steve
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Post by steve on May 24, 2024 7:26:32 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 24, 2024 7:27:17 GMT
A truly remarkably admission - www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/24/uks-environment-agency-chief-admits-regulator-buries-freedom-of-information-requests"The head of the Environment Agency has admitted that freedom of information requests have been buried by the regulator because the truth about the environment in England is “embarrassing”. Philip Duffy, the body’s chief executive, told an audience at the UK River Summit in Morden, south London, this week that his officials were “worried about revealing the true state of what is going on” with regards to the state of the environment." This is the regulator charged with protecting the environment. They would prefer to bury the bad news, presumably because they fear being judged as failures? What an appalling state this country is in. Only has to bury it for another couple of months...then its labour's problem and surely con believe the more problems they dump on lab, the better. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 24, 2024 7:35:38 GMT
My immediate thought was he was a financier, so retiring to spend more time making money. However, he is 73 so legitimately time to retire and has had a long career as an MP. However he has managed to combine that with a second career in asset management. Wiki noted Sky in 2023 determined he had earned £600,000 in about 3 years from his work outside parliament, making him the 5th highest earning MP. |
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Post by alec on May 24, 2024 7:35:53 GMT
Danny - if you are under 63 you have almost certainly been given a primary vaccination against tetanus as a child, with vaccination uptake close to 100% for much of the time. If you have suffered any wound requiring medical treatment in your life, you will also almost certainly have been given a tetanus booster as standard, so yes, the overwhelming odds are that you have been vaccinated, probably more than once. By extension, that means you almost certainly have a reasonably good to perfect vaccine induced immunity to tetanus. By contrast, if by some odd quirk you haven't been vaccinated against tetanus, you will have *zero* natural immunity to it, and without getting vaccinated, you will *never* acquire natural immunity to it, even if you get repeated exposures to it. Because when it comes to some pathogens, your natural immune system is shite.
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Post by barbara on May 24, 2024 7:41:38 GMT
I wonder how many of those REFUK voters are unreconstructed Thatcherites who, after Sunak's reprise of Gene Kelly, were confirmed in their dislike of Wets. Well, I obviously wasn't going to miss the cue to post 4 mins, 16 secs of the distillation of pure joy. You also get a bonus in the shape of the legendary song's first appearance, in two-colour Technicolor, to boot, in 1929, with Jack Benny, Joan Crawford and Buster Keaton joining in proceedings. youtu.be/swloMVFALXw?si=1SvQGqYpKWO9x_T_youtu.be/Mh0hqXBXL00?si=tFgUT47A9xhq-5KNI've got all three DVDs of "That's Entertainment", the first of which I saw at the cinema in Liverpool in 1974. (My boyfriend in what can only be described as a superb act of self sacrifice took for me for my 21st birthday.) The beauty of it is that almost all of the great MGM musical stars werel still alive and feature in the film as narrators. This first film contains all (3 I think) versions of Singing In The Rain that appeared in MGM musicals. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 24, 2024 7:43:16 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 24, 2024 7:43:57 GMT
Inheriting what he did, it would have taken a first rate politician to get the Tories back into contention. Alas, for him, he has risen above the level consummate to his skills. [/font][/quote]Thing is, I think even a consummate politician like Johnson coming at this uncluttered by scandal would find this an impossible task. The fundamental position is that core tory policy is unattractive to most voters. Specifically slash taxes and cut back all state services. Its a policy which can work in the short term while you cut taxes. But then a bit down the road the consequences of the service cuts arrive. There have been 15 years now of service cuts (creeping in at the end of labour post 2008 crash), and it isnt so much that con have failed to turn this round but that they never wanted to. What con need to make their policy attractive again is a period of labour government rebuilding state services, so con can come back in on a policy of cutting them again to reduce taxes. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 24, 2024 7:49:18 GMT
Danny - if you are under 63 you have almost certainly been given a primary vaccination against tetanus as a child, with vaccination uptake close to 100% for much of the time. If you have suffered any wound requiring medical treatment in your life, you will also almost certainly have been given a tetanus booster as standard, so yes, the overwhelming odds are that you have been vaccinated, probably more than once. By extension, that means you almost certainly have a reasonably good to perfect vaccine induced immunity to tetanus. Isnt this something of a category error, relying on a statistical average rather than the actual reported facts? |
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Post by alec on May 24, 2024 7:51:51 GMT
Danny - so you're telling us that in your recent trip to casualty you were asked about you vaccination status, you were unable to tell them, and the NHS staff then decided not to vaccinate you?
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Post by hireton on May 24, 2024 7:52:09 GMT
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on May 24, 2024 7:52:09 GMT
I've got all three DVDs of "That's Entertainment", the first of which I saw at the cinema in Liverpool in 1974. (My boyfriend in what can only be described as a superb act of self sacrifice took for me for my 21st birthday.) The beauty of it is that almost all of the great MGM musical stars werel still alive and feature in the film as narrators. This first film contains all (3 I think) versions of Singing In The Rain that appeared in MGM musicals. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 24, 2024 7:58:48 GMT
Martin lewes talking about the energy price cap, due to fall just before the election date (what a coincidence), headline 7% fall in prices.
The fine print:
Its for only 3 months covering the summer while people use least energy.
Over winter it is expected to go up, estimates suggest it will then go up 12%, so that if you are paying £100 now, it will end up around £104 for the winter when you are using most.
There is no change in standing charge this time. So at the time of year you are using least energy, the not insignificant standing charge around 90p a day will not change. standing charge is now pretty big for low energy users, and its something if you are strapped for money you cannot change at all by using less.
So funny how the election has been timed for this temporary dip in energy prices.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 24, 2024 8:01:22 GMT
Danny - so you're telling us that in your recent trip to casualty you were asked about you vaccination status, you were unable to tell them, and the NHS staff then decided not to vaccinate you? It was a close run thing, the guy had to spend some time searching stock cupboards in different offices because the NHS is running low on all sorts of drugs. Time wasted, which could have been used to cut the queue in casualty. |
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Post by athena on May 24, 2024 8:02:50 GMT
How are we supposed to enjoy our Portillo moments if they all decide to retire at the last minute? I'm in a small minority on here in viewing the forthcoming GE with a sense of resignation rather than excitement. Weeks of inanities from politicians, journalists and voters, followed by the installation of a new PM who won't address the climate and biodiversity crises. An opportunity missed - I never expected to contemplate the demise of a Tory government with so little hope in my heart. Nevertheless I confess that I do hope Lab is running a decapitation campaign in Somerset North East. Away from the headlines, I'm hoping that the good folk of Shipley will decide to hand Philip Davies his P45. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 24, 2024 8:11:52 GMT
Millionaire 74 year old engages in a bit of self indulgence.
"Jeremy Corbyn to stand as independent at general election
Former Labour leader confirms he will stand as an independent candidate in Islington North"
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Post by crossbat11 on May 24, 2024 8:24:07 GMT
Millionaire 74 year old engages in a bit of self indulgence. "Jeremy Corbyn to stand as independent at general election Former Labour leader confirms he will stand as an independent candidate in Islington North" It was always all about Jeremy in the end. Glastonbury 2017 the pinnacle. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2024 8:29:13 GMT
That's likely itself an artifact of covid, in part at least, as it's prevalence increases where the individual immune system is compromised. In casualty last fortnight the guy was asking when I last had a tetanus shot, to which the answer was I have no specific recollection of ever having one, though probably did as a kid. But if stabbing myself on dirty rusty barbed wire was going to kill me, Id be long since dead. The human immune system works! But you are right, what people dying from covid most had in common was that they were old and therefore their immune systems packing up. So many died from covid probably because modern medicine had kept them alive already beyond a natural unassisted lifetime. Bloody hell you’re an insensitive twat. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 24, 2024 8:36:18 GMT
Not surprisingly Corbyn expelled from the Labour Party, joining Ramsay Macdonald as the only two Labour leaders to be expelled
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Post by crossbat11 on May 24, 2024 8:42:27 GMT
Not surprisingly Corbyn expelled from the Labour Party, joining Ramsay Macdonald as the only two Labour leaders to be expelled I promise that this will be my last word on Corbyn, mainly because I've said far too much about him in the past and he is of course an utter irrelevance to both this election and the future of the country, but I have a message to the voters of Islington North. Give the silly old duffer a long overdue kick up his electoral backside for me, if you would. They probably won't though. One last hurrah for St Jeremy and he graces the Commons for another five years. Oh well, I move swiftly on now. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 24, 2024 9:38:46 GMT
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Post by alec on May 24, 2024 9:40:42 GMT
Danny - "It was a close run thing, the guy had to spend some time searching stock cupboards in different offices because the NHS is running low on all sorts of drugs. Time wasted, which could have been used to cut the queue in casualty." So you're accepting that I was correct to assert you have had a tetanus jab and you are not relying on your natural immunity. That's good. As for drug shortages, yes, repeat covid infections have been linked to far greater levels of all sorts of clinical conditions and illnesses (including oddly enough, some evidence of increased cases of tetanus) and as a result there is surging global demand and all kinds of shortages of critical drugs. The UK situation is worse because of Brexit, but shortages are a significant global problem, and we're way too far past the initial pandemic response to attempt to argue that 'it's lockdowns'. On a global scale, populations are much sicker now than in 2019, and that's having major impacts on all aspects of healthcare.
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shevii
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Post by shevii on May 24, 2024 9:43:34 GMT
If the House of Commons was a football ground there would be a rendition of "we can see you sneaking out". |
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Post by alec on May 24, 2024 9:49:13 GMT
@fecklessmiser - "Bloody hell you’re an insensitive twat."
Not only insensitive, but completely wrong as well. It's not medicine that has been the primary reason why we're living longer. The overwhelming benefit in terms of extended life span has come from environmental improvements in living conditions that have suppressed disease. Direct medical intervention has had a far smaller effect. For example, we have effective medical treatments for cholera, as well as a modestly effective vaccine, but barring a few small populations and the occasional outbreak in unusual circumstances (eg Gaza currently) we really don't see much illness and death from cholera because we've engineered the environment to protect ourselves from this. That's the way the vast majority of diseases have been addressed. Similarly, malaria has been eliminated in many areas for decades/centuries, even though we've only just developed a (hopefully) effective vaccine in the last half decade.
In due course we'll do the same with airborne respiratory diseases. We have all the technology we need to ensure transmission is reduced to the point of elimination if we chose to prioritise this, with the biggest hurdle not the technology, but the knobheads who keep insisting that being sick is good for you.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 24, 2024 9:53:01 GMT
Trump mental decline accelerating, his poorly attended cult gathering in the Bronx yesterday dissolved within minutes into an overwhelmingly incomprehensible shambles, with cult acolytes leaving early. youtu.be/tVKlJcWHlIs?si=3t1tpzDQvHpyB89F |
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Post by leftieliberal on May 24, 2024 10:17:52 GMT
Andrew Marr on the biggest risk facing LabourMany years ago, when following Neil Kinnock around on the election trail, I was admonished in the battle bus by the journalist Richard Littlejohn for asking questions that were too long: “Our job is to sit at the back throwing bottles,” he said. Anyway, that’s enough bottles for this piece. Where are the vulnerabilities for Labour?
The biggest and most obvious one is the narrative itself, that of a big Labour victory in the making. Voters are naturally suspicious of landslide governments, with the cockiness that brings. They may be looking at the polls and thinking, hmm, there is already a sense of entitlement creeping in here; better not help them too much. The danger is not people flooding to the Tories so much as a quiet scepticism that means them not voting at all.Marr hitting the nail on the head as usual.
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Post by Mark on May 24, 2024 10:35:49 GMT
Word salad thingy for Sunak & Starmer's opening speeches...  |
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Post by athena on May 24, 2024 10:51:06 GMT
leftieliberalMost of your Marr quotation sounds like a regurgitation of the LD playbook to me. In the latest Ashcroft poll, in a forced choice voters comfortably preferred a Lab govt led by Starmer to a Tory govt led by Sunak, but in a forced choice between a majority Lab govt and a Lab-led coalition they preferred the coalition. That gives the LDs a rationale for running a campaign asking people to vote LD to ensure that there will be a strong LD cohort in the House of Commons, holding Starmer and Lab to account/checking any leftie excesses. It's a strategy that allows them to face both ways, as is their wont: appealing to left-leaning voters who'd like Lab to do more on X, Y and Z and to right-leaning voters who're suspicious of Lab and don't want to hand a Lab govt carte blanche. There are plenty of people who have enough doubts about Lab to want to see a sensible, effective opposition and the current incarnation of the Tory party isn't looking a shoo-in for that role. Provided Davey secures enough coverage for voters to know who he is, they will at least be reasonably sure who'll be charge of the LDs come July 5th - with the Tories that's anyone's guess.
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Post by alec on May 24, 2024 10:58:20 GMT
It really just gets worse, doesn't it?
This is from the Guardian live blog - "Sunak says smoking bill shows he can take ‘bold action’, despite failing to pass it"
Sums the last 14 years up rather well, I think.
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Post by James E on May 24, 2024 11:12:39 GMT
Thanks for the link, Steve. While it would be good to get a high turnout, this does not seem likely. I have compared the figures for those who say they are 'certain to vote' in 6 recent YouGovs to the comparable period prior to the announcement of the 2019 General Election - so Sept & Oct 2019. Overall, this is down by 6 points from an average of 60% 5 years ago to 54% recently. The details are interesting though, as it largely due to a fall among Leave voters. 5 years ago, just over 65% said they were certain to vote, but this is down by 8 points to 57%. With 2016 Remain voters, the figures is down by just 2 points from 71% to 69%. This will already be factored into YouGov's headline figures, with Labour about 25 points ahead. With these differing levels of turnout, I would estimate that 2016 Leave voters will only make up around 38% of those voting at the General Election. Around 44% will be 2016 Remainers, and the rest will be those who did not vote, or were too young. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on May 24, 2024 11:12:46 GMT
Good riddance. He's been a terrible fit for the in large part educated and europhile populace of Wokingham for a long time. Possible LD win. |
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