Blah Blah

Trinnydad Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Are you aspiring to be the lead member of a > self-appointed forum mafia intent on suppressing > views that don't align with yours? Oh do grow up. It is quite clear I am now your no.1 target for whiny trolling. Pathetic.

Yeslovewhatcanigetu Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Brexit is about emotion, not any rational or > objective thought process. For most people life > will go on pretty much as it was before, with > slightly more bureaucracy when they go on their > summer holidays. Meanwhile, as we realise that > we?ve cut ourselves off from the world more than > is good for us, we?ll drift closer back towards > Europe. We?re European, they?re our closest > neighbours - this is just the beginning of the > next chapter and nowhere near the end of the > story. Exactly this. Brexit is indeed a notion. The practical realities of economic health are what will determine any future re-entry, or push for re-entry. Right now is too early to tell and on that leave voters are right. We are in a de facto transition while business and the economy adjusts. How long that transition takes is unknown. The question for me is, as it has always been, how patient will a public be in waiting for promised sunlit uplands, and that leveling up? They are not going to wait decades for it, that is for sure, and it will be the younger generations that decide the future. They are overwhelmingly pro EU. So not a question of if, but when we return, as I see it.

Quite. Starmer's opinion is irrelevant. Hayes has gone to some length to explain her decision, which appears to chime with the range of responses she got from her constituents. She is allowed to defy any whip if she so chooses. No-one knows at this point if the deal is going to be enough to avoid stark detriment to the UK economy, and Labour voted for the deal with expressed reservations and not because they like it, but because the other outcome of no deal would be far worse.

Trinnydad Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > @BB. It may help your credibility if you resisted > such dismissive and insulting responses to DF's > post. Such a response is obviously designed to > deter formites from making inputs that conflict > with your views. I can go into great detail as to why DF's post was nonsense, but felt it was blatantly obvious and needed no further explanation. The question around sovereignty has been done to death and the leavers have never won that argument sadly.

What absolute nonsense DF. It wasn't the EU that wrote manifesto after manifesto, nor Queen's Speech after Queen's Speech.

Clutterqueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The country voted overwhelming to leave the EU back in 2016.... Can't even be honest about that can you? It was the narrowest of wins.

It is not compatible for a cabinet minister to defy the whip usually.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What a nice way to close out a sh-tty year....with Blah Blah and myself in agreement on something:) > > There is indeed hope for us all!! I did fall about laughing at this, but yes, it is true HA HA.

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > that's fair comment. Agreed. It is the kind of 'in between' deal that was only ever going to be acceptable (even if through gritted teeth for some) to both sides. Watching the Parliamentary debate this afternoon, highlighted the details still yet to be ironed out. I would argue that, given the tabled review in four years time, that this is the beginning, rather than the end, of shaping our future trade deal with the EU. I still also think that the timing of the review will make this a big issue at the next EU, as the Tories seek to keep the UKIP swinging voters on side and those red wall voters too of course. Having said that, between now and then, the pandemic will end, and austerity mark 2 will hit. So who knows where the public mood will be in four years time. Will we even still be a UK in fact?

They also have the option of the review in four years time. In the statement they released, they focused on whether or not the deal satisfied their notion of 'sovereignty' and decided that it did.

To be fair TheCat, I made that point in my initial response to NeoR, so your reply is making what point exactly? There are correlations between socioeconomic outcomes and crime, repeated the world over. Yes it is a rather complex thing, but nonetheless, it is a better indicator of something, than the nonsense that NeoR is trying to push around ethnicity and size of minority populations. Isn't that what counter argument is supposed to do? Unpick or debunk the claim being made by a more reasonable or accurate example of that type of claim. There is plenty of real world data to draw upon, that absolutely destroys NeoR's assertions.

Neoralp, just stop it. You are fooling no-one. You are guided by nothing but your simple minded racism. So I went a fact-checked your premise of correlation between rates of African American population, and crime rates, and guess what, it isn't true! Alaska has the highest crime rate in America, and yet only ranks at 34 in terms of percentage of population that are African American. New Mexico is second in terms of crime rate and ranks at 40th for African American population. Tennessee, Arkansas and Nevada come in next. Let's see how they do for African Americans! 11, 13 and 26. So stop writing nonsense. Edited to add, that when comparing unemployment rates to crime levels however, there absolutely is a correlation between unemployment level and where that state ranks in crime statistics. The bottom 10 states in terms of crime rate, also sit in the bottom third of unemployment rates. The top ten states for crime, all sit in the top half of the unemployment rate charts. And the difference in percentages? Higher crime areas have between two and three times the levels of unemployment of those low crime rate states. Nevada has a whopping four times the level of unemployment of Idaho for example. That is how you analyse statistics.

I don't see a GE next year either. Even if the Tories change leader, why would they feel the need for a GE with that healthy majority?

Trinnydad Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Why is it that virtually all your posts start off > being judgemental in the first sentence? > > The negative verdicts you hand out are caustic, > insulting and designed to stifle any view you > disagree with. Your positive verdicts appear only > to serve an apparent need to reinforce your ego. > > Why not give it a rest and look on the bright > side? Most folks don't appreciate a sneering > know-all. Actually they don't. But when you post deliberate lies and then double down with the kind of nonsense you write here, the ego is clearly all yours. So what Sephiroth said.

Maybe try and answer your own question TheCat? Because that I think ties in with the inability of many leavers to cite the tangible gains of Brexit. We are heading for a difficult period economically speaking and at a time when division is stark and is still being fanned by opportunists and populists. Until the sneering stops, and there is a genuine effort by any government to level up, very little will change for the better. Even the EU deal, which at first sight brought relief and seemed like the cliff edge had been avoided, is up for review in just four years time. This offers no certainty to business and will suppress and stall the very investment that is going to be needed to get the economy out of austerity mark 2. Even on immigration, which was a major issue for many who voted leave,Brexit isn't going stop illegal migrants crossing the channel in dinghies. Only now, we are no longer part of the Dublin Agreement and will no longer be able to send those who already applied for asylum in another EU country, back to that country. At the end of the day, the woes that many people genuinely feel , the disenfranchisement, lack of upward social mobility etc etc, were never things caused by membership of the EU. In taking back control, we have simply given more power to the very people who decide the policies that lead to all those genuine woes that people feel. Hard to be optimistic about any of that.

Oh do behave Trinnydad. Stop with the silly games. I have given you the facts. Only one of those vaccines has been approved in the UK. Only the first delivery of the initial order has arrived so far. You wrote 'They are watching on in envy as the UK conducts several million vaccinations a week'. That is BS. Every major economy has pre-ordered huge numbers of vaccines in the hope any of them reach approval, and it takes some time to deliver huge orders as well (over a period of months). So just stop it.

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Pritti Patel apparently has asked a civil service > team to investigate bring in death penalty. Even if this is true, she would never get it through Parliament or the Lords.

That tries to argue that division has everything to do with ethnic origin and not socioeconomic outcomes, or a whole range of other determining factors, the legacy of history, slavery and so on. Of course there are more palatable forms of expression, protest, and pursuit of justice, but when things are slow to change, or never change (seemingly), an outpouring of frustration and anger followed by a militancy is usually what happens. We are now in an era where a Police Officer can suffocate a detainee on youtube live, and instead of addressing that, some people seek instead to act as though black people have nothing to complain about anymore. Belittle those who do as marxists, supremacists, militants, when they just want police officers to stop racially profiling them. No-one is even talking about that anymore it seems.

Some facts for Trinnydad The UK took delivery of 800,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine at the beginning of December, enough to vaccinate 400k people, from a pre-order of 40 million doses (enough to ultimately vaccinate a third of the adult population). Between Dec 8th and 15th, 137,897 people were given their first vaccination. By Christmas Eve, a further 420,000 had been given the first vaccination. So that is 600k so far, not millions. The hope is to achieve 1 million per week by mid January. The refrigeration requirements of the Pfizer vaccine make it limited in its practical reach. When the Oxford vaccine is approved, that should enable the vaccination program to ramp up more quickly.

LOL EDguy.

Yep and he/ she also fails to see that the UK hasn't ordered enough doses either. That initial Pfizer order is one order only, that will take up to 10 months to deliver. The UK hopes are and always were, pinned on the Oxford vaccine. As for rollouts, it doesn't matter when you start(when you are talking of just months in difference), but how quickly you can get the vaccine out. The UK government aim is to reach 1 million doses a week. Even once that is achieved, you are looking at six months to vaccinate everyone over fifty and front line workers and vulnerable others. Other countries will catch up and may surpass that pretty quickly, and then there is the question of how we help those countries that lack the resources to vaccinate fast. Jingoistic bashing around something as important as this to score cheap points is distasteful. Beating this virus is a global concern that requires co-operation and it is going to be a hard winter for everyone.

I think it is important to bear in mind that the deal is by no means a full and comprehensive one (services are not included for example) and that negotiations will likely continue for years to arrive at that type of deal. Fishing seems to be s can that has been kicked down the road, just far enough to not possibly be Johnson's issue to fix. We no doubt will be bombarded with details and viewpoints over the coming days as MPs and others read the details. The spin can not be true on both sides, although perceptions matter in this. The good part is that a cliff edge is avoided, and the avoidance of tariffs really is important for the the British businesses and jobs that depend on those exports. That for me was always the first and foremost need of this agreement, to avoid those considerable costs. And that works too for us as consumers. The administration of new paperwork and borders procedures remains an additional burden, but is something that should settle down one once everyone is clear about what they need to do. The provision of adequate border staff and other resources to efficiently manage that, is down to government, and they need to pay attention to that. The question will be over the coming days, one of whether leave voters feel sufficiently divorced from the Single Market, and whether remain voters feel sufficiently reassured. Instinct tells me that one or the other, or both, are not going to be as happy as Boris was when he announced the deal is done. Everything promised was never deliverable, but has Boris delivered enough of it while conceding enough on other things, to find that middle ground consensus that renders the hardcore fringes irrelevant? That is what we shall see soon enough.

Europe will have its vaccine rollout well under way in the next couple of months. Not sure what your point really is here, when the UK only made that one initial order with Pfizer and that arrives in batches that could take 10 months to complete delivery of. This government, and no doubt many others, are pinning hopes on the Oxford/ Astrazeneca vaccine that requires no special refrigeration and can be distributed to GPs and much wider types of outlets as a result. It is much cheaper too. Irregardless of when vaccine rollouts start, we are talking differences of months and it will take at least a year to get even half a population vaccinated. There is no fast track on this for anyone.

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If Boris gave way on fishing I'd say that was > pragmatic Apparently that is what has happened. Only rumours right now, but it seems the EU are leaking, hence Reuters breaking that the EU commission are meeting tm. Leaking I guess to prevent any row back from the UK side, when Boris takes it to his cabinet, if he hasn't already. So something is agreed for sure. Whether the EU 27 and the UK government like it remains to be seen. Boris can probably rely on Labour support if he has a backbench rebellion, to get it through. All going to be messy for him politically though.

The problem with the fast track testing the government announced is that they are asking lorry drivers to give up their place in the queue, to drive somewhere else, to get the test, and then rejoin the queue. As usual, government trying to centralise over localising something. Surely the answer is to mobile test drivers, starting from the front of the queue? Isn't that what the army are good at? Field services. Sky reporting that drivers are staying put, not going anywhere to be tested. So this isn't going to resolve itself quickly.