their failing to keep to the terms on the EU, who inevitably be placed in the position of having to enforce consequences for breaking it’s terms if the government failed to keep to them.
Had the government been honest about their intentions from the outset, they would have been forced to sign a different deal. “Oh no, the terrible EU is being mean & refusing to be pragmatic about things” is /so/ much easier to sell to an electorate that wants to believe it than “this is the inevitable consequence of the oven ready deal we sold you so enthusiastically”.
It’s entirely in keeping with Johnson’s character to sign a deal that he had no intention of keeping. Being able to spin the consequences of failing to keep to the terms as being the fault of the other party is a neat political trick though; we’ll have to see whether it works out.
The thing is that signing a deal with next to no intention of keeping to it works for internal politics, but it really doesn't work internationally. Or rather, it can work for a while the first time you do it. But international relations aren't a single hand of poker, they're a never-ending poker school where players drift in and out but reputations develop as the game continues.
If I were any other nation negotiating a deal with the UK now, I'd be taking even more care than normal to make sure that the UK's obligations under said deal were totally nailed down.
Unless the UK can persuade the rest of the world that they are the injured party and it's all Europe's fault. Good luck with that.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
But if the EU had been more flexible in its interpretation of the Single Market, particularly with regard to Freedom of Movement, we wouldn't have left in the first place, and they'd still have our hundreds of millions a week to waste. Nor would the Swiss have told them to shove it a few weeks ago.
The EU keeps shooting itself in the foot, but learns nothing each time.
Or alternatively, they weighed up the possibilities and decided that the compromises needed to keep the UK on board were a price not worth paying, net contributions and all.
Arrogant? Definitely. But so is one large country demanding that 27 countries should change the agreed rules in a way that the one wants and the 27 don't particularly.
I'm not saying that the EU right in their calculation, but it's not totally obvious that they're wrong either.
Of course, the one thing more frustrating than hatred is indifference.
They never thought the UK would leave. Until it did.
Cameron told them that he would win his referendum easily so they didn't think they had to give him anything (not that he bothered asking).
Then after the referendum they convinced themselves that it would be ignored one way or another - after all that was what had happened every time previously a referendum had produced a result they didn't like.
And throughout they were being told by their friends and 'experts' what the mood was in the 'Islington wine bar' as if that was representative of the country as a whole.
But it wasn't the Islington wine bar where the 2019 general election was decided but the Grimsby chip shop.
Things are not proceeding optimally. I had hoped once we actually left the clear, obvious mutual self interest of cooperation would prevail but it is at best a mixed bag with more emphasis on pomposity and grandstanding than progress. I would say that this is mainly the French and there is some hope that the example of scientific cooperation where many countries told them to calm down and behave might become more common but that is by no means certain.
What I am seeing on both sides in many cases is a hardening of attitudes. A lot of people I speak to, even those that voted remain, are now very relieved that we have left. It seems likely to me that EU exports to the UK are going to take a very serious hit. We are looking for our own path, particularly through the TPP. The EU don't like that we are no longer supplicants and are playing hard ball.
Sadly, they have plenty of opportunities to do so because the NI protocol was simply never going to work. It was not so much a sticking plaster as a convenient lie and the government's lies are now being exposed. It is uncomfortable.
Visible from space category of prediction, but agree things have turned out largely as I expected them to.
It occurs to me that the good thing about the Johnson deal from the government’s POV was not that it solved any of the inherent paradoxes of Brexit - the iron triangle remains in place after all - but rather that it enabled the government to blame the consequences of their failing to keep to the terms on the EU, who inevitably be placed in the position of having to enforce consequences for breaking it’s terms if the government failed to keep to them.
Had the government been honest about their intentions from the outset, they would have been forced to sign a different deal. “Oh no, the terrible EU is being mean & refusing to be pragmatic about things” is /so/ much easier to sell to an electorate that wants to believe it than “this is the inevitable consequence of the oven ready deal we sold you so enthusiastically”.
It’s entirely in keeping with Johnson’s character to sign a deal that he had no intention of keeping. Being able to spin the consequences of failing to keep to the terms as being the fault of the other party is a neat political trick though; we’ll have to see whether it works out.
I agree with this completely. The deal that worked was May's deal but the Commons voted it down, repeatedly. It had its own problems and drawbacks of course, not least in our freedom of maneuver, but it worked for NI.
That the 2017 parliament voted it down repeatedly doesn't mean that the 2019 parliament can't enact it. Johnson could reverse ferret, spin it against the EU and whip his MPs to vote it through...
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
What I did was to give a call to the COVID status helpline on 0808 196 8565 between 10am and 6pm. You give them your details and the dates of your vaccinations. Then after a few days a blue envelope comes through your letterbox with the certificate. Over 75s can only do this. But a young fellow like you can alternatively go to the the NHSinform website www.nhsinform.scot/covid-19-vaccine/after-your-vaccine/get-a-record-of-your-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-status. You will need the username and password you got when booking the vaccinations. But "NHS Scotland have advised that they will be changing this process in June or July". So safer to use the old dog and bone method imho.
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
The record can be seen in the NHS app (but not the Covid one, oddly). And you also get a meaningless bit of cardboard with it written on in biro.
So the NHS App is different from the NHS Trace and Trace App?
If you have the NHS App, showing vaccination history, does it show any other health history and is it linked in any way to the NHS Track and Trace App?
It shows your entire NHS records, lets you order prescriptions, etc. Not linked to covid app.
Could it sneakily be linked to the other App, either in the background now or in the future?
Almost undoubtedly I should think. Although not given to 1984 think I'm afraid I fake it with the covid app, I just wave a phone at the QR code but don't let it register. Nobody notices or minds.
That's what my wife does but I'm such a law-abiding puss I'd feel physically sick with guilt if I did that.
I am old enough to do a convincing "Did it not work? Never could get the hang of these newfangled contraptions" act, if challenged.
I have been sent the paraphernalia for going to Ascot next week. One LFT and two PCRs.
FAQ: what if I test positive? You can't go.
Do I really believe that the thousands upon thousands of people going to these test events have all tested negative and duly reported the results.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
That the 2017 parliament voted it down repeatedly doesn't mean that the 2019 parliament can't enact it. Johnson could reverse ferret, spin it against the EU and whip his MPs to vote it through...
Boris Johnson chose no GB mainland alignment with the EU over avoiding a border in the Irish Sea. It remains his choice today. Theresa May prioritised the integrity of the United Kingdom and was pushed out. I was astonished that Johnson negotiated this deal, but it does get that clean break which may be the driver of his Brexit success, such as it is.
The point is, Johnson is utterly disingenuous when he says he won't others split his country. He did it himself, quite consciously.
People here asking what is the solution for Northern Ireland? It may be the Protocol. No-one likes it but it is better than one other option for all parties.
For Ireland and most people in Northern Ireland (whose opinions seem to be the last to be considered), it is better than a hard border in the Island. For Ireland it is also better than diverging from the Single Market. For the UK government it is better than GB mainland alignment with the EU, as I have just said. For the EU it is better than compromising the external borders of its Single Market.
For the DUP, it is a bit more complicated. In principle they need Northern Ireland to be a success, because its a safe harbour that they care about and no-one else does. Don't screw it up. Problem is, they have been screwing it up bigtime recently and are doing the same with the Protocol. First by supporting Brexit when they should have realised the status quo was a friend, secondly by throwing their lot in with the English nationalists surrounding Johnson who are no friends of the Union, and now again with the Protocol.
Very good post. Should be read by everyone arguing over the issue.
A border in the Irish sea may be the 'best' solution but it shouldn't have been disingenuously imposed on NI in the way it was.
This is i think a nuance that many miss when they insist that the Govt implement the protocol in full "because they signed up to it". I think that Johnson would be absolutely fine with implementing the NI protocol in full. It doesn't really matter to the UK Government if there are difficulties getting goods to NI. The problem is that for the Northern Irish it obviously does. And however much the UK Government would like to ignore this, they can't. Especially because it is increasingly causing political tensions in (N)Ireland itself. So they aren't looking for alternatives because they need or want it politically. But it because it is seriously endangering peace in Northern Ireland.
You can say they "should have thought of that before". But with no good options they picked the one that suited them best politically. But if eg. the US are serious about their priority being peace in Northern Ireland, rather than trade difficulties for the EU, then there is presumably a strong chance they will ultimately side with the UK position. If that means anything. The UK have no option to budge. The EU insistence on full implementation of the Protocol is not a solution when the objections are coming from within Northern Ireland (with the UK Govt only acting as proxy to those objections).
"The problem is that for the Northern Irish it obviously does. " [that UK goods get to Northern Ireland] Most people in Northern Ireland support the Protocol. A large minority doesn't. The Ireland and US position is aligned with the majority view in Northern Ireland, but no-one asks their opinion .
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
They want to amputate all our limbs and make us live in small wooden boxes for the rest of our lives, and the first on the list is you.
You are never going to be right, I am afraid. Everything you adduce as 1984 evidence always was and will be explicable as varying degrees of prudence, incompetence and cowardice in the face of factual and scientific uncertainty.
Extraordinary this...Biden links arms with Macron and the EU not our PM. It is not the US relationship with the UK that is special now, it is the US one with leaders of the EU. https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1404005189384867844
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Wasn't the UK heavily involved in writing the food and farming standards documents.
Yes! Our standards are their standards because we largely wrote the standards. Apparently the reason we can't recognise that alignment is because at some point in the future the evil ones may raise standards maliciously just to screw us.
Its hilarious. We have their standards. We are planning to raise our standards. But we can't recognise our standards are their standards because they might raise their standards.
Its almost as if the stated government policy of "we won't lower our standards we will raise them" is a lie...
What do you propose as a practical solution, to the issues in NI?
Referendum in the 6 counties to see where the people would prefer to have their border.
I think, and Mr HYUFD will have the polling, that probably leaves the UK with County Antrim, part of Belfast and some territory around it.
Unionists still win more votes than Nationalists in Northern Ireland so at the moment it is not an issue but yes obviously you could eventually repartition Northern Ireland so that DUP and Unionist dominated Antrim, North Down and East Londonderry and East Belfast stayed in the UK and Sinn Fein and Nationalist dominated Fermanagh, Tyrone and Armagh, South Down and Derry and West Belfast united with the Republic
Actually, apart from Antrim and possibly Down most constituencies seem to be fairly evenly divided.
In Antrim certainly every constituency is held by the DUP and every constituency voted to leave the EU too so Antrim can and must remain part of the UK regardless.
The rest of Northern Ireland is a bit more divided apart from staunch Nationalist areas like West Belfast, however generally you can say that SF hold all the seats in Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone (albeit with a significant UUP vote in Fermanagh around Enniskillen) and the SDLP hold South Down and Foyle and all those areas also voted Remain so if there ever was to be repartition it is those areas plus West Belfast that would be united with the Republic and the rest of Northern Ireland could stay in the UK
Politically there are nameless leaders with something to gain politically from sustaining petty national ding dongs. One of the problems with Brexit is that it makes this sort of thing easier for politicians to tap into. Brexit will not be finally done, because it’s in the interests of politicians to keep doing it.
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
The record can be seen in the NHS app (but not the Covid one, oddly). And you also get a meaningless bit of cardboard with it written on in biro.
So the NHS App is different from the NHS Trace and Trace App?
If you have the NHS App, showing vaccination history, does it show any other health history and is it linked in any way to the NHS Track and Trace App?
It shows your entire NHS records, lets you order prescriptions, etc. Not linked to covid app.
Could it sneakily be linked to the other App, either in the background now or in the future?
Almost undoubtedly I should think. Although not given to 1984 think I'm afraid I fake it with the covid app, I just wave a phone at the QR code but don't let it register. Nobody notices or minds.
That's what my wife does but I'm such a law-abiding puss I'd feel physically sick with guilt if I did that.
I am old enough to do a convincing "Did it not work? Never could get the hang of these newfangled contraptions" act, if challenged.
I have been sent the paraphernalia for going to Ascot next week. One LFT and two PCRs.
FAQ: what if I test positive? You can't go.
Do I really believe that the thousands upon thousands of people going to these test events have all tested negative and duly reported the results.
Depends if you're required to show proof of test on entry. If people are then they'll have to do the tests, if they aren't then about 97% of them will go straight in the bin.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
They want to amputate all our limbs and make us live in small wooden boxes for the rest of our lives, and the first on the list is you.
You are never going to be right, I am afraid. Everything you adduce as 1984 evidence always was and will be explicable as varying degrees of prudence, incompetence and cowardice in the face of factual and scientific uncertainty.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Effiedeans is an absolute fruitcake. Like, Murdo Fraser has stepped in and called them out on their fruit cakery.
Voting for George Galloway levels of nuts.
Wait until she hears how (All) Ireland is set up for a lot of sports.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Wasn't the UK heavily involved in writing the food and farming standards documents.
Yes! Our standards are their standards because we largely wrote the standards. Apparently the reason we can't recognise that alignment is because at some point in the future the evil ones may raise standards maliciously just to screw us.
Its hilarious. We have their standards. We are planning to raise our standards. But we can't recognise our standards are their standards because they might raise their standards.
Its almost as if the stated government policy of "we won't lower our standards we will raise them" is a lie...
Standards don't exist on a simple sliding scale like Bruce Forsyth's "higher or lower?". They are highly political.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I am pretty resigned now to Step 4 not happening this year. By the time we get to mid to late July the modellers will be looking at the autumn wave and so on. It will all about protecting the NHS thru winter. Already you can see the beginnings of it in today's papers: just read a piece about how massively swamped A&E is (and it's June!!!).
The years of under funding of the health service are coming home to roost.
I can live without Step 4 on a purely personal basis. The pub is open but social distanced. But the economics are terrible. Of course the local pubs wont survive another year of this without further injections of cash and is Sunak ready to do that? How much money can the BoE print?
Johnson is on a vaccine roll. Starmer is on the floor.
Me thinks it will look very very different in say November this year. Goodbye vaccine bounce.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
But if the EU had been more flexible in its interpretation of the Single Market, particularly with regard to Freedom of Movement, we wouldn't have left in the first place, and they'd still have our hundreds of millions a week to waste. Nor would the Swiss have told them to shove it a few weeks ago.
The EU keeps shooting itself in the foot, but learns nothing each time.
Or alternatively, they weighed up the possibilities and decided that the compromises needed to keep the UK on board were a price not worth paying, net contributions and all.
Arrogant? Definitely. But so is one large country demanding that 27 countries should change the agreed rules in a way that the one wants and the 27 don't particularly.
I'm not saying that the EU right in their calculation, but it's not totally obvious that they're wrong either.
Of course, the one thing more frustrating than hatred is indifference.
They never thought the UK would leave. Until it did.
Cameron told them that he would win his referendum easily so they didn't think they had to give him anything (not that he bothered asking).
Then after the referendum they convinced themselves that it would be ignored one way or another - after all that was what had happened every time previously a referendum had produced a result they didn't like.
And throughout they were being told by their friends and 'experts' what the mood was in the 'Islington wine bar' as if that was representative of the country as a whole.
But it wasn't the Islington wine bar where the 2019 general election was decided but the Grimsby chip shop.
Things are not proceeding optimally. I had hoped once we actually left the clear, obvious mutual self interest of cooperation would prevail but it is at best a mixed bag with more emphasis on pomposity and grandstanding than progress. I would say that this is mainly the French and there is some hope that the example of scientific cooperation where many countries told them to calm down and behave might become more common but that is by no means certain.
What I am seeing on both sides in many cases is a hardening of attitudes. A lot of people I speak to, even those that voted remain, are now very relieved that we have left. It seems likely to me that EU exports to the UK are going to take a very serious hit. We are looking for our own path, particularly through the TPP. The EU don't like that we are no longer supplicants and are playing hard ball.
Sadly, they have plenty of opportunities to do so because the NI protocol was simply never going to work. It was not so much a sticking plaster as a convenient lie and the government's lies are now being exposed. It is uncomfortable.
Visible from space category of prediction, but agree things have turned out largely as I expected them to.
It occurs to me that the good thing about the Johnson deal from the government’s POV was not that it solved any of the inherent paradoxes of Brexit - the iron triangle remains in place after all - but rather that it enabled the government to blame the consequences of their failing to keep to the terms on the EU, who inevitably be placed in the position of having to enforce consequences for breaking it’s terms if the government failed to keep to them.
Had the government been honest about their intentions from the outset, they would have been forced to sign a different deal. “Oh no, the terrible EU is being mean & refusing to be pragmatic about things” is /so/ much easier to sell to an electorate that wants to believe it than “this is the inevitable consequence of the oven ready deal we sold you so enthusiastically”.
It’s entirely in keeping with Johnson’s character to sign a deal that he had no intention of keeping. Being able to spin the consequences of failing to keep to the terms as being the fault of the other party is a neat political trick though; we’ll have to see whether it works out.
Given that the Commission's negotiators were oh-so much more competent that the UK's, shouldn't they have understood that the Article 16 clause, which has a low bar for triggering it, could be used in this way?
Yes precisely. It seems a complete Trojan Horse that its remarkable they didn't spot.
If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.
Has the application of the Protocol led to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties or diversion of trade? The advocates for the Protocol are literally saying yes.
Are the diversions likely to persist? The advocates for the Protocol are literally saying yes.
So the UK is fully entitled to invoke the Article.
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
The record can be seen in the NHS app (but not the Covid one, oddly). And you also get a meaningless bit of cardboard with it written on in biro.
So the NHS App is different from the NHS Trace and Trace App?
If you have the NHS App, showing vaccination history, does it show any other health history and is it linked in any way to the NHS Track and Trace App?
It shows your entire NHS records, lets you order prescriptions, etc. Not linked to covid app.
Could it sneakily be linked to the other App, either in the background now or in the future?
Almost undoubtedly I should think. Although not given to 1984 think I'm afraid I fake it with the covid app, I just wave a phone at the QR code but don't let it register. Nobody notices or minds.
That's what my wife does but I'm such a law-abiding puss I'd feel physically sick with guilt if I did that.
I am old enough to do a convincing "Did it not work? Never could get the hang of these newfangled contraptions" act, if challenged.
I have been sent the paraphernalia for going to Ascot next week. One LFT and two PCRs.
FAQ: what if I test positive? You can't go.
Do I really believe that the thousands upon thousands of people going to these test events have all tested negative and duly reported the results.
Depends if you're required to show proof of test on entry. If people are then they'll have to do the tests, if they aren't then about 97% of them will go straight in the bin.
You have to show proof of a negative test. The test is a self reported one.
Extraordinary this...Biden links arms with Macron and the EU not our PM. It is not the US relationship with the UK that is special now, it is the US one with leaders of the EU. https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1404005189384867844
Yet it was Merkel holding out against Biden, Macron and Johnson's push for G7 led infrastructure spending in the developing world to counter Chinese influence
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Realpolitik kicks "whatever bollocks the EU comes up with" down the road. It is not a problem for now. Nor do we have to stay aligned with EU standards - like any standards they are a minimum. We can improve our standards above theirs and still be compliant. As having better standards is government policy this shouldn't cause problems.
People keep demanding the other side compromise whilst refusing to even do the "compromise" of recognising the status quo. And then wonder why the rest of the G7 think we are twats.
The status quo is recognised by the UK. The UK explicitly recognises that our standards are as high as the EU's.
Its on the EU to recognise that, via the Joint Committee, not on us to do it.
If the EU won't fulfill its obligations then we can and should invoke Article 16 and make all this go away until they compromise.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Effiedeans is an absolute fruitcake. Like, Murdo Fraser has stepped in and called them out on their fruit cakery.
Voting for George Galloway levels of nuts.
Wait until she hears how (All) Ireland is set up for a lot of sports.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
But if the EU had been more flexible in its interpretation of the Single Market, particularly with regard to Freedom of Movement, we wouldn't have left in the first place, and they'd still have our hundreds of millions a week to waste. Nor would the Swiss have told them to shove it a few weeks ago.
The EU keeps shooting itself in the foot, but learns nothing each time.
Or alternatively, they weighed up the possibilities and decided that the compromises needed to keep the UK on board were a price not worth paying, net contributions and all.
Arrogant? Definitely. But so is one large country demanding that 27 countries should change the agreed rules in a way that the one wants and the 27 don't particularly.
I'm not saying that the EU right in their calculation, but it's not totally obvious that they're wrong either.
Of course, the one thing more frustrating than hatred is indifference.
They never thought the UK would leave. Until it did.
Cameron told them that he would win his referendum easily so they didn't think they had to give him anything (not that he bothered asking).
Then after the referendum they convinced themselves that it would be ignored one way or another - after all that was what had happened every time previously a referendum had produced a result they didn't like.
And throughout they were being told by their friends and 'experts' what the mood was in the 'Islington wine bar' as if that was representative of the country as a whole.
But it wasn't the Islington wine bar where the 2019 general election was decided but the Grimsby chip shop.
Things are not proceeding optimally. I had hoped once we actually left the clear, obvious mutual self interest of cooperation would prevail but it is at best a mixed bag with more emphasis on pomposity and grandstanding than progress. I would say that this is mainly the French and there is some hope that the example of scientific cooperation where many countries told them to calm down and behave might become more common but that is by no means certain.
What I am seeing on both sides in many cases is a hardening of attitudes. A lot of people I speak to, even those that voted remain, are now very relieved that we have left. It seems likely to me that EU exports to the UK are going to take a very serious hit. We are looking for our own path, particularly through the TPP. The EU don't like that we are no longer supplicants and are playing hard ball.
Sadly, they have plenty of opportunities to do so because the NI protocol was simply never going to work. It was not so much a sticking plaster as a convenient lie and the government's lies are now being exposed. It is uncomfortable.
Visible from space category of prediction, but agree things have turned out largely as I expected them to.
It occurs to me that the good thing about the Johnson deal from the government’s POV was not that it solved any of the inherent paradoxes of Brexit - the iron triangle remains in place after all - but rather that it enabled the government to blame the consequences of their failing to keep to the terms on the EU, who inevitably be placed in the position of having to enforce consequences for breaking it’s terms if the government failed to keep to them.
Had the government been honest about their intentions from the outset, they would have been forced to sign a different deal. “Oh no, the terrible EU is being mean & refusing to be pragmatic about things” is /so/ much easier to sell to an electorate that wants to believe it than “this is the inevitable consequence of the oven ready deal we sold you so enthusiastically”.
It’s entirely in keeping with Johnson’s character to sign a deal that he had no intention of keeping. Being able to spin the consequences of failing to keep to the terms as being the fault of the other party is a neat political trick though; we’ll have to see whether it works out.
Given that the Commission's negotiators were oh-so much more competent that the UK's, shouldn't they have understood that the Article 16 clause, which has a low bar for triggering it, could be used in this way?
They presumably did know (and/or certainly know now), which is presumably why all the talk is of trade wars, cutting off Jersey etc etc, rather than triggering the formal dispute/arbitration mechanisms within the protocol.
Although i read yesterday that the UK had betrayed the Cornish fisherman again yesterday with the latest agreement on access to UK waters for EU boats until the end of the year, so perhaps Macron is not quite as keen to actually act rock the boat as he is publicly saying.
The French and German elections are presumably also a big factor in what is going on...
The Mail are criticising the BBC for showing footage of Eriksen receiving CPR whilst in the same article there's a link to a Mail article showing Eriksen receiving CPR.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Wasn't the UK heavily involved in writing the food and farming standards documents.
Yes! Our standards are their standards because we largely wrote the standards. Apparently the reason we can't recognise that alignment is because at some point in the future the evil ones may raise standards maliciously just to screw us.
Its hilarious. We have their standards. We are planning to raise our standards. But we can't recognise our standards are their standards because they might raise their standards.
Its almost as if the stated government policy of "we won't lower our standards we will raise them" is a lie...
Standards don't exist on a simple sliding scale like Bruce Forsyth's "higher or lower?". They are highly political.
As and when there is a clash we can resolve it then. There is no clash now. We are going to war with the EU and US over a potential row in the future. And in doing so we reduce significantly the prospect of anyone else doing trade deals with us.
The EU backed by the US are not going to back down when its us who have shat on our own deal. Our government and some on here may think the opposite but that doesn't change reality. As Biden tells the world "America is back" and is now behaving, we are going to have to do the same. Won't be Johnson doing it, question for PB Tories is which alternative leader can do the business we need with the likes of Biden. It clearly isn't Johnson.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I am pretty resigned now to Step 4 not happening this year. By the time we get to mid to late July the modellers will be looking at the autumn wave and so on. It will all about protecting the NHS thru winter. Already you can see the beginnings of it in today's papers: just read a piece about how massively swamped A&E is (and it's June!!!).
The years of under funding of the health service are coming home to roost.
I can live without Step 4 on a purely personal basis. The pub is open but social distanced. But the economics are terrible. Of course the local pubs wont survive another year of this without further injections of cash and is Sunak ready to do that? How much money can the BoE print?
Johnson is on a vaccine roll. Starmer is on the floor.
Me thinks it will look very very different in say November this year. Goodbye vaccine bounce.
IF you think that even staying where we are is cast in stone, you really can think again.
The pressure to reinstate new lockdown measures in the autumn will be intense as cases inevitably soar.
We will have the same round of scientist, media, scientist media doom porn campaign. And another government cave in.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
They want to amputate all our limbs and make us live in small wooden boxes for the rest of our lives, and the first on the list is you.
You are never going to be right, I am afraid. Everything you adduce as 1984 evidence always was and will be explicable as varying degrees of prudence, incompetence and cowardice in the face of factual and scientific uncertainty.
No argument, as ever with you.
Only insults and smearing.
I didn't insult or smear you, though as you are an anti vaccer I probably should have done. No argument from you either, ever.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I wish you’d actually engage with the facts on the ground instead of this fantasy world you seem to inhabit where nefarious characters are scheming to steal your bodily fluids / control your every move / corrupt your children / whatever it is this time.
Either lockdown is justified or it isn’t. The justifications for the previous lockdowns was the imminent overwhelming of NHS capacity & the high loss of life that would inevitably follow. If we are in the same position now, then another lockdown is justified on the same grounds. If not, then not.
How many people are you willing to kill contrarian? So far we’ve killed what, 150k? Is a further 30k acceptable to you? Where’s the limit? Every one of those deaths has at least another individual who has suffered life changing organ damage thanks to internal clotting as well. This isn’t just about the deaths - the cost to the country is huge.
Once again, we are in the gap between vaccination covering enough of the population for herd immunity to be real & coronavirus spreading through the community exponentially. Once again, this is because the government didn’t take the (obvious) risk seriously enough to take lesser action earlier & is now forced to take stronger action later. They keep on refusing to take the small actions early because of people like you. It’s painful to see this endless denial of reality played out over and over again at the cost of 10s of thousands of lives, but apparently that’s where we are.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Although in the case of Rugby League it was historically a GB team. It was the breaking up of GB into constituent parts to try and cobble together enough teams for a World Cup that seriously undermined the competetiveness of the International game. Which was historically pretty much Aus and GB. Although now NZ are a serious force, and GB teams struggle to compete.
It was the same with Hartlepool. People think of these places just as grim, poor, places with terrible housing and lots of people on benefits when the reality is there are lots of nice parts in these seats, lots of nice housing estates with high levels of ownership. To be honest you look at them and think how were they still so solidly labour until now
Certainly my experience of Grimsby - another of those supposedly awful places that's full of nice houses and comfortably off people, and which has also recently given Labour the heave-ho.
For me, it was 30 years ago when I was doing my tour of British racecourses and I went to Sedgefield. I imagined a grimy mining town, a bit like South Wales, but it was nothing like it. Rural and some beautiful views and Bishop Auckland was delightful.
The same is true down here - I would imagine those who don't know might assume places like St Just, Hayle and Camborne in Cornwall would be pretty little seaside towns (like St Ives) - they aren't.
The reality of England, let alone Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, is it overturns our assumptions and pre-conceptions and rightly so. It is so much more varied and nuanced and complex than lazy writers or thinkers make it - I do wonder if television representations of places like London, Manchester or rural Yorkshire in soaps have perpetuated and deepened these misconceptions.
Albert Square is not real - there is nowhere in London I can think of that is anything like it.
Isn't Albert Square somewhat more similar to Havering now than Hackney ?
Leave it ahhht, as I believe they say.
Not so much that it isn't true, but the factors that gentrified Hackney are beginning to be felt in Zone 6. A lot of house sales are from a white, older, lower middle class couple to a not-necessarily-white, younger, middle middle class family. And an organic food shop and cafe has just opened up down the road from me. I wish Romford had gentrified squares to live on- it seems such a civilised way to arrange things.
Romford will do well for the Conservatives for as long as Andrew Rosindell wants, but his successor might well have a trickier time of it- especially if they try the same shtick.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Cricket is played as England and Wales, rugby union also has the British Lions and there is also now a rugby league equivalent, Hockey plays as part of the UK team at the Olympics. Golf is played as Europe at the Ryder Cup and GB and Ireland at the Walker Cup, otherwise it is competed for by individuals. There is a GB tennis team at the Davis Cup too
The Mail are criticising the BBC for showing footage of Eriksen receiving CPR whilst in the same article there's a link to a Mail article showing Eriksen receiving CPR.
I suppose in their defence, the usual protocol is "don't show the pictures/video until you know the outcome".
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Effiedeans is an absolute fruitcake. Like, Murdo Fraser has stepped in and called them out on their fruit cakery.
Voting for George Galloway levels of nuts.
I love the way she prefaces the whole piece by telling us that she has zero interest in sport and won’t be watching the tournament. She also seems to imply that the EU should field a single team.
In short, crackers. I’m amazed that @hyufd cited her to be honest!
It's all part of the rage against the dying of the light.
To most people on both sides of the border, the Union is worthless and they either want it bringing down or don't care one way or the other.
Personally I think it's a shame because we still have a lot in common and the idea of a single Government encompassing the whole of Great Britain still has merit but, as @TSE has recently described it, the relationship between Scotland and England is now that of parasite and host. If the Treasury didn't bribe the Scots (and Scotland is wealthier than most of the English regions) with vastly inflated levels of public spending per capita, which pays for their free prescriptions, free elderly care and free tuition fees at no cost to themselves, then support for the Union there would collapse.
From the English perspective, there are almost no good arguments for Union left. It pretty much comes down to vague wibble about a diminution of national greatness, and seat wetting about the UN Security Council that 99.75% of the population couldn't give a gnats todger about. And it would solve so many problems. For, if Scotland goes, so does Northern Ireland. A clearout of the malcontents, with all of the most critical post-Brexit problems bedevilling the relationship with the EU automatically resolved into the bargain. I mean, what's not to like?
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
The record can be seen in the NHS app (but not the Covid one, oddly). And you also get a meaningless bit of cardboard with it written on in biro.
So the NHS App is different from the NHS Trace and Trace App?
If you have the NHS App, showing vaccination history, does it show any other health history and is it linked in any way to the NHS Track and Trace App?
It shows your entire NHS records, lets you order prescriptions, etc. Not linked to covid app.
Could it sneakily be linked to the other App, either in the background now or in the future?
No. The whole point of the other app is that it must be anonymous and Apple/Google won't allow short circuits to get around that.
No, you are confusing the bluetooth proximity feature (Apple/Google) = anonymous, and the track and trace bit using QR codes = not anonymous (or i'm not sure - it at least gives the NHS track and trace team your phone details).
But to the extent that the Covid app is not anonymous, i don't see why there would be any purpose in linking to the NHS app. What reason would there be for doing so?
Not confusing it. The QR codes are anonymous too because all attempts by the app developers to circumvent the anonymous features via the QR codes etc have been rejected by Apple and Google. Which is what people here were saying would be done by Apple and Google.
Hence why they've switched development over to the alternative app.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I am pretty resigned now to Step 4 not happening this year. By the time we get to mid to late July the modellers will be looking at the autumn wave and so on. It will all about protecting the NHS thru winter. Already you can see the beginnings of it in today's papers: just read a piece about how massively swamped A&E is (and it's June!!!).
The years of under funding of the health service are coming home to roost.
I can live without Step 4 on a purely personal basis. The pub is open but social distanced. But the economics are terrible. Of course the local pubs wont survive another year of this without further injections of cash and is Sunak ready to do that? How much money can the BoE print?
Johnson is on a vaccine roll. Starmer is on the floor.
Me thinks it will look very very different in say November this year. Goodbye vaccine bounce.
IF you think that even staying where we are is cast in stone, you really can think again.
The pressure to reinstate new lockdown measures in the autumn will be intense as cases inevitably soar.
We will have the same round of scientist, media, scientist media doom porn campaign. And another government cave in.
Likely, but not a definite I think at the moment. I am trying to be optimistic that we will be allowed to get thru coming winter with masks and social distancing but not shut all non-essential retail and pubs/cafes etc. Don't forget Johnson needs to take his party with him and there is plenty of discontent on the backbench over all this.
"The London-based commentariat has convinced itself that Geordie Tory is a left-behind loser who voted for a Brexit and Boris spit-roast to express his rage at globalisation. This is only a small part of the story. For the hidden truth about Geordie Tory is that he is actually doing rather well for himself. He did not go to university (thus avoiding a pile of student debt), but quickly found a job at a local firm, and his money goes much further in the north than it would in the south. He lives in a four-bedroomed semi-detached, has a couple of cars in the drive and can rely on two sets of grandparents to chip in with child care. He zips to work or Asda in a few minutes, thinks the local school is doing an acceptable job and looks forward to his next holiday in Florida, providing the government can stop faffing about. He pities his school friends who went to university, moved down south and now either live in a crowded flat or (before the covid-19 pandemic) spent a couple of hours a day on a packed train."
Its noticeable that whenever you see a program about Conservative gains anywhere between Bolsover and Blyth its filled with 'grim up north' imagery.
Where they should be filmed is a new housing development or a supermarket car park.
It was the same with Hartlepool. People think of these places just as grim, poor, places with terrible housing and lots of people on benefits when the reality is there are lots of nice parts in these seats, lots of nice housing estates with high levels of ownership. To be honest you look at them and think how were they still so solidly labour until now
"Our family's always been Labour, they're the party of the working class."
I'm sure there is an equivalent Conservative mentality in parts of the South.
True, but whereas labour has really moved away from its working communities core the Tories still retain theirs. Their,issue is balancing the new Tories demands with the old Tories expectations.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I wish you’d actually engage with the facts on the ground instead of this fantasy world you seem to inhabit where nefarious characters are scheming to steal your bodily fluids / control your every move / corrupt your children / whatever it is this time.
Either lockdown is justified or it isn’t. The justifications for the previous lockdowns was the imminent overwhelming of NHS capacity & the high loss of life that would inevitably follow. If we are in the same position now, then another lockdown is justified on the same grounds. If not, then not.
How many people are you willing to kill contrarian? So far we’ve killed what, 150k? Is a further 30k acceptable to you? Where’s the limit? Every one of those deaths has at least another individual who has suffered life changing organ damage thanks to internal clotting as well. This isn’t just about the deaths - the cost to the country is huge.
Once again, we are in the gap between vaccination covering enough of the population for herd immunity to be real & coronavirus spreading through the community exponentially. Once again, this is because the government didn’t take the (obvious) risk seriously enough to take lesser action earlier & is now forced to take stronger action later. They keep on refusing to take the small actions early because of people like you. It’s painful to see this endless denial of reality played out over and over again at the cost of 10s of thousands of lives, but apparently that’s where we are.
The reality, is Texas. The reality is Florida. The reality is the EU, where they are opening up with much lower rates of vaccination. The reality is the huge debt we are piling up and the money we are printing.
The reality is the rest of the world is starting to move beyond this virus whilst we aren;'t
The Mail are criticising the BBC for showing footage of Eriksen receiving CPR whilst in the same article there's a link to a Mail article showing Eriksen receiving CPR.
Yes the BBC badly messed up. I flicked over for at least 15 minutes and they were still showing the cameras trying to zoom in on Eriksen. Feel bad for Jonathan Pearce, he was properly thrown under the bus and I bet he’s livid with his bosses.
The Mail are criticising the BBC for showing footage of Eriksen receiving CPR whilst in the same article there's a link to a Mail article showing Eriksen receiving CPR.
The Mail are also running an article saying that there is "fury" that the game was played. And angry fans calling for the tournament to be cancelled... And we are surprised when a zero Covid attitude arises?
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I wish you’d actually engage with the facts on the ground instead of this fantasy world you seem to inhabit where nefarious characters are scheming to steal your bodily fluids / control your every move / corrupt your children / whatever it is this time.
Either lockdown is justified or it isn’t. The justifications for the previous lockdowns was the imminent overwhelming of NHS capacity & the high loss of life that would inevitably follow. If we are in the same position now, then another lockdown is justified on the same grounds. If not, then not.
How many people are you willing to kill contrarian? So far we’ve killed what, 150k? Is a further 30k acceptable to you? Where’s the limit? Every one of those deaths has at least another individual who has suffered life changing organ damage thanks to internal clotting as well. This isn’t just about the deaths - the cost to the country is huge.
Once again, we are in the gap between vaccination covering enough of the population for herd immunity to be real & coronavirus spreading through the community exponentially. Once again, this is because the government didn’t take the (obvious) risk seriously enough to take lesser action earlier & is now forced to take stronger action later. They keep on refusing to take the small actions early because of people like you. It’s painful to see this endless denial of reality played out over and over again at the cost of 10s of thousands of lives, but apparently that’s where we are.
The reality, is Texas. The reality is Florida. The reality is the EU, where they are opening up with much lower rates of vaccination. The reality is the huge debt we are piling up and the money we are printing.
The reality is the rest of the world is starting to move beyond this virus whilst we aren;'t
It's you who are living in the land of delusion.
As an experiment, try leaving your house and going to the pub and let us know at which point you get arrested.
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
What I did was to give a call to the COVID status helpline on 0808 196 8565 between 10am and 6pm. You give them your details and the dates of your vaccinations. Then after a few days a blue envelope comes through your letterbox with the certificate. Over 75s can only do this. But a young fellow like you can alternatively go to the the NHSinform website www.nhsinform.scot/covid-19-vaccine/after-your-vaccine/get-a-record-of-your-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-status. You will need the username and password you got when booking the vaccinations. But "NHS Scotland have advised that they will be changing this process in June or July". So safer to use the old dog and bone method imho.
In England it's there on the NHS App. You can download and print it.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
But if the EU had been more flexible in its interpretation of the Single Market, particularly with regard to Freedom of Movement, we wouldn't have left in the first place, and they'd still have our hundreds of millions a week to waste. Nor would the Swiss have told them to shove it a few weeks ago.
The EU keeps shooting itself in the foot, but learns nothing each time.
Or alternatively, they weighed up the possibilities and decided that the compromises needed to keep the UK on board were a price not worth paying, net contributions and all.
Arrogant? Definitely. But so is one large country demanding that 27 countries should change the agreed rules in a way that the one wants and the 27 don't particularly.
I'm not saying that the EU right in their calculation, but it's not totally obvious that they're wrong either.
Of course, the one thing more frustrating than hatred is indifference.
They never thought the UK would leave. Until it did.
Cameron told them that he would win his referendum easily so they didn't think they had to give him anything (not that he bothered asking).
Then after the referendum they convinced themselves that it would be ignored one way or another - after all that was what had happened every time previously a referendum had produced a result they didn't like.
And throughout they were being told by their friends and 'experts' what the mood was in the 'Islington wine bar' as if that was representative of the country as a whole.
But it wasn't the Islington wine bar where the 2019 general election was decided but the Grimsby chip shop.
Things are not proceeding optimally. I had hoped once we actually left the clear, obvious mutual self interest of cooperation would prevail but it is at best a mixed bag with more emphasis on pomposity and grandstanding than progress. I would say that this is mainly the French and there is some hope that the example of scientific cooperation where many countries told them to calm down and behave might become more common but that is by no means certain.
What I am seeing on both sides in many cases is a hardening of attitudes. A lot of people I speak to, even those that voted remain, are now very relieved that we have left. It seems likely to me that EU exports to the UK are going to take a very serious hit. We are looking for our own path, particularly through the TPP. The EU don't like that we are no longer supplicants and are playing hard ball.
Sadly, they have plenty of opportunities to do so because the NI protocol was simply never going to work. It was not so much a sticking plaster as a convenient lie and the government's lies are now being exposed. It is uncomfortable.
Visible from space category of prediction, but agree things have turned out largely as I expected them to.
It occurs to me that the good thing about the Johnson deal from the government’s POV was not that it solved any of the inherent paradoxes of Brexit - the iron triangle remains in place after all - but rather that it enabled the government to blame the consequences of their failing to keep to the terms on the EU, who inevitably be placed in the position of having to enforce consequences for breaking it’s terms if the government failed to keep to them.
Had the government been honest about their intentions from the outset, they would have been forced to sign a different deal. “Oh no, the terrible EU is being mean & refusing to be pragmatic about things” is /so/ much easier to sell to an electorate that wants to believe it than “this is the inevitable consequence of the oven ready deal we sold you so enthusiastically”.
It’s entirely in keeping with Johnson’s character to sign a deal that he had no intention of keeping. Being able to spin the consequences of failing to keep to the terms as being the fault of the other party is a neat political trick though; we’ll have to see whether it works out.
The thing is that signing a deal with next to no intention of keeping to it works for internal politics, but it really doesn't work internationally. Or rather, it can work for a while the first time you do it. But international relations aren't a single hand of poker, they're a never-ending poker school where players drift in and out but reputations develop as the game continues.
If I were any other nation negotiating a deal with the UK now, I'd be taking even more care than normal to make sure that the UK's obligations under said deal were totally nailed down.
Unless the UK can persuade the rest of the world that they are the injured party and it's all Europe's fault. Good luck with that.
The (almost only) function of treaties is to get the other side to commit to a course of action that they may be unwilling to do, when the time comes. EU negotiators anticipated precisely the situation that has arisen over sausages etc. The EU is not being purist, it is requiring the UK to the course of action it committed to.
Treaties aren't like commercial contracts. They are more like a credit rating. Counterparties won't make their own commitments to the UK that involve compromises at their end. Arrangements will be ad-hoc, the equivalents of "money upfront", temporary and subject to cancellation at the whim of the other party. None of that is good for the UK.
Its bollox and we know its bollox from the data from Bolton, Blackburn, Bedfordshire and Kirklees.
Blackburn cases are still rising. On complete data (i.e. The 7th) Kirklees has just had it's highest ever single day cases since February.
Blackburn's cases have reached their peak and will now start falling, how far and how fast we don't know yet.
Kirklees is bouncing around (at a level far below what Bolton and Blackburn reached) as cases rise and fall in different parts of the borough.
But that's cases - the issue is hospitalisations and they're clearly not going to reach anywhere near the levels they reached in the winter in Bolton, Blackburn, Bedfordshire or Kirklees.
Which shows that any prediction of the country having higher hospitalisations than during the winter is bollox.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
What planet have you been on , France had plenty from their colonies and have had plenty of bombings and killings recently. Macron is right, England misusing it's colonies is coming home to roost.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Although in the case of Rugby League it was historically a GB team. It was the breaking up of GB into constituent parts to try and cobble together enough teams for a World Cup that seriously undermined the competetiveness of the International game. Which was historically pretty much Aus and GB. Although now NZ are a serious force, and GB teams struggle to compete.
The fact that you can now have been eligible to play State level and for Australia or NZ, and, later on change your allegiance to the country of your origin has done far more. Hence Samoa, Fiji, and, in particular, Tonga are now competitive forces. RL being the game of choice of the Pacific diaspora. Although not of their homelands.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Wasn't the UK heavily involved in writing the food and farming standards documents.
Yes! Our standards are their standards because we largely wrote the standards. Apparently the reason we can't recognise that alignment is because at some point in the future the evil ones may raise standards maliciously just to screw us.
Its hilarious. We have their standards. We are planning to raise our standards. But we can't recognise our standards are their standards because they might raise their standards.
Its almost as if the stated government policy of "we won't lower our standards we will raise them" is a lie...
Standards don't exist on a simple sliding scale like Bruce Forsyth's "higher or lower?". They are highly political.
As and when there is a clash we can resolve it then. There is no clash now. We are going to war with the EU and US over a potential row in the future. And in doing so we reduce significantly the prospect of anyone else doing trade deals with us.
The EU backed by the US are not going to back down when its us who have shat on our own deal. Our government and some on here may think the opposite but that doesn't change reality. As Biden tells the world "America is back" and is now behaving, we are going to have to do the same. Won't be Johnson doing it, question for PB Tories is which alternative leader can do the business we need with the likes of Biden. It clearly isn't Johnson.
Biden needs us to counter China and Russia and in terms of his infrastructure plan for the developing world it was Boris and Macron who were supportive and Merkel being difficult.
Looking at the body language of Boris and Biden it is also clear that Boris is in many ways an even stronger and charismatic personality than Biden is in the same way Thatcher was with Bush Snr and to some extent Reagan it is the UK PM who can lead on the relationship. Dominant UK PMs like Thatcher, Blair and Boris get a hearing in the US through sheer force of personality.
The days when Trump dominated May personality wise are past
A good Scottish run may reduce support for independence. National pride will have found another outlet. Doing better than England (unfortunately not probable) would be even better as it would put one over the English in a symbolic manner and sublimate the conflict. Sport is a socially acceptable outlet for impulses otherwise leading to conflict and war.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
The British side was aware of the situation when our current PM announced that he had an oven-ready deal. Or really ought to have been. This situation is entirely of our Government's making and, given it's attitude to co-operation to anyone nearer than an ocean away, it's hardly surprising if the EU (including RoI) regard the matter as 'not their problem'. It's entirely down to Johnson's bluster and his habit of 'winging it'.
TL;DR
It’s not my fault so I don’t care if the problem escalates.
That does seem to be our PM’s attitude.
He’s trying for a solution. The protocol isn’t working, the EU proposal is unacceptable so his team is looking for an alternative
The EU proposal is that we keep our word...
And is the consequences are civil strife?
The responsible thing to do is has a discussion with your partner and say “I’d there a better way”?
they spent years discussing it and agreed to Boris's great plan, what more do you want. Why did fatso sign his oven ready disaster.
The Mail are criticising the BBC for showing footage of Eriksen receiving CPR whilst in the same article there's a link to a Mail article showing Eriksen receiving CPR.
Yes the BBC badly messed up. I flicked over for at least 15 minutes and they were still showing the cameras trying to zoom in on Eriksen. Feel bad for Jonathan Pearce, he was properly thrown under the bus and I bet he’s livid with his bosses.
Sad that anti BBC types are exploiting Eriksen's health problems to push their partisan agenda.
As TLG86 said to you last night you could have switched channels.
Other channels across the world were also put in an awkward position like the BBC thanks to the host broadcaster in Denmark.
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
The record can be seen in the NHS app (but not the Covid one, oddly). And you also get a meaningless bit of cardboard with it written on in biro.
So the NHS App is different from the NHS Trace and Trace App?
If you have the NHS App, showing vaccination history, does it show any other health history and is it linked in any way to the NHS Track and Trace App?
It shows your entire NHS records, lets you order prescriptions, etc. Not linked to covid app.
Could it sneakily be linked to the other App, either in the background now or in the future?
Almost undoubtedly I should think. Although not given to 1984 think I'm afraid I fake it with the covid app, I just wave a phone at the QR code but don't let it register. Nobody notices or minds.
That's what my wife does but I'm such a law-abiding puss I'd feel physically sick with guilt if I did that.
I am old enough to do a convincing "Did it not work? Never could get the hang of these newfangled contraptions" act, if challenged.
I have been sent the paraphernalia for going to Ascot next week. One LFT and two PCRs.
FAQ: what if I test positive? You can't go.
Do I really believe that the thousands upon thousands of people going to these test events have all tested negative and duly reported the results.
Depends if you're required to show proof of test on entry. If people are then they'll have to do the tests, if they aren't then about 97% of them will go straight in the bin.
You have to show proof of a negative test. The test is a self reported one.
If the system actually relies on self-certification, rather than showing anything generated by a laboratory, then that's as good as no test at all. 97% of test kits straight to bin.
I wouldn't be surprised if PEDs are involved. There have been a few extremely fit pro cyclists in their 20s who have died of cardiac arrest. Michael Goolaerts dropped dead in the middle of the Paris-Roubaix in 2018.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I wish you’d actually engage with the facts on the ground instead of this fantasy world you seem to inhabit where nefarious characters are scheming to steal your bodily fluids / control your every move / corrupt your children / whatever it is this time.
Either lockdown is justified or it isn’t. The justifications for the previous lockdowns was the imminent overwhelming of NHS capacity & the high loss of life that would inevitably follow. If we are in the same position now, then another lockdown is justified on the same grounds. If not, then not.
How many people are you willing to kill contrarian? So far we’ve killed what, 150k? Is a further 30k acceptable to you? Where’s the limit? Every one of those deaths has at least another individual who has suffered life changing organ damage thanks to internal clotting as well. This isn’t just about the deaths - the cost to the country is huge.
Once again, we are in the gap between vaccination covering enough of the population for herd immunity to be real & coronavirus spreading through the community exponentially. Once again, this is because the government didn’t take the (obvious) risk seriously enough to take lesser action earlier & is now forced to take stronger action later. They keep on refusing to take the small actions early because of people like you. It’s painful to see this endless denial of reality played out over and over again at the cost of 10s of thousands of lives, but apparently that’s where we are.
I don't agree that it's a binary whereby some legal restrictions are either 'justified' or 'not justified' at this point. I think we're in a grey area. There's a solid rationale for the delay although I personally disagree with it.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
The British side was aware of the situation when our current PM announced that he had an oven-ready deal. Or really ought to have been. This situation is entirely of our Government's making and, given it's attitude to co-operation to anyone nearer than an ocean away, it's hardly surprising if the EU (including RoI) regard the matter as 'not their problem'. It's entirely down to Johnson's bluster and his habit of 'winging it'.
TL;DR
It’s not my fault so I don’t care if the problem escalates.
That does seem to be our PM’s attitude.
He’s trying for a solution. The protocol isn’t working, the EU proposal is unacceptable so his team is looking for an alternative
The EU proposal is that we keep our word...
The jingoists on here have little care for keeping their word, they have no morals and no principles , they just want their own way regardless.
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
The record can be seen in the NHS app (but not the Covid one, oddly). And you also get a meaningless bit of cardboard with it written on in biro.
So the NHS App is different from the NHS Trace and Trace App?
If you have the NHS App, showing vaccination history, does it show any other health history and is it linked in any way to the NHS Track and Trace App?
It shows your entire NHS records, lets you order prescriptions, etc. Not linked to covid app.
Could it sneakily be linked to the other App, either in the background now or in the future?
No. The whole point of the other app is that it must be anonymous and Apple/Google won't allow short circuits to get around that.
No, you are confusing the bluetooth proximity feature (Apple/Google) = anonymous, and the track and trace bit using QR codes = not anonymous (or i'm not sure - it at least gives the NHS track and trace team your phone details).
But to the extent that the Covid app is not anonymous, i don't see why there would be any purpose in linking to the NHS app. What reason would there be for doing so?
Not confusing it. The QR codes are anonymous too because all attempts by the app developers to circumvent the anonymous features via the QR codes etc have been rejected by Apple and Google. Which is what people here were saying would be done by Apple and Google.
Hence why they've switched development over to the alternative app.
I really don't think you're correct here, but would need others to confirm. The Apple/Google bit of the app is all about bluetooth proximity. If you trigger as a result of that, the ONLY person who will know about it is you. Whether you then isolate or not, is purely down to yourself.
The QR code for signing into venues is completely different. If you get a trigger warning as a result of that, then the details are passed to the NHS track and trace and you will get a call. Whether they get any more than your phone number, i don't know.
A good Scottish run may reduce support for independence. National pride will have found another outlet. Doing better than England (unfortunately not probable) would be even better as it would put one over the English in a symbolic manner and sublimate the conflict. Sport is a socially acceptable outlet for impulses otherwise leading to conflict and war.
There is a credible prospect of Scotland beating England in their head-to-head. We shall have to see how the Croatia match goes this afternoon but if, as expected, England lose then they'll already be under immense pressure when they play Scotland. And the England team really isn't that good.
Yet another sign that the EU a see Northern Ireland purely as a political football to push around the UK, paying little regard to the history of the Province.
As I’ve said before, the EU really need to let the UK sand RoI sort out the Province between them, the Union has no understanding of the place.
The EU know nothing about NI, and care even less.
They never had to suffer the horrific bombings, maimings or shootings.
'The EU' includes the Rep. of Ireland which has a deep and longstanding involvement with the problems of unhappy Northern Ireland.
However NI was doing very well when both the Republic and the UK, including NI were part of the EU, and many warned that leaving the EU would cause problems. Johnson, among other pooh-poohed that idea.
Any problems therefor are down to Britains hard Brexit government to solve. Especially as it signed an agreement which, it was claimed, solved them.
Sorry OKC that’s complete bollocks
Regardless of whether the issues are “down to” Brexit both sides need to work to solve them.
The GFA was established to achieve an objective (fudging the border) but was predicated on both RoI and the UK being in the EEA.
That is no longer the case. So the rational thing to do is to find another way to achieve the same objective. It is clear the protocol is contributing to unionist disquiet and tension in the province. So we need to look at another solution.
Part of the problem is the EU’s insistence on the sanctity of the single market. That implies there needs to be a hard border somewhere in the chain GB-NI-ROI-EU. None of the options are acceptable to all the parties. So people need to figure out a more creative solution - a process with which the EU Commission has refused to engage.
There is a simple solution. UK standards are EU standards cos we wrote them. UK standards are going to increase. So we are aligned and will remain aligned. We can have free trade tomorrow but we won't because that would be for the UK and EU to state the fact that we are aligned.
Johnson can't have that. So instead we will have trade sanctions due to the non-compliance of the UK which is compliant. Its so stupid, macho posturing instead of realpolitik. When the UK doesn't stick to its word and to agreements signed months ago there is little incentive for other parties to waste more time engaging with us when we will just trash that agreement as well.
The UK are acting like twats. As the US were. Biden is telling the G7 "America is back" in that it is now behaving and is sorry. Until we stop twatting about and say sorry, we will have no friends and no allies on this one. It is on us to compromise from our current position not them. If the deal doesn't work then its status quo ante time.
This is, of course, bullshit.
The question is not whether we are currently aligned, nor whether we are intent on improving our standards. It is that the EU want us to align with whatever new standards they chose to adopt in the future. Of course we are aligned now. But that does not mean we should remain aligned with whatever bollocks the EU come s up with in a year or a decades' time.
It is the EU and its apologists who are behaving like twats and making Johnson look reasonable. And given how much of a twat Johnson already is, that is some going.
Realpolitik kicks "whatever bollocks the EU comes up with" down the road. It is not a problem for now. Nor do we have to stay aligned with EU standards - like any standards they are a minimum. We can improve our standards above theirs and still be compliant. As having better standards is government policy this shouldn't cause problems.
People keep demanding the other side compromise whilst refusing to even do the "compromise" of recognising the status quo. And then wonder why the rest of the G7 think we are twats.
The status quo is recognised by the UK. The UK explicitly recognises that our standards are as high as the EU's.
Its on the EU to recognise that, via the Joint Committee, not on us to do it.
If the EU won't fulfill its obligations then we can and should invoke Article 16 and make all this go away until they compromise.
And with the US seeing that (understandably) as us breaching our own agreement, how does that then help us negotiate a brillo trade deal with the US?
What you think isn't what the US government thinks. Whose opinion is most relevant?
A good Scottish run may reduce support for independence. National pride will have found another outlet. Doing better than England (unfortunately not probable) would be even better as it would put one over the English in a symbolic manner and sublimate the conflict. Sport is a socially acceptable outlet for impulses otherwise leading to conflict and war.
I doubt it would make much difference either way, the impact of Sport on politics is overrated
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I wish you’d actually engage with the facts on the ground instead of this fantasy world you seem to inhabit where nefarious characters are scheming to steal your bodily fluids / control your every move / corrupt your children / whatever it is this time.
Either lockdown is justified or it isn’t. The justifications for the previous lockdowns was the imminent overwhelming of NHS capacity & the high loss of life that would inevitably follow. If we are in the same position now, then another lockdown is justified on the same grounds. If not, then not.
How many people are you willing to kill contrarian? So far we’ve killed what, 150k? Is a further 30k acceptable to you? Where’s the limit? Every one of those deaths has at least another individual who has suffered life changing organ damage thanks to internal clotting as well. This isn’t just about the deaths - the cost to the country is huge.
Once again, we are in the gap between vaccination covering enough of the population for herd immunity to be real & coronavirus spreading through the community exponentially. Once again, this is because the government didn’t take the (obvious) risk seriously enough to take lesser action earlier & is now forced to take stronger action later. They keep on refusing to take the small actions early because of people like you. It’s painful to see this endless denial of reality played out over and over again at the cost of 10s of thousands of lives, but apparently that’s where we are.
The problem with this is the argument is always to act early, because leaving it too late and getting it wrong will always make things worse later. But that attitude fails to take account of the downsides of taking action early and also being wrong. The models presented always have best case and worst case scenarios. If you always act early on the basis of the worst case scenarios then we would be on lockdown most of the time, whenever any new emerging transmissable disease turns up.
And past evidence is not always a guide to future performance.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I am pretty resigned now to Step 4 not happening this year. By the time we get to mid to late July the modellers will be looking at the autumn wave and so on. It will all about protecting the NHS thru winter. Already you can see the beginnings of it in today's papers: just read a piece about how massively swamped A&E is (and it's June!!!).
The years of under funding of the health service are coming home to roost.
I can live without Step 4 on a purely personal basis. The pub is open but social distanced. But the economics are terrible. Of course the local pubs wont survive another year of this without further injections of cash and is Sunak ready to do that? How much money can the BoE print?
Johnson is on a vaccine roll. Starmer is on the floor.
Me thinks it will look very very different in say November this year. Goodbye vaccine bounce.
IF you think that even staying where we are is cast in stone, you really can think again.
The pressure to reinstate new lockdown measures in the autumn will be intense as cases inevitably soar.
We will have the same round of scientist, media, scientist media doom porn campaign. And another government cave in.
Likely, but not a definite I think at the moment. I am trying to be optimistic that we will be allowed to get thru coming winter with masks and social distancing but not shut all non-essential retail and pubs/cafes etc. Don't forget Johnson needs to take his party with him and there is plenty of discontent on the backbench over all this.
Good morning
I have just listened to Professor Hunter on Sky, who actually said that a short pause is justified but that the vaccine rollout makes it counter productive to keep the country locked down beyond
He largely agreed with HMG strategy and, to be honest, it was so refreshing and so different from Independent Sage who frankly need to be put in a box and sealed away
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the sausage wars, if Johnson wanted to prevent them ambushing his Global Britain G7 triumph he could simply have asked Frost to lay off his Protocol rhetoric for a week.
Unite election is looking interesting in a Kremlinology sort of way...
Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84 · 28m If you want to stop the right taking over Unite - with massive political consequences - because the left, in classic fashion, are divided, please sign this letter >>
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I believe you are talking jingoistic mince, perhaps check facts or keep your trap shut when you have no clue what you are talking about.
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Unite election is looking interesting in a Kremlinology sort of way...
Owen Jones 🌹 @OwenJones84 · 28m If you want to stop the right taking over Unite - with massive political consequences - because the left, in classic fashion, are divided, please sign this letter >>
I presume by "the right", there is a candidate that isn't so far left they aren't falling off the edge of the world.
The Mail are criticising the BBC for showing footage of Eriksen receiving CPR whilst in the same article there's a link to a Mail article showing Eriksen receiving CPR.
Yes the BBC badly messed up. I flicked over for at least 15 minutes and they were still showing the cameras trying to zoom in on Eriksen. Feel bad for Jonathan Pearce, he was properly thrown under the bus and I bet he’s livid with his bosses.
Don't care about the absurdly named Euro 2020, but we had similar last night at the Indycar Grand Prix of Detroit. Felix Rosenquist's car broke on the approach to a corner and it smashed into a tyre barrier with a concrete block behind it at 160mph.
Helicopter showed us the safety and medical crews working on him in the car for a long uncomfortable time before the removed him and put him on the stretcher.
Boris Johnson was left infuriated by Macron when he suggested in their talks Northern Ireland was not part of the UK. A UK Government source tells the story below....
If only Macron were actually correct. It would make life vastly easier.
My own private solution for Northern Ireland is joint UK-ROI sovereignty or suzerainty (whatever that is).
A condominium, but one without balloon mortgage OR toxic mold.
The Northern Ireland problem (and the Scotland problem as well) are both insoluble whilst they're part of the UK.
Let them both go, then the people who live there can sort their own business out.
England and Wales can then sit down and have an adult conversation about whether or not to keep bothering with a common state.
Absolutely not, we are better and stronger together as one United Kingdom.
Scots decided to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and the UK government will correctly not allow the Scottish Nationalists another until a genuine generation has elapsed.
In Northern Ireland Unionist parties still get more votes than Nationalist parties and in Antrim for example every MP is from the DUP
Scotland may or may not be an asset but Northern Ireland is a tumour - embarassing politically and valueless economically. As the great Conservative Unionist Lord Salisbury noted, "... Ireland is our peculiar punishment, our unique affliction, among the family of nations. What crime have we committed, with what particular vice is our national character chargeable, that this chastisement should have befallen us?"
Without Scotland we fall firmly behind France economically and militarily.
Northern Irish Unionists are the most proud patriots in the whole UK even if sometimes a bit forcefully so, Ireland itself has been settled now with the Republic for those who wanted independence and the North for those who want to stay in the UK. Had that not occurred and Ulster Unionism been ignored then as that equally significant Unionist figure Lord Carson stated 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right!'
Who cares its not a good reason to keep them as we aren't planning on invading france
The whole point of being a Tory is to project as strong a UK as possible economically and militarily on the world stage.
Losing Scotland and Northern Ireland would make us weaker on both counts. Particularly damaging post Brexit when having left the EU we are supposed to be projecting ourselves as 'global Britain' across the world and strong enough to stand on our own 2 feet not breaking apart
Very few of us are tories, people voting tory as you are at frequent pains to point out doesn't make them a tory most people I think really dont care about losing NI certainly and to a lesser extent scotland. You few true tories are in a minority
Exactly. And since somebody is so fond of shoving any old polling stats down our throats, this:
Synopsis: Only 32% of English voters surveyed opposed independence for Scotland, just 20% were strongly opposed, and more English voters now oppose bribing Scotland to stay with even more money than are in favour.
The numbers will only turn against the Union, on both sides of the border, more and more as time progresses. The younger age groups in Scotland are strongly pro-secession, and the English are either apathetic about the survival of the Union or fed up with it. It is finished. Just a matter of time. And the idea that there'll be any appetite in England at all to keep hanging on to Northern Ireland once the Union fractures is for the birds.
In my dealings with politicians from the RoI. The overwhelming majority were, privately, happier for NI to be the UKs problem. Reunion of that island will cause an explosion of bloodshed. I suspect there will be a mass, perhaps forced, exodus of the unionists to the RUK mainland. Who pays for that financially is another matter but it will be extraordinarily expensive.
Having said that, although the loss of Scotland from the union will be very sad for historic reasons, it feels as if it is now inevitable. Will this see an exodus also of those who are unionist and feel as if they have no place in an Indy Scotland? May there also be terrorism?
No it most certainly is not 'inevitable.' For goodness sake, Unionist parties won more votes than Nationalist parties on the Holyrood constituency vote only last month
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Effiedeans is an absolute fruitcake. Like, Murdo Fraser has stepped in and called them out on their fruit cakery.
Voting for George Galloway levels of nuts.
I love the way she prefaces the whole piece by telling us that she has zero interest in sport and won’t be watching the tournament. She also seems to imply that the EU should field a single team.
In short, crackers. I’m amazed that @hyufd cited her to be honest!
It's all part of the rage against the dying of the light.
To most people on both sides of the border, the Union is worthless and they either want it bringing down or don't care one way or the other.
Personally I think it's a shame because we still have a lot in common and the idea of a single Government encompassing the whole of Great Britain still has merit but, as @TSE has recently described it, the relationship between Scotland and England is now that of parasite and host. If the Treasury didn't bribe the Scots (and Scotland is wealthier than most of the English regions) with vastly inflated levels of public spending per capita, which pays for their free prescriptions, free elderly care and free tuition fees at no cost to themselves, then support for the Union there would collapse.
From the English perspective, there are almost no good arguments for Union left. It pretty much comes down to vague wibble about a diminution of national greatness, and seat wetting about the UN Security Council that 99.75% of the population couldn't give a gnats todger about. And it would solve so many problems. For, if Scotland goes, so does Northern Ireland. A clearout of the malcontents, with all of the most critical post-Brexit problems bedevilling the relationship with the EU automatically resolved into the bargain. I mean, what's not to like?
No, to English Nationalists like you the Union is worthless and you are as bad as Scottish Nationalists.
I myself always have been and remain a diehard Unionist.
It would also certainly reduce our role and influence in the world, putting us clearly behind France, economically and militarily for example, a disaster for what is supposed to be a strong global Britain post Brexit. Post Brexit it would also lead to a hard border between England and Scotland now if Scotland rejoined the EU, hitting us both economically.
It would also not solve Northern Ireland either as loyalist areas like Antrim will never accept rule from Dublin either and rightly so, they are loyal to the UK and must remain so.
As Canada has showed with Quebec it is perfectly possible to keep a region with a strong identity in a Federal Union even if it ultimately requires devomax
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what?
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I am pretty resigned now to Step 4 not happening this year. By the time we get to mid to late July the modellers will be looking at the autumn wave and so on. It will all about protecting the NHS thru winter. Already you can see the beginnings of it in today's papers: just read a piece about how massively swamped A&E is (and it's June!!!).
The years of under funding of the health service are coming home to roost.
I can live without Step 4 on a purely personal basis. The pub is open but social distanced. But the economics are terrible. Of course the local pubs wont survive another year of this without further injections of cash and is Sunak ready to do that? How much money can the BoE print?
Johnson is on a vaccine roll. Starmer is on the floor.
Me thinks it will look very very different in say November this year. Goodbye vaccine bounce.
IF you think that even staying where we are is cast in stone, you really can think again.
The pressure to reinstate new lockdown measures in the autumn will be intense as cases inevitably soar.
We will have the same round of scientist, media, scientist media doom porn campaign. And another government cave in.
Likely, but not a definite I think at the moment. I am trying to be optimistic that we will be allowed to get thru coming winter with masks and social distancing but not shut all non-essential retail and pubs/cafes etc. Don't forget Johnson needs to take his party with him and there is plenty of discontent on the backbench over all this.
Good morning
I have just listened to Professor Hunter on Sky, who actually said that a short pause is justified but that the vaccine rollout makes it counter productive to keep the country locked down beyond
He largely agreed with HMG strategy and, to be honest, it was so refreshing and so different from Independent Sage who frankly need to be put in a box and sealed away
If the Government listens to middle-way, pragmatic types then we might just see an end to this. I see no reason to stall but if I thought that this was strictly time-limited then I'd be a lot less annoyed and a lot less worried about it.
You will, however, appreciate why so many of us suspect that the Zero Covidiots have taken over the asylum.
We appreciate that cases will be worse in a few weeks' time, and that the catastrophists amongst the scientific advisers will (ignoring whatever data comes out of the hospitals) scream for restrictions to continue and likely to be tightened. The list of additional excuses that they could trot out to justify this is very lengthy and has already been expounded in detail in previous threads.
And, sat at the centre of this, we have a Prime Minister who is weak, incompetent, and a Plague survivor himself. The prospect of endless delay and endless appeals to caution should not be dismissed out of hand.
I went for my second vaccine yesterday. I had rearranged it on the internet because I could not make the original appointment. As had a serious chunk of Dundee, apparently. There were more than 150 people queuing outside the Caird Hall where the vaccines were being administered. It took just over an hour to get to the door and another 30 minutes to have the jab inside. Some of the staff were muttering about something going wrong with the booking system, again. I did see one or two people just leave but the vast majority stood in line patiently. Much more mixed crowd this time, a lot of young people plus some old fogies like me back for the second jab.
I had a pretty rough night, hot and sore and feel somewhat less than 80% this morning but I am glad and relieved to have this done. A couple of weeks now and I will be safe. No certificates issued yesterday. Apparently an online app is "being thought about". Difficult to see how we get freedom for the vaccinated when we cannot establish who they are.
What on earth is the Scottish Government playing at? Does it really just come down to a refusal to just buy into the UK system? Are there irreconcilable compatability issues? Or what? I guess right now double vaccinated Scots don't currently have the ability to travel to France (or other countries requiring proof of vaccine on entry), even if they wanted to?
I am now double vaccinated. I have no evidence of that I can produce of that fact. Its almost as if Nicola is keen to justify keeping her petty controls of our social lives by not letting the system work. What do you get in England?
The record can be seen in the NHS app (but not the Covid one, oddly). And you also get a meaningless bit of cardboard with it written on in biro.
I got the piece of cardboard after the first vaccination but nothing yesterday.
Why on earth would support for Scottish independence rise if England won the Euros? If anything that would lead to a rise in English nationalism. Support for Scottish independence would likely be highest if Scotland did very well.
However for some Unionists the question is whether there should be 4 separate Home Nations teams in international football tournaments at all. For Effie Deans for example 'there would be no SNP today if the first “international” match between England and Scotland in 1872 had never taken place.'
As Deans argues Scotland is not an independent state and should not have its own team therefore. 'The criterion for members of Fifa is being a sovereign state with wide diplomatic recognition. In 2016 Fifa defined a country as "an independent state recognized by the international community". But Scotland is not an independent state, precisely because we rejected the chance to become one in 2014. Having explicitly done so it would have been logical for the Scottish Football Association to have disbanded just as the West German one did.'
She concludes we should therefore unite the 4 teams into 1 UK team much as East and West Germany united into 1 German team after unification and even argues the EU could follow suit. 'Just as the British Government has finally seen the sense of ceasing to refer to the United Kingdom as four nations, because this only helps the separatists, so it should do what Germany did in 1990. It should unite our football teams. If the EU is serious about unification, it should do the same.'
Another daft theorist who has no interest in sport.
Football, rugby union, cricket, golf, netball, rugby league, hockey — pretty much every major team sport — are organised on a home nations basis, which is key element of rivalry in the sporting arena.
Effiedeans is an absolute fruitcake. Like, Murdo Fraser has stepped in and called them out on their fruit cakery.
Voting for George Galloway levels of nuts.
I love the way she prefaces the whole piece by telling us that she has zero interest in sport and won’t be watching the tournament. She also seems to imply that the EU should field a single team.
In short, crackers. I’m amazed that @hyufd cited her to be honest!
One nutter citing a compatriot, no surprise. Both cheeks of the same arse.
I've said it a million and I'll say it again, Labour will never again form a majority government.
They simply do not have a broad enough base, and the Tories have moderated so much on economics that there is no point of Labour. People will say "oh but we've heard that about political parties before" but this time really is different.
Its not the leader, its not the policies its not the messaging. It is simply there is no need and no way they can come back. There is no mass scale unionisation, no way back in Scotland and the red wall ain't coming back as they won't go right wing enough on cultural and social issues.
What replaces them is yet to be seen, but they will NEVER EVER AGAIN win a majority or even close to it. 2019 was a watershed, more than we thought.
its quite obvious from the press today that there are powerful forces in this country that want to make the half life we have traded for 'safety' permanent in this country.
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
I am pretty resigned now to Step 4 not happening this year. By the time we get to mid to late July the modellers will be looking at the autumn wave and so on. It will all about protecting the NHS thru winter. Already you can see the beginnings of it in today's papers: just read a piece about how massively swamped A&E is (and it's June!!!).
The years of under funding of the health service are coming home to roost.
I can live without Step 4 on a purely personal basis. The pub is open but social distanced. But the economics are terrible. Of course the local pubs wont survive another year of this without further injections of cash and is Sunak ready to do that? How much money can the BoE print?
Johnson is on a vaccine roll. Starmer is on the floor.
Me thinks it will look very very different in say November this year. Goodbye vaccine bounce.
IF you think that even staying where we are is cast in stone, you really can think again.
The pressure to reinstate new lockdown measures in the autumn will be intense as cases inevitably soar.
We will have the same round of scientist, media, scientist media doom porn campaign. And another government cave in.
Likely, but not a definite I think at the moment. I am trying to be optimistic that we will be allowed to get thru coming winter with masks and social distancing but not shut all non-essential retail and pubs/cafes etc. Don't forget Johnson needs to take his party with him and there is plenty of discontent on the backbench over all this.
Good morning
I have just listened to Professor Hunter on Sky, who actually said that a short pause is justified but that the vaccine rollout makes it counter productive to keep the country locked down beyond
He largely agreed with HMG strategy and, to be honest, it was so refreshing and so different from Independent Sage who frankly need to be put in a box and sealed away
If the Government listens to middle-way, pragmatic types then we might just see an end to this. I see no reason to stall but if I thought that this was strictly time-limited then I'd be a lot less annoyed and a lot less worried about it.
You will, however, appreciate why so many of us suspect that the Zero Covidiots have taken over the asylum.
We appreciate that cases will be worse in a few weeks' time, and that the catastrophists amongst the scientific advisers will (ignoring whatever data comes out of the hospitals) scream for restrictions to continue and likely to be tightened. The list of additional excuses that they could trot out to justify this is very lengthy and has already been expounded in detail in previous threads.
And, sat at the centre of this, we have a Prime Minister who is weak, incompetent, and a Plague survivor himself. The prospect of endless delay and endless appeals to caution should not be dismissed out of hand.
And the fact that continuing restrictions are popular, and likely for many reasons not directly linked to Covid (as has been discussed/speculated - WFH etc). A situation which i can't see changing.
Comments
There's not a single legitimate reason the Joint Committee can't recognise where the UK and EU are currently aligned and say there's no risk on those issues since alignment exists; then if standards diverge the Joint Committee could deal with that then with us saying that either they need to meet our standards or we'll cease to recognise them or vice-versa.
There's no possible reason that either party needs to commit to future alignment, except that the EU are trying to entrap us to doing so for their own motives, not because as @RochdalePioneers insists that its required.
Voting for George Galloway levels of nuts.
Johnson negotiating the Northern Ireland Protocol was a real curveball for me, but I am not convinced the "No alignment ever" is a sustainable position, nor is refusing to honour your own treaties, arguments with all European and North American countries, incitement in a fragile Northern Ireland and then finally there is still the Scottish "problem". As you say, the iron paradox is still there.
https://twitter.com/GeorgePeretzQC/status/1404002714879762433
People keep demanding the other side compromise whilst refusing to even do the "compromise" of recognising the status quo. And then wonder why the rest of the G7 think we are twats.
In short, crackers. I’m amazed that @hyufd cited her to be honest!
One minister let the cat out of the bag by calling the one month delay what it is for many who want it. That is, a ruse to nurse us towards the autumn when all further unlocking will be impossible. Indeed, pressure to impose new lockdown measures will increase exponentially as respiratory disease increases.
Listen to labour and the scientists today and we would never, ever get out of this. Even with the tories it is looking doubtful now.
I have had dogs' abuse for a year for suggesting this might be where we would end up, I guess all there will be now is an embarrassed silence.
https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1404005189384867844
https://twitter.com/williamnhutton/status/1403991266594115587
If I were any other nation negotiating a deal with the UK now, I'd be taking even more care than normal to make sure that the UK's obligations under said deal were totally nailed down.
Unless the UK can persuade the rest of the world that they are the injured party and it's all Europe's fault. Good luck with that.
But a young fellow like you can alternatively go to the the NHSinform website www.nhsinform.scot/covid-19-vaccine/after-your-vaccine/get-a-record-of-your-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-status. You will need the username and password you got when booking the vaccinations. But "NHS Scotland have advised that they will be changing this process in June or July". So safer to use the old dog and bone method imho.
FAQ: what if I test positive? You can't go.
Do I really believe that the thousands upon thousands of people going to these test events have all tested negative and duly reported the results.
This gets worse with the further England go in international tournaments.
It would end his Premiership, as it ended May's
And there would be much rejoicing
You are never going to be right, I am afraid. Everything you adduce as 1984 evidence always was and will be explicable as varying degrees of prudence, incompetence and cowardice in the face of factual and scientific uncertainty.
Its hilarious. We have their standards. We are planning to raise our standards. But we can't recognise our standards are their standards because they might raise their standards.
Its almost as if the stated government policy of "we won't lower our standards we will raise them" is a lie...
The rest of Northern Ireland is a bit more divided apart from staunch Nationalist areas like West Belfast, however generally you can say that SF hold all the seats in Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone (albeit with a significant UUP vote in Fermanagh around Enniskillen) and the SDLP hold South Down and Foyle and all those areas also voted Remain so if there ever was to be repartition it is those areas plus West Belfast that would be united with the Republic and the rest of Northern Ireland could stay in the UK
Only insults and smearing.
The years of under funding of the health service are coming home to roost.
I can live without Step 4 on a purely personal basis. The pub is open but social distanced. But the economics are terrible. Of course the local pubs wont survive another year of this without further injections of cash and is Sunak ready to do that? How much money can the BoE print?
Johnson is on a vaccine roll. Starmer is on the floor.
Me thinks it will look very very different in say November this year. Goodbye vaccine bounce.
If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.
Has the application of the Protocol led to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties or diversion of trade? The advocates for the Protocol are literally saying yes.
Are the diversions likely to persist? The advocates for the Protocol are literally saying yes.
So the UK is fully entitled to invoke the Article.
Its on the EU to recognise that, via the Joint Committee, not on us to do it.
If the EU won't fulfill its obligations then we can and should invoke Article 16 and make all this go away until they compromise.
Although i read yesterday that the UK had betrayed the Cornish fisherman again yesterday with the latest agreement on access to UK waters for EU boats until the end of the year, so perhaps Macron is not quite as keen to actually act rock the boat as he is publicly saying.
The French and German elections are presumably also a big factor in what is going on...
"The pandemic and its responses were an overall lifesaver for younger people."
https://amp.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2021/jun/13/what-were-some-of-the-collateral-effects-of-lockdowns?__twitter_impression=true
The Mail are criticising the BBC for showing footage of Eriksen receiving CPR whilst in the same article there's a link to a Mail article showing Eriksen receiving CPR.
The EU backed by the US are not going to back down when its us who have shat on our own deal. Our government and some on here may think the opposite but that doesn't change reality. As Biden tells the world "America is back" and is now behaving, we are going to have to do the same. Won't be Johnson doing it, question for PB Tories is which alternative leader can do the business we need with the likes of Biden. It clearly isn't Johnson.
The pressure to reinstate new lockdown measures in the autumn will be intense as cases inevitably soar.
We will have the same round of scientist, media, scientist media doom porn campaign. And another government cave in.
Either lockdown is justified or it isn’t. The justifications for the previous lockdowns was the imminent overwhelming of NHS capacity & the high loss of life that would inevitably follow. If we are in the same position now, then another lockdown is justified on the same grounds. If not, then not.
How many people are you willing to kill contrarian? So far we’ve killed what, 150k? Is a further 30k acceptable to you? Where’s the limit? Every one of those deaths has at least another individual who has suffered life changing organ damage thanks to internal clotting as well. This isn’t just about the deaths - the cost to the country is huge.
Once again, we are in the gap between vaccination covering enough of the population for herd immunity to be real & coronavirus spreading through the community exponentially. Once again, this is because the government didn’t take the (obvious) risk seriously enough to take lesser action earlier & is now forced to take stronger action later. They keep on refusing to take the small actions early because of people like you. It’s painful to see this endless denial of reality played out over and over again at the cost of 10s of thousands of lives, but apparently that’s where we are.
Not so much that it isn't true, but the factors that gentrified Hackney are beginning to be felt in Zone 6. A lot of house sales are from a white, older, lower middle class couple to a not-necessarily-white, younger, middle middle class family. And an organic food shop and cafe has just opened up down the road from me. I wish Romford had gentrified squares to live on- it seems such a civilised way to arrange things.
Romford will do well for the Conservatives for as long as Andrew Rosindell wants, but his successor might well have a trickier time of it- especially if they try the same shtick.
To most people on both sides of the border, the Union is worthless and they either want it bringing down or don't care one way or the other.
Personally I think it's a shame because we still have a lot in common and the idea of a single Government encompassing the whole of Great Britain still has merit but, as @TSE has recently described it, the relationship between Scotland and England is now that of parasite and host. If the Treasury didn't bribe the Scots (and Scotland is wealthier than most of the English regions) with vastly inflated levels of public spending per capita, which pays for their free prescriptions, free elderly care and free tuition fees at no cost to themselves, then support for the Union there would collapse.
From the English perspective, there are almost no good arguments for Union left. It pretty much comes down to vague wibble about a diminution of national greatness, and seat wetting about the UN Security Council that 99.75% of the population couldn't give a gnats todger about. And it would solve so many problems. For, if Scotland goes, so does Northern Ireland. A clearout of the malcontents, with all of the most critical post-Brexit problems bedevilling the relationship with the EU automatically resolved into the bargain. I mean, what's not to like?
@Mark_J_Harper
The effectiveness of our vaccines at preventing hospitalisation means unlocking on 21 June could proceed safely.
Any decision to delay will be a political choice
https://twitter.com/Mark_J_Harper/status/1404010313457057793
Hence why they've switched development over to the alternative app.
The reality is the rest of the world is starting to move beyond this virus whilst we aren;'t
It's you who are living in the land of delusion.
And angry fans calling for the tournament to be cancelled...
And we are surprised when a zero Covid attitude arises?
https://youtu.be/upch33dRZnQ
Treaties aren't like commercial contracts. They are more like a credit rating. Counterparties won't make their own commitments to the UK that involve compromises at their end. Arrangements will be ad-hoc, the equivalents of "money upfront", temporary and subject to cancellation at the whim of the other party. None of that is good for the UK.
Kirklees is bouncing around (at a level far below what Bolton and Blackburn reached) as cases rise and fall in different parts of the borough.
But that's cases - the issue is hospitalisations and they're clearly not going to reach anywhere near the levels they reached in the winter in Bolton, Blackburn, Bedfordshire or Kirklees.
Which shows that any prediction of the country having higher hospitalisations than during the winter is bollox.
Hence Samoa, Fiji, and, in particular, Tonga are now competitive forces.
RL being the game of choice of the Pacific diaspora. Although not of their homelands.
Looking at the body language of Boris and Biden it is also clear that Boris is in many ways an even stronger and charismatic personality than Biden is in the same way Thatcher was with Bush Snr and to some extent Reagan it is the UK PM who can lead on the relationship. Dominant UK PMs like Thatcher, Blair and Boris get a hearing in the US through sheer force of personality.
The days when Trump dominated May personality wise are past
As TLG86 said to you last night you could have switched channels.
Other channels across the world were also put in an awkward position like the BBC thanks to the host broadcaster in Denmark.
But otherwise, spot on.
The QR code for signing into venues is completely different. If you get a trigger warning as a result of that, then the details are passed to the NHS track and trace and you will get a call. Whether they get any more than your phone number, i don't know.
They know that restrictions are splitting the tories and are very happy to back the PM.
What you think isn't what the US government thinks. Whose opinion is most relevant?
And past evidence is not always a guide to future performance.
I have just listened to Professor Hunter on Sky, who actually said that a short pause is justified but that the vaccine rollout makes it counter productive to keep the country locked down beyond
He largely agreed with HMG strategy and, to be honest, it was so refreshing and so different from Independent Sage who frankly need to be put in a box and sealed away
Owen Jones 🌹
@OwenJones84
·
28m
If you want to stop the right taking over Unite - with massive political consequences - because the left, in classic fashion, are divided, please sign this letter >>
Get a record of your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination status
Your vaccination status is a record of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations you have received.
Your status includes your name, date of birth, and any coronavirus vaccinations you have received in Scotland.
https://www.nhsinform.scot/covid-19-vaccine/after-your-vaccine/get-a-record-of-your-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-status
Helicopter showed us the safety and medical crews working on him in the car for a long uncomfortable time before the removed him and put him on the stretcher.
I myself always have been and remain a diehard Unionist.
It would also certainly reduce our role and influence in the world, putting us clearly behind France, economically and militarily for example, a disaster for what is supposed to be a strong global Britain post Brexit. Post Brexit it would also lead to a hard border between England and Scotland now if Scotland rejoined the EU, hitting us both economically.
It would also not solve Northern Ireland either as loyalist areas like Antrim will never accept rule from Dublin either and rightly so, they are loyal to the UK and must remain so.
As Canada has showed with Quebec it is perfectly possible to keep a region with a strong identity in a Federal Union even if it ultimately requires devomax
Oh wait, I can, and we're going to a restaurant and cinema afterwards as well.
https://www.nhsinform.scot/covid-19-vaccine/after-your-vaccine/get-a-record-of-your-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-status
You will, however, appreciate why so many of us suspect that the Zero Covidiots have taken over the asylum.
We appreciate that cases will be worse in a few weeks' time, and that the catastrophists amongst the scientific advisers will (ignoring whatever data comes out of the hospitals) scream for restrictions to continue and likely to be tightened. The list of additional excuses that they could trot out to justify this is very lengthy and has already been expounded in detail in previous threads.
And, sat at the centre of this, we have a Prime Minister who is weak, incompetent, and a Plague survivor himself. The prospect of endless delay and endless appeals to caution should not be dismissed out of hand.
https://order-order.com/2021/06/13/sage-member-uk-now-set-for-substantial-third-wave/
They simply do not have a broad enough base, and the Tories have moderated so much on economics that there is no point of Labour. People will say "oh but we've heard that about political parties before" but this time really is different.
Its not the leader, its not the policies its not the messaging. It is simply there is no need and no way they can come back. There is no mass scale unionisation, no way back in Scotland and the red wall ain't coming back as they won't go right wing enough on cultural and social issues.
What replaces them is yet to be seen, but they will NEVER EVER AGAIN win a majority or even close to it. 2019 was a watershed, more than we thought.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1404013492005490693
CON: 45% (+4)
LAB: 32% (-1)
LDEM: 8% (-2)
GRN: 6% (-1)
REFUK: 2% (-1)
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@KantarPublic
, 03 - 07 Jun
Chgs. w/ Apr