Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
@Roger: you'd like to know my history, would you? Or do you just want to make some bitchy point?
My parents rented their flat. It had no central heating. The landlord was a bastard and neglected to look after it. After my father died, conditions were so bad that it was declared unfit for human habitation under the 1952 Housing Act. The landlord tried to evict my mother so he could sell it. It was one of the reasons I went into the law - so that I could fight back against people like him and help people like my mother. My first volunteering job was doing just that at the North Ken Law Centre. Both parents were born overseas. My father was Irish at a time when this was not fashionable and he was sneered at by the likes of people like you. I was orphaned at the age of 20.
Every job I ever got I got on merit on the basis of my qualities and what I had to offer. No-one in my family or their friends gave me a job (apart from one Saturday job when I was 16).
So I am entitled to be scornful of those people who game the property system in this country to benefit themselves and their children while sanctimoniously claiming to be against "privilege".
Is someone suggesting Phillipson 'gamed' the property system and criticising anyone for sanctimony really takes the biscuit
That was Rayner wasn't it ?
It seems Labour Ministers are pretty interchangeable under the rapier like scrutiny of cyclefree.
Phillipson helped her mother at a refuge and cyclefree characterises it as...." her only job before becoming an MP was in Mummy's charity. lol."
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak, he's previously said that it's racist to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population in the UK and between both of those things I have come to the conclusion that he would have been one of those people who proclaimed to be uncomfortable with what was happening but saw it as a lesser evil than whistle blowing and potentially causing a lot of upheaval for Muslims across northern cities.
I engage in discussion about the lab leak hypothesis. You want to talk about the lab leak hypothesis, go ahead. I will disagree with you. I won’t call you a paedophile enabler.
I’ve never said it’s racist to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population. Prove otherwise. I said it was wrong to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population because that’s not happening.
You are saying that someone who disagrees with you on a topic of virology and another of demographics is therefore deeply evil and would cover up horrendous crimes. That is pretty sick, Max.
Leaving Max's surmise about what you might or might not have done about Rotherham to one side, I was genuinely disturbed by your list of 'solutions' that should flow from the Covid experience.
Even in the vanishingly unlikely scenario that Covid was caused by a chance Zoonotic event, the very presence of a US lab (or several) in China, studying how to make coronaviruses more transmissible and more deadly, is surely still hugely problematical in its very existence, given what we now know. Gain of function research was banned in the USA for being too dangerous. That it was then quietly internationalised is a scandal of epic proportions, and that Communist China, the West's biggest geopolitical rival was selected as a location for such projects is beyond scandalous. I found it astonishing that you made no suggestion of any changes or modification to that activity, suggesting instead greater investment in emergency health capacity and vaccines so that we can all have a ventilator and get our shots when the next one hits.
You also afaicr completely failed to address the question of non-covid related harms resulting from lockdown, such as mental health issues, suicide, child development issues, and the large numbers of non-covid deaths.
We are here on PB to be exposed to debate and different views, and it's to your credit that you come here and do that, but I would suggest that if many of your coworkers share very similar views, without your exposure to different ideas, they are severely misaligned with both the wishes of the people they serve, and with morality.
I have published scientific papers on non-COVID-19-related harms resulting from lockdown etc., such as mental health issues. I spent much of my time when advising government going on about financial hardships resulting from the pandemic. Feel free to apologise.
Most of the claims about gain of function research are MAGA nonsense. They simply didn’t happen. I do support taking a huge amount of caution with research on pathogenic or potentially pathogenic viruses.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
Lab leaks have happened and caused disease outbreaks. Most notably, the 1977 flu might have been a Russian lab leak, although it’s very hard to determine for sure.
Over time, the evidence that COVID-19 came from the wet market has increased. I might once have talked about the balance of probabilities. I wouldn’t now, in 2025. It is exceedingly unlikely that COVID-19 was anything other than a zoonotic event, just like the vast majority of novel disease pandemics.
I think most epidemiologists would broadly agree with the point you make at the end. It doesn’t matter much. We should try to avoid it happening again. Such a thing could happen from a lab leak and we should take appropriate caution to avoid that. It could also happen from a zoonotic event and we should try to avoid that.
It is unfortunate that a point of epidemiological investigation has, like so many other things, been captured by culture war nonsense, such that expressing a view on COVID-19 origins gets you labelled a paedophile enabler.
The closure of the brand new vaccine research institute, and the vaccine production facility, by the previous government was also extremely unfortunate by any measure.
Edit: I don't think we have yet seen any action by the current administration to reverse, or otherwise satisfy, this issue, either?
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Much as I admire Farage, I do not attribute control over Elon Musk to him.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
Lab leaks have happened and caused disease outbreaks. Most notably, the 1977 flu might have been a Russian lab leak, although it’s very hard to determine for sure.
Over time, the evidence that COVID-19 came from the wet market has increased. I might once have talked about the balance of probabilities. I wouldn’t now, in 2025. It is exceedingly unlikely that COVID-19 was anything other than a zoonotic event, just like the vast majority of novel disease pandemics.
I think most epidemiologists would broadly agree with the point you make at the end. It doesn’t matter much. We should try to avoid it happening again. Such a thing could happen from a lab leak and we should take appropriate caution to avoid that. It could also happen from a zoonotic event and we should try to avoid that.
It is unfortunate that a point of epidemiological investigation has, like so many other things, been captured by culture war nonsense, such that expressing a view on COVID-19 origins gets you labelled a paedophile enabler.
The closure of the brand new vaccine research institute, and the vaccine production facility, by the previous government was also extremely unfortunate by any measure.
Edit: I don't think we have yet seen any action by the current administration to reverse, or otherwise satisfy, this issue, either?
Friend of mine was a student at Birmingham during the smallpox outbreak. His place in the lab was such that the draught from the ventilation duct implicated in the spread went across his ankles. I'm not sure if that was enough, or whether the vaccinations we'd had in those days, were enough!
Could someone in her party send her the link? Or tell her about the Drew Review and Operation Stovewood by the NCA. Or the Jay report or what Dame Louise Casey has done?
Or remind her of what her fellow Cabinet Minister, Suellla Braverman, the Home Secretary to do in May 2023 when the final IICSA Report came out?
This is bandwagon jumping of the most tawdry kind instead of action - which she could have been asking for when she was an actual Cabinet Minister.
What magnificent results have these reports and enquiries produced?
The Drew Review was used to improve the approach of South Yorkshire Police.
Operation Stovewood: run by the NCA is the largest criminal enforcement investigation into non-family CSE. It has identified 1100 victims, has 50 investigations outstanding and has led to 36 convictions.
The Jay Report was used to improve services within Rotherham Council which was put into special measures. The council leader and head of children's services left.
It is something. By no means enough, of course.
But what actual use will yet another inquiry costing millions, reporting in a decade or so and telling us stuff we already know be? Because my suspicion is that this is not really about joining dots or understanding the manifold causes of male sexual violence - let alone taking effective action against it - but political point-scoring and a disguised fight about immigration, in which the needs of the victims - girls mostly - will largely be ignored.
We definitely dont need an enquiry....what we need is a police investigation and where people whether policeman, councillors or local government people or priests etc have covered up sexual abuse of young people then they need to be tried in a court of law for at least perversion of justice.
Enough of enquiries as we have seen with the PO one it is a way of letting the people responsible off
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than 2024 Labour voters do and plenty of current Reform voters would likely go Conservative again if Farage got too close to Tommy R
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
When Trump ran in 2024 after losing in 2020, was that fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again?
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
Lab leaks have happened and caused disease outbreaks. Most notably, the 1977 flu might have been a Russian lab leak, although it’s very hard to determine for sure.
Over time, the evidence that COVID-19 came from the wet market has increased. I might once have talked about the balance of probabilities. I wouldn’t now, in 2025. It is exceedingly unlikely that COVID-19 was anything other than a zoonotic event, just like the vast majority of novel disease pandemics.
I think most epidemiologists would broadly agree with the point you make at the end. It doesn’t matter much. We should try to avoid it happening again. Such a thing could happen from a lab leak and we should take appropriate caution to avoid that. It could also happen from a zoonotic event and we should try to avoid that.
It is unfortunate that a point of epidemiological investigation has, like so many other things, been captured by culture war nonsense, such that expressing a view on COVID-19 origins gets you labelled a paedophile enabler.
"The World Health Organization has urged China to share data on the origins of the Covid pandemic, five years on from its start in the city of Wuhan.
"This is a moral and scientific imperative," the WHO said in a statement to mark what it called the "milestone" anniversary.
"Without transparency, sharing, and co-operation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics," it added.
Many scientists think the virus transferred naturally from animals to humans, but some suspicions persist that it escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan."
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak, he's previously said that it's racist to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population in the UK and between both of those things I have come to the conclusion that he would have been one of those people who proclaimed to be uncomfortable with what was happening but saw it as a lesser evil than whistle blowing and potentially causing a lot of upheaval for Muslims across northern cities.
I engage in discussion about the lab leak hypothesis. You want to talk about the lab leak hypothesis, go ahead. I will disagree with you. I won’t call you a paedophile enabler.
I’ve never said it’s racist to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population. Prove otherwise. I said it was wrong to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population because that’s not happening.
You are saying that someone who disagrees with you on a topic of virology and another of demographics is therefore deeply evil and would cover up horrendous crimes. That is pretty sick, Max.
As I said, really very honestly put yourself in 2003 when this was all happening and being covered up. You saw some evidence of what was occuring and you initially put it up the chain (which is fine) and then you get told to shut up otherwise the racists will attack Muslims and you'll be out of a job and branded a racist yourself by everyone and ostracised by the wider left as an Islamophobe. I want you to have a really honest look at the situation and think about what you would have done. Would you have been the person that put your head above the parapet? I don't think so. You fear being labelled a racist, that much has been clear for for a while. While I can't look you in the eye and ask you this I do hope you give me an honest answer. If you say you would have been the whistleblower then I'll accept that and drop it, if you say you wouldn't I'll also accept that and drop it on the basis that 99/100 people took that option.
Fuck off, Max.
I'm sorry it's an uncomfortable conversation for you, my conscience is clear. I rather think your one is less so. Either way, I'll drop the subject.
Moving on from the pre-crimes of minority report to hypothetical past-crimes based on nothing more than posts on a completely different subject. Pb never ceases to amaze!
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
It's means nothing.
In early 2017, Hillary led in polls to be the next Democratic nominee, simply because most survey respondents are low information, and all they know is whoever was nominee last time.
New interim Syrian government changes the school curriculum, replacing the phrase "Defending the nation" with "Defending Allah" and the changes also see Evolution and the Big Bang theory being dropped from science teaching.
'References to the gods worshipped in Syria before Islam, as well as images of their statues, are also being dropped.
The significance of the great Syrian heroine Queen Zenobia, who once ruled Palmyra in the Roman era, seems to have been downplayed.
The Assad era has essentially been excised from the curriculum, including poems celebrating both Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, in Arabic language courses.'
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Much as I admire Farage, I do not attribute control over Elon Musk to him.
No, but to what extent are they aligned in a disciplined project to put Farage into number 10. As opposed to Musk freestyling and indulging himself with trolling Starmer and promoting the far right generally. Those are distinctly different possibilities.
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Much as I admire Farage, I do not attribute control over Elon Musk to him.
No, but to what extent are they aligned in a disciplined project to put Farage into number 10. As opposed to Musk freestyling and indulging himself with trolling Starmer and promoting the far right generally. Those are distinctly different possibilities.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
I agree. One of the more unpleasant posts on here as is the one by cyclefree on the last thread. The one featuring the line.......
"......Philippson railing against inherited privilege when her only job before becoming an MP was in Mummy's charity. lol."
Yuck!
Hereditary privilege is a big thing in the labour party.
Here's Bridget Phillipson's CV. Maybe we could see cyclefree's if she thinks it's so deserving of ridicule?
It does feel rather laboured. I mean, I grew up in a house that had no heating upstairs, and went to a comprehensive school (one that was going through a bad patch) and then went off to uni, got a first, worked as a civil servant and a lecturer, then went into teaching and now run my own business.
None of that makes me poor or deserving of special praise. In fact, I'd say I have a pretty affluent background one way and another and I certainly wouldn't have dared to walk out of a well-paid teaching job no matter how miserable we all were and start on my own without a bit of capital behind me.
And although I had lots of help from my parents none of my actual work was for them.
{finds a double case of magnums of Chateaux De Chasseliere}
You ‘ad central heating?
Well, I say central 'eating, 'twas only an open fire that went up a chimney in t'middle of t'ouse, but to us it were like central heating.
(Yes, we really did have - and use - an open coal fire, but we did have proper central heating too.)
Grandad had a coal fire, and 5-year-old me had great fun sitting in front of it and using the poker to make sparks fly. We had a gas fire. Neither had central heating. No phone. No car. Black and white telly. But as Billy Connolly said, we didn't know we were poor.
We had a gas fridge when I was young.
We had a stone shelf in a larder.
So you had a larder? Luxury.
You know what luxury is? Luxury!
Luxury isn’t what it was. To us, luxury was when the gruel was warmed up for us to sip. Christmas Day, that was.
I used to hear second-hand tales of those that got to sip gruel. Warmed up! Never knew warmth was even possible!
Ah, but some of us actually are Yorkshiremen.
Game, set and match!
Reminds me of the old line:
Why don't you need to ask someone if they come from Yorkshire? Because before you can finish the sentence they'll already have told you.
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
When Trump ran in 2024 after losing in 2020, was that fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again?
In fairness, Trump won two competitive primaries. Harris won zero.
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
She was such a poor candidate she was rejected by the democrats early doors when she ran against Biden in the primaries before the 2020 election.
Yet, see that, they still went with her in 2024.
Now some think this serial loser will become a winner in 2028 !
I don't think she will be the candidate, but she did well. Not well enough to win obviously, but 48% of the vote is not trivial, and may have been better than any other Dem candidate.
It's not as if the primary system infallibly comes out with great candidates.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak, he's previously said that it's racist to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population in the UK and between both of those things I have come to the conclusion that he would have been one of those people who proclaimed to be uncomfortable with what was happening but saw it as a lesser evil than whistle blowing and potentially causing a lot of upheaval for Muslims across northern cities.
I engage in discussion about the lab leak hypothesis. You want to talk about the lab leak hypothesis, go ahead. I will disagree with you. I won’t call you a paedophile enabler.
I’ve never said it’s racist to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population. Prove otherwise. I said it was wrong to worry about a very fast growing Muslim population because that’s not happening.
You are saying that someone who disagrees with you on a topic of virology and another of demographics is therefore deeply evil and would cover up horrendous crimes. That is pretty sick, Max.
Leaving Max's surmise about what you might or might not have done about Rotherham to one side, I was genuinely disturbed by your list of 'solutions' that should flow from the Covid experience.
Even in the vanishingly unlikely scenario that Covid was caused by a chance Zoonotic event, the very presence of a US lab (or several) in China, studying how to make coronaviruses more transmissible and more deadly, is surely still hugely problematical in its very existence, given what we now know. Gain of function research was banned in the USA for being too dangerous. That it was then quietly internationalised is a scandal of epic proportions, and that Communist China, the West's biggest geopolitical rival was selected as a location for such projects is beyond scandalous. I found it astonishing that you made no suggestion of any changes or modification to that activity, suggesting instead greater investment in emergency health capacity and vaccines so that we can all have a ventilator and get our shots when the next one hits.
You also afaicr completely failed to address the question of non-covid related harms resulting from lockdown, such as mental health issues, suicide, child development issues, and the large numbers of non-covid deaths.
We are here on PB to be exposed to debate and different views, and it's to your credit that you come here and do that, but I would suggest that if many of your coworkers share very similar views, without your exposure to different ideas, they are severely misaligned with both the wishes of the people they serve, and with morality.
I have published scientific papers on non-COVID-19-related harms resulting from lockdown etc., such as mental health issues. I spent much of my time when advising government going on about financial hardships resulting from the pandemic. Feel free to apologise.
Most of the claims about gain of function research are MAGA nonsense. They simply didn’t happen. I do support taking a huge amount of caution with research on pathogenic or potentially pathogenic viruses.
I am pretty good but I'm not Mystic Meg - why on earth would I apologise when my comment was based on your own post?
I am gratified that you advise 'a huge amount of caution' when doing research that actively creates more deadly and transmissible versions of transmissible and deadly diseases. Would this caution include absolutely not conducting such research in CHINA of all places? As for MAGA nonsense, are you suggesting the Obama administration that banned this activity was having an attack of MAGA nonsense at the time?
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
@Roger: you'd like to know my history, would you? Or do you just want to make some bitchy point?
My parents rented their flat. It had no central heating. The landlord was a bastard and neglected to look after it. After my father died, conditions were so bad that it was declared unfit for human habitation under the 1952 Housing Act. The landlord tried to evict my mother so he could sell it. It was one of the reasons I went into the law - so that I could fight back against people like him and help people like my mother. My first volunteering job was doing just that at the North Ken Law Centre. Both parents were born overseas. My father was Irish at a time when this was not fashionable and he was sneered at by the likes of people like you. I was orphaned at the age of 20.
Every job I ever got I got on merit on the basis of my qualities and what I had to offer. No-one in my family or their friends gave me a job (apart from one Saturday job when I was 16).
So I am entitled to be scornful of those people who game the property system in this country to benefit themselves and their children while sanctimoniously claiming to be against "privilege".
Is someone suggesting Phillipson 'gamed' the property system and criticising anyone for sanctimony really takes the biscuit
That was Rayner wasn't it ?
It seems Labour Ministers are pretty interchangeable under the rapier like scrutiny of cyclefree.
Phillipson helped her mother at a refuge and cyclefree characterises it as...." her only job before becoming an MP was in Mummy's charity. lol."
@Cyclefree is very well respected on here and provides informative threads and options
She is also fiercely defensive of women and right to be so
With respect, I cannot say the same about yourself
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
She was such a poor candidate she was rejected by the democrats early doors when she ran against Biden in the primaries before the 2020 election.
Yet, see that, they still went with her in 2024.
Now some think this serial loser will become a winner in 2028 !
I don't think she will be the candidate, but she did well. Not well enough to win obviously, but 48% of the vote is not trivial, and may have been better than any other Dem candidate.
It's not as if the primary system infallibly comes out with great candidates.
I think rcs1000 is correct and it is just name recognition.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
Lab leaks have happened and caused disease outbreaks. Most notably, the 1977 flu might have been a Russian lab leak, although it’s very hard to determine for sure.
Over time, the evidence that COVID-19 came from the wet market has increased. I might once have talked about the balance of probabilities. I wouldn’t now, in 2025. It is exceedingly unlikely that COVID-19 was anything other than a zoonotic event, just like the vast majority of novel disease pandemics.
I think most epidemiologists would broadly agree with the point you make at the end. It doesn’t matter much. We should try to avoid it happening again. Such a thing could happen from a lab leak and we should take appropriate caution to avoid that. It could also happen from a zoonotic event and we should try to avoid that.
It is unfortunate that a point of epidemiological investigation has, like so many other things, been captured by culture war nonsense, such that expressing a view on COVID-19 origins gets you labelled a paedophile enabler.
The closure of the brand new vaccine research institute, and the vaccine production facility, by the previous government was also extremely unfortunate by any measure.
Edit: I don't think we have yet seen any action by the current administration to reverse, or otherwise satisfy, this issue, either?
No we have not. Instead one of the first things the Labour government did was to halt funding for a new British supercomputer, which displays the story of short-sighted penny-pinching that is completely contrary to the thinking that would invest in vaccine research or production facilities.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
She was such a poor candidate she was rejected by the democrats early doors when she ran against Biden in the primaries before the 2020 election.
Yet, see that, they still went with her in 2024.
Now some think this serial loser will become a winner in 2028 !
I don't think she will be the candidate, but she did well. Not well enough to win obviously, but 48% of the vote is not trivial, and may have been better than any other Dem candidate.
It's not as if the primary system infallibly comes out with great candidates.
I doubt she would be candidate but to be fair even John Kerry would probably have won in 2008 so it is not impossible she could win if she was
Could someone in her party send her the link? Or tell her about the Drew Review and Operation Stovewood by the NCA. Or the Jay report or what Dame Louise Casey has done?
Or remind her of what her fellow Cabinet Minister, Suellla Braverman, the Home Secretary to do in May 2023 when the final IICSA Report came out?
This is bandwagon jumping of the most tawdry kind instead of action - which she could have been asking for when she was an actual Cabinet Minister.
What magnificent results have these reports and enquiries produced?
The Drew Review was used to improve the approach of South Yorkshire Police.
Operation Stovewood: run by the NCA is the largest criminal enforcement investigation into non-family CSE. It has identified 1100 victims, has 50 investigations outstanding and has led to 36 convictions.
The Jay Report was used to improve services within Rotherham Council which was put into special measures. The council leader and head of children's services left.
It is something. By no means enough, of course.
But what actual use will yet another inquiry costing millions, reporting in a decade or so and telling us stuff we already know be? Because my suspicion is that this is not really about joining dots or understanding the manifold causes of male sexual violence - let alone taking effective action against it - but political point-scoring and a disguised fight about immigration, in which the needs of the victims - girls mostly - will largely be ignored.
We definitely dont need an enquiry....what we need is a police investigation and where people whether policeman, councillors or local government people or priests etc have covered up sexual abuse of young people then they need to be tried in a court of law for at least perversion of justice.
Enough of enquiries as we have seen with the PO one it is a way of letting the people responsible off
Here's the thing.
The bar for criminal prosecution is a high one, and (with few relatively few exceptions) requires mens rea - i.e. a guilty mind.
Inaction - even when it has terrible consequences - is very rarely a criminal offence.
Now there may be individuals in the care service or the council in Rotherham and Rochdale whose behaviour stepped over the line. But those people are inevitably low level, and were almost certainly carrying out the wishes of their bosses.
So you have a fundamental problem: the instructions (i.e. to care about "community relations" above all else) came from people without specific knowledge, and who therefore almost certainly have a defence. While those who behaviour stepped over the line are junior, and who were "just following orders".
There is an easier case to be made for criminal behaviour and charges to be brought in the Post Office case, because a large number of the legal profession chose to deliberately withhold evidence from the defence in court cases, to the extent that it would come under the heading of perverting the course of justice.
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
She was such a poor candidate she was rejected by the democrats early doors when she ran against Biden in the primaries before the 2020 election.
Yet, see that, they still went with her in 2024.
Now some think this serial loser will become a winner in 2028 !
I don't think she will be the candidate, but she did well. Not well enough to win obviously, but 48% of the vote is not trivial, and may have been better than any other Dem candidate.
It's not as if the primary system infallibly comes out with great candidates.
I think rcs1000 is correct and it is just name recognition.
Certainly so. In this @HYFUD is in touch with the general public. They all predict a future that looks like the present, but the one certainty is change.
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
I don't think raising employers NI and hitting farmers with inheritance tax and scrapping the remaining hereditary peers in the Lords and putting VAT on private schools and giving a huge payrise to train drivers and GPs is exactly rightwing.
So Starmer is just Shite, though I agree if he still looks like losing Labour's majority in 2028/29 Labour MPs might try and replace him with the more New Labour Streeting (albeit with the risk of getting the even more leftwing Rayner)
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
I don't think raising employers NI and hitting farmers with inheritance tax and scrapping the remaining hereditary peers in the Lords and putting VAT on private schools and giving a huge payrise to train drivers and GPs is exactly rightwing.
So Starmer is just Shite, though I agree if he still looks like losing Labour's majority in 2028/29 Labour MPs might try and replace him with the more New Labour Streeting (albeit with the risk of getting the even more leftwing Rayner)
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
New interim Syrian government changes the school curriculum, replacing the phrase "Defending the nation" with "Defending Allah" and the changes also see Evolution and the Big Bang theory being dropped from science teaching.
'References to the gods worshipped in Syria before Islam, as well as images of their statues, are also being dropped.
The significance of the great Syrian heroine Queen Zenobia, who once ruled Palmyra in the Roman era, seems to have been downplayed.
The Assad era has essentially been excised from the curriculum, including poems celebrating both Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, in Arabic language courses.'
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
I don't think raising employers NI and hitting farmers with inheritance tax and scrapping the remaining hereditary peers in the Lords and putting VAT on private schools and giving a huge payrise to train drivers and GPs is exactly rightwing.
So Starmer is just Shite, though I agree if he still looks like losing Labour's majority in 2028/29 Labour MPs might try and replace him with the more New Labour Streeting (albeit with the risk of getting the even more leftwing Rayner)
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
I don't think raising employers NI and hitting farmers with inheritance tax and scrapping the remaining hereditary peers in the Lords and putting VAT on private schools and giving a huge payrise to train drivers and GPs is exactly rightwing.
So Starmer is just Shite, though I agree if he still looks like losing Labour's majority in 2028/29 Labour MPs might try and replace him with the more New Labour Streeting (albeit with the risk of getting the even more leftwing Rayner)
Albeit the next election is four and a bit years away Streeting has an extremely marginal seat. Would they risk a leader who may lose his seat ? Or would he move to a safe seat ?
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
Corruption is the usual reason.
Not remotely piddling to those involved.
Show your working, Bart. What’s the going rate for a secondhand civet compared to the pay of someone in a research lab?
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
It really doesn’t do any such thing. You’re projecting.
All that the current polling shows is that Harris was fairly popular with her own party. It’s only a couple of months since the election; bit early to expect them to move on.
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
A gap has arisen in the last few weeks where Musk offers to bankroll Farage but at the same time openly supports Robinson and AFD in Germany
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
Corruption is the usual reason.
Not remotely piddling to those involved.
Show your working, Bart. What’s the going rate for a secondhand civet compared to the pay of someone in a research lab?
Could you show your working on why it's a good idea to fund science creating a new plague IN CHINA. A country that will have your information off you even if you're doing your research in Newent, let alone doing it in Wuhan. Why are we showing China how to create a new pandemic, whether the pandemic is unfortunately unleashed in their country or not? You give the impression that it's all just terribly gauche to question these things. That's the attitude people refer to when they speak of the establishment.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
How? How do you smuggle a live civet out of a secure research lab, knowing that its absence will be spotted the next day? Do you think someone just slips it down their trousers and walks out, then takes the hour-long journey to the other side of the city to find someone who wants to buy a single civet?
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
It’s in China’s interest that we scrap over the first day of the outbreak as it distracts from their deliberate and systematic minimisation of the situation over the next few months.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
How? How do you smuggle a live civet out of a secure research lab, knowing that its absence will be spotted the next day? Do you think someone just slips it down their trousers and walks out, then takes the hour-long journey to the other side of the city to find someone who wants to buy a single civet?
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
Or just spill something on your way out for lunch and not be especially thorough about cleaning it. I remember walking past two bio-med professors in the run-up to lockdown and them both laughing about "Wouldn't surprise me - that lab is a total sh*t-show".
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
I don't think raising employers NI and hitting farmers with inheritance tax and scrapping the remaining hereditary peers in the Lords and putting VAT on private schools and giving a huge payrise to train drivers and GPs is exactly rightwing.
So Starmer is just Shite, though I agree if he still looks like losing Labour's majority in 2028/29 Labour MPs might try and replace him with the more New Labour Streeting (albeit with the risk of getting the even more leftwing Rayner)
SKS reminds me of Gordon McBrown. People said Brown was charismatic in private but disastrous on TV. Seems to me they are too cheeks of the same arse. Identical losers.
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
It really doesn’t do any such thing. You’re projecting.
All that the current polling shows is that Harris was fairly popular with her own party. It’s only a couple of months since the election; bit early to expect them to move on.
Indeed, there are a few Tories being rather slow to move on...
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
How? How do you smuggle a live civet out of a secure research lab, knowing that its absence will be spotted the next day? Do you think someone just slips it down their trousers and walks out, then takes the hour-long journey to the other side of the city to find someone who wants to buy a single civet?
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
It’s pointless. Most who are spouting this rubbish know nothing of scientific research, bio security or Chinese scientific culture. You get the impression they’ve seen stuff in films and think it’s true. E.g. freezing a persons arm in liquid nitrogen for a few seconds and then shattering with a well aimed kick. Or analytical kit in CSI that’s not actually plugged into anything.
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
When Trump ran in 2024 after losing in 2020, was that fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again?
And doubtless such simple Whatabouttery lies behind the "rationale" for Harris having another pop in 4 years time.
But here's the problem: he's a winner, and she's not.
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
A gap has arisen in the last few weeks where Musk offers to bankroll Farage but at the same time openly supports Robinson and AFD in Germany
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
Love the mashup of fractious and facetious. A fine neologism, Big_G.
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
How? How do you smuggle a live civet out of a secure research lab, knowing that its absence will be spotted the next day? Do you think someone just slips it down their trousers and walks out, then takes the hour-long journey to the other side of the city to find someone who wants to buy a single civet?
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
Or just spill something on your way out for lunch and not be especially thorough about cleaning it. I remember walking past two bio-med professors in the run-up to lockdown and them both laughing about "Wouldn't surprise me - that lab is a total sh*t-show".
But that’s just scientists joking. I doubt they really believed that.
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
It really doesn’t do any such thing. You’re projecting.
All that the current polling shows is that Harris was fairly popular with her own party. It’s only a couple of months since the election; bit early to expect them to move on.
Not really. Running a dreadful candidate twice is clearly barking but the fury and disbelief that she lost is still all too readily apparent. Her popularity within the party just adds to that, because it perfectly exemplifies the dichotomy between those who get it and the ignorant electorate.
As always for people like this @bondegezou is a fantastic yardstick, because he channels that perfectly.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
How? How do you smuggle a live civet out of a secure research lab, knowing that its absence will be spotted the next day? Do you think someone just slips it down their trousers and walks out, then takes the hour-long journey to the other side of the city to find someone who wants to buy a single civet?
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
Or just spill something on your way out for lunch and not be especially thorough about cleaning it. I remember walking past two bio-med professors in the run-up to lockdown and them both laughing about "Wouldn't surprise me - that lab is a total sh*t-show".
But that’s just scientists joking. I doubt they really believed that.
I was somewhat joking myself (they were both Chinese nationals however), but in general "accidentally f*cking up" vs. "deliberate plan" is my go-to, in life and science, when it comes to this kind of thing.
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
A gap has arisen in the last few weeks where Musk offers to bankroll Farage but at the same time openly supports Robinson and AFD in Germany
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
Love the mashup of fractious and facetious. A fine neologism, Big_G.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
How? How do you smuggle a live civet out of a secure research lab, knowing that its absence will be spotted the next day? Do you think someone just slips it down their trousers and walks out, then takes the hour-long journey to the other side of the city to find someone who wants to buy a single civet?
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
You assume its going to get noticed.
If its eg being disposed of, then disposing of it via reselling to a third party rather than disposing of it via incineration etc is another way to make money.
There's plenty of ways for those who want to profit off lax security to do so, you only need to look at Russia to see.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
How? How do you smuggle a live civet out of a secure research lab, knowing that its absence will be spotted the next day? Do you think someone just slips it down their trousers and walks out, then takes the hour-long journey to the other side of the city to find someone who wants to buy a single civet?
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
Or just spill something on your way out for lunch and not be especially thorough about cleaning it. I remember walking past two bio-med professors in the run-up to lockdown and them both laughing about "Wouldn't surprise me - that lab is a total sh*t-show".
But that’s just scientists joking. I doubt they really believed that.
A joke is only funny if it has some semblance of truth.
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
A gap has arisen in the last few weeks where Musk offers to bankroll Farage but at the same time openly supports Robinson and AFD in Germany
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
Love the mashup of fractious and facetious. A fine neologism, Big_G.
Oh dear - put it down to arthritic figures, ageing and spell check failure !!!!
Coupling nitrogen-vacancy center spins in diamond to a grape dimer
https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.22.064078 Two grapes irradiated inside a microwave (MW) oven typically produce a series of sparks and can ignite a violent plasma. The underlying cause of the plasma has been attributed to the formation of morphological-dependent resonances (MDRs) in the aqueous dielectric dimers that lead to the generation of a strong evanescent MW hotspot between them. Previous experiments have focused on the electric field component of the field as the driving force behind the plasma ignition. Here we couple an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (N-𝑉) spins in nanodiamonds (NDs) to the magnetic field component of the dimer MW field. We demonstrate the efficient coupling of the N-𝑉 spins to the MW magnetic field hotspot formed between the grape dimers using optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR). The ODMR measurements are performed by coupling N-𝑉 spins in NDs to the evanescent MW fields of a copper wire. When placing a pair of grapes around the NDs and matching the ND position with the expected magnetic field hotspot, we see an enhancement in the ODMR contrast by more than a factor of 2 compared to the measurements without grapes. Using finite-element modeling, we attribute our experimental observation of the field enhancement to the MW hotspot formation between the grape dimers. The present study not only validates previous work on understanding grape-dimer resonator geometries, but it also opens up another avenue for exploring alternative MW resonator designs for quantum technologies...
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
A gap has arisen in the last few weeks where Musk offers to bankroll Farage but at the same time openly supports Robinson and AFD in Germany
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
Love the mashup of fractious and facetious. A fine neologism, Big_G.
Oh dear - put it down to arthritic figures, ageing and spell check failure !!!!
I think we should keep it though as it’s a great word.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
OK, jumping into Leon mode here, he has called out your comments on the location of the lab (other side of the city) as a proven lie. You didn't reply to his rebuttal then - are you insisting that the lab was on the other side of the city?
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
Does he want to start a war with the British people?
I hate to stick up for Sir Queue Skipper, but who waits 3 hours to trundle down a hill in a wicker basket?
Not me.
When we went, after a nice journey up in a cable car got out, saw the queue, we turned around and went back down and wandered around Funchal. Not much there. A statue of Christiano Ronaldo, wild growing bananas and some gardens and that’s it.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
A gap has arisen in the last few weeks where Musk offers to bankroll Farage but at the same time openly supports Robinson and AFD in Germany
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
Love the mashup of fractious and facetious. A fine neologism, Big_G.
Oh dear - put it down to arthritic figures, ageing and spell check failure !!!!
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
You think anyone would worry about selling a few animals on the side?
Note the lawyer who blew the whistle on it was un-personed by the Chinese government.
Exactly.
There's plenty of evidence of corruption and illicit trade being possible and the one consistent thing is that the government prioritises saving face and anyone who blows the whistle has a tendency to face consequences themselves if not wind up dead.
The idea that corruption is unheard of is utterly insane. Taking the Chinese governments face-saving words at face value is utterly bonkers too.
How this develops might tell us if Musk and Farage are a team or not. Farage will not want to be coupled with Robinson. So let's see if Musk keeps up the Robinson ramping or drops him.
Indeed, though great news for the Tories if they do and Musk gives more money to Farage and Musk keeps backing Robinson. Tory voters on that poll have an even less favourable view of Robinson than Labour voters do
There's certainly an opportunity for the Conservatives to put clean blue water between themselves and Reform/Musk/Robinson.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
A gap has arisen in the last few weeks where Musk offers to bankroll Farage but at the same time openly supports Robinson and AFD in Germany
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
Love the mashup of fractious and facetious. A fine neologism, Big_G.
Oh dear - put it down to arthritic figures, ageing and spell check failure !!!!
Don’t apologise - it’s genuinely good.
My wife is in stitches about it
I am pleased that I have added to the English language
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
If the Dems are suicidal enough to run Harris again by fixing the primary for her like they did for Hilary in 2016 then they deserve to lose.
It smacks of fury that the electorate gave the wrong answer and they should bloody well try the question again.
It really doesn’t do any such thing. You’re projecting.
All that the current polling shows is that Harris was fairly popular with her own party. It’s only a couple of months since the election; bit early to expect them to move on.
Much depends on how far Trump managrs to piss off the MAGA base. Whilst they won't vote Harris in 2028, if she is proven right on how Trump would behave - and the disastrous consequences for blue-collar Americans - them staying home and Harris holding the voters she got in 2024 might well be enough.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
The lab itself wouldn't be doing it, but low paid junior staff in the lab might do so.
And nothing bad happened, right up to the one incident where something bad happened.
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
Indeed.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Please provide evidence that lab civet theft is common.
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
Quick Google...
*Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology concludes that 'the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan' *It points to research on bats and respiratory diseases carried by the animals at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and the Wuhan Institute of Virology *WCDC is just 300 yards from the seafood market and is adjacent to the hospital
I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt and suggest it's down to ignorance, but given that the Wuhan Centre For Disease Control was 300 yards from the wet market, do you see how your comments, particularly the bolded where you mention the Wuhan Institute of Virology (which I assume is on the other side of the city), look very much like a clumsy attempt to misdirect?
Well done to the 20 Broxtowe Councillors who quit Labour today.
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
After your performance in Ben's prediction competition I'm sure we're all hanging on your every word.
Have to say I'm really enjoying Elon Musk trolling the Labour government and ministers. It's very enjoyable seeing the boot on the other foot after 14 years of Labour surrogates in the BBC, charities and think tanks attacking the Tory government under the guise of neutrality. Hope he keeps it up and uses the giant bully pulpit of Twitter to constantly hurt Labour and Starmer.
Are you also enjoying Musk's recent membership of the Tommy Robinson fan club?
I'm not really that fussed, as long as it hurts Labour and contributes their demise. The party that covers up rape gangs because they need their votes, seems like a solid brand for them.
Shame on you Max.
Tommy Robinson very nearly derailed one criminal trial of some of the rapists with his antics. Thus showing that he couldn't give a stuff about the victims because if that trial had been derailed they would either have seen the rapists go free or have to go through the whole ghastly experience of giving evidence all over again.
He doesn't give two hoots about children who are sexually abused. He uses it as away of grifting money from deluded supporters and attacking Muslims and people from Pakistan. He's a tawdry racist and Musk supporting him without bothering to research the reality of the man speaks very ill of him.
And yet if it were up to the likes of @bondegezou the whole thing would never have come to light and all of the people trying to whistleblow would have been shut down and threatened. The rape gangs would still be out there continuing with tacit support from the police and Labour councils to avoid "community tensions". It's the establishment that covered it up and is trying it's hardest to keep the story out of the media to protect themselves for all of the failures. So if Musk is ruffling their feathers then more power to him. Every single person who was involved in covering up the rape gangs or thought that the cover up was "justified" in the name of "community relations" should not only be nowhere near any kind of power, they should be in jail for a very, very long time.
Labour is protecting their own councillors and voters by covering it up and if Musk makes some of their lives more difficult or difficult enough that they top themselves then that's a good outcome. They oversaw the rape and coverup of thousands of girls being raped because the rapists were Muslim and they didn't want to upset Muslim voters. In any other country all of those people responsible would be hounded to suicide, here we just tut at the people trying to get them put in prison.
If you are going to make unpleasant accusations, what about you try to explain yourself, Max? In what way would the likes of me have stopped this coming to light? What makes you think that I would cover up horrendous illegal activity like this? How am I responsible for any of this or anything like this?
Because it was people like you who covered it up. Can you honestly, really honestly, look back and say that you would have been a whistle blower had you seen what was going on? This is your ilk that has covered it up in the name of "community relations" and they looked the other way or in some cases prosecuted parents who wanted their children out of the hands of these rapists. I don't believe, from the posts you have written on here, that you would have been a whistle blower. In fact I believe you would have been an active participant in the cover up and justified it as being a "lesser evil" than "racists" targeting Muslims who perpetrated this evil.
Who knows what other people would do, but you're leveling a pretty harsh accusation.
Yes, I realise it's a harsh accusation but he's also the guy who attempts to shut down all discussion of the lab leak,
(snip)
Rubbish. He did not ''attempt to shut down all discussion of the lab leak". He had a different view on it that you and Leon, and argued his view just as passionately as you two did.
No I mean from at the time of the pandemic when he was shutting down the discussion as "racist" and "listen to the experts and stfu" after that dodgy letter in the Lancet.
I honestly cannot remember that, but it was crazy times. However: are you sure you are not shutting down debate now with your absolute 100% certainty that it was them evil Chinese in their lab?
Not shutting it down, I just think that people who are adamant it wasn't a lab leak are part of the establishment who would be quite happy to cover things up. I've always said I'm open to the idea of it not being a lab leak, I just don't see these outlandish "a bat kissed a pangolin and then a Chinese guy had sex with the pangolin" ideas as realistic.
I believe I've seen him write posts where he says it could be a lab leak, but he thinks, on the balance of probabilities, it was a 'natural' occurrence from the wet market. I daresay he'll correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people like Leon, who are so incredibly adamant, in their 'expert' view, that it was a lab leak, that anyone who argues it may not have been sound entrenched the other way.
My own somewhat controversial view: we'll probably never know for sure where it originated, and it does not matter much. It could have come from either the wet market or lab; so in future we need to try to ensure that it cannot occur in either again. Close the wet markets and similar, and tighten restrictions and procedures at labs.
I recently had a walk around a wet market and frankly we're lucky we haven't something much worse than Covid out of one. Perhaps a sensible first step would not be to have any wet markets close to pathogen labs...
I always thought that the lab leak was most likely to have occurred via illicit sales of animals from the lab to the wet market, so that both were involved in the origin of the virus.
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Why on Earth would a top scientific research lab break the most basic rules to sell animals to a wet market for piddling amounts of money?
Corruption is the usual reason.
Not remotely piddling to those involved.
Show your working, Bart. What’s the going rate for a secondhand civet compared to the pay of someone in a research lab?
Could you show your working on why it's a good idea to fund science creating a new plague IN CHINA. A country that will have your information off you even if you're doing your research in Newent, let alone doing it in Wuhan. Why are we showing China how to create a new pandemic, whether the pandemic is unfortunately unleashed in their country or not? You give the impression that it's all just terribly gauche to question these things. That's the attitude people refer to when they speak of the establishment.
China knows a lot about coronaviruses and has invested heavily in research on them since SARS. Collaborating with people who know a lot about something is often wise. There’s nothing China didn’t know already!
Talk of funding to “create” a new plague is rhetorical nonsense. Who is this “we” who supposedly showed China how to create a new pandemic? There are no reports I’m aware of relating to the UK. There was a US/China collaboration involving EcoHealth that possibly should not have happened, but that involved the MERS virus and it could not have caused COVID-19. I am all for carefully reviewing virology research in this area with respect to the risks of accidental release and in terms of geopolitical relations with China.
Comments
Unfortunately, China's preoccupation with saving face means that we will never have the rigorous investigation into the origins of the virus that we would expect to have in a democratic country.
Phillipson helped her mother at a refuge and cyclefree characterises it as...." her only job before becoming an MP was in Mummy's charity. lol."
Most of the claims about gain of function research are MAGA nonsense. They simply didn’t happen. I do support taking a huge amount of caution with research on pathogenic or potentially pathogenic viruses.
Edit: I don't think we have yet seen any action by the current administration to reverse, or otherwise satisfy, this issue, either?
Enough of enquiries as we have seen with the PO one it is a way of letting the people responsible off
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d3y5zvxzeo
"The World Health Organization has urged China to share data on the origins of the Covid pandemic, five years on from its start in the city of Wuhan.
"This is a moral and scientific imperative," the WHO said in a statement to mark what it called the "milestone" anniversary.
"Without transparency, sharing, and co-operation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics," it added.
Many scientists think the virus transferred naturally from animals to humans, but some suspicions persist that it escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan."
In early 2017, Hillary led in polls to be the next Democratic nominee, simply because most survey respondents are low information, and all they know is whoever was nominee last time.
Does the party have the sense, and more importantly the courage, to do so? Maybe they can surprise on the upside.
Yet, see that, they still went with her in 2024.
Now some think this serial loser will become a winner in 2028 !
Why don't you need to ask someone if they come from Yorkshire? Because before you can finish the sentence they'll already have told you.
It's not as if the primary system infallibly comes out with great candidates.
Not remotely piddling to those involved.
I am gratified that you advise 'a huge amount of caution' when doing research that actively creates more deadly and transmissible versions of transmissible and deadly diseases. Would this caution include absolutely not conducting such research in CHINA of all places? As for MAGA nonsense, are you suggesting the Obama administration that banned this activity was having an attack of MAGA nonsense at the time?
Having dared to criticise dear leader of WFA decision and failure to drop the 2 child benefit cap. 10 of their number were barred by Evans and SKS from standing again.
The SKS project will eat itself and SKS will be subject to a challenge by Streetingites and other ambitious Centrist knobs well before GE 2029 as SKSs popularity numbers get forever worse.
Shite Right Wing PM to be replaced by Shit Right wing PM by 2027
She is also fiercely defensive of women and right to be so
With respect, I cannot say the same about yourself
That's the same calculation that is behind every unnatural disaster.
The bar for criminal prosecution is a high one, and (with few relatively few exceptions) requires mens rea - i.e. a guilty mind.
Inaction - even when it has terrible consequences - is very rarely a criminal offence.
Now there may be individuals in the care service or the council in Rotherham and Rochdale whose behaviour stepped over the line. But those people are inevitably low level, and were almost certainly carrying out the wishes of their bosses.
So you have a fundamental problem: the instructions (i.e. to care about "community relations" above all else) came from people without specific knowledge, and who therefore almost certainly have a defence. While those who behaviour stepped over the line are junior, and who were "just following orders".
There is an easier case to be made for criminal behaviour and charges to be brought in the Post Office case, because a large number of the legal profession chose to deliberately withhold evidence from the defence in court cases, to the extent that it would come under the heading of perverting the course of justice.
So Starmer is just Shite, though I agree if he still looks like losing Labour's majority in 2028/29 Labour MPs might try and replace him with the more New Labour Streeting (albeit with the risk of getting the even more leftwing Rayner)
✅ Well: 12% (-4)
❌ Badly: 69% (+2)
Net rating of -57
Via
@YouGov
, Dec 2024 (+/- vs Oct 2024)
SKS FANS PLEASE EXPLAIN
Do be accurate. You mean landowners.
That @bondegezou can't comprehend why people might engage in such corruption, which is rampant in parts of the world, rather puts into question his entire judgment on the probabilities on this subject.
When you're ruling out something that is common as "why would it happen" then the rest of your logic utterly falls apart.
Lebanon seems to be the only exception. Still: their choice of ongoing low level civil war doesn't seem that appetizing either.
All that the current polling shows is that Harris was fairly popular with her own party. It’s only a couple of months since the election; bit early to expect them to move on.
This scenario should play well for the Conservatives and justifies Kemi war of words with Farage, as she needs to put clear water between the Trump - Musk - Robinson - Farage political grouping
Labour are very unpopular and must fear Musk interventions not least as his mps are looking at closing down X and anti Labour social media, but that will not work
I notice how fracetious discussion are becoming even on here and I would say to Labour supporters especially, this hasn't really started yet and goodness knows what will happen in the months and years ahead
It seems that Rochdale and Oldham abuse scandals are really coming into the news, not least as the media, including ITV, highlight the demands for public enquiries but also social media is awash with allegations of cover ups and wrong doings not just on these scandals but others that makes you wonder just what is coming down the line
Scary, unpredictable days lie ahead with no known outcomes
If you’re going to steal, if you’re going to risk your entire career and suffering at the hands of China’s harsh penal system, you’d do the easier thing and nick a laptop, not a feckin’ civet.
People said Brown was charismatic in private but disastrous on TV. Seems to me they are too cheeks of the same arse. Identical losers.
But here's the problem: he's a winner, and she's not.
A fine neologism, Big_G.
As always for people like this @bondegezou is a fantastic yardstick, because he channels that perfectly.
If its eg being disposed of, then disposing of it via reselling to a third party rather than disposing of it via incineration etc is another way to make money.
There's plenty of ways for those who want to profit off lax security to do so, you only need to look at Russia to see.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/9a8f69f4-914a-44c7-8ff7-3a10c2d3135b?shareToken=e3170b112b7b916558e90b22035fa32c
Does he want to start a war with the British people?
Coupling nitrogen-vacancy center spins in diamond to a grape dimer
https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.22.064078
Two grapes irradiated inside a microwave (MW) oven typically produce a series of sparks and can ignite a violent plasma. The underlying cause of the plasma has been attributed to the formation of morphological-dependent resonances (MDRs) in the aqueous dielectric dimers that lead to the generation of a strong evanescent MW hotspot between them. Previous experiments have focused on the electric field component of the field as the driving force behind the plasma ignition. Here we couple an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (N-𝑉) spins in nanodiamonds (NDs) to the magnetic field component of the dimer MW field. We demonstrate the efficient coupling of the N-𝑉 spins to the MW magnetic field hotspot formed between the grape dimers using optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR). The ODMR measurements are performed by coupling N-𝑉 spins in NDs to the evanescent MW fields of a copper wire. When placing a pair of grapes around the NDs and matching the ND position with the expected magnetic field hotspot, we see an enhancement in the ODMR contrast by more than a factor of 2 compared to the measurements without grapes. Using finite-element modeling, we attribute our experimental observation of the field enhancement to the MW hotspot formation between the grape dimers. The present study not only validates previous work on understanding grape-dimer resonator geometries, but it also opens up another avenue for exploring alternative MW resonator designs for quantum technologies...
A substantial advance on this.
Linking plasma formation in grapes to microwave resonances of aqueous dimers
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818350116
(All serious science.)
Of course there is corruption in the world, but try to come up with some sort of vaguely plausible or evidence-based corruption. To the best of our knowledge, there were no viruses in the Wuhan Institute that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. There were no animal tests going on of anything that could be ancestral to SARS-CoV-2. The Institute and the wet market are on opposite sides of the city, so even if anything infected got out, you have to explain how it gets to the other side of the city without infecting anything along the way.
We know the wet market sources animals from the wild. We know wild animals sometimes carry bugs we’ve not encountered before. So, what is more likely? Some hare-brained animal theft scheme from the hardest place to nick animals in the city, or a wild animal with a cough?
'Ere we 'av puddin', but can only afford it on Sundays.
Next up Luke the Nuke v Bullet Bunting
When we went, after a nice journey up in a cable car got out, saw the queue, we turned around and went back down and wandered around Funchal. Not much there. A statue of Christiano Ronaldo, wild growing bananas and some gardens and that’s it.
Madeira is perfect for SKS. It’s rather dull.
Not dead Civets though, dead people:
https://www.newsweek.com/china-thousands-corpses-smuggled-bone-graft-medical-health-scandal-1936276
You think anyone would worry about selling a few animals on the side?
[Note the lawyer who blew the whistle on it was un-personed by the Chinese government.]
There's plenty of evidence of corruption and illicit trade being possible and the one consistent thing is that the government prioritises saving face and anyone who blows the whistle has a tendency to face consequences themselves if not wind up dead.
The idea that corruption is unheard of is utterly insane. Taking the Chinese governments face-saving words at face value is utterly bonkers too.
I am pleased that I have added to the English language
Man in exploding Tesla had a gunshot wound
Its often done as part of a package, a bit like the fastpass at Disney, but I just took a taxi.
Madeira is a lovely place, and their Carnival is the best in europe. It helps if you like walking, as there are fantastic views
It is good fun
*It points to research on bats and respiratory diseases carried by the animals at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and the Wuhan Institute of Virology
*WCDC is just 300 yards from the seafood market and is adjacent to the hospital
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8009669/Did-coronavirus-originate-Chinese-government-laboratory.html
I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt and suggest it's down to ignorance, but given that the Wuhan Centre For Disease Control was 300 yards from the wet market, do you see how your comments, particularly the bolded where you mention the Wuhan Institute of Virology (which I assume is on the other side of the city), look very much like a clumsy attempt to misdirect?
Talk of funding to “create” a new plague is rhetorical nonsense. Who is this “we” who supposedly showed China how to create a new pandemic? There are no reports I’m aware of relating to the UK. There was a US/China collaboration involving EcoHealth that possibly should not have happened, but that involved the MERS virus and it could not have caused COVID-19. I am all for carefully reviewing virology research in this area with respect to the risks of accidental release and in terms of geopolitical relations with China.
1. Artist & MEP (2019-2022)
2. Teacher/nurse & maths professor (2022-2022)
-- I got it from the second clue
3. Pharmacist & GP (2022-2024)
Ans. Nurse & toolmaker (2024-) being the parental occupations of successive PMs.