Just a reminder that Nus Ghani was sacked for being a Muslim the same time the Muslim Sajid Javid was ousted as Chancellor.
Hmmm....
Was that not thought to be Mr Cummings doing?
Well that was the spin....
I'm doubtful about this. Boris may be many things but not dumb-ass racist. He's a one-man melting pot.
I am SHOCKED a Prime Minister who compared Muslim women wearing the burqa to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” would appoint Islamophobes to his government.
Don't forget the piccaninnies!
Heavily overegged.
"Picaninnies" was a good satire of Tony Blair's imperial progress to avoid the UK where he was unpopular.
Letterboxes and bank robbers were exactly the same sentiments as previous comments by the likes of Harriet Harman, expressed in journalese rather than politico.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Surely the Austians. (I think not Hungarians)
It was a German-led operation. Sure, the Austrians went along with it, but as soon as Ukrainian independence was recognised by the Central Powers in February 1918, the ethnic Poles in Austria-Hungary weren't too happy (competing territorial claims and all that).
Rehashing last weekend's theme of how busy the hospitality industry suddenly seems: after last week's failure to get into a restaurant in my home suburb, for complicated reasons the family and I have ended up in Poynton - which was also rammed. At 6.30 we were apologetically turned away from two curry houses before a third squeezed us in. But the whole town is packed. In January! Socialising put off from December? Or is 6 o'clock in the suburbs suddenly the time and place to eat?
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
There's no point pausing it. At this point no-one is on the fence about vaccination, particularly NHS personnel who had earlier access to it than most. By now everyone's made their decision one way or the other. If people haven't had it by now they're not going to get it.
Problem the government has is that it's saying to the general public "the danger's passed, we can ditch everything now in terms of restrictions" so the natural vaccine sceptic is going to say "well I've gone this far without so don't see the urgency". Telling them then "omi isn't that bad but it's still mandatory but it's not mandatory for a while yet" is just the worst of all mixed messages.
Pausing it is just saying "you guys have the power here". What's going to have changed at the end of the pause? You either go through with it or you can it entirely.
Nothing has changed at the end of the pause.
There's a chance it will not be an issue by the autumn as the world moves on, the plague passes into history or at least live-with-it-like-flu status. We don't sack NHS for not being flu jabbed.
It's a political fix to get through another few months before deciding what to do. By then the pieces have moved on the board.
Don't get me wrong: It would be better if they got vaxxed, but I am talking pragmatic politics here.
It's the same sort of political fix that played out so badly with Brexit. There's a decision to be made, but it's too politically difficult to make it, so let's postpone it, kick the can down the road a bit and hope that either something different has appeared by then to change the equation or everyone's forgotten about it. I understand the rationale, I'm just not convinced it's the solution.
If you pause it, open-deadline style, then you're basically saying the mandatory thing isn't tenable, having already pissed off the social care staff with a mandatory jab. If you pause it with a new fixed deadline, you're basically just moving the problem another few months along the line.
scrap it - The government have actually had a good pandemic imo but this was the worst bit of it - hard man posturing when up against people who have real power (essential workers)
Just a reminder that Nus Ghani was sacked for being a Muslim the same time the Muslim Sajid Javid was ousted as Chancellor.
Hmmm....
Was that not thought to be Mr Cummings doing?
Well that was the spin....
I'm doubtful about this. Boris may be many things but not dumb-ass racist. He's a one-man melting pot.
I am SHOCKED a Prime Minister who compared Muslim women wearing the burqa to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” would appoint Islamophobes to his government.
Don't forget the piccaninnies!
Heavily overegged.
"Picaninnies" was a good satire of Tony Blair's imperial progress to avoid the UK where he was unpopular.
Letterboxes and bank robbers were exactly the same sentiments as previous comments by the likes of Harriet Harman, expressed in journalese rather than politico.
Well I never knew it wasn't possible to engage in satire without using racially offensive language, I suppose in your head it would be fine to use the n word to make his point.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
Sitting on a balcony in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3, overlooking the starlit Indian Ocean, drinking the world’s FUCK OFFEST Gin Martini. It’s about a pint in quantity
You?
Either you down it in one or it'll be lukewarm before you're through. Not sure which is more eeeuch
Send it back.
True
TBH I’m only drinking it because the bar has RUN OUT OF TONIC = no G&T
It wouldn’t have happened during the Raj. And if it had happened, the bar manager would surely have been keelhauled in the bay by the Royal Navy
Keelhauling seems such a cruel punshment, and yet it was far from exceptional.
There's a horrible catalogue of ways to hurt people.
Little evidence of its use in the British navy.
There’s a chilling scene in Black Sails when Blackbeard, played by the great Ray Stevenson, is (somewhat ahistorically) keelhauled. Makes me wince remembering it.
Rehashing last weekend's theme of how busy the hospitality industry suddenly seems: after last week's failure to get into a restaurant in my home suburb, for complicated reasons the family and I have ended up in Poynton - which was also rammed. At 6.30 we were apologetically turned away from two curry houses before a third squeezed us in. But the whole town is packed. In January! Socialising put off from December? Or is 6 o'clock in the suburbs suddenly the time and place to eat?
Our postponed works Xmas do has been a subject of occasional discussion this week just gone, but we're being a bit tardy about getting round to arranging it. I would imagine that others have already got their fingers out - along with quite a lot of punters just generally demob happy over what we all hope is the end of the pandemic.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
Rehashing last weekend's theme of how busy the hospitality industry suddenly seems: after last week's failure to get into a restaurant in my home suburb, for complicated reasons the family and I have ended up in Poynton - which was also rammed. At 6.30 we were apologetically turned away from two curry houses before a third squeezed us in. But the whole town is packed. In January! Socialising put off from December? Or is 6 o'clock in the suburbs suddenly the time and place to eat?
Similar experience here. We went for lunch in Newcastle. Nice place in North Ouseburn. Glad we booked it was heaving and they turned away around a dozen walk ups while we were there. Looked at booking a few places and nothing before we got this one. They said it was amazing how busy they had been since Xmas and wondered why everyone had so much money spare.
Just a reminder that Nus Ghani was sacked for being a Muslim the same time the Muslim Sajid Javid was ousted as Chancellor.
Hmmm....
Was that not thought to be Mr Cummings doing?
Well that was the spin....
I'm doubtful about this. Boris may be many things but not dumb-ass racist. He's a one-man melting pot.
I am SHOCKED a Prime Minister who compared Muslim women wearing the burqa to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” would appoint Islamophobes to his government.
Don't forget the piccaninnies!
Heavily overegged.
"Picaninnies" was a good satire of Tony Blair's imperial progress to avoid the UK where he was unpopular.
Letterboxes and bank robbers were exactly the same sentiments as previous comments by the likes of Harriet Harman, expressed in journalese rather than politico.
Well I never knew it wasn't possible to engage in satire without using racially offensive language, I suppose in your head it would be fine to use the n word to make his point.
You choose your own suppositions, TSE, as we all do. And get to take responsibility for them.
However when "MG Midget" has just been deemed irretrievably offensive because of the "midget", we need to be minimalist in our censorship of language and in taking offense.
Especially as it is not long since the same group deemed the now apparently acceptable "dwarf" to be the more offensive of the two.
Rehashing last weekend's theme of how busy the hospitality industry suddenly seems: after last week's failure to get into a restaurant in my home suburb, for complicated reasons the family and I have ended up in Poynton - which was also rammed. At 6.30 we were apologetically turned away from two curry houses before a third squeezed us in. But the whole town is packed. In January! Socialising put off from December? Or is 6 o'clock in the suburbs suddenly the time and place to eat?
Years ago wife and I walked the South Downs way. One Saturday we had reached a small town, and at around 6.45pm entered a totally empty curry house, and jokingly asked for a table for two. The chap looked long and hard at the bookings and said ok, if we were quick... We were fed, a nice meal, but were astonished as half the town piled in the next 30 minutes...
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
You need to explain your insult and slur with better detail!
Wondering if someone this week shared evidence that Rishi knew about or attended a party.
He is teetotal and there is no evidence he attended any party
But given where he lives and works he would have to blind and deaf to not realise parties were taking part in Number 10.
As i understood it, he doesn't live in Downing Street.
I was told at various stages of the pandemic he lived in Downing Street.
Apparently his family home - and where he usually lives - is in Kensington. I am not sure he could live in Downing Street since the flat he would occupy is home to the PM (as it was previously to Blair, Brown and Cameron as PM) and the flat in Number 10 is unused.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
You need to explain your insult and slur with better detail!
Your argument is a variant on the old Belloc rhyme
"always keep-a hold of nurse - for fear of finding something worse"
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
Sitting on a balcony in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3, overlooking the starlit Indian Ocean, drinking the world’s FUCK OFFEST Gin Martini. It’s about a pint in quantity
You?
Either you down it in one or it'll be lukewarm before you're through. Not sure which is more eeeuch
Send it back.
True
TBH I’m only drinking it because the bar has RUN OUT OF TONIC = no G&T
It wouldn’t have happened during the Raj. And if it had happened, the bar manager would surely have been keelhauled in the bay by the Royal Navy
Keelhauling seems such a cruel punshment, and yet it was far from exceptional.
There's a horrible catalogue of ways to hurt people.
Little evidence of its use in the British navy.
There’s a chilling scene in Black Sails when Blackbeard, played by the great Ray Stevenson, is (somewhat ahistorically) keelhauled. Makes me wince remembering it.
Though apparently a little more in the Dutch navy. No recorded cases in the RN.
Just looking it up, the surprise for me was that it could be along the *length* of the keel.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
Interesting to bring up 1870 - The French lesson* from which was not to be the aggressor. They retreated to their fortifications in 1914, several kilometres inside France. The Germans invaded..... If the Germans hadn't attacked France in 1914, there would have been no war with France.
The Germans came up with an interesting justification for conquering Belgium - since they couldn't have attacked France successfully without going through Belgium, they had the right to attack Belgium as well. And it was illegal for the Belgians to resist!
Perhaps in 1945 we should have been nice to what was left of Germany, otherwise they might have been upset and tried again in 1960?
The Ukrainians are just living in their country. It's got its problems, sure. But they aren't massacring or even poking hard the various minorities - who are showing little interest in wanting to be "liberated" by Russia. It's a country where the opposition can win the election and take power. They aren't preparing to march on Moscow or Berlin. They just want to be.
If various Russian nationalists get bent out of shape because Ukraine keeps on existing, why should they get to dictate what hap[pens there?
What are your thoughts on the Germans training the Russian army *after* the first Ukraine War? Not exactly neutral, is it?
* First** rule of Revanche Club - the Germans will start the next war. Be ready. ** Second rule of Revanche Club - make friends with absolutely everyone apart from Germany.
Wondering if someone this week shared evidence that Rishi knew about or attended a party.
He is teetotal and there is no evidence he attended any party
But given where he lives and works he would have to blind and deaf to not realise parties were taking part in Number 10.
As i understood it, he doesn't live in Downing Street.
I was told at various stages of the pandemic he lived in Downing Street.
Apparently his family home - and where he usually lives - is in Kensington. I am not sure he could live in Downing Street since the flat he would occupy is home to the PM (as it was previously to Blair, Brown and Cameron as PM) and the flat in Number 10 is unused.
The version I was told he stayed in the Downing Street complex when he had to self isolate or when members of his family were self isolating at home, as well a few occasions when he was working long hours.
But even if he didn't, he'd still be working in Downing Street at the times the (garden) parties were taking place, the May 20th one took place at 6pm.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
I think that’s slightly unfair. But it’s also grossly inaccurate to call it a ‘proxy war’. Ukraine will fight whether we help them or not - and any Russian invasion will be in gross violation of UN conventions. And western military aid in this case probably makes war less, not more likely.
We popped out for something to eat this afternoon. Arrived just after 2 and it was fairly busy. Other groups arrived after we did.
I witnessed the Covid theatre spectacle of a couple who had been sitting bare faced for an hour donning their masks for the thirty second walk to the door.
BTW - I had a vegan chilli followed by a slice of vegan chocolate cake. Day 22 and still meat-free.
The emails detail how multiple bets of around $420,000 worth of cryptocurrency were placed on the player in question to get a yellow card — which then happened.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
I'm not at all sure that the Sue Gray report will make any difference to BJ's future. I suspect that the die is already cast, although I'm not sure which way. It may be that, out of courtesy, loads of rebels are politely waiting for the report to be published before they send in their letters - they know the content of the report won't make any difference, because it can't exonerate BJ's lies. Or it may be that the rebellion has fizzled out, and nothing in the report would reignite it. Either way, I suspect the Sue Gray report may be something of a red herring.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
Do you have any insight into their reasons? The only things I have seen are variants of the vaccines being ‘experimental’, and those who reject ALL medicines now, a growing trend among the youth, seemingly an offshoot of ‘clean eating’.
I'm not at all sure that the Sue Gray report will make any difference to BJ's future. I suspect that the die is already cast, although I'm not sure which way. It may be that, out of courtesy, loads of rebels are politely waiting for the report to be published before they send in their letters - they know the content of the report won't make any difference, because it can't exonerate BJ's lies. Or it may be that the rebellion has fizzled out, and nothing in the report would reignite it. Either way, I suspect the Sue Gray report may be something of a red herring.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
I think that’s slightly unfair. But it’s also grossly inaccurate to call it a ‘proxy war’. Ukraine will fight whether we help them or not - and any Russian invasion will be in gross violation of UN conventions. And western military aid in this case probably makes war less, not more likely.
I call it a proxy war on basis that what Ukrainians will be fighting for is different than what geo political powers are interested in from the Proxy war theatres.
Take Syria as a perfect example.
At first it was an uprising. When people from outside came in with their guns, armour and air strikes it became something else.
Unless you can convince me Ukraine is a very different proxy war than Syria.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
Do you have any insight into their reasons? The only things I have seen are variants of the vaccines being ‘experimental’, and those who reject ALL medicines now, a growing trend among the youth, seemingly an offshoot of ‘clean eating’.
Natural Selection should eventually fix the total rejection of medicines.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
Do you have any insight into their reasons? The only things I have seen are variants of the vaccines being ‘experimental’, and those who reject ALL medicines now, a growing trend among the youth, seemingly an offshoot of ‘clean eating’.
Natural Selection should eventually fix the total rejection of medicines.
I came across it from my pharmacy students. Frankly it’s a horrifying phenomena, but as you say may well get some help from the natural world...
I also note today that PB's elite team of armchair warriors, having given up for now on China invading Taiwan or the UK invading France, are, in the immortal words of Kenny Everett, in "let's bomb Russia" mode. And they want Germany to join in, regardless of the perilous history that has given rise to Germany's caution in respect of military adventurism. Hm.
Sitting on a balcony in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3, overlooking the starlit Indian Ocean, drinking the world’s FUCK OFFEST Gin Martini. It’s about a pint in quantity
You?
Either you down it in one or it'll be lukewarm before you're through. Not sure which is more eeeuch
Send it back.
True
TBH I’m only drinking it because the bar has RUN OUT OF TONIC = no G&T
It wouldn’t have happened during the Raj. And if it had happened, the bar manager would surely have been keelhauled in the bay by the Royal Navy
Keelhauling seems such a cruel punshment, and yet it was far from exceptional.
There's a horrible catalogue of ways to hurt people.
Little evidence of its use in the British navy.
There’s a chilling scene in Black Sails when Blackbeard, played by the great Ray Stevenson, is (somewhat ahistorically) keelhauled. Makes me wince remembering it.
Though apparently a little more in the Dutch navy. No recorded cases in the RN.
Just looking it up, the surprise for me was that it could be along the *length* of the keel.
Too difficult to control, I daresay, for an organisation such as the RN. The degree of punishment was so sensitive on the size of the ship, time since last careening to burn off the (very sharp) barnacles, etc.
Flogging was nice and standardised, and could be halted at any time for the rest to follow as and when.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
Do you have any insight into their reasons? The only things I have seen are variants of the vaccines being ‘experimental’, and those who reject ALL medicines now, a growing trend among the youth, seemingly an offshoot of ‘clean eating’.
Ah yes, "clean eating", no evil medicines....
Just some Ketamine from Dodgy Dan, the barristers son with the pork pie hat who runs a rave in a disused skittle alley behind the Dog & Duck and thinks that calling himself DJ Head Fuck is cool.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
Do you have any insight into their reasons? The only things I have seen are variants of the vaccines being ‘experimental’, and those who reject ALL medicines now, a growing trend among the youth, seemingly an offshoot of ‘clean eating’.
Looking on various youtube channels about this - Bjorn Bull Hansen is a anti state Norwegian (dont worry he is not a terrorist or anything just a author who likes the outdoors ) who refers to it on a lot of his videos. The reasons most he gives and other comments on it and from other sources are a) Think it is literally poison b) Some people just dont like foreign bodies injected into them c) Some think covid is a complete overreaction (I have sympathy here ) d) Some people are just against the principle of the state telling them what to do E) medical reasons f) scared of it
We know all about taking out cables - we were I think the first to do it.
Within about a day of the start of WW1, we had hoicked up all the German owned cables in the Channel and cut them. Which meant that a lot of their comms had to either go via radio which we could monitor, or neutral-owned cables, which I think tended to go via Cornwall.
See the Zimmermann Telegram, which was a proposal from Germnay to Mexico that they subsidise a Mexican war on the USA. We got it by I think tapping diplomatic traffic, and it was how we got the USA into WW1. A good story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
I own the dress medals of "Blinker" Hall. He later became a Conservative MP.
Sitting on a balcony in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3, overlooking the starlit Indian Ocean, drinking the world’s FUCK OFFEST Gin Martini. It’s about a pint in quantity
You?
Either you down it in one or it'll be lukewarm before you're through. Not sure which is more eeeuch
Send it back.
True
TBH I’m only drinking it because the bar has RUN OUT OF TONIC = no G&T
It wouldn’t have happened during the Raj. And if it had happened, the bar manager would surely have been keelhauled in the bay by the Royal Navy
Keelhauling seems such a cruel punshment, and yet it was far from exceptional.
There's a horrible catalogue of ways to hurt people.
Little evidence of its use in the British navy.
There’s a chilling scene in Black Sails when Blackbeard, played by the great Ray Stevenson, is (somewhat ahistorically) keelhauled. Makes me wince remembering it.
Though apparently a little more in the Dutch navy. No recorded cases in the RN.
Just looking it up, the surprise for me was that it could be along the *length* of the keel.
Too difficult to control, I daresay, for an organisation such as the RN. The degree of punishment was so sensitive on the size of the ship, time since last careening to burn off the (very sharp) barnacles, etc.
Flogging was nice and standardised, and could be halted at any time for the rest to follow as and when.
One of my favourite ever moments from Star Trek involved keelhauling.
WORF: Those quarters are not appropriate for Admiral Colti. She outranks Admiral Veta.
ODO: Well then we'll put her in H two, Veta in D nine, and Rifkin in K four.
WORF: That will not do. Rifkin commands a starship. Protocol requires he be given equal quarters.
ODO: But he's only a captain.
WORF: It is naval tradition.
ODO: So is keelhauling, but right now we should focus on accommodations
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
I think that’s slightly unfair. But it’s also grossly inaccurate to call it a ‘proxy war’. Ukraine will fight whether we help them or not - and any Russian invasion will be in gross violation of UN conventions. And western military aid in this case probably makes war less, not more likely.
I call it a proxy war on basis that what Ukrainians will be fighting for is different than what geo political powers are interested in from the Proxy war theatres.
Take Syria as a perfect example.
At first it was an uprising. When people from outside came in with their guns, armour and air strikes it became something else.
Unless you can convince me Ukraine is a very different proxy war than Syria.
So what should we do -
- Ban weapons sales to Ukraine? - Ban weapons sales to Russia? The Germans will be upset and might throw a tantrum. - Deny the Russians access to Swift? Then poor Mr Putin might not be able to buy his wifey wife a big big diamond for Christmas.... - ?
If Boris Johnson is ousted soon as PM I think I've found a perfect job for him, Chairman of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
Rebuild is actually an upgrade for Yorkshire, signing Otis Gibson as head coach.
I was absolutely astonished to find he's only the second black man and the fourth non-white overall to be coach of a first class English county.
That's just extraordinary, and not in a good way.
Agreed. From what I’ve read, Gibson is a substantial character, not a token appointment - I guess we’ll find out if that’s correct. I wish him well.
He was certainly a substantial cricketer when I faced him :-)
10 wickets in an innings against Hampshire for Durham was a magnificent performance by any standards, and it isn't as though that was an aberration, he was a very fine bowler for many years.
Also seem to remember he scored a great many useful lower-order runs.
I also note today that PB's elite team of armchair warriors, having given up for now on China invading Taiwan or the UK invading France, are, in the immortal words of Kenny Everett, in "let's bomb Russia" mode. And they want Germany to join in, regardless of the perilous history that has given rise to Germany's caution in respect of military adventurism. Hm.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
I think that’s slightly unfair. But it’s also grossly inaccurate to call it a ‘proxy war’. Ukraine will fight whether we help them or not - and any Russian invasion will be in gross violation of UN conventions. And western military aid in this case probably makes war less, not more likely.
I call it a proxy war on basis that what Ukrainians will be fighting for is different than what geo political powers are interested in from the Proxy war theatres.
Take Syria as a perfect example.
At first it was an uprising. When people from outside came in with their guns, armour and air strikes it became something else.
Unless you can convince me Ukraine is a very different proxy war than Syria.
So what should we do -
- Ban weapons sales to Ukraine? - Ban weapons sales to Russia? The Germans will be upset and might throw a tantrum. - Deny the Russians access to Swift? Then poor Mr Putin might not be able to buy his wifey wife a big big diamond for Christmas.... - ?
Perhaps we just cut out the middleman and bomb the Germans instead?
I also note today that PB's elite team of armchair warriors, having given up for now on China invading Taiwan or the UK invading France, are, in the immortal words of Kenny Everett, in "let's bomb Russia" mode. And they want Germany to join in, regardless of the perilous history that has given rise to Germany's caution in respect of military adventurism. Hm.
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
Do you have any insight into their reasons? The only things I have seen are variants of the vaccines being ‘experimental’, and those who reject ALL medicines now, a growing trend among the youth, seemingly an offshoot of ‘clean eating’.
Natural Selection should eventually fix the total rejection of medicines.
I came across it from my pharmacy students. Frankly it’s a horrifying phenomena, but as you say may well get some help from the natural world...
Packers-49ers tonight, not sure I am ready for another soul destroying playoff loss...
This mandatory vaccination for NHS staff is about to really blow up. Already seeing signs of staff panicking or getting extremely fired up about it. My manager has warned us that the next 3-4 weeks is going to be very difficult at work with the 3rd Feb deadline for 1st doses. Emotions will be running high.
Do you have a percentage for how many will refuse?
Mail says 6% of staff have refused to be vaxxed.
Then that'll be 6% of NHS staff being shuffled into back office roles or getting the heave-ho, if true.
The Government didn't back down over social care workers, despite that sector being, if anything, even more distressed than health. I don't think they'll give the NHS heel-diggers a free pass either.
In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.
But Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said health care professionals had "a duty" to make sure they were protected.
She said: "If you're marching today, just take a moment, think about the people that you've been looking after who have experienced Covid, think about your colleagues who you've been working with, and think about the best way to make sure that we're all protected, and that we're all as safe as possible, because we are very much in this together and it's down to us to look after each other too."
...
The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said delaying the policy on mandatory vaccination was not the answer.
She said staff who worked with patients and choose not to be vaccinated "will be redeployed where that is possible, or potentially dismissed".
And while health bosses were worried about "exacerbating staff shortages at a time when the service is under huge operational pressures", the majority backed the policy.
I cannot for the life of me see why a classic political compromise cannot be brought to bear here. Pause the sackings. Give them until next Autumn to get vaxxed as there is no panic as the omi variant is not as severe as first thought etc etc...
The principle is retained. The date is moved. The staff carry on.
There seems little evidence that them being vaxxed will protect patients. Maybe I have missed this?
My immediate guess would be between 800-1000 of our staff at our trust are not double vaccinated.
That is a mixture of non vaccinated and only had one jab.
The ones that had say one jab can probably be encouraged and worked on to have their second. The main reasons I have seen so far for only having one is that they either had the 1st jab and felt unwell after it so didn't bother with the 2nd or they had 1 jab and still got Covid so again they didn't see the point. These groups I think with time and effort and simply the fear of losing their jobs or being redeployed will end up having their 2nd.
The no jabs at all group will be much harder, a lot will make a stand and are strong in their beliefs. They have had plenty of time to get vaccinated and not had it.
The medically exempt (those that might be and those that believe they should be) and those that are pregnant will of course have to be looked at. You also have overseas vaccinations with Doctors and Nurses that will have to be checked out and screened.
There is really a lot of work coming up and my department will be right in the thick of it at our Trust.
and all not necessary if the government had not had a power surge go to their head on this. You cannot force people to stick needles in their body
Austria is making it mandatory, with fines for non compliance.
that is horrific
It’s a variation on suggestions on pb to use tax to get vaccination rates up. I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
Whilst I dont think tax or money penalties or job penalties (NHS) should be used against anti vaccers and is state power gone mad it is not the same as actually been forced (as in Austria) .That actually makes me feel sick thinking about it.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
Do you have any insight into their reasons? The only things I have seen are variants of the vaccines being ‘experimental’, and those who reject ALL medicines now, a growing trend among the youth, seemingly an offshoot of ‘clean eating’.
Natural Selection should eventually fix the total rejection of medicines.
I came across it from my pharmacy students. Frankly it’s a horrifying phenomena, but as you say may well get some help from the natural world...
It's also worth remembering that huge amounts of stuff that are claimed to be "values" or "principles" are actually just tendencies of current fashion.
If Boris Johnson is ousted soon as PM I think I've found a perfect job for him, Chairman of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
Rebuild is actually an upgrade for Yorkshire, signing Otis Gibson as head coach.
I was absolutely astonished to find he's only the second black man and the fourth non-white overall to be coach of a first class English county.
That's just extraordinary, and not in a good way.
Agreed. From what I’ve read, Gibson is a substantial character, not a token appointment - I guess we’ll find out if that’s correct. I wish him well.
He’s done a fair bit of coaching at a pretty senior level. Like you I wish him well and hope he lances the boil at Yorkshire.
The ECB still needs to mete out a punishment beating to Yorkshire. Deprivation of test matches, points deductions and the rest. They need to punish Yorkshire in a far harsher way than durham. Unless they are saying they care far less about institutional racism than a few financial issues.
I also note today that PB's elite team of armchair warriors, having given up for now on China invading Taiwan or the UK invading France, are, in the immortal words of Kenny Everett, in "let's bomb Russia" mode. And they want Germany to join in, regardless of the perilous history that has given rise to Germany's caution in respect of military adventurism. Hm.
You mean the suggestion that Ukraine be allowed the weapons to defend itself from a country that has already stolen territory from it?
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
I think that’s slightly unfair. But it’s also grossly inaccurate to call it a ‘proxy war’. Ukraine will fight whether we help them or not - and any Russian invasion will be in gross violation of UN conventions. And western military aid in this case probably makes war less, not more likely.
I call it a proxy war on basis that what Ukrainians will be fighting for is different than what geo political powers are interested in from the Proxy war theatres.
Take Syria as a perfect example.
At first it was an uprising. When people from outside came in with their guns, armour and air strikes it became something else.
Unless you can convince me Ukraine is a very different proxy war than Syria.
Syria was a full blown civil war. Ukraine is a sovereign, democratic country, fairly stable until Putin meddled. They have requested our aid in defending their country, and will fight Putin with or without it. ‘Proxy war’, and a comparison with Syria, are both nonsense.
If Boris Johnson is ousted soon as PM I think I've found a perfect job for him, Chairman of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
Rebuild is actually an upgrade for Yorkshire, signing Otis Gibson as head coach.
I was absolutely astonished to find he's only the second black man and the fourth non-white overall to be coach of a first class English county.
That's just extraordinary, and not in a good way.
Agreed. From what I’ve read, Gibson is a substantial character, not a token appointment - I guess we’ll find out if that’s correct. I wish him well.
He was certainly a substantial cricketer when I faced him :-)
Did it last long?
I can't actually remember the scores I got in the couple of games I played against him, he definitely didn't get me out. I don't think I faced him in one game, the other I think it was only a few overs. My own clubs West Indian pro was quicker than him, but from memory it was the ease that he could give you a much quicker one that bounced on you.
I have had the full beans off Alex Tudor...that was when I realised I wasn't much more than a club cricketer.....
We popped out for something to eat this afternoon. Arrived just after 2 and it was fairly busy. Other groups arrived after we did.
I witnessed the Covid theatre spectacle of a couple who had been sitting bare faced for an hour donning their masks for the thirty second walk to the door.
BTW - I had a vegan chilli followed by a slice of vegan chocolate cake. Day 22 and still meat-free.
I know people who still do the Covid theatre crap in restaurants. Bonkers.
Anyhow, whilst various amongst us recount our eating out experiences, this from the Graun: Jack Monroe on the extreme end of the cost of living crisis, as it pertains to the struggles of the least well off.
Our ruling class may have been brazenly wheeling suitcases of cheap plonk past the averted gaze of Metropolitan police officers during the last year of lockdowns, but their voters are increasingly finding themselves destitute, hungry, demoralised and priced out of the cheapest bag of apples at the supermarket.
...
The Smart Price, Basics and Value range products offered as lower-cost alternatives are stealthily being extinguished from the shelves, leaving shoppers with no choice but to “level up” to the supermarkets’ own branded goods – usually in smaller quantities at larger prices.
I have been monitoring this for the last decade, through writing recipes on my online blog and documenting the prices of ingredients in forensic detail. In 2012, 10 stock cubes from Sainsbury’s Basics range were 10p. In 2022, those same stock cubes are 39p, but only available in chicken or beef. The cheapest vegetable stock cubes are, inexplicably, £1 for 10. Last year the Smart Price pasta in my local Asda was 29p for 500g. Today, it is unavailable, so the cheapest bag is 70p; a 141% price rise for the same product in more colourful packaging. A few years ago, there were more than 400 products in the Smart Price range; today there are 87, and counting down.
And this is before home energy bills suddenly go up by an eyewatering sum (perhaps 50% or more for some customers) in the Spring. For a lot of us, I suspect that the effect of inflation will be one less night out a week, or a slightly smaller sum being put away in savings. For others - well, it looks like the food banks are going to be in need of a lot more donations and volunteers before the year is out.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
It seems appeasement is alive and well in certain dark corners of PB
I think that’s slightly unfair. But it’s also grossly inaccurate to call it a ‘proxy war’. Ukraine will fight whether we help them or not - and any Russian invasion will be in gross violation of UN conventions. And western military aid in this case probably makes war less, not more likely.
I call it a proxy war on basis that what Ukrainians will be fighting for is different than what geo political powers are interested in from the Proxy war theatres.
Take Syria as a perfect example.
At first it was an uprising. When people from outside came in with their guns, armour and air strikes it became something else.
Unless you can convince me Ukraine is a very different proxy war than Syria.
So what should we do -
- Ban weapons sales to Ukraine? - Ban weapons sales to Russia? The Germans will be upset and might throw a tantrum. - Deny the Russians access to Swift? Then poor Mr Putin might not be able to buy his wifey wife a big big diamond for Christmas.... - ?
Perhaps we just cut out the middleman and bomb the Germans instead?
EDIT: then again, the Germans are saying this is all about commercial realities. Could we pay them to bomb themselves, I wonder? Lieutenant Minderbinder to Ops, please, Lieutenant Minderbinder to Ops, please......
Sunday Times EXCLUSIVE: A Conservative MP has accused a party whip of telling her she was fired from her ministerial job because her Muslim faith was “making colleagues uncomfortable”
I also note today that PB's elite team of armchair warriors, having given up for now on China invading Taiwan or the UK invading France, are, in the immortal words of Kenny Everett, in "let's bomb Russia" mode. And they want Germany to join in, regardless of the perilous history that has given rise to Germany's caution in respect of military adventurism. Hm.
France and Turkey have bigger armies and navies than Germany, as we do we and Italy including reserves. Even Poland has a bigger navy than Germany does.
Germany decided after WW2 it wanted to be an economic power, not a military power.
Sunday Times EXCLUSIVE: A Conservative MP has accused a party whip of telling her she was fired from her ministerial job because her Muslim faith was “making colleagues uncomfortable”
It's a threat to democracies everywhere. To turn on ourselves at the moment of threat is stupidly irresponsible. We all know that mistakes have been made, both by Germany and the UK, but the real problem is Russian aggression. We don't need to feel good about ourselves by sneering at each other, we need to feel good about ourselves by doing the right thing, which is protecting each other. Fucking focus, people.
What do you suggest?
Are you advocating putting British troops on the ground in Ukraine?
Seriously?
The art of diplomacy is to always have a "get out" clause - there's no point boxing Putin into a corner so his only option is military. Sometimes, public concessions on one side have to be balanced by private concessions on the other. Putin knows he won't get NATO to roll back to pre-1989 borders so what does he really want? What does he need to "save political face" and de-escalate on the Ukrainian border?
Surely the goal is that Putin doesn't have a military option?
For all this talk of 'boxing in', the goal is to discourage Putin from using tanks, planes and troops to invade another country.
Now, it's perfectly reasonable to say that we have no obligation to put troops on the ground, given the lack of any alliance. But I do think we do need to make it very clear that there would be serious consequences if Russia was to annex part of a neighbour
While Germany is heavily reliant on Russian gas to power it's industries this is not a serious option. It's extremely lamentable that a NATO ally has allowed itself to become a client state of Russian gas. We are, however, where we are and there's no route to the situation you describe - that we can make it clear to Russia that there will be severe consequences to annexing another nation or part of one.
Energy independence from Russia in the short term strikes me as not viable so what we really need to do is drag this out for a few years and get building renewable energy to replace Russian gas imports. I think that is achievable.
Edit - anyone talking about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO needs their head examining.
Germany has a rather 'colourful' military history when it comes to the rest of Europe, including Russia. Don't you think that might explain why they are being extremely wary?
Germany invaded Ukraine in 1918, as well as the more well-known invasion of 1941.
Germany has been extremely non-careful about arming and helping arm *Russia* since the last time the Russians went walkabout in Ukraine.
Selling arms to one side in a war, then claiming that they can't possibly allow someone to arm the other side.
Interestingly, that would put their legal status as a neutral in a war at risk. Ukraine could claim, under international law, that Germany was a co-beligerant with Russia and demand reparations....
I remember years ago, in the 80s, listening to Stefan Terlezki MP. He was a one-term Tory who represented a seat in Cardiff. He was a Ukrainian and came to the UK as a refugee. He remarked that one half of his family had been murdered by the Nazis, and the other half by the Soviets. Wonder what he would be thinking now.
He would be wanting what is the real threat to banana republic Russia - that Putin's plaything bufferzone countries become advanced, stable, successful democracies.
That's what really scares Putin.
I totally support this post.
Putin isn’t seriously eyeing Latvia, and in my opinion Putin never will but the next Russian leader may if the country, rather like the Chinese have done, swings Nationalist post Putin, of which we will be partly responsible for making Putin appear so ineffective.
Putin is in a spot with his plaything buffer zones moving towards successful West leaning democracies. Spinning it up more than that, placing Putin as greedy and hungry as Hitler, hasn’t convinced me yet.
So you are saying that by not giving Putin all the Ukraine he can eat, we are weakening him, which will make his nationalistic successors more nationalistic?
Why don't we feed him someone else, just to be sure?
We’ve been here to 3am Malmsy! You know I believe There’s complicated questions at the heart of this a proxy war does not answer.
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
Interesting to bring up 1870 - The French lesson* from which was not to be the aggressor. They retreated to their fortifications in 1914, several kilometres inside France. The Germans invaded..... If the Germans hadn't attacked France in 1914, there would have been no war with France.
The Germans came up with an interesting justification for conquering Belgium - since they couldn't have attacked France successfully without going through Belgium, they had the right to attack Belgium as well. And it was illegal for the Belgians to resist!
Perhaps in 1945 we should have been nice to what was left of Germany, otherwise they might have been upset and tried again in 1960?
The Ukrainians are just living in their country. It's got its problems, sure. But they aren't massacring or even poking hard the various minorities - who are showing little interest in wanting to be "liberated" by Russia. It's a country where the opposition can win the election and take power. They aren't preparing to march on Moscow or Berlin. They just want to be.
If various Russian nationalists get bent out of shape because Ukraine keeps on existing, why should they get to dictate what hap[pens there?
What are your thoughts on the Germans training the Russian army *after* the first Ukraine War? Not exactly neutral, is it?
* First** rule of Revanche Club - the Germans will start the next war. Be ready. ** Second rule of Revanche Club - make friends with absolutely everyone apart from Germany.
“If the Germans hadn't attacked France in 1914, there would have been no war with France. “
I don’t recognise that as accurate history. The French had been agitating for the war for Forty years, hence French entente with Britain and Russia, boxing the Germans in forcing them to act sooner than later created the war.
“What are your thoughts on the Germans training the Russian army *after* the first Ukraine War? Not exactly neutral, is it?”
I was in a play set in Ukraine after the First World War, there were so many different protagonists at war with each other it left me thinking it’s a very complicated part of the world where some people inside a nation state can fairly look in one direction, others in another. Rather like the Balkans, you have to try to fashion peace out of one village looking in one direction, next door village in another.
The cheek of people calling me an appeaser, when in my mind and posts the horror this proxy war theatre is going to rain down on the people in these villages and towns - when after all that horror the locals will get absolutely zilch from it, their current questions will remain unanswered by it.
I am officially declaring Boris Johnson will soon be an ex Prime Minister.
I have officially stuck another hundred notes on gone by end Q1
I expect to be bitterly disappointed with myself for not making it a k
I think he goes Q2.
Say he quits week beginning January 31st.
It's going to take at least a fortnight (probably three weeks) to run the MP section of the contest which takes us into mid/late February.
Another month/six weeks for we Tory members to vote, takes us into April.
Boris Johnson formally quits as PM/Leader in Q2.
Are you confident he will quit as PM even if the conservatives appoint a new leader?
Well, new leader will pop round to Queenie and say he commands a majority I assume
God forfend London Bridge, this is no time for a novice
Be fecking hilarious if Johnson insists on testing the Commons by ordering a confidence vote (again) after a new leader is selected before he finally quits as PM.
Would the Speaker even allow it?
Talk about additional humiliation.
If there's not a vote in the form prescribed by FTPA 2011 s.2(4), and the PM doesn't quit, he's still PM. Don't think it matters what the Speaker does, except if he doesn't allow the vote, then a NC vote hasn't yet happened as distinct from the Conservative party's own NC process.
The question is whether the House can vote confidence in a new government without the old PM resigning first. The prescribed form of resolution to prevent a GE occurring 14 days after the NC vote is in s.2(5): "“That this House has confidence in Her Majesty's Government.” - unless the PM has resigned, then isn't HM's Government still the one he heads?
If Russia invades Ukraine there is nothing the UK can do about it - I am surprised some people on here think we can . Why would we want to anyway ? It is a old historical dispute in the far east of Europe that has nothing to do with us on its western extreme.
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
If Russia invades Ukraine there is nothing the UK can do about it - I am surprised some people on here think we can . Why would we want to anyway ? It is a old historical dispute in the far east of Europe that has nothing to do with us on its western extreme.
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
Sunday Times EXCLUSIVE: A Conservative MP has accused a party whip of telling her she was fired from her ministerial job because her Muslim faith was “making colleagues uncomfortable”
That is why I said make Rishi PM
Why make Rishi PM, rather than just make Boris not PM?
If Russia invades Ukraine there is nothing the UK can do about it - I am surprised some people on here think we can . Why would we want to anyway ? It is a old historical dispute in the far east of Europe that has nothing to do with us on its western extreme.
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
The US will not let Ukraine fall and that will involve NATO including ourselves
Sunday Times EXCLUSIVE: A Conservative MP has accused a party whip of telling her she was fired from her ministerial job because her Muslim faith was “making colleagues uncomfortable”
That is why I said make Rishi PM
Rishi became the first Hindu Chancellor because Cummings manipulated the sacking of Javid, the first Chancelllor of Muslim heritage.
If you want to appeal to Muslims, Javid would be better than Sunak (plus it is not as if there is much love lost between Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan).
Sunday Times EXCLUSIVE: A Conservative MP has accused a party whip of telling her she was fired from her ministerial job because her Muslim faith was “making colleagues uncomfortable”
That is why I said make Rishi PM
Why make Rishi PM, rather than just make Boris not PM?
I have been supporting Rishi for months and believe he is the right person for the country at this time
I have indicated this to my mp who is also a personal friend
We popped out for something to eat this afternoon. Arrived just after 2 and it was fairly busy. Other groups arrived after we did.
I witnessed the Covid theatre spectacle of a couple who had been sitting bare faced for an hour donning their masks for the thirty second walk to the door.
BTW - I had a vegan chilli followed by a slice of vegan chocolate cake. Day 22 and still meat-free.
I know people who still do the Covid theatre crap in restaurants. Bonkers.
Anyhow, whilst various amongst us recount our eating out experiences, this from the Graun: Jack Monroe on the extreme end of the cost of living crisis, as it pertains to the struggles of the least well off.
Our ruling class may have been brazenly wheeling suitcases of cheap plonk past the averted gaze of Metropolitan police officers during the last year of lockdowns, but their voters are increasingly finding themselves destitute, hungry, demoralised and priced out of the cheapest bag of apples at the supermarket.
...
The Smart Price, Basics and Value range products offered as lower-cost alternatives are stealthily being extinguished from the shelves, leaving shoppers with no choice but to “level up” to the supermarkets’ own branded goods – usually in smaller quantities at larger prices.
I have been monitoring this for the last decade, through writing recipes on my online blog and documenting the prices of ingredients in forensic detail. In 2012, 10 stock cubes from Sainsbury’s Basics range were 10p. In 2022, those same stock cubes are 39p, but only available in chicken or beef. The cheapest vegetable stock cubes are, inexplicably, £1 for 10. Last year the Smart Price pasta in my local Asda was 29p for 500g. Today, it is unavailable, so the cheapest bag is 70p; a 141% price rise for the same product in more colourful packaging. A few years ago, there were more than 400 products in the Smart Price range; today there are 87, and counting down.
And this is before home energy bills suddenly go up by an eyewatering sum (perhaps 50% or more for some customers) in the Spring. For a lot of us, I suspect that the effect of inflation will be one less night out a week, or a slightly smaller sum being put away in savings. For others - well, it looks like the food banks are going to be in need of a lot more donations and volunteers before the year is out.
This is genuinely big and bad news. It's also an example of "nobody wants the country to fail, but if it is, we ought to know".
Governments rightly struggle to survive this sort of thing, because everyone notices if they are a little short at the end of the month. And changing the PM, by itself, doesn't change the climate.
Sitting on a balcony in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3, overlooking the starlit Indian Ocean, drinking the world’s FUCK OFFEST Gin Martini. It’s about a pint in quantity
You?
Either you down it in one or it'll be lukewarm before you're through. Not sure which is more eeeuch
Send it back.
True
TBH I’m only drinking it because the bar has RUN OUT OF TONIC = no G&T
It wouldn’t have happened during the Raj. And if it had happened, the bar manager would surely have been keelhauled in the bay by the Royal Navy
Keelhauling seems such a cruel punshment, and yet it was far from exceptional.
There's a horrible catalogue of ways to hurt people.
Little evidence of its use in the British navy.
There’s a chilling scene in Black Sails when Blackbeard, played by the great Ray Stevenson, is (somewhat ahistorically) keelhauled. Makes me wince remembering it.
Though apparently a little more in the Dutch navy. No recorded cases in the RN.
Just looking it up, the surprise for me was that it could be along the *length* of the keel.
Too difficult to control, I daresay, for an organisation such as the RN. The degree of punishment was so sensitive on the size of the ship, time since last careening to burn off the (very sharp) barnacles, etc.
Flogging was nice and standardised, and could be halted at any time for the rest to follow as and when.
One of my favourite ever moments from Star Trek involved keelhauling.
WORF: Those quarters are not appropriate for Admiral Colti. She outranks Admiral Veta.
ODO: Well then we'll put her in H two, Veta in D nine, and Rifkin in K four.
WORF: That will not do. Rifkin commands a starship. Protocol requires he be given equal quarters.
ODO: But he's only a captain.
WORF: It is naval tradition.
ODO: So is keelhauling, but right now we should focus on accommodations
Of course, American TV was too mealy-mouthed to enunciate the real traditions - rum, sodomy and the lash.
If Russia invades Ukraine there is nothing the UK can do about it - I am surprised some people on here think we can . Why would we want to anyway ? It is a old historical dispute in the far east of Europe that has nothing to do with us on its western extreme.
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
We can push the economically crippling sanctions option, but it needs for the EU to do it alongside the UK, US and others in the western alliance. While Germany is hooked on Russian gas the EU is never going to do it and the sanctions option doesn't work if Putin has a nearby $13tn market to sell his oil and gas into.
So without that threat Putin has realised he's free to annex Ukraine or very large chunks of it consequence free. He's probably right as well.
Sunday Times EXCLUSIVE: A Conservative MP has accused a party whip of telling her she was fired from her ministerial job because her Muslim faith was “making colleagues uncomfortable”
That is why I said make Rishi PM
Rishi became the first Hindu Chancellor because Cummings manipulated the sacking of Javid, the first Chancelllor of Muslim heritage.
If you want to appeal to Muslims, Javid would be better than Sunak (plus it is not as if there is much love lost between Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan).
I want to appeal to everyone and reject your musings on this subject
If Russia invades Ukraine there is nothing the UK can do about it - I am surprised some people on here think we can . Why would we want to anyway ? It is a old historical dispute in the far east of Europe that has nothing to do with us on its western extreme.
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
The US will not let Ukraine fall and that will involve NATO including ourselves
They let Afghanistan fall, Biden is an isolationist and won't do anything.
If Russia invades Ukraine there is nothing the UK can do about it - I am surprised some people on here think we can . Why would we want to anyway ? It is a old historical dispute in the far east of Europe that has nothing to do with us on its western extreme.
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
I agree there's very little we can do but the trouble is history tells us when dictators start getting in the mood to invade other countries and grab territory they tend not to know where to draw the line...
I also note today that PB's elite team of armchair warriors, having given up for now on China invading Taiwan or the UK invading France, are, in the immortal words of Kenny Everett, in "let's bomb Russia" mode. And they want Germany to join in, regardless of the perilous history that has given rise to Germany's caution in respect of military adventurism. Hm.
France and Turkey have bigger armies and navies than Germany, as we do we and Italy including reserves. Even Poland has a bigger navy than Germany does.
Germany decided after WW2 it wanted to be an economic power, not a military power.
If Russia invades Ukraine there is nothing the UK can do about it - I am surprised some people on here think we can . Why would we want to anyway ? It is a old historical dispute in the far east of Europe that has nothing to do with us on its western extreme.
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
The US will not let Ukraine fall and that will involve NATO including ourselves
They let Afghanistan fall, Biden is an isolationist and won't do anything.
Then I fear a full blown European war
And as for refugees where are Europe going to accommodate most of the population of Ukraine
Sitting on a balcony in Kollupitiya, Colombo 3, overlooking the starlit Indian Ocean, drinking the world’s FUCK OFFEST Gin Martini. It’s about a pint in quantity
You?
Either you down it in one or it'll be lukewarm before you're through. Not sure which is more eeeuch
Send it back.
True
TBH I’m only drinking it because the bar has RUN OUT OF TONIC = no G&T
It wouldn’t have happened during the Raj. And if it had happened, the bar manager would surely have been keelhauled in the bay by the Royal Navy
Keelhauling seems such a cruel punshment, and yet it was far from exceptional.
There's a horrible catalogue of ways to hurt people.
Little evidence of its use in the British navy.
There’s a chilling scene in Black Sails when Blackbeard, played by the great Ray Stevenson, is (somewhat ahistorically) keelhauled. Makes me wince remembering it.
Though apparently a little more in the Dutch navy. No recorded cases in the RN.
Just looking it up, the surprise for me was that it could be along the *length* of the keel.
Too difficult to control, I daresay, for an organisation such as the RN. The degree of punishment was so sensitive on the size of the ship, time since last careening to burn off the (very sharp) barnacles, etc.
Flogging was nice and standardised, and could be halted at any time for the rest to follow as and when.
One of my favourite ever moments from Star Trek involved keelhauling.
WORF: Those quarters are not appropriate for Admiral Colti. She outranks Admiral Veta.
ODO: Well then we'll put her in H two, Veta in D nine, and Rifkin in K four.
WORF: That will not do. Rifkin commands a starship. Protocol requires he be given equal quarters.
ODO: But he's only a captain.
WORF: It is naval tradition.
ODO: So is keelhauling, but right now we should focus on accommodations
Of course, American TV was too mealy-mouthed to enunciate the real traditions - rum, sodomy and the lash.
That would certainly have made Star Trek a very different watch.
Comments
"Picaninnies" was a good satire of Tony Blair's imperial progress to avoid the UK where he was unpopular.
Letterboxes and bank robbers were exactly the same sentiments as previous comments by the likes of Harriet Harman, expressed in journalese rather than politico.
Socialising put off from December? Or is 6 o'clock in the suburbs suddenly the time and place to eat?
Where do you stand on the point I just made, the road to a proxy war and weakened Putin can lead to a more nationalist and aggressive Russia post Putin? We have a short termist and half blind approach to the problem of creating peace we half share with Russia.
Along the same lines the First World War happened because the French had been waiting since 1870 for it.
The Second World War happened because Hitler had been waiting since 1918 to be driving around a defeated Paris.
Makes me wince remembering it.
That's just extraordinary, and not in a good way.
Maybe wait and see the report
However when "MG Midget" has just been deemed irretrievably offensive because of the "midget", we need to be minimalist in our censorship of language and in taking offense.
Especially as it is not long since the same group deemed the now apparently acceptable "dwarf" to be the more offensive of the two.
I love that The Dell was named after a dell; "a small valley which has trees growing in it"
But the only black head coach until Gibson's appointment was Mark Alleyne at Gloucestershire in the early years of the century.
You also had Solanki (just resigned) and Gillespie.
"always keep-a hold of nurse - for fear of finding something worse"
Just looking it up, the surprise for me was that it could be along the *length* of the keel.
I find anti vax really hard to understand. Is it fear? Is it just cussedness? Being contrary just because?
The Germans came up with an interesting justification for conquering Belgium - since they couldn't have attacked France successfully without going through Belgium, they had the right to attack Belgium as well. And it was illegal for the Belgians to resist!
Perhaps in 1945 we should have been nice to what was left of Germany, otherwise they might have been upset and tried again in 1960?
The Ukrainians are just living in their country. It's got its problems, sure. But they aren't massacring or even poking hard the various minorities - who are showing little interest in wanting to be "liberated" by Russia. It's a country where the opposition can win the election and take power. They aren't preparing to march on Moscow or Berlin. They just want to be.
If various Russian nationalists get bent out of shape because Ukraine keeps on existing, why should they get to dictate what hap[pens there?
What are your thoughts on the Germans training the Russian army *after* the first Ukraine War? Not exactly neutral, is it?
* First** rule of Revanche Club - the Germans will start the next war. Be ready.
** Second rule of Revanche Club - make friends with absolutely everyone apart from Germany.
But even if he didn't, he'd still be working in Downing Street at the times the (garden) parties were taking place, the May 20th one took place at 6pm.
But it’s also grossly inaccurate to call it a ‘proxy war’. Ukraine will fight whether we help them or not - and any Russian invasion will be in gross violation of UN conventions.
And western military aid in this case probably makes war less, not more likely.
We popped out for something to eat this afternoon. Arrived just after 2 and it was fairly busy. Other groups arrived after we did.
I witnessed the Covid theatre spectacle of a couple who had been sitting bare faced for an hour donning their masks for the thirty second walk to the door.
BTW - I had a vegan chilli followed by a slice of vegan chocolate cake. Day 22 and still meat-free.
I personally have had the jabs and congratulate the government on the roll out. As most people have had it and the pandemic is over then it is pure bullying to put pressure on people who for whatever reason dont want it.
https://twitter.com/stephanshemilt/status/1484982116286976004
BigdoG
We need to give up on the traditional sports at which we are useless and concentrate on new global sports for a new global Britain (apparently).
Take Syria as a perfect example.
At first it was an uprising. When people from outside came in with their guns, armour and air strikes it became something else.
Unless you can convince me Ukraine is a very different proxy war than Syria.
From what I’ve read, Gibson is a substantial character, not a token appointment - I guess we’ll find out if that’s correct. I wish him well.
He's nailed on in the team for the world cup this year, so they are giving others a chance.
Flogging was nice and standardised, and could be halted at any time for the rest to follow as and when.
Just some Ketamine from Dodgy Dan, the barristers son with the pork pie hat who runs a rave in a disused skittle alley behind the Dog & Duck and thinks that calling himself DJ Head Fuck is cool.
a) Think it is literally poison
b) Some people just dont like foreign bodies injected into them
c) Some think covid is a complete overreaction (I have sympathy here )
d) Some people are just against the principle of the state telling them what to do
E) medical reasons
f) scared of it
For Liverpool....
WORF: Those quarters are not appropriate for Admiral Colti. She outranks Admiral Veta.
ODO: Well then we'll put her in H two, Veta in D nine, and Rifkin in K four.
WORF: That will not do. Rifkin commands a starship. Protocol requires he be given equal quarters.
ODO: But he's only a captain.
WORF: It is naval tradition.
ODO: So is keelhauling, but right now we should focus on accommodations
- Ban weapons sales to Ukraine?
- Ban weapons sales to Russia? The Germans will be upset and might throw a tantrum.
- Deny the Russians access to Swift? Then poor Mr Putin might not be able to buy his wifey wife a big big diamond for Christmas....
- ?
Also seem to remember he scored a great many useful lower-order runs.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/22/partygate-inquiry-given-access-to-log-of-staff-movements-in-and-out-of-building?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
+1
Remember Yogic Flying?
The ECB still needs to mete out a punishment beating to Yorkshire. Deprivation of test matches, points deductions and the rest. They need to punish Yorkshire in a far harsher way than durham. Unless they are saying they care far less about institutional racism than a few financial issues.
Ukraine is a sovereign, democratic country, fairly stable until Putin meddled. They have requested our aid in defending their country, and will fight Putin with or without it.
‘Proxy war’, and a comparison with Syria, are both nonsense.
I have had the full beans off Alex Tudor...that was when I realised I wasn't much more than a club cricketer.....
Anyhow, whilst various amongst us recount our eating out experiences, this from the Graun: Jack Monroe on the extreme end of the cost of living crisis, as it pertains to the struggles of the least well off.
Our ruling class may have been brazenly wheeling suitcases of cheap plonk past the averted gaze of Metropolitan police officers during the last year of lockdowns, but their voters are increasingly finding themselves destitute, hungry, demoralised and priced out of the cheapest bag of apples at the supermarket.
...
The Smart Price, Basics and Value range products offered as lower-cost alternatives are stealthily being extinguished from the shelves, leaving shoppers with no choice but to “level up” to the supermarkets’ own branded goods – usually in smaller quantities at larger prices.
I have been monitoring this for the last decade, through writing recipes on my online blog and documenting the prices of ingredients in forensic detail. In 2012, 10 stock cubes from Sainsbury’s Basics range were 10p. In 2022, those same stock cubes are 39p, but only available in chicken or beef. The cheapest vegetable stock cubes are, inexplicably, £1 for 10. Last year the Smart Price pasta in my local Asda was 29p for 500g. Today, it is unavailable, so the cheapest bag is 70p; a 141% price rise for the same product in more colourful packaging. A few years ago, there were more than 400 products in the Smart Price range; today there are 87, and counting down.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/were-pricing-the-poor-out-of-food-in-the-uk-thats-why-im-launching-my-own-price-index
And this is before home energy bills suddenly go up by an eyewatering sum (perhaps 50% or more for some customers) in the Spring. For a lot of us, I suspect that the effect of inflation will be one less night out a week, or a slightly smaller sum being put away in savings. For others - well, it looks like the food banks are going to be in need of a lot more donations and volunteers before the year is out.
War with Canada. Obviously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA
EDIT: then again, the Germans are saying this is all about commercial realities. Could we pay them to bomb themselves, I wonder? Lieutenant Minderbinder to Ops, please, Lieutenant Minderbinder to Ops, please......
Germany decided after WW2 it wanted to be an economic power, not a military power.
If we want to contain Putin, getting France and Turkey on board through NATO is far more important than Germany. Much as in the Crimean War it was France and Turkey who were our allies against Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-navies-in-the-world
Energy independence from Russia in the short term strikes me as not viable so what we really need to do is drag this out for a few years and get building renewable energy to replace Russian gas imports. I think that is achievable.
Edit - anyone talking about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO needs their head examining.
I don’t recognise that as accurate history. The French had been agitating for the war for Forty years, hence French entente with Britain and Russia, boxing the Germans in forcing them to act sooner than later created the war.
“What are your thoughts on the Germans training the Russian army *after* the first Ukraine War? Not exactly neutral, is it?”
I was in a play set in Ukraine after the First World War, there were so many different protagonists at war with each other it left me thinking it’s a very complicated part of the world where some people inside a nation state can fairly look in one direction, others in another. Rather like the Balkans, you have to try to fashion peace out of one village looking in one direction, next door village in another.
The cheek of people calling me an appeaser, when in my mind and posts the horror this proxy war theatre is going to rain down on the people in these villages and towns - when after all that horror the locals will get absolutely zilch from it, their current questions will remain unanswered by it.
The question is whether the House can vote confidence in a new government without the old PM resigning first. The prescribed form of resolution to prevent a GE occurring 14 days after the NC vote is in s.2(5): "“That this House has confidence in Her Majesty's Government.” - unless the PM has resigned, then isn't HM's Government still the one he heads?
I sort of get the posturing by the US ,EU and even the UK government to some extent - sometimes bluffing can be effective although I doubt it in this case. I just fail to get why people on here who know Russia will definitely not be bluffed by them still want us to do anything should they invade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
If you want to appeal to Muslims, Javid would be better than Sunak (plus it is not as if there is much love lost between Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan).
I have indicated this to my mp who is also a personal friend
Governments rightly struggle to survive this sort of thing, because everyone notices if they are a little short at the end of the month. And changing the PM, by itself, doesn't change the climate.
So without that threat Putin has realised he's free to annex Ukraine or very large chunks of it consequence free. He's probably right as well.
And as for refugees where are Europe going to accommodate most of the population of Ukraine