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Opinium has the Midlands and the North recording the biggest falls in Boris’s approval ratings – pol

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Comments

  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,551
    Foxy said:

    Roger said:

    A little perspective:


    What is the new perspective? I see a figure which is worse than Trump's before he was hammered at the US election and stands at a rather dismal -13.

    PS. Well done taking over the Sunday morning shift from Philip. It's about time they employed a female

    I don't think Boris is going to.encourage his supporters to storm Parliament and trash it.

    Rogerdamus.. never right, talks shite.
    We do have our own Q Anon. They had a big protest yesterday, and there was some quite scary stuff being said:

    I can’t believe I’m tweeting this. As an ICU doctor who has given everything they have trying to save lives this makes me want to cry.

    “Get their names, email them to me. At the Nuremberg trial the doctors and nurses stood trial, and they hung”.

    https://t.co/9tZeqru1Vk

    https://twitter.com/sbattrawden/status/1418984363304394762?s=19

    And there was more bat shit craziness too from Icke, Hopkins and Piers Corbyn. Satanic plots and 5g masts etc.
    These guys are nuts - but it notable that a movement which dabbles in quasi fascism uses Nazi slurs against its innocent targets.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Why?

    Viewers are getting 2 feeds which will cover most of the events that most of the people are interested in. That would seem to me to cover the obligations of a public sector broadcaster. Why should we give taxpayers cash to a US billionaire?
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,262
    edited July 2021
    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.

    But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.

    So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
    Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions. None of us (including, with respect, your mother) are as (relatively) safe as we were before the pandemic, so it's a matter of judgment. If she feels that a trip to Greece isn't worth the residual risk, shouldn't you perhaps accept that for now, and hope she feels more confident at a later time?

    But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    kinabalu said:

    Also to correct a mistake from me on PT. Quite a bad one. I said I have a predilection for carbonara and chips. This is not the case (as if). It's bolognese and chips. Getting my pasta sauces mixed up.

    Have you tried adding pineapple to the bolognese recipe?
    Get down to confession NOW! Thoughts like that indeed!
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Roger said:

    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things

    Because a daily press conference allowed the press to ask questions on a daily basis and those questions might be awkward questions.

    The fact they would actually be why can't I go to my villa in (insert country here) is neither here nor there.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    DougSeal said:

    Foxy said:

    eek said:

    Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated

    https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1419233632993095689

    In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…

    Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement

    Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?

    Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
    I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.

    Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
    Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity

    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    The successive emergence of the more transmissible alpha and delta SARCoV2 lineages mean that the vast majority of the global population is expected to get infected by the virus, likely more than once over their lifetime.
    https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879625721000730?v=s5
    1/

    https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1418364472771624968
    "over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.

    Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.

    Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
    Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:

    Richard 📊📉
    @RP131
    ·
    33m
    Replying to
    @Peston
    They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
    Peston’s a funny one this pandemic. I can’t say I blame him though given what happened to his wife - the immune suppressing drugs she would have been on would make anyone wary of such a nasty virus.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    DougSeal said:

    Foxy said:

    eek said:

    Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated

    https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1419233632993095689

    In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…

    Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement

    Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?

    Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
    I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.

    Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
    Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity

    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    The successive emergence of the more transmissible alpha and delta SARCoV2 lineages mean that the vast majority of the global population is expected to get infected by the virus, likely more than once over their lifetime.
    https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879625721000730?v=s5
    1/

    https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1418364472771624968
    "over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.

    Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.

    Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
    Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:

    Richard 📊📉
    @RP131
    ·
    33m
    Replying to
    @Peston
    They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
    Peston is a joke - who can forget the missing telephone line incident!
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    When is Peston going to get the sack for consistent spreading of fake news?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    eek said:

    Roger said:

    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things

    Because a daily press conference allowed the press to ask questions on a daily basis and those questions might be awkward questions.

    The fact they would actually be why can't I go to my villa in (insert country here) is neither here nor there.
    Did she leave or was she fired and what was the reason given?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.

    But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.

    So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
    Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.

    But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
    He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited July 2021
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.

    I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!

    Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
    Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.

    Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,050

    DougSeal said:

    Foxy said:

    eek said:

    Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated

    https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1419233632993095689

    In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…

    Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement

    Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?

    Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
    I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.

    Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
    Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity

    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    The successive emergence of the more transmissible alpha and delta SARCoV2 lineages mean that the vast majority of the global population is expected to get infected by the virus, likely more than once over their lifetime.
    https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879625721000730?v=s5
    1/

    https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1418364472771624968
    "over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.

    Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.

    Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
    Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:

    Richard 📊📉
    @RP131
    ·
    33m
    Replying to
    @Peston
    They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
    That figure would suggest that around 200 re-infections are happening in the UK each day, potentially many more as testing was Quote poor in the first wave, so many undocumented first cases.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    You might as well blame all governments everywhere because I've seen no discernible differences in attitude here in Spain where masks remain compulsory in all settings where you cannot keep 1.5m distance, and in all places of business, transport, on entering restaurants, bars, etc. I could go on. Any pretence that the UK has uniquely scaremongered is really not the case. I think you also have to understand the different mindset of those of us for whom, statistically, this has always been very much a life and death threat. Vaccines are making a huge difference to this but it will take a little time.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    kinabalu said:

    Interesting Covid news on the golfer Jon Rahm. He tested positive last month. Missed a tournament. Came back and won the US Open. Then played our Open. Has now tested positive again.

    Also to correct a mistake from me on PT. Quite a bad one. I said I have a predilection for carbonara and chips. This is not the case (as if). It's bolognese and chips. Getting my pasta sauces mixed up.

    You can take kinabalu out of 1980s South Yorkshire but you can't take 1980s South Yorkshire out of kinabalu.

    At least have gnocchi with your pasta sauce - you'll find half a dozen varieties at Morrisons.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    eek said:

    Roger said:

    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things

    Because a daily press conference allowed the press to ask questions on a daily basis and those questions might be awkward questions.

    The fact they would actually be why can't I go to my villa in (insert country here) is neither here nor there.
    Funny how when the government was proposing televised daily press conferences the response was that it was a way of hiding from scrutiny.

    When the government scrapped televised daily press conferences the response was that it was a way of hiding from scrutiny.

    Personally I found the notion of televised daily press conferences a good way to add scrutiny, so I agree with the logic of the second statement. But its funny to see some people (not necessarily yourself) pivot instantly from the first to the second.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Roger said:

    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things

    Fired? I think you mean "promoted"...
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    Foxy said:

    DougSeal said:

    Foxy said:

    eek said:

    Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated

    https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1419233632993095689

    In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…

    Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement

    Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?

    Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
    I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.

    Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
    Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity

    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    The successive emergence of the more transmissible alpha and delta SARCoV2 lineages mean that the vast majority of the global population is expected to get infected by the virus, likely more than once over their lifetime.
    https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879625721000730?v=s5
    1/

    https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1418364472771624968
    "over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.

    Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.

    Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
    Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:

    Richard 📊📉
    @RP131
    ·
    33m
    Replying to
    @Peston
    They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
    That figure would suggest that around 200 re-infections are happening in the UK each day, potentially many more as testing was Quote poor in the first wave, so many undocumented first cases.
    ONS have also been tracking this via their surveying. Again won't be 100% perfect, but they find very small numbers and all bar a tiny tiny amount, extremely low viral low and very minor symptoms.

    It really doesn't seem like something that Peston could be scaring people about.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited July 2021
    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.

    I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!

    Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
    Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.

    Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
    Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.

    Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Roger said:

    eek said:

    Roger said:

    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things

    Because a daily press conference allowed the press to ask questions on a daily basis and those questions might be awkward questions.

    The fact they would actually be why can't I go to my villa in (insert country here) is neither here nor there.
    Did she leave or was she fired and what was the reason given?
    She's not left, the post she was going to fill was scrapped and she was reassigned to another role instead. She's still very frequently filming videos representing the government for COP26 now instead: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/allegra-stratton-cop26-is-our-moment-of-truth-when-we-say-how-we-re-getting-to-net-zero-6mhtq7mkr (not read that its behind a paywall)
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741


    Pressing the like button is not enough to show my agreement.

    I wonder if there will be medium-long term differences between people who have stayed in their own homes for the last year plus and those who effectively carried on as normal because of their work types.

    Pitching to the two extremes doesn't make an argument. The vast majority are, at their own pace and in their own way, getting on with their lives and being as risk averse as they choose rather than as you or @MaxPB would dictate.

    Apart from the fact it's almost impossible to book a UK holiday because everyone else is so terrified of and cowering from the virus they have decided to go on holiday to be safe, life for me is almost what it is going to be post the pandemic.

    Everyone has to find their own level of safety and security and I do agree a lot of media misinformation (primarily from the Daily Fail) has been hugely unhelpful but Javid's use of the word "cower" was ill-advised. That said, he's apologised so we can all move on (masked or otherwise).
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Rachel Reeves knows how to revive the Bulwark of the Union, the Scottish Labour Party.

    Her recipe for success is… wait for it… drum roll… Blairism!

    https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/politics/7451821/labour-scots-support-blairs-election-strategy/amp/

    Yes Jim, we feel the love.

    image

    image

    Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.

    Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
    It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.

    ‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2015/mar/26/the-vow-was-not-a-decisive-factor-in-scots-voting-no-to-indepedence

    The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.

    They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    Foxy said:

    DougSeal said:

    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    This is a very downbeat assessment of where we, democracies, are in relation to China.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/jul/25/an-explosion-is-coming-biden-races-to-unite-allies-against-china

    What it doesn't say is that, as far as I can tell, Britain has been Biden's most reliable European ally in his recent moves to compete with China, and that Biden knows that. We haven't seen the anti-British Irish President of the US that some feared, because Biden is sensible enough to recognise that he needs Britain, when his alternative European allies are much less willing to stand up to China.

    How he must rue that we can't use our voice in support of his from within the EU.

    Biden is not anti-British. Indeed one of his strengths is his ability to build consensus and conciliate. I would expect his approach to China to be similar, including both building a supporting network of allies, but also conciliation with China.

    I think that the right Realpolitik approach. I don't think China would respond as well to the stick as to the carrot in terms of mending its ways.
    Do you know whether our recognition of the Government of China is de facto or de jure? I don't, and I'm not sure where I would find out.
    We’ve recognised the PRC over the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the de jure government since at least 13 March 1972 when we exchanged ambassadors. Prior to that, in October 1971, the U.K. voted to seat the PRC in the UN General Assembly and Security Council when it voted in favour of UN resolution 2758 (1971) recognizing the People's Republic of China as "the only legitimate representative of China".
    Both CCP and KMT claimed to represent the entirety of China, though perhaps Taipei has dropped that now. It would be absurd though to deny that Beijing represents the country that may well be the biggest economy in the world shortly.

    Xi is a bit of a departure from previous CCP leaders, in degree if not in style. If we want to contain China (war would be a disaster) then we need to end our dependence on Chinese exports and capital. As @rcs1000 has shown on a number of occasions, the way to do that is by increasing our savings rate.

    While the old colonial powers and Taiwan may be united against China, the emerging economies of the world are ambivalent at best. This isn't the 19th Century any more.
    I don't think India's ambivalent!

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-india-move-tens-of-thousands-of-troops-to-the-border-in-largest-buildup-in-decades-11625218201
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    There needs to be an inquiry into the level of fear used by the government during this crisis, and whether it was appropriate.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,050
    edited July 2021
    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
    A good point, and one reason that I am keen to avoid it is that I see many vulnerable patients every day. I would feel awful if I gave them a potentially fatal infection.

    On top of that, many activities are simply not enjoyable at present. If I go out, or abroad, I want to enjoy myself not be concerned about the antisocial behaviour of others.

    The qualifying threshold to enjoy an activity has gone up a fair bit. I am not inclined to go to the Charity Shield match in 13 days for much that reason. Not helped that ticket details are not yet out.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.

    But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.

    So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
    Everyone needs to take their own decisions based on their own circumstances and with the relevant information.

    Which is why 'one size fits all' advice and demands that the government give specific advice to every conceivable situation don't work.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015

    Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    edited July 2021
    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!

    GE Scots seats %seats Boss

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited July 2021
    eek said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.

    I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!

    Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
    Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.

    Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
    Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.

    Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
    Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!

    To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Rachel Reeves knows how to revive the Bulwark of the Union, the Scottish Labour Party.

    Her recipe for success is… wait for it… drum roll… Blairism!

    https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/politics/7451821/labour-scots-support-blairs-election-strategy/amp/

    Yes Jim, we feel the love.

    image

    image

    Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.

    Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
    It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.

    ‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2015/mar/26/the-vow-was-not-a-decisive-factor-in-scots-voting-no-to-indepedence

    The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.

    They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
    Was it their collaboration with the Tories?

    Or was it that the 45% who voted Yes then voted SNP afterwards and the Tories were neither here nor there in that calculation?

    Plus the raison d'etre of Labour (vote Labour to stop the Tories) was abolished by the fact that a tactical anti-Tory vote was to now vote SNP instead - and Labour were an empty husk once they lost that.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    Offical figures of reinfections are now total POSSIBLE 23k...839 probable...66 confirmed.

    https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1419236888934764547?s=19

    https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1419237806757531649?s=19

    Peston should stick to trying to understand how mirrors work.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    Cyclefree said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Also to correct a mistake from me on PT. Quite a bad one. I said I have a predilection for carbonara and chips. This is not the case (as if). It's bolognese and chips. Getting my pasta sauces mixed up.

    Have you tried adding pineapple to the bolognese recipe?
    I've no ideological objection to that - but me and pineapples don't get on too well.
    Please don't add pineapple to bolognese. Or, indeed, any other pasta sauce.

    Just don't.
    If you want to add one pizza agreement to pasta, then make it spicy sausage. Or cheese.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    kle4 said:

    eek said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.

    I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!

    Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
    Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.

    Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
    Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.

    Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
    Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!

    To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
    Not all stories need to be a full size novel, it's just a shame that is where the money is.

    Martha Wells's Murderbot diaries are great but their UK pricing is painfully high for what you get.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Rachel Reeves knows how to revive the Bulwark of the Union, the Scottish Labour Party.

    Her recipe for success is… wait for it… drum roll… Blairism!

    https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/politics/7451821/labour-scots-support-blairs-election-strategy/amp/

    Yes Jim, we feel the love.

    image

    image

    Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.

    Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
    It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.

    ‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2015/mar/26/the-vow-was-not-a-decisive-factor-in-scots-voting-no-to-indepedence

    The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.

    They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
    Ultimately they agree on unionism, I'm not sure how one meaningfully avoids association with each other when that issue arises.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,837
    DavidL said:

    Completely off topic but this was a truly stunning piece of journalism I came across this morning: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/barn-emmett-till-murder/619493/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=masthead-newsletter&utm_content=20210724&silverid=%%RECIPIENT_ID%%&utm_term=Subscriber Only Weekly Newsletter

    What I found shocking was not the murder but the recent and extreme destruction of memorials relating to this hideous act. Its a brilliant, if somewhat depressing, read showing the shadow of history and how it still haunts the current community.

    Thanks. Very grim and moving. And really not so long ago. Another black life that mattered only after it was brutally ended - and only then because of people brave and determined enough not to let things lie.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015

    Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
    Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    eek said:

    kle4 said:

    eek said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.

    I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!

    Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
    Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.

    Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
    Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.

    Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
    Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!

    To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
    Not all stories need to be a full size novel, it's just a shame that is where the money is.

    Martha Wells's Murderbot diaries are great but their UK pricing is painfully high for what you get.
    There seems to be an increase in authors releasing short story collections - Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and Stephen Baxter spring to mind recently - but I find such collections hit or miss. I only really enjoyed about a third of the ones in the Complete Robot collection.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    stodge said:


    Pressing the like button is not enough to show my agreement.

    I wonder if there will be medium-long term differences between people who have stayed in their own homes for the last year plus and those who effectively carried on as normal because of their work types.

    Pitching to the two extremes doesn't make an argument. The vast majority are, at their own pace and in their own way, getting on with their lives and being as risk averse as they choose rather than as you or @MaxPB would dictate.

    Apart from the fact it's almost impossible to book a UK holiday because everyone else is so terrified of and cowering from the virus they have decided to go on holiday to be safe, life for me is almost what it is going to be post the pandemic.

    Everyone has to find their own level of safety and security and I do agree a lot of media misinformation (primarily from the Daily Fail) has been hugely unhelpful but Javid's use of the word "cower" was ill-advised. That said, he's apologised so we can all move on (masked or otherwise).
    I'm not dictating anything to anyone.

    What I support is people making their own decisions based on their own circumstances and with all the available information.

    But the problem is that its a lot easier to scare people than reassure them once they've been scared.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!


    GE Scots seats %seats

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
    Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!


    GE Scots seats %seats

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
    Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
    Good lad. Know thyself and all that.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
    And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.

    The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    That’s a serious allegation.

    Do you have any evidence? Or are you just throwing mud?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    Scott_xP said:

    Roger said:

    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things

    Fired? I think you mean "promoted"...
    Strategically redeployed
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    Good thread....

    NEW: people worry when they hear "40% of hospitalisations are fully vaxxed", but this chart shows that's actually good news.

    The more people you vaccinate, the higher their share of hospitalisations, but the *total* number in hospital is a fraction of what it would otherwise be https://t.co/rPVbvl8zTW

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1418952126244478977?s=19

    Bit complicated for Prof Peston though.....
  • TresTres Posts: 2,159
    DavidL said:

    Completely off topic but this was a truly stunning piece of journalism I came across this morning: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/barn-emmett-till-murder/619493/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=masthead-newsletter&utm_content=20210724&silverid=%%RECIPIENT_ID%%&utm_term=Subscriber Only Weekly Newsletter

    What I found shocking was not the murder but the recent and extreme destruction of memorials relating to this hideous act. Its a brilliant, if somewhat depressing, read showing the shadow of history and how it still haunts the current community.

    Mr Ed will be around shortly to hand-wave that there is nothing to see here.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
    And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.

    The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
    You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Charles said:

    That’s a serious allegation.

    Do you have any evidence? Or are you just throwing mud?
    “Russia-linked”. I guess that covers a multitude of sins...
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Very o/t, but might be of interest to some:

    "60 years ago, scientists let a farm field rewild – here’s what happened"

    https://theconversation.com/monks-wood-wilderness-60-years-ago-scientists-let-a-farm-field-rewild-heres-what-happened-163406
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    stodge said:


    Pressing the like button is not enough to show my agreement.

    I wonder if there will be medium-long term differences between people who have stayed in their own homes for the last year plus and those who effectively carried on as normal because of their work types.

    Pitching to the two extremes doesn't make an argument. The vast majority are, at their own pace and in their own way, getting on with their lives and being as risk averse as they choose rather than as you or @MaxPB would dictate.

    Apart from the fact it's almost impossible to book a UK holiday because everyone else is so terrified of and cowering from the virus they have decided to go on holiday to be safe, life for me is almost what it is going to be post the pandemic.

    Everyone has to find their own level of safety and security and I do agree a lot of media misinformation (primarily from the Daily Fail) has been hugely unhelpful but Javid's use of the word "cower" was ill-advised. That said, he's apologised so we can all move on (masked or otherwise).
    The u3a, whose membership is well over a million, all at least 55, is interesting in this context. Looks like most of the local Groups (there are over 1000) are starting up again, albeit with 'prospective attendance varying from 50% upwards. Big problem, from which the one's I belong are suffering, is the availability and requirements of venues. Our membership was about 300 and each month we used to pack 100+ people into a hall, around its maximum. If we have to social distance then a meeting will have to be limited to 60-70 at that hall and there aren't any bigger ones locally. Our interest groups have the same problem; thus our Wine Appreciation Group, whose dozen or so members used to meet convivially in a fairly small room is restarting in a few days in someone's garden but we've no idea where we're going from there.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    Andy_JS said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    There needs to be an inquiry into the level of fear used by the government during this crisis, and whether it was appropriate.
    No there should not - at least not in those loeaded terms.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Very o/t, but might be of interest to some:

    "60 years ago, scientists let a farm field rewild – here’s what happened"

    https://theconversation.com/monks-wood-wilderness-60-years-ago-scientists-let-a-farm-field-rewild-heres-what-happened-163406

    Ha! I remember this experiment being mentioned in my second/third form biology 30 or more years ago!
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909

    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!


    GE Scots seats %seats

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
    Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
    Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,837
    edited July 2021
    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Roger said:

    A little perspective:


    What is the new perspective? I see a figure which is worse than Trump's before he was hammered at the US election and stands at a rather dismal -13.

    PS. Well done taking over the Sunday morning shift from Philip. It's about time they employed a female

    I don't think Boris is going to.encourage his supporters to storm Parliament and trash it.

    Rogerdamus.. never right, talks shite.
    We do have our own Q Anon. They had a big protest yesterday, and there was some quite scary stuff being said:

    I can’t believe I’m tweeting this. As an ICU doctor who has given everything they have trying to save lives this makes me want to cry.

    “Get their names, email them to me. At the Nuremberg trial the doctors and nurses stood trial, and they hung”.

    https://t.co/9tZeqru1Vk

    https://twitter.com/sbattrawden/status/1418984363304394762?s=19

    And there was more bat shit craziness too from Icke, Hopkins and Piers Corbyn. Satanic plots and 5g masts etc.
    These guys are nuts - but it notable that a movement which dabbles in quasi fascism uses Nazi slurs against its innocent targets.
    They seem confused on the Nazis. Are they 'warning from history' or role models?

    Seriously, these people are either mentally ill, if they believe what they're saying, or morally ill if they don't. It's mad or bad and it can be hard to say which. Maybe it doesn't matter.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    Offical figures of reinfections are now total POSSIBLE 23k...839 probable...66 confirmed.

    https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1419236888934764547?s=19

    https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1419237806757531649?s=19

    Peston should stick to trying to understand how mirrors work.

    You mean a period of reflection? :smiley:
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited July 2021
    kle4 said:

    Rachel Reeves knows how to revive the Bulwark of the Union, the Scottish Labour Party.

    Her recipe for success is… wait for it… drum roll… Blairism!

    https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/politics/7451821/labour-scots-support-blairs-election-strategy/amp/

    Yes Jim, we feel the love.

    image

    image

    Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.

    Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
    It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.

    ‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2015/mar/26/the-vow-was-not-a-decisive-factor-in-scots-voting-no-to-indepedence

    The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.

    They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
    Ultimately they agree on unionism, I'm not sure how one meaningfully avoids association with each other when that issue arises.
    Hence why it is in the interests of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party to keep the Union front and centre: it boosts their own vote and suppresses the Scottish Labour and SLD vote. That it also threatens the Union itself is a secondary consideration.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    DougSeal said:

    Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015

    Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
    Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
    I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
    And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.

    The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
    Covid sent government 'nudging' in to overdrive. People were nudged in to being terrified of the virus (Stay home, save lives, don't kill granny etc), now a small proportion of people are afraid to go out at all and want permanent restrictions, which now actually seems to be costing the government its popularity and eroding its poll leads as it tries to open up the economy. The problem is the policy of using behavioural science on the part of the state to manipulate peoples behaviour, from the outset a shady business - it was always likely to have perverse consequences.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,551

    Foxy said:

    This is a very downbeat assessment of where we, democracies, are in relation to China.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/jul/25/an-explosion-is-coming-biden-races-to-unite-allies-against-china

    What it doesn't say is that, as far as I can tell, Britain has been Biden's most reliable European ally in his recent moves to compete with China, and that Biden knows that. We haven't seen the anti-British Irish President of the US that some feared, because Biden is sensible enough to recognise that he needs Britain, when his alternative European allies are much less willing to stand up to China.

    How he must rue that we can't use our voice in support of his from within the EU.

    Biden is not anti-British. Indeed one of his strengths is his ability to build consensus and conciliate. I would expect his approach to China to be similar, including both building a supporting network of allies, but also conciliation with China.

    I think that the right Realpolitik approach. I don't think China would respond as well to the stick as to the carrot in terms of mending its ways.
    It's too late for us to use the carrot to encourage China to mend its ways, because China doesn't need the carrot anymore. It's now strong enough to get what it wants and we didn't use that leverage when it might have been effective - because we were too busy competing with each other for a slice of the China economy.

    Biden realises this and there's not much sign of conciliation in his approach to China.
    But neither will he needlessly antagonise them to bolster his ego.
    China is simply too large a part of the world economy not to do business with it, but there is a growing realisation that need not be entirely on their terms.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    DougSeal said:

    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
    And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.

    The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
    You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
    Yes, Australia has made serious missteps in the last year wrt vaccines and now they are paying the price. I don't see how either Australia or NZ ever really become normal. One of my colleagues is a Kiwi and he was in despair at the idea that St Jacinda wants to build a permanent quarantine centre for people to do 14 days on arrival.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    DougSeal said:

    Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015

    Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
    Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
    I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
    And by “fresh thinking” you mean “support independence” of course.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited July 2021
    Outrage Bus running out of juice?

    The Guardian reports the Commons Library research commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, which Layla (Moran) chairs, which shows that the number of positive cases tested for variants has fallen dramatically.

    The results suggest that in the three weeks to 17 March, there were an estimated 1,769 to 1,827 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, of which somewhere between 63% and 68% were sequenced to determine the variant involved.

    By contrast in the three weeks to 30 June, there were an estimated 445 to 507 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, with estimates of the proportion sequenced ranging from 12% to 33%.

    Layla highlighted the dangers of this:

    “These figures are truly staggering and make a mockery of the UK government’s claim to be a global leader in genome sequencing,“ said Moran, adding the rise in the Beta variant in Europe should “be setting alarm bells ringing in government”.

    “Yet instead ministers are dismantling our defences against the virus and opening the floodgates to new variants,” she said.

    https://www.libdemvoice.org/layla-slams-government-for-opening-floodgates-to-new-variants-and-failing-to-protect-troops-68271.html

    I make that a 70% fall from March to June to about 23 people per day, who are all required to quarantine for 10 days in a quarantine hotel anyway and have a negative test on day 8 before they get out.

    The sky's not falling in, Goosey-Loosey.

    Time for the LDs to start going for all those policy ideas.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    MaxPB said:

    DougSeal said:

    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
    And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.

    The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
    You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
    Yes, Australia has made serious missteps in the last year wrt vaccines and now they are paying the price. I don't see how either Australia or NZ ever really become normal. One of my colleagues is a Kiwi and he was in despair at the idea that St Jacinda wants to build a permanent quarantine centre for people to do 14 days on arrival.
    I keep getting adverts for holidays in NZ run on YouTube....has anybody told NZ tourism they might be wasting quite a lot of money?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    MaxPB said:

    DougSeal said:

    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.

    That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
    And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.

    The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
    You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
    Yes, Australia has made serious missteps in the last year wrt vaccines and now they are paying the price. I don't see how either Australia or NZ ever really become normal. One of my colleagues is a Kiwi and he was in despair at the idea that St Jacinda wants to build a permanent quarantine centre for people to do 14 days on arrival.
    The cat’s out of the bag in Australia. Anyway, they’ve 11 years to sort things out before the Brisbane Olympics - unless they want to be competing against themselves.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,006

    Rachel Reeves knows how to revive the Bulwark of the Union, the Scottish Labour Party.

    Her recipe for success is… wait for it… drum roll… Blairism!

    https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/politics/7451821/labour-scots-support-blairs-election-strategy/amp/

    Yes Jim, we feel the love.

    image

    image

    Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.

    Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
    It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.

    ‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2015/mar/26/the-vow-was-not-a-decisive-factor-in-scots-voting-no-to-indepedence

    The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.

    They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
    So not Blair then.

    What you could have pointed at Blair about was the collapse in contacts from Labour activists. From what I read / heard they stopped doing things like knocking on doors and instead assumed they were set for life.
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    MattW said:

    Outrage Bus running out of juice?

    The Guardian reports the Commons Library research commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, which Layla (Moran) chairs, which shows that the number of positive cases tested for variants has fallen dramatically.

    The results suggest that in the three weeks to 17 March, there were an estimated 1,769 to 1,827 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, of which somewhere between 63% and 68% were sequenced to determine the variant involved.

    By contrast in the three weeks to 30 June, there were an estimated 445 to 507 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, with estimates of the proportion sequenced ranging from 12% to 33%.

    Layla highlighted the dangers of this:

    “These figures are truly staggering and make a mockery of the UK government’s claim to be a global leader in genome sequencing,“ said Moran, adding the rise in the Beta variant in Europe should “be setting alarm bells ringing in government”.

    “Yet instead ministers are dismantling our defences against the virus and opening the floodgates to new variants,” she said.

    https://www.libdemvoice.org/layla-slams-government-for-opening-floodgates-to-new-variants-and-failing-to-protect-troops-68271.html

    I make that a 70% fall from March to June to about 23 people per day, who are all required to quarantine for 10 days in a quarantine hotel anyway and have a negative test on day 8 before they get out.

    The sky's not falling in, Goosey-Loosey.

    Time for the LDs to start going for all those policy ideas.

    She’s a crap liberal.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,551
    eek said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.

    I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!

    Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
    Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.

    Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
    Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.

    Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
    NK Jemisin.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!


    GE Scots seats %seats

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
    Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
    Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
    Would you like me to post the results of Canadian elections 1953 to 1988 to prove how the Conservative Party was going to emerge victorious from the 1993 general election?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    I broadly agree with this and I feel it myself personally. For me I think the messaging on masks is important. As long as the government (in Westminster or Holyrood) is telling me that it's not safe to go out without wearing a mask the message I am hearing is that it's not safe to go out.

    I know life isn't that simple, but public relations are. If the vaccines have ended the emergency then the public advice needs to reflect that, otherwise they don't have a chance of coaxing the anxious back out again.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,006
    Charles said:

    That’s a serious allegation.

    Do you have any evidence? Or are you just throwing mud?
    For someone not a member of the Tory Party you do seem to over-react to words like "Corruption". It is at best ill-advised to take donations from Russians after openly covering up Russian involvement, just as it was ill advised to take donations from people awarded PPE contracts without tender. Or PPE.

    You are quick to bleat that it is legal. Fine. Legal it may be, but morally it is wrong. You are not a Tory member. But you are a Man of Influence in the party (with people approaching you over PPE contracts) and a Reputation to Protect. So your own personal morality is clear and scrupulously protected - glad to hear it.

    So why can you not see that the people in the party of which you are not a member but apparently are seen to be able to influence are doing the wrong thing?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!


    GE Scots seats %seats

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
    Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
    Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
    Would you like me to post the results of Canadian elections 1953 to 1988 to prove how the Conservative Party was going to emerge victorious from the 1993 general election?
    Cos that’s really really relevant.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    On recognition of countries, with China I think we are in the "recognise but complain" status.

    Trivia: very interesting that Bhutan is the only country never formally to have recognised either China or Taiwan.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_limited_recognition
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,006

    DougSeal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.

    But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.

    So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
    Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.

    But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
    He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
    Yes, regardless of whether Sajid was right to apologise for the use of 'cower' (I think he was), according to my comprehensive records this is the first time that anybody in the current Cabinet has apologised for anything (not including Hancock, ex-cabinet).

    It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
    More likely that Javid will have to resign for bringing the Clown Posse into disrepute.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015

    Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
    Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
    I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
    And by “fresh thinking” you mean “support independence” of course.
    Nope. There are lots of things Unionists could do to improve the popularity of the Union. That they are not even talking about these things, let alone implementing them, pleases me no end.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755
    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    .

    Johnson cannot stop being Johnson. His ratings will move up and down. The concern for the country - if not the Tories, who are not interested in the country - is that the government is entirely incoherent because Johnson is Johnson. Javid and Sunak are clearly manoeuvring for what they believe is a leadership election that will come sooner rather than later, while we have genuine simpletons in control of education and the Home Office. The challenges are coming thick and fast - and will only intensify come the autumn, when it looks like Lord Frost and his boss are intent on another battle with the EU. We are going to get more divided over the coming period, not less.

    Peston said on Thursday, throughout his career, be that in journalism or in politics, whenever he is on the ropes, Johnson picks fights with the EU. It is his safety net. From his fictional ban of pink sausages to his renegotiation of the NI Protocol, this wizard wheeze serves to secure his tenure in his job and bolster his popularity.
    Yes, Brexit is not Done, it is the Forever War.
    I imagine people will be flocking to see The Forever Purge in cinemas - it's about a corrupt elite being destroyed as they cannot control what they unleashed.
    I haven't seen it, my reference was to the classic Sci-fi antiwar novel "The Forever War" in which the earth government keeps a pointless war going against an overhyped enemy partly because it finds it economically useful, and partly out of habit and sunk costs.
    Yes, a good novel, though I wonder how the section where the protagonist (who is experiencing time differently) finds himself in a period where being gay is near universal and practically mandatory would fly now.

    The sequel Forever Free was terrible. My copy comes with Forever Peace, which is apparently not actually connected.
    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
    Oh I agree completely, but I bet in these finger wagging times many would disagree.
    We’re almost at the stage where anything produced or published a decade ago comes with a trigger warning.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    edited July 2021

    DougSeal said:

    Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015

    Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
    Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
    I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
    It's notable that Labour's high point in Scotland was when they were proactive on the constitution, and the slide downward went hand in hand with obstructionism and paralysis. Never let it be forgotten that in the post 2014 consultation SLab recommended the least new powers in a new Scotland bill, fewer than the SCons!

    Main problem is that people like Dewar and Cook really believed in devolution while their pygmy successors just see it a a block to indy, its development to be grindingly extruded when required.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,050
    edited July 2021
    IanB2 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Roger said:

    Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things

    Fired? I think you mean "promoted"...
    Strategically redeployed
    When we fire someone from Specialist Training, they are "released".
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    I’m sure Ursula Le Guin (an author who could be either brilliant or awful, IMHO) would get it in the neck for her portrayal of gay men, as would Frank Herbert.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Scottish Independence:

    I guess some of our Scottish friends on here will bemoan me talking about this, as I generally disagree with them on independence probably don't know enough about Scotland, but I really think they missed a trick in 2014.

    If independence is won, it would be a seismic event for Scotland - good or bad - and the quest for it needs to be commemorated. A year or more before a referendum, I would hold meetings all over the country - from
    Islesburgh Community Centre to Coldingham village hall, and everywhere in between. Invite people who want independence to sign their names on sheets of paper, which will then be bound into books for posterity. Millions of names, every one (Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse excepted) vowing their support for an independent country.

    Names and a book that will last hundreds of years, and show the basis for their new-won independence.

    Yes, it can be done on the Internet, but that's cr@p. It means nothing. This will be ink on paper, for posterity. A real, solid meaning.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909

    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!


    GE Scots seats %seats

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
    Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
    Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
    Would you like me to post the results of Canadian elections 1953 to 1988 to prove how the Conservative Party was going to emerge victorious from the 1993 general election?
    It was actually @Theuniondivvie upthread making it appear that Rachel Reeves' Blairism is somehow a bad thing, when, as you both well know, Blair achieved record seat tallies in Scotland in 1997 and 2001.

    BTW, despite (or because of, perchance?) Labour's "collaboration" with the Tories in 2014, Miliband still won 40 Scottish seats at the 2015 GE.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755
    kle4 said:

    eek said:

    kle4 said:

    eek said:

    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.

    Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!

    Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
    Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.

    I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!

    Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
    Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.

    Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
    Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.

    Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
    Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!

    To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
    Not all stories need to be a full size novel, it's just a shame that is where the money is.

    Martha Wells's Murderbot diaries are great but their UK pricing is painfully high for what you get.
    There seems to be an increase in authors releasing short story collections - Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and Stephen Baxter spring to mind recently - but I find such collections hit or miss. I only really enjoyed about a third of the ones in the Complete Robot collection.
    I prefer Joe Abercrombie’s novels to his short stories.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,837
    edited July 2021
    DougSeal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.

    But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.

    So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
    Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.

    But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
    He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
    Yes, I didn't really expect him to apologize. It was (for me) cringeful language but I took it to be an integral part of the message - that Matt was a wimp but things are gonna change around this place now because the Saj is here and he takes no shit.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    MattW said:

    On recognition of countries, with China I think we are in the "recognise but complain" status.

    Trivia: very interesting that Bhutan is the only country never formally to have recognised either China or Taiwan.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_limited_recognition

    Bhutan is interesting, because its foreign relations were limited by being successively under British "guidance" from 1910 to 1949, and then India from 1949 until 2007.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    More on Peston…


  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    The Spectator
    @spectator
    ·
    20h
    "I thought it would take two years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took two weeks." - Ross Clark


    We must resist this looming privacy disaster. So wish I wasn't having to rely on Starmer to block this.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Scottish Independence:

    I guess some of our Scottish friends on here will bemoan me talking about this, as I generally disagree with them on independence probably don't know enough about Scotland, but I really think they missed a trick in 2014.

    If independence is won, it would be a seismic event for Scotland - good or bad - and the quest for it needs to be commemorated. A year or more before a referendum, I would hold meetings all over the country - from
    Islesburgh Community Centre to Coldingham village hall, and everywhere in between. Invite people who want independence to sign their names on sheets of paper, which will then be bound into books for posterity. Millions of names, every one (Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse excepted) vowing their support for an independent country.

    Names and a book that will last hundreds of years, and show the basis for their new-won independence.

    Yes, it can be done on the Internet, but that's cr@p. It means nothing. This will be ink on paper, for posterity. A real, solid meaning.

    When will the “Scotch expert” comment appear?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,551
    The numbers for countries with the lowest percentage vaccinated put our own predicament into some context.
    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1418652824192290817
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    DougSeal said:

    More on Peston…


    Given the number of high profile bullshittery Peston has put out during this pandemic, you would think he might double check some of his conspiracy theories before blurting out another load of bollocks on Twitter.
    It's becoming embarrassing now. "seriously underrepresent" == less than 1% !!!
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    @StuartDickson
    @Theuniondivvie

    Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!


    GE Scots seats %seats Boss

    1970 44/71 61.9% Wilson
    1974F 40/71 56.3% Wilson
    1974O 41/71 57.7% Wilson
    1979 44/71 61.9% Callaghan
    1983 41/72 56.9% Foot
    1987 50/72 69.4% Kinnock
    1992 49/72 68.1% Kinnock
    1997 56/72 77.8% Blair
    2001 56/72 77.8% Blair

    2005 41/59 69.5% Blair
    2010 41/59 69.5% Brown
    2015 40/59 67.8% Miliband
    2017 7/59 11.9% Corbyn
    2019 1/59 1.6% Corbyn
    The 2015 figure is wrong. Under Miliband Labour was reduced to 1 seat in Scotland.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    The Spectator
    @spectator
    ·
    20h
    "I thought it would take two years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took two weeks." - Ross Clark


    We must resist this looming privacy disaster. So wish I wasn't having to rely on Starmer to block this.

    Fingers crossed it’s simply a tactic to increase vaccine rates (I wouldn’t have done it, personally). But it might cause trouble on the Tory benches if they are for real.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Nigelb said:

    The numbers for countries with the lowest percentage vaccinated put our own predicament into some context.
    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1418652824192290817

    Yeah - the EU/U.K. pissing contest over vaccine rates has serious consequences for us all. We are all, in the west, in a privileged position. It’s the rest of the planet we need to worry about.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456
    edited July 2021

    Good thread....

    NEW: people worry when they hear "40% of hospitalisations are fully vaxxed", but this chart shows that's actually good news.

    The more people you vaccinate, the higher their share of hospitalisations, but the *total* number in hospital is a fraction of what it would otherwise be https://t.co/rPVbvl8zTW

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1418952126244478977?s=19

    Bit complicated for Prof Peston though.....

    Someone posted a good and related comment about vax and hospital the other day. Almost everyone who ends up in hospital following a road accident was wearing a seatbelt.
    That was me (I think). I posted it as a good example of how you can jump to the wrong conclusion by illogically interpreting stats. I posted it in a hope of trying to explain to NerysHughs his ongoing misinterpretation of a different stat about PPE that he doesn't understand at all by showing this really obviously useless one.

    This particular stat was the percentage of people who had died of the delta variant who had been double jabbed compared to overall deaths of the delta variant (can't remember the number now but it was very high). If you misinterpret it, it looks bad, but of course (as per your seat belt example) that percentage would be high. In fact if everyone was double jabbed it would be 100% even if only one person had died. It is a meaningless stat.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,080

    DougSeal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.

    But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.

    So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
    Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.

    But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
    He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
    Yes, regardless of whether Sajid was right to apologise for the use of 'cower' (I think he was), according to my comprehensive records this is the first time that anybody in the current Cabinet has apologised for anything (not including Hancock, ex-cabinet).

    It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
    More likely that Javid will have to resign for bringing the Clown Posse into disrepute.
    Though having walked, then been brought back, Saj is less sackable than most.

    And if the Conservative Party were to decide it wanted someone different- but not that different- then Javid suddenly fits the bill better than, say, Sunak.

    Have we heard a peep from Rishi since he made exactly the same mistake as BoJo last Sunday?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    DougSeal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    MaxPB said:

    It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.

    I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.

    It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
    Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.

    But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.

    So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
    Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.

    But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
    He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
    Yes, regardless of whether Sajid was right to apologise for the use of 'cower' (I think he was), according to my comprehensive records this is the first time that anybody in the current Cabinet has apologised for anything (not including Hancock, ex-cabinet).

    It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
    More likely that Javid will have to resign for bringing the Clown Posse into disrepute.
    Though having walked, then been brought back, Saj is less sackable than most.

    And if the Conservative Party were to decide it wanted someone different- but not that different- then Javid suddenly fits the bill better than, say, Sunak.

    Have we heard a peep from Rishi since he made exactly the same mistake as BoJo last Sunday?
    An apology makes him stand out from Johnson and Sunak. Uses an insensitive word - apologises. Considered using an isolation escape route until it proved to be a PR catastrophe and then lied about it - no apology.
This discussion has been closed.