(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 39m If Rishi Sunak really is planning on announcing a cut in taxes for the banks, whilst simultaneously announcing a rise in taxes for everyone else, then I don't see how Labour can fail to take him to the cleaners. That's the sort of blunder that defines a politician.
Except when he does, Dan “never wrong for long” Hodges will be first in the queue to congratulate his fiscal audacity, comparing it unfavourably to Labour’s approach.
Hodges, for me, suffers particularly badly from "always be saying something" syndrome. AB3S afflicts all pundits to a degree. Eg me, when I'm having a full monty day on here, people will have noticed that a certain percentage of my output will be utter codswallop. Ok, I like to think that percentage is low single digits, but the point is there is codswallop in the mix and the more I post the more cod there will be. It's just physics this. If my codswallop quotient is 15% and I do 20 posts on a thread there'll be 3 stinkers. 3 that shouldn't have seen the light of day. Dan Hodges, it seems to me, has a quotient of greater than 50%, meaning most of his output is tosh. It's more tosh than not. And given his output, which is vast since he must always be saying something, that is an awful lot of tosh. Still, he gets paid, I suppose. You have to pay the rent.
LOL at @david_herdson's reply: It's the only tone he has.
Mogadon Man, as Private Eye called Geoffrey Howe.
So Labour need a new Tone?
I'm not convinced that armed rebellion in favour of an Irish state would be electorally beneficial for them. But after Corbyn*, nothing would surprise me.
*delightfully, autocorrect still refuses to recognise him, and insists on rendering him 'Cornyn'.
All good points. However, what do we want to achieve? ... Dust off the Nightingale facilities and have Covid cases outside of mainstream hospitals. Expensive and hard, but preferable to restrictions every winter.
What I want to achieve is to protect the vaccinated from the anti-social choices of the unvaccinated.
At the moment we are punishing the vaccinated by delaying their medical treatment to accommodate the unvaccinated in hospital. The proposed solution to this is to punish the vaccinated by restricting their lives to delay the infection of the unvaccinated.
We need a better way. Nightingale hospitals for the unvaccinated is one approach. You could think of them as the secondary modern of the healthcare system.
Interesting post that.
"What I want to achieve is to protect the vaccinated from the anti-social choices of the unvaccinated"
I would say that in a liberal democracy there is no requirement for individuals to be social.
Liberal Democracy has been severely tested by the response to Covid rather than Covid itself. This is undeniable.
The article below (pre-pandemic) is interesting because it picks out an already strong and developing threat which is an uncomfortable bedfellow to liberal democracy: populism.
"[Benjamin]Constant presents the “peaceful enjoyment of individual independence” as the modern alternative to direct participation in government. The exclusion of most citizens, most of the time, from direct self-government opens up a large sphere of nonpolitical life—economic, social, cultural, and religious—that citizens expect to conduct on their own terms.”
Perhaps anti-social was the wrong term to use. The principle I was invoking was Mill's:
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
I'd argue that the refusal of a minority to be vaccinated creates a harm to others by blocking medical treatment, increasing transmission of the virus and justifying restrictions on liberty as a means to control the virus.
We rightly recoil from forced medical treatment, or denying medical treatment to those in need. However, the present situation I think justifies a limited exception to these principles, because of the harm otherwise done to the vaccinated.
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
I'm in a frankly pretty depressed mood this morning, and all I can trace it to are these bloody lunatics trying to shut life down again despite all metrics being significantly better than the best scenario presented by them last time they tried to scare us in to submission. The utter lack of humility or consequence is sickening, and it's bloody scary they can keep coming back for more without any mainstream comment on how awful their track record is. My only reassuring thought is that cases will be falling again before this builds up too much momentum, but even that is undercut by the worry that these calls seem utterly divorced from reality so maybe falling cases won't matter.
Putin doesn't want to go to Glasgow. I can't blame him.
Putin and Xi are both giving it a miss. Will Modi be there, somehow I don’t picture him as much of an environmentalist?
If those three can’t be arsed, what can be agreed on a global basis, or do we just all agree to strangle the West so we rely even more on imports?
Agree on carbon tariffs on imports.......
Yes, yes, yes in full When Harry met Sally mode. The absurd idea that we are “good” because we reduce our carbon emissions when all we were really doing was exporting our manufacturing to those using coal as their main energy source and then consuming the products really has to die. One planet, that’s all we’ve got folks.
All good points. However, what do we want to achieve? ... Dust off the Nightingale facilities and have Covid cases outside of mainstream hospitals. Expensive and hard, but preferable to restrictions every winter.
What I want to achieve is to protect the vaccinated from the anti-social choices of the unvaccinated.
At the moment we are punishing the vaccinated by delaying their medical treatment to accommodate the unvaccinated in hospital. The proposed solution to this is to punish the vaccinated by restricting their lives to delay the infection of the unvaccinated.
We need a better way. Nightingale hospitals for the unvaccinated is one approach. You could think of them as the secondary modern of the healthcare system.
Interesting post that.
"What I want to achieve is to protect the vaccinated from the anti-social choices of the unvaccinated"
I would say that in a liberal democracy there is no requirement for individuals to be social.
Liberal Democracy has been severely tested by the response to Covid rather than Covid itself. This is undeniable.
The article below (pre-pandemic) is interesting because it picks out an already strong and developing threat which is an uncomfortable bedfellow to liberal democracy: populism.
"[Benjamin]Constant presents the “peaceful enjoyment of individual independence” as the modern alternative to direct participation in government. The exclusion of most citizens, most of the time, from direct self-government opens up a large sphere of nonpolitical life—economic, social, cultural, and religious—that citizens expect to conduct on their own terms.”
Perhaps anti-social was the wrong term to use. The principle I was invoking was Mill's:
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
I'd argue that the refusal of a minority to be vaccinated creates a harm to others by blocking medical treatment, increasing transmission of the virus and justifying restrictions on liberty as a means to control the virus.
We rightly recoil from forced medical treatment, or denying medical treatment to those in need. However, the present situation I think justifies a limited exception to these principles, because of the harm otherwise done to the vaccinated.
I think invoking Mill's Harm Principle in this situation is problematic, though I see where you are coming from of course.
When Mill formulated his principle he envisaged a much more direct, immediate and foreseeable connection between an individual's own choices and the consequence of those choices.
Tricky area for sure but for me the distance between the decision not to be vaccinated and NHS pressure is too great and brings in far too many other factors outside of the individual's choice, not least why is the NHS unable to scale up to face this challenge rather than the state impinging individual liberty, especially when it comes to medical interventions on one's own body which one would have though is sacred territory?
I'm in a frankly pretty depressed mood this morning, and all I can trace it to are these bloody lunatics trying to shut life down again despite all metrics being significantly better than the best scenario presented by them last time they tried to scare us in to submission. The utter lack of humility or consequence is sickening, and it's bloody scary they can keep coming back for more without any mainstream comment on how awful their track record is. My only reassuring thought is that cases will be falling again before this builds up too much momentum, but even that is undercut by the worry that these calls seem utterly divorced from reality so maybe falling cases won't matter.
I wouldn't worry. What are they going to do? All the government can do now is shut down business (yes, I know, that's probably what's worrying @Cyclefree), but Christmas isn't being cancelled like last year, that's for sure.
I'm in a frankly pretty depressed mood this morning, and all I can trace it to are these bloody lunatics trying to shut life down again despite all metrics being significantly better than the best scenario presented by them last time they tried to scare us in to submission. The utter lack of humility or consequence is sickening, and it's bloody scary they can keep coming back for more without any mainstream comment on how awful their track record is. My only reassuring thought is that cases will be falling again before this builds up too much momentum, but even that is undercut by the worry that these calls seem utterly divorced from reality so maybe falling cases won't matter.
Yes, the argument that they are calling for new restrictions when they situation is better than even their best-case scenario is a powerful one. Yet it is barely (if at all) cutting through. Javid has work to do on the comms. Lots of it.
Assuming you are spooked by the header - worry not. Smarkets in their wisdom are settling for "Yes" based on care workers mandatory vaccinations and this is why the odds are no short for "Yes".
I'm in a frankly pretty depressed mood this morning, and all I can trace it to are these bloody lunatics trying to shut life down again despite all metrics being significantly better than the best scenario presented by them last time they tried to scare us in to submission. The utter lack of humility or consequence is sickening, and it's bloody scary they can keep coming back for more without any mainstream comment on how awful their track record is. My only reassuring thought is that cases will be falling again before this builds up too much momentum, but even that is undercut by the worry that these calls seem utterly divorced from reality so maybe falling cases won't matter.
Yes, the argument that they are calling for new restrictions when they situation is better than even their best-case scenario is a powerful one. Yet it is barely (if at all) cutting through. Javid has work to do on the comms. Lots of it.
In a weeks time all the attention will move onto cop26 for the next couple of weeks, so if nothing happens in the next couple of days I doubt it will in the next 3 weeks.
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
And when we try to introduce policies aimed at restricting childcare to two children per family the howls of outrage come. I'm with your wife's friends - actions have consequences, and this is the case starkly right now with not getting the FREE vaccine, that will almost certainly prevent anyone under 60 dying of covid. Why wouldn't you take it? "Oh - I read something on twitter... so I think its not safe"
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
Thats an interesting set of comments. Part persuasive, part ill-informed, part wrong, part perhaps rather bigoted. Trying to create a society without consequences - I'm more concerned that the victim-narrative/'equality' lobby are trying to do that now.
UK benefits system too far towards non-contributory? Tend to agree. I don't believe that it is that a pure distinction - what happens to impecunious single mums in Ch? I bet the aren't left with their child to die in the street.
Exaggerated respect for individual conscience? I generally value that. I do not want to see us denying medical treatment to non-vaxxed, like France.
NHS giving out free drugs? I think the NHS drug purchase / prescription model just works well. We have checks and balances such as National Treatment Frameworks and Cochrane studies, and central purchasing. There is a reason why it costs German healthcare providers nearly double the UK cost to buy their insulin supplies. Not as bad as USA, which is about 10x, but suboptimal.
Obesity care? I think the public health role of the NHS is a plus. Diabetes prevention and care (eg putting Type IIs into remission) is a strong area, as is smoking reduction. Yes, discouraging personal responsibility is a risk.
Unlimited Benefits? We have a cash cap at well below average salary, both HB (by 25-30%) and UC (by 10%) have been slashed by the current govt. Child benefit is capped at two children, with exceptions. As remarked , I broaddly agree on the contributory point.
Are some of these believing stuff they read in the mail or the Euro-Media?
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
I suspect more likely "shot across the bows".....I've had several chats with different insurance companies the last couple of days and they've all been "wfh".
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
It was the EU who insisted on a border in the Irish Sea for any GB trade deal.
Lord Frost has however managed to get the EU to back down a little on that in the last week and promise minimal checks.
Boris will also impose direct rule on NI however if the EU do not go further and remove it completely as if they do not then Unionist parties will withdraw from the Stormont executive
That is a remarkable non sequitur, even by your standards. No-one, to date, has mentioned the EU in this connection, although of course the present confusion is down to the existence of the artificial border.
Plenty have mentioned the EU, it was the EU who demanded the Irish Sea border for a trade deal not the UK government
No, it was the British Government who insisted on the border, as a result of leaving the EU and the Single Market. But, as before, when this particular discussion started, it was concerned the wisdom or otherwise of an ecumenical service to commemorate the centenary of the existence of N. Ireland. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU.
No, the British government just wanted to leave the EU and the single market.
It was quite ready to use a technological solution to avoid a hard trade border in Ireland (and the GFA only required no military checkpoints at the Irish border which was never on the cards anyway). However the EU refused to consider that and demanded a border in the Irish Sea before it would agree to a free trade agreement with GB.
Northern Ireland's position as a UK province should be respected and commemorated and by doing so we can tell the EU we are ready to stand up for it and continue to press to remove the Irish Sea border via Lord Frost
I really don't know why you wish, or need, to bring the EU into this discussion.
My position, having read up on the subject for many years, and spoken with many people at all sorts of levels, is that the border in Ireland is artificial and was created solely to satisfy the demands of a sectarian minority. That minority was encouraged in it's demands by a group of politicians who saw short-term political advantage in doing so. The border was, and remains, contentious, and any sort of commemoration, including a religious service, ecumenical or not, is likely to inflame old hostilities
If you refuse to respect the right of the Protestant and Unionist majority in Northern Ireland in 1921 to stay part of the UK that is your affair, thankfully the UK government will still respect that
Rather different situation today - 2016 was pre-Brexit.
So what Unionist parties still win more votes than Nationalist parties in NI even after Brexit
But you're not allowing for the Alliance, are you?
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
It was the EU who insisted on a border in the Irish Sea for any GB trade deal.
Lord Frost has however managed to get the EU to back down a little on that in the last week and promise minimal checks.
Boris will also impose direct rule on NI however if the EU do not go further and remove it completely as if they do not then Unionist parties will withdraw from the Stormont executive
It was their only true red line - integrity of the Single Market. Hardly a sneaky or unreasonable demand. As we ourselves acknowledged. We wouldn't have signed up to a sneaky or unreasonable demand, would we? No way. Not our guys.
Is the integrity of the market more important to them than peace in Northern Ireland?
If so, that's their choice they're free to make. They 2should build a border between NI and Eire and enforce it themselves. Good luck to them!
If they're not prepared to do that, they're bluffing and need another solution.
Peace in NI isn't a chip in Brexit negotiations. I'd hope Johnson & Frost realize this even if you don't. I expect they do and I imagine the EU do too. The issue will imo be sorted on the basis of the recent proposal. Checks but no checks. The ECJ stays, I think, but maybe this can be finessed in some way. It's there but it's not there. Constructive ambiguity, like the GFA, like the Protocol, like everything to do with NI - Irish and British, border, no border, in the SM, in the UK so not in the SM, all true at the same time, so long as it is positioned to catch the light in a certain way. Main thing - peace. It relies on people being pragmatic and at the same time high-minded. It relies on people NOT being literal, reductive, combative, sectarian.
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
Funnily enough, that was mentioned (cautiously!) on our team call this morning. Lots of emphasis on it not being mandatory, though it never is so I don't see what the problem is.
Assuming you are spooked by the header - worry not. Smarkets in their wisdom are settling for "Yes" based on care workers mandatory vaccinations and this is why the odds are no short for "Yes".
No, There is a COVID press conference today. Given the usual suspects are pressing for restrictions, its not unreasonable to expect something to happen.
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
If this was three months ago then I'd have said yes, but I don't think in the UK we'll see any approval for 5-11 year olds this side of Christmas. Even then it'll probably be another anaemic pace rollout as the government doesn't seem to learn from mistakes.
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
Agree on obesity & free health care. On the birth rate I think it is fair to say that some that part of the problem is some who are above benefit level but not financially comfortable have fewer kids than they might otherwise choose to, and that is particularly down to housing costs. It is unsurprising that this causes some resentment, and that we should look for a better balance than the status quo.
I'm in a frankly pretty depressed mood this morning, and all I can trace it to are these bloody lunatics trying to shut life down again despite all metrics being significantly better than the best scenario presented by them last time they tried to scare us in to submission. The utter lack of humility or consequence is sickening, and it's bloody scary they can keep coming back for more without any mainstream comment on how awful their track record is. My only reassuring thought is that cases will be falling again before this builds up too much momentum, but even that is undercut by the worry that these calls seem utterly divorced from reality so maybe falling cases won't matter.
I wouldn't worry. What are they going to do? All the government can do now is shut down business (yes, I know, that's probably what's worrying @Cyclefree), but Christmas isn't being cancelled like last year, that's for sure.
Nah they can't do that without all of the monetary and fiscal support mechanisms. Those cost real money and a lot of it too. Unless there's a variant that sets us back to literally zero I can't see businesses being shut down or restricted.
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
If this was three months ago then I'd have said yes, but I don't think in the UK we'll see any approval for 5-11 year olds this side of Christmas. Even then it'll probably be another anaemic pace rollout as the government doesn't seem to learn from mistakes.
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
Given that Javid steamrollered JCVI about 12-15 and the boosters rapidly, when he got the post, I would be surprised if he doesn't push the 5-11 forward as well.
Those people who have chosen to not be vaccinated and are eligible are enemies of the NHS. Their choices impact everyone who needs non-COVID care.
I think it was RCS(?) who introduced me to the subreddit Herman Cain awards. It's proper car crash reddit, but I must admit to happily scrolling through it.
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
If this was three months ago then I'd have said yes, but I don't think in the UK we'll see any approval for 5-11 year olds this side of Christmas. Even then it'll probably be another anaemic pace rollout as the government doesn't seem to learn from mistakes.
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
Given that Javid steamrollered JCVI about 12-15 and the boosters rapidly, when he got the post, I would be surprised if he doesn't push the 5-11 forward as well.
Pity he isn't so active and determined about actually getting the 12-15 year olds jabbed. Nor about boosters lagging way behind the weekly newly eligible.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 39m If Rishi Sunak really is planning on announcing a cut in taxes for the banks, whilst simultaneously announcing a rise in taxes for everyone else, then I don't see how Labour can fail to take him to the cleaners. That's the sort of blunder that defines a politician.
Except when he does, Dan “never wrong for long” Hodges will be first in the queue to congratulate his fiscal audacity, comparing it unfavourably to Labour’s approach.
Hodges, for me, suffers particularly badly from "always be saying something" syndrome. AB3S afflicts all pundits to a degree. Eg me, when I'm having a full monty day on here, people will have noticed that a certain percentage of my output will be utter codswallop. Ok, I like to think that percentage is low single digits, but the point is there is codswallop in the mix and the more I post the more cod there will be. It's just physics this. If my codswallop quotient is 15% and I do 20 posts on a thread there'll be 3 stinkers. 3 that shouldn't have seen the light of day. Dan Hodges, it seems to me, has a quotient of greater than 50%, meaning most of his output is tosh. It's more tosh than not. And given his output, which is vast since he must always be saying something, that is an awful lot of tosh. Still, he gets paid, I suppose. You have to pay the rent.
ABSS has a bigger effect than that. To take your example: let's say you - a generic internet character, not you in particular - post 3 stinkers out of 20. But if you only post ten times, probably none of them will be stinkers. Because on such a day, you're clearly less driven by ABSS and your internal filter is working better. On the other hand, on a day when you do 40 posts there might be 9 stinkers. Because less of the additional stuff is worth saying, and more is just because you need to be saying something.
Now, there's more to it than this of course. You might post more because an issue you're particularly knowledgeable about is being discussed; you might post less because you have other things to be doing (than posting on the internet? surely not.) But I think the general principle is sound.
This probably applies to a greater extent on twitter than it does on here, which is more of a conversation and less a lot of constantly furious nutters shouting at each other at full volume, all the time.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
It was the EU who insisted on a border in the Irish Sea for any GB trade deal.
Lord Frost has however managed to get the EU to back down a little on that in the last week and promise minimal checks.
Boris will also impose direct rule on NI however if the EU do not go further and remove it completely as if they do not then Unionist parties will withdraw from the Stormont executive
That is a remarkable non sequitur, even by your standards. No-one, to date, has mentioned the EU in this connection, although of course the present confusion is down to the existence of the artificial border.
Plenty have mentioned the EU, it was the EU who demanded the Irish Sea border for a trade deal not the UK government
No, it was the British Government who insisted on the border, as a result of leaving the EU and the Single Market. But, as before, when this particular discussion started, it was concerned the wisdom or otherwise of an ecumenical service to commemorate the centenary of the existence of N. Ireland. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU.
No, the British government just wanted to leave the EU and the single market.
It was quite ready to use a technological solution to avoid a hard trade border in Ireland (and the GFA only required no military checkpoints at the Irish border which was never on the cards anyway). However the EU refused to consider that and demanded a border in the Irish Sea before it would agree to a free trade agreement with GB.
Northern Ireland's position as a UK province should be respected and commemorated and by doing so we can tell the EU we are ready to stand up for it and continue to press to remove the Irish Sea border via Lord Frost
I really don't know why you wish, or need, to bring the EU into this discussion.
My position, having read up on the subject for many years, and spoken with many people at all sorts of levels, is that the border in Ireland is artificial and was created solely to satisfy the demands of a sectarian minority. That minority was encouraged in it's demands by a group of politicians who saw short-term political advantage in doing so. The border was, and remains, contentious, and any sort of commemoration, including a religious service, ecumenical or not, is likely to inflame old hostilities
If you refuse to respect the right of the Protestant and Unionist majority in Northern Ireland in 1921 to stay part of the UK that is your affair, thankfully the UK government will still respect that
Rather different situation today - 2016 was pre-Brexit.
So what Unionist parties still win more votes than Nationalist parties in NI even after Brexit
But you're not allowing for the Alliance, are you?
The Alliance's strongest support and only MP comes from North Down, a soft Unionist area which has had UUP MPs and Alliance MPs but never a Nationalist MP
Assuming you are spooked by the header - worry not. Smarkets in their wisdom are settling for "Yes" based on care workers mandatory vaccinations and this is why the odds are no short for "Yes".
Surely the government have already said vaccination for care home workers will become mandatory in November?
The market in the header can be settled for "No" only if they reverse that decision, which seems unlikely, to put it mildly.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
Agree on obesity & free health care. On the birth rate I think it is fair to say that some that part of the problem is some who are above benefit level but not financially comfortable have fewer kids than they might otherwise choose to, and that is particularly down to housing costs. It is unsurprising that this causes some resentment, and that we should look for a better balance than the status quo.
Anyone above benefits level can afford to have kids. Yes, it may be a struggle, but it's doable. My parents were permanently skint when I was a kid, and I had a brilliant childhood. Not denying there's a housing crisis. But having a family is much more important than being financially comfortable, IMO.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 39m If Rishi Sunak really is planning on announcing a cut in taxes for the banks, whilst simultaneously announcing a rise in taxes for everyone else, then I don't see how Labour can fail to take him to the cleaners. That's the sort of blunder that defines a politician.
Except when he does, Dan “never wrong for long” Hodges will be first in the queue to congratulate his fiscal audacity, comparing it unfavourably to Labour’s approach.
Hodges, for me, suffers particularly badly from "always be saying something" syndrome. AB3S afflicts all pundits to a degree. Eg me, when I'm having a full monty day on here, people will have noticed that a certain percentage of my output will be utter codswallop. Ok, I like to think that percentage is low single digits, but the point is there is codswallop in the mix and the more I post the more cod there will be. It's just physics this. If my codswallop quotient is 15% and I do 20 posts on a thread there'll be 3 stinkers. 3 that shouldn't have seen the light of day. Dan Hodges, it seems to me, has a quotient of greater than 50%, meaning most of his output is tosh. It's more tosh than not. And given his output, which is vast since he must always be saying something, that is an awful lot of tosh. Still, he gets paid, I suppose. You have to pay the rent.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
If this was three months ago then I'd have said yes, but I don't think in the UK we'll see any approval for 5-11 year olds this side of Christmas. Even then it'll probably be another anaemic pace rollout as the government doesn't seem to learn from mistakes.
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
Given that Javid steamrollered JCVI about 12-15 and the boosters rapidly, when he got the post, I would be surprised if he doesn't push the 5-11 forward as well.
Pity he isn't so active and determined about actually getting the 12-15 year olds jabbed. Nor about boosters lagging way behind the weekly newly eligible.
The problem with the boosters is people not rushing to take them up.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
Considering cases yesterday were only up 2% on last week if you exclude the SW crazyness in the numbers, and schools break up on Friday with half the current case load being school kids it's a very safe bet we'll see a drop in cases pretty soon. I just hope they don't do anything stupid beforehand.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
Considering cases yesterday were only up 2% on last week if you exclude the SW crazyness in the numbers, and schools break up on Friday with half the current case load being school kids it's a very safe bet we'll see a drop in cases pretty soon. I just hope they don't do anything stupid beforehand.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
Agree language is important - and has become more so over the last 500 years - but is not everything. Why did the Flemish throw in their lot with the Walloons, for example, rather than stick to their co-linguists to the north? Why has Switzerland seen so little discord between linguistic communities? And lowland Scots was probably, 500 years ago, not much more different from northern English than northern English was from southern English.
French, as we have discussed on here before, is only relatively recently - within the last 150 years or so - the majority language of France - prior to this, there were oodles of local languages across the country.
But I do think a common language is crucial in forming a polity. It is probably also pretty important in forming a nation.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
What's happening?
Oh sorry. I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Incidentally, for those keeping score, the 7k hospital admissions projection wasn't generically for October, it was for the 17th of October, so it was out by an order of magnitude. The upside case estimate was out by a factor of 3, and we can't say for the downside case as it was so silly they didn't extend their axis to show what it actually peaked at.
O/T but Ann Selzer has produced a truly horrible poll for Biden, showing his approval rating down to 37%. The RCP average gives 42%. If it's at that level by the mid-terms, the Republicans will win both Senate and House by a country mile.
Assuming you are spooked by the header - worry not. Smarkets in their wisdom are settling for "Yes" based on care workers mandatory vaccinations and this is why the odds are no short for "Yes".
Surely the government have already said vaccination for care home workers will become mandatory in November?
The market in the header can be settled for "No" only if they reverse that decision, which seems unlikely, to put it mildly.
Yes, agree. But Smarkets only made it clear care home worker mandate (which we knew about before market was launched) = "Yes" when they added a clarification a few days ago and this spooked the odds significantly. Up to then punters had assumed the market meant new restrictions.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
O/T but Ann Selzer has produced a truly horrible poll for Biden, showing his approval rating down to 37%. The RCP average gives 42%. If it's at that level by the mid-terms, the Republicans will win both Senate and House by a country mile.
And Trump will announce his 2024 presidential run the very next day
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
Agree on obesity & free health care. On the birth rate I think it is fair to say that some that part of the problem is some who are above benefit level but not financially comfortable have fewer kids than they might otherwise choose to, and that is particularly down to housing costs. It is unsurprising that this causes some resentment, and that we should look for a better balance than the status quo.
Anyone above benefits level can afford to have kids. Yes, it may be a struggle, but it's doable. My parents were permanently skint when I was a kid, and I had a brilliant childhood. Not denying there's a housing crisis. But having a family is much more important than being financially comfortable, IMO.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
The idea that ethnic cleansing constitutes a war crime is a very recent one indeed. No one doubted that millions of ethnic Germans were to be expelled at the end of the war.
To an extent, they brought this fate on themselves. Support for the Nazis in Eastern Germany and the Sudetenland , pre-war, was above 50%.
Assuming you are spooked by the header - worry not. Smarkets in their wisdom are settling for "Yes" based on care workers mandatory vaccinations and this is why the odds are no short for "Yes".
Surely the government have already said vaccination for care home workers will become mandatory in November?
The market in the header can be settled for "No" only if they reverse that decision, which seems unlikely, to put it mildly.
Yes, agree. But Smarkets only made it clear care home worker mandate (which we knew about before market was launched) = "Yes" when they added a clarification a few days ago and this spooked the odds significantly. Up to then punters had assumed the market meant new restrictions.
Not only did we know about it before the market was launched, the regulations were laid in Parliament before the market was launched.
Utter disgrace to count that as something new, when it was already pre-existing plans already laid in Parliament.
If it wasn't for the sodding antivaxxers and denialists (there's a huge overlap between those groups), this would have been over by now.
HART pressuring the JCVI and MPs, bringing the CRG onside and spewing their misinformation and fearmongering into the mdeia, ably assisted by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young.
Hesitation by the Government and JCVI, a belated decision and even more belated overruling, tentative and slow movement on the vaccination of 12-15s and incompetence in rolling out the boosters.
Other countries have completed their 12-15 rollout by now, and we were at the front of the vaccine rollout field; there's no excuse for it, and the rampant infections in secondary school ages which are driving the entire thing wouldn't exist.
Delusional wankers pushing their ignorant fantasies and too many frightened people accepting them without applying any coherent thought.
Thanks, antivaxxers and lockdown sceptics. Thanks so bloody much. We were free and clear and you've fucked it all up for all of us. Well sodding done.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 39m If Rishi Sunak really is planning on announcing a cut in taxes for the banks, whilst simultaneously announcing a rise in taxes for everyone else, then I don't see how Labour can fail to take him to the cleaners. That's the sort of blunder that defines a politician.
Except when he does, Dan “never wrong for long” Hodges will be first in the queue to congratulate his fiscal audacity, comparing it unfavourably to Labour’s approach.
Hodges, for me, suffers particularly badly from "always be saying something" syndrome. AB3S afflicts all pundits to a degree. Eg me, when I'm having a full monty day on here, people will have noticed that a certain percentage of my output will be utter codswallop. Ok, I like to think that percentage is low single digits, but the point is there is codswallop in the mix and the more I post the more cod there will be. It's just physics this. If my codswallop quotient is 15% and I do 20 posts on a thread there'll be 3 stinkers. 3 that shouldn't have seen the light of day. Dan Hodges, it seems to me, has a quotient of greater than 50%, meaning most of his output is tosh. It's more tosh than not. And given his output, which is vast since he must always be saying something, that is an awful lot of tosh. Still, he gets paid, I suppose. You have to pay the rent.
ABSS has a bigger effect than that. To take your example: let's say you - a generic internet character, not you in particular - post 3 stinkers out of 20. But if you only post ten times, probably none of them will be stinkers. Because on such a day, you're clearly less driven by ABSS and your internal filter is working better. On the other hand, on a day when you do 40 posts there might be 9 stinkers. Because less of the additional stuff is worth saying, and more is just because you need to be saying something.
Now, there's more to it than this of course. You might post more because an issue you're particularly knowledgeable about is being discussed; you might post less because you have other things to be doing (than posting on the internet? surely not.) But I think the general principle is sound.
This probably applies to a greater extent on twitter than it does on here, which is more of a conversation and less a lot of constantly furious nutters shouting at each other at full volume, all the time.
Yes, that's spot on. With huge output - unless it's because you are very knowledgeable on the thing you're on about - comes a higher quotient. So, that's a higher percentage of a higher output that is tosh. And if you have a high quotient to start with - a high 'resting' tosh rate as it were - this can mean reams and reams of tosh from just a single individual. We see it on twitter and although we are better than twitter, much better, we do occasionally see it on here.
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
If this was three months ago then I'd have said yes, but I don't think in the UK we'll see any approval for 5-11 year olds this side of Christmas. Even then it'll probably be another anaemic pace rollout as the government doesn't seem to learn from mistakes.
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
Given that Javid steamrollered JCVI about 12-15 and the boosters rapidly, when he got the post, I would be surprised if he doesn't push the 5-11 forward as well.
Pity he isn't so active and determined about actually getting the 12-15 year olds jabbed. Nor about boosters lagging way behind the weekly newly eligible.
The problem with the boosters is people not rushing to take them up.
Agreed. Was this not considered or foreseen? If so, what measures have been employed to encourage folk? Eye and ball seem to have been disconnected since Zahawi departed.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 39m If Rishi Sunak really is planning on announcing a cut in taxes for the banks, whilst simultaneously announcing a rise in taxes for everyone else, then I don't see how Labour can fail to take him to the cleaners. That's the sort of blunder that defines a politician.
Except when he does, Dan “never wrong for long” Hodges will be first in the queue to congratulate his fiscal audacity, comparing it unfavourably to Labour’s approach.
Hodges, for me, suffers particularly badly from "always be saying something" syndrome. AB3S afflicts all pundits to a degree. Eg me, when I'm having a full monty day on here, people will have noticed that a certain percentage of my output will be utter codswallop. Ok, I like to think that percentage is low single digits, but the point is there is codswallop in the mix and the more I post the more cod there will be. It's just physics this. If my codswallop quotient is 15% and I do 20 posts on a thread there'll be 3 stinkers. 3 that shouldn't have seen the light of day. Dan Hodges, it seems to me, has a quotient of greater than 50%, meaning most of his output is tosh. It's more tosh than not. And given his output, which is vast since he must always be saying something, that is an awful lot of tosh. Still, he gets paid, I suppose. You have to pay the rent.
ABSS has a bigger effect than that. To take your example: let's say you - a generic internet character, not you in particular - post 3 stinkers out of 20. But if you only post ten times, probably none of them will be stinkers. Because on such a day, you're clearly less driven by ABSS and your internal filter is working better. On the other hand, on a day when you do 40 posts there might be 9 stinkers. Because less of the additional stuff is worth saying, and more is just because you need to be saying something.
Now, there's more to it than this of course. You might post more because an issue you're particularly knowledgeable about is being discussed; you might post less because you have other things to be doing (than posting on the internet? surely not.) But I think the general principle is sound.
This probably applies to a greater extent on twitter than it does on here, which is more of a conversation and less a lot of constantly furious nutters shouting at each other at full volume, all the time.
Yes, that's spot on. With huge output - unless it's because you are very knowledgeable on the thing you're on about - comes a higher quotient. So, that's a higher percentage of a higher output that is tosh. And if you have a high quotient to start with - a high 'resting' tosh rate as it were - this can mean reams and reams of tosh from just a single individual. We see it on twitter and although we are better than twitter, much better, we do occasionally see it on here.
That reminds me, I should get on with some work...
O/T but Ann Selzer has produced a truly horrible poll for Biden, showing his approval rating down to 37%. The RCP average gives 42%. If it's at that level by the mid-terms, the Republicans will win both Senate and House by a country mile.
#GrinnellPoll findings: @JoeBiden won the presidency in 2020 with 54% of the independent vote. Today that support is at 28%. If the 2024 election were today, Biden and Trump would both get 40% of the vote–with 14% saying they would vote for someone else.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
My organisation: we won't be doing that. We are basically wfh till at least April.
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
Agree on obesity & free health care. On the birth rate I think it is fair to say that some that part of the problem is some who are above benefit level but not financially comfortable have fewer kids than they might otherwise choose to, and that is particularly down to housing costs. It is unsurprising that this causes some resentment, and that we should look for a better balance than the status quo.
Anyone above benefits level can afford to have kids. Yes, it may be a struggle, but it's doable. My parents were permanently skint when I was a kid, and I had a brilliant childhood. Not denying there's a housing crisis. But having a family is much more important than being financially comfortable, IMO.
Whether they can, or should do is not really the question for society, that is for individuals. If many of them feel they can't or shouldn't have a replacement level of kids there is a big problem that society needs to look at.
How did the UK go from leading the pack in vaccinations to being a middling player? France, Portugal, Italy, Spain all ahead of us. Germany about to overtake. Even the disastrous US is close behind.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
I travelled by bus through what was the Sudetenland to Prague in 2004, and even then, the place resembled a wasteland, of abandoned villages and overgrown fields. I wonder what it's like now.
O/T but Ann Selzer has produced a truly horrible poll for Biden, showing his approval rating down to 37%. The RCP average gives 42%. If it's at that level by the mid-terms, the Republicans will win both Senate and House by a country mile.
#GrinnellPoll findings: @JoeBiden won the presidency in 2020 with 54% of the independent vote. Today that support is at 28%. If the 2024 election were today, Biden and Trump would both get 40% of the vote–with 14% saying they would vote for someone else.
How did the UK go from leading the pack in vaccinations to being a middling player? France, Portugal, Italy, Spain all ahead of us. Germany about to overtake. Even the disastrous US is close behind.
How did the UK go from leading the pack in vaccinations to being a middling player? France, Portugal, Italy, Spain all ahead of us. Germany about to overtake. Even the disastrous US is close behind.
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
Our place is particularly timid about anything covid related - though it thinks it is forward looking. Yet I think we are organising one.
I wouldn't avoid a social engagement for fear of catching a cold, and I'm not going to miss one for fear of getting covid. That said, 1) I've already had it (after being vaxxed, it was a bad cold, nothing more) and 2) secretly, I don't really like work Christmas parties and would be fairly relaxed about missing one.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
All good points. However, what do we want to achieve? ... Dust off the Nightingale facilities and have Covid cases outside of mainstream hospitals. Expensive and hard, but preferable to restrictions every winter.
What I want to achieve is to protect the vaccinated from the anti-social choices of the unvaccinated.
At the moment we are punishing the vaccinated by delaying their medical treatment to accommodate the unvaccinated in hospital. The proposed solution to this is to punish the vaccinated by restricting their lives to delay the infection of the unvaccinated.
We need a better way. Nightingale hospitals for the unvaccinated is one approach. You could think of them as the secondary modern of the healthcare system.
Interesting post that.
"What I want to achieve is to protect the vaccinated from the anti-social choices of the unvaccinated"
I would say that in a liberal democracy there is no requirement for individuals to be social.
Liberal Democracy has been severely tested by the response to Covid rather than Covid itself. This is undeniable.
The article below (pre-pandemic) is interesting because it picks out an already strong and developing threat which is an uncomfortable bedfellow to liberal democracy: populism.
"[Benjamin]Constant presents the “peaceful enjoyment of individual independence” as the modern alternative to direct participation in government. The exclusion of most citizens, most of the time, from direct self-government opens up a large sphere of nonpolitical life—economic, social, cultural, and religious—that citizens expect to conduct on their own terms.”
Perhaps anti-social was the wrong term to use. The principle I was invoking was Mill's:
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
I'd argue that the refusal of a minority to be vaccinated creates a harm to others by blocking medical treatment, increasing transmission of the virus and justifying restrictions on liberty as a means to control the virus.
We rightly recoil from forced medical treatment, or denying medical treatment to those in need. However, the present situation I think justifies a limited exception to these principles, because of the harm otherwise done to the vaccinated.
Mill's test has 2 distinct and different meanings.
1 That no act may be done by authority over anyone unless that act specifically aims to prevent harm to others. (So if I am driving at 80 mph down a 20 mph limit residential street a policeman can properly exercise power over me to to stop me doing so)
or
2 General classes of action by authority which tend in general to prevent harm are proper. (So if I am driving lawfully and properly at 25 mph in a residential street a policeman can stop me and question me without any further reason).
The law in this case favours (2) - what a surprise. And power generally does as well. The second interpretation is infinitely wider that the first.
And if I decline to pay that part of income tax which for example provides for nuclear weapons, or armed support for tyrannies, power in the form of HMRC will take action to prevent me doing so. Mill's principle won't help me.
If it wasn't for the sodding antivaxxers and denialists (there's a huge overlap between those groups), this would have been over by now.
HART pressuring the JCVI and MPs, bringing the CRG onside and spewing their misinformation and fearmongering into the mdeia, ably assisted by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young.
Hesitation by the Government and JCVI, a belated decision and even more belated overruling, tentative and slow movement on the vaccination of 12-15s and incompetence in rolling out the boosters.
Other countries have completed their 12-15 rollout by now, and we were at the front of the vaccine rollout field; there's no excuse for it, and the rampant infections in secondary school ages which are driving the entire thing wouldn't exist.
Delusional wankers pushing their ignorant fantasies and too many frightened people accepting them without applying any coherent thought.
Thanks, antivaxxers and lockdown sceptics. Thanks so bloody much. We were free and clear and you've fucked it all up for all of us. Well sodding done.
There were always going to be antivaxxers. We knew this.
We have vaccines which are more efficacious than we dared hope for when vaccines were absent and we have a take-up far higher than envisaged. We knew vaccines wouldn't be 100% effective and some would refuse, and we still sold the vaccines as the silver bullet to ward off further authoritarian measures. We also knew that vaccines would wear off and boosters would be needed.
We need to trust the vaccines and keep to the plan.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
My ex suggested in 2001 how to win in Afghanistan. In about 30 minutes.
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
Yep. Three dos organised for staff and clients. And they'd better be happening. This sabre-rattling over more restrictions is ludicrous.
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
Agree on obesity & free health care. On the birth rate I think it is fair to say that some that part of the problem is some who are above benefit level but not financially comfortable have fewer kids than they might otherwise choose to, and that is particularly down to housing costs. It is unsurprising that this causes some resentment, and that we should look for a better balance than the status quo.
Anyone above benefits level can afford to have kids. Yes, it may be a struggle, but it's doable. My parents were permanently skint when I was a kid, and I had a brilliant childhood. Not denying there's a housing crisis. But having a family is much more important than being financially comfortable, IMO.
Whether they can, or should do is not really the question for society, that is for individuals. If many of them feel they can't or shouldn't have a replacement level of kids there is a big problem that society needs to look at.
I agree. I would like to see the whole of society reoriented to support children and families, with more family friendly work places, better funded schools, more subsidised childcare and higher child benefit. I take the Whitney Houston view on children. The only point I am making is that people who wait until they have amassed a certain amount of money before having children shouldn't resent others, including those who receive support from the state, who are willing to just get on with it.
How did the UK go from leading the pack in vaccinations to being a middling player? France, Portugal, Italy, Spain all ahead of us. Germany about to overtake. Even the disastrous US is close behind.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
Very, er, courageously put. I was trying to craft a suitably defensive way of saying the same thing. Of course, it's bad for this undergoing the ethnic cleansing. But makes for a calmer history two generations later.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
What's happening?
Oh sorry. I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Well, yes, but what happened previously is that the virus could spread very easily in a population with low levels of immunity, so all the metrics quickly doubled a couple of times after a warning.
Surely we have too much immunity for that to happen this time?
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
Agree language is important - and has become more so over the last 500 years - but is not everything. Why did the Flemish throw in their lot with the Walloons, for example, rather than stick to their co-linguists to the north? Why has Switzerland seen so little discord between linguistic communities? And lowland Scots was probably, 500 years ago, not much more different from northern English than northern English was from southern English.
French, as we have discussed on here before, is only relatively recently - within the last 150 years or so - the majority language of France - prior to this, there were oodles of local languages across the country.
But I do think a common language is crucial in forming a polity. It is probably also pretty important in forming a nation.
For every example one way we can think of one the other, can’t we! Fascinating,
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
Agree on obesity & free health care. On the birth rate I think it is fair to say that some that part of the problem is some who are above benefit level but not financially comfortable have fewer kids than they might otherwise choose to, and that is particularly down to housing costs. It is unsurprising that this causes some resentment, and that we should look for a better balance than the status quo.
Anyone above benefits level can afford to have kids. Yes, it may be a struggle, but it's doable. My parents were permanently skint when I was a kid, and I had a brilliant childhood. Not denying there's a housing crisis. But having a family is much more important than being financially comfortable, IMO.
Whether they can, or should do is not really the question for society, that is for individuals. If many of them feel they can't or shouldn't have a replacement level of kids there is a big problem that society needs to look at.
I agree. I would like to see the whole of society reoriented to support children and families, with more family friendly work places, better funded schools, more subsidised childcare and higher child benefit. I take the Whitney Houston view on children. The only point I am making is that people who wait until they have amassed a certain amount of money before having children shouldn't resent others, including those who receive support from the state, who are willing to just get on with it.
Again, perhaps they shouldn't resent it, but some of them do and that is very understandable.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
Very, er, courageously put. I was trying to craft a suitably defensive way of saying the same thing. Of course, it's bad for this undergoing the ethnic cleansing. But makes for a calmer history two generations later.
It tends to be overlooked today just how brutal the Allies were towards the enemy in WWII, as of course, they had to be.
I think that modern human rights standards only run skin deep, when confronted with necessity.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
Always amusing to stumble on a dark corner of twitter and see someone ranting about how people worry about right of return for Jews but no one cares about Palestinians forced out. They never seem to notice the Palastinian population is at an all time high, many times above pre 1948.
Comments
But after Corbyn*, nothing would surprise me.
*delightfully, autocorrect still refuses to recognise him, and insists on rendering him 'Cornyn'.
FFS!!! No!
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
I'd argue that the refusal of a minority to be vaccinated creates a harm to others by blocking medical treatment, increasing transmission of the virus and justifying restrictions on liberty as a means to control the virus.
We rightly recoil from forced medical treatment, or denying medical treatment to those in need. However, the present situation I think justifies a limited exception to these principles, because of the harm otherwise done to the vaccinated.
When Mill formulated his principle he envisaged a much more direct, immediate and foreseeable connection between an individual's own choices and the consequence of those choices.
Tricky area for sure but for me the distance between the decision not to be vaccinated and NHS pressure is too great and brings in far too many other factors outside of the individual's choice, not least why is the NHS unable to scale up to face this challenge rather than the state impinging individual liberty, especially when it comes to medical interventions on one's own body which one would have though is sacred territory?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/covid-vaccines-for-kids-5-11-up-for-preorder-wednesday-ahead-of-fda-review/
At a random guess, the government will be pushing on this one, quite hard.
UK benefits system too far towards non-contributory? Tend to agree. I don't believe that it is that a pure distinction - what happens to impecunious single mums in Ch? I bet the aren't left with their child to die in the street.
Exaggerated respect for individual conscience? I generally value that. I do not want to see us denying medical treatment to non-vaxxed, like France.
NHS giving out free drugs? I think the NHS drug purchase / prescription model just works well. We have checks and balances such as National Treatment Frameworks and Cochrane studies, and central purchasing. There is a reason why it costs German healthcare providers nearly double the UK cost to buy their insulin supplies. Not as bad as USA, which is about 10x, but suboptimal.
Obesity care? I think the public health role of the NHS is a plus. Diabetes prevention and care (eg putting Type IIs into remission) is a strong area, as is smoking reduction. Yes, discouraging personal responsibility is a risk.
Unlimited Benefits? We have a cash cap at well below average salary, both HB (by 25-30%) and UC (by 10%) have been slashed by the current govt. Child benefit is capped at two children, with exceptions. As remarked , I broaddly agree on the contributory point.
Are some of these believing stuff they read in the mail or the Euro-Media?
https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1450799019836510217?s=21
I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ?
I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
https://twitter.com/GBNfans/status/1450769640884523009?s=20
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/20/shaggy-skittish-saved-spanish-sheep-back-from-brink-aoe
It's proper car crash reddit, but I must admit to happily scrolling through it.
Nor about boosters lagging way behind the weekly newly eligible.
To take your example: let's say you - a generic internet character, not you in particular - post 3 stinkers out of 20. But if you only post ten times, probably none of them will be stinkers. Because on such a day, you're clearly less driven by ABSS and your internal filter is working better. On the other hand, on a day when you do 40 posts there might be 9 stinkers. Because less of the additional stuff is worth saying, and more is just because you need to be saying something.
Now, there's more to it than this of course. You might post more because an issue you're particularly knowledgeable about is being discussed; you might post less because you have other things to be doing (than posting on the internet? surely not.) But I think the general principle is sound.
This probably applies to a greater extent on twitter than it does on here, which is more of a conversation and less a lot of constantly furious nutters shouting at each other at full volume, all the time.
On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
The market in the header can be settled for "No" only if they reverse that decision, which seems unlikely, to put it mildly.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
and
French, as we have discussed on here before, is only relatively recently - within the last 150 years or so - the majority language of France - prior to this, there were oodles of local languages across the country.
But I do think a common language is crucial in forming a polity. It is probably also pretty important in forming a nation.
I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Which was never held.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
The idea that ethnic cleansing constitutes a war crime is a very recent one indeed. No one doubted that millions of ethnic Germans were to be expelled at the end of the war.
To an extent, they brought this fate on themselves. Support for the Nazis in Eastern Germany and the Sudetenland , pre-war, was above 50%.
Utter disgrace to count that as something new, when it was already pre-existing plans already laid in Parliament.
HART pressuring the JCVI and MPs, bringing the CRG onside and spewing their misinformation and fearmongering into the mdeia, ably assisted by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young.
Hesitation by the Government and JCVI, a belated decision and even more belated overruling, tentative and slow movement on the vaccination of 12-15s and incompetence in rolling out the boosters.
Other countries have completed their 12-15 rollout by now, and we were at the front of the vaccine rollout field; there's no excuse for it, and the rampant infections in secondary school ages which are driving the entire thing wouldn't exist.
Delusional wankers pushing their ignorant fantasies and too many frightened people accepting them without applying any coherent thought.
Thanks, antivaxxers and lockdown sceptics. Thanks so bloody much. We were free and clear and you've fucked it all up for all of us. Well sodding done.
Eye and ball seem to have been disconnected since Zahawi departed.
https://twitter.com/GrinnellPoll/status/1450763731013668866
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead
2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there....
3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
I travelled by bus through what was the Sudetenland to Prague in 2004, and even then, the place resembled a wasteland, of abandoned villages and overgrown fields. I wonder what it's like now.
WE NEED TO KNOW SO WE CAN MAKE THEM SUFFER
I wouldn't avoid a social engagement for fear of catching a cold, and I'm not going to miss one for fear of getting covid. That said, 1) I've already had it (after being vaxxed, it was a bad cold, nothing more) and 2) secretly, I don't really like work Christmas parties and would be fairly relaxed about missing one.
1 That no act may be done by authority over anyone unless that act specifically aims to prevent harm to others. (So if I am driving at 80 mph down a 20 mph limit residential street a policeman can properly exercise power over me to to stop me doing so)
or
2 General classes of action by authority which tend in general to prevent harm are proper. (So if I am driving lawfully and properly at 25 mph in a residential street a policeman can stop me and question me without any further reason).
The law in this case favours (2) - what a surprise. And power generally does as well. The second interpretation is infinitely wider that the first.
And if I decline to pay that part of income tax which for example provides for nuclear weapons, or armed support for tyrannies, power in the form of HMRC will take action to prevent me doing so. Mill's principle won't help me.
Surely not.
We have vaccines which are more efficacious than we dared hope for when vaccines were absent and we have a take-up far higher than envisaged. We knew vaccines wouldn't be 100% effective and some would refuse, and we still sold the vaccines as the silver bullet to ward off further authoritarian measures. We also knew that vaccines would wear off and boosters would be needed.
We need to trust the vaccines and keep to the plan.
Basically, impose peace, Roman style.
The Canadians, of course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBpgcZ1zYJs
Of course, it's bad for this undergoing the ethnic cleansing. But makes for a calmer history two generations later.
https://twitter.com/Caolanmcaree/status/1450596282154823683?s=20
Solved in 5 minutes by recruiting a newly unemployed relative.
Maybe the scriptwriters should run the economy?
Surely we have too much immunity for that to happen this time?
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
I think that modern human rights standards only run skin deep, when confronted with necessity.
He's laughing all the way to the bank. 🤦♂️