Blah Blah

I think there has to be some common sense though. Efficacy of the four vaccines being used is looking very promising against the strains they were designed for. Tweaking those vaccines for new variants should not be a difficult task. So the issue is always going to be one of how fast people can be vaccinated against new variants. As we can see from the fist vaccine rollout though, there is a big difference between countries who can afford to pay for it, and those who can't. Also true is that this is a virus that mutates easily, and that is going to be impossible to stop in a world where it is spreading easily. So those returning from India are going to have to be sensible and quarantine themselves properly. Unless we want a world where all borders remain fully closed, that is going to have to be the way. Track and trace systems that work. Testing that works. And people doing the right thing. I think it is safe to say that we are not going back to the way things were before this pandemic. Businesses that rely on mass gatherings are going to have to change. Health resources are also going to have to change. Vaccines, testing, tracking and constant monitoring for new variants all cost money, lots of it. The impacts are going to be felt for some time to come.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Blah Blah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > TheCat Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > The real challenge is one expanding the career > > option of MP beyond the top 10 percent, half > of > > whom are told they are born to it! > > > This is opening up a whole new can of worms....but > here goes.... > > Totally agree. But while being an MP does indeed > pay more than most people will earn. How many > 'ordinary' people would choose/be able to take > time off from their existing jobs to campaign, > then (if they get elected), quit their job and > totally change careers for one (while paying more > than they might make today) which highly likely to > have them tossed out of their job in 5 years (or > less).... > > Sure, maybe the answer is not as simple as 'more > money', but adding incentive to run as an MP > surely is key to attracting a broader range of > people to do so.....?? Being an MP is a job. If people want to pursue that as a career, then yes, just as people do for all sorts of other careers, they will do what they need to do to get there whilst doing another job. Once getting there however, that should be the only job. And if the salary isn't going to be enough for someone, then don't choose it as a job! Simple really.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This prob won't be a popular suggestion....but > what about paying politicians more? ........................................... > Anyway.. Plenty of reasons not to like that > suggestion as well.....just thinking out > loud/outside the box.... No, you are looking at this all wrong. The problem is that power and obscene wealth go hand in hand. It is breaking that connection (driver) that is key. So that really is the question. How do we remove financial incentive from political power? Paying people more does not remove that. There are plenty of suitably intelligent people for whom ?79k a year would be a fortune. Why? Because 90 percent of people never earn even half of that! The real challenge is one expanding the career option of MP beyond the top 10 percent, half of whom are told they are born to it! To be clear....90 percent of people in work do not earn enough to take them into the higher tax bracket. The job of MP isn't offered as a career option to the 93 percent of children who do not enter the public school education system in fact. So this idea that you have to pay already entitled and privileged people more is just bonkers. You are arguing to prop up an existing elitist system.

To be fair, details matter. There are grey areas (shaped by ideological politics) and then there are areas that are clear breaches of what is acceptable. To illustrate - annexation of the Gaza Strip in any measure is not acceptable. Extension of any part of the Israeli border in any form, is not acceptable. So this is where I sit on Israel (as a left leaning centrist). Israel has the right to exist. She also has the right to defend herself from Hamas led terrorism. She does not however, have the right to use any of that to expand the borders given to her, and that is the issue here. Illegal settlements (not my words but those of the UN) that no-one can challenge (because she is backed by a nuclear superpower) have led to an idea that Israel can annex a third of the Gaza Strip. Why? Because when someone pushes at the boundaries of acceptability, and no-one physically objects.......you know how it goes. No-one should be attacking Chick or anyone for having this thread. It is an issue that is clearly important to him/her, and there is a sensible discussion to be had. And to be fair to Chick, you don't have to scroll back too far to find him/her acknowledging I made a fair point when challenging something he/she posted.

The answer is simple. No MP may hold any other paid position apart from that of MP, may hold no shares, business interests or connection to businesses that are recipients of government help and/ or money. That would instantly make the job less attractive to a lot of the entitled charlatans that currently fleece Parliament.

'Celebrity' funerals/ deaths may seem an odd thing, where people show raw emotion for complete strangers. But what underlies that is empathy for a shared experience of grief, that we all will experience at some point in our lives. I would worry more if we had a public that showed no empathy with the Queen and her family. Prince Philip had his controversies and may have been as disliked as much he was liked because of them, but who among us has a parent who is perfect, never says anything stupid or controversial, or holds views we completely agree with? Death is supposed to be the great leveler, the one thing none of us can avoid and therefore the one thing that makes us all equal. There should be a dignity and grace that comes from that, not just in how we deal with grief ourselves, but how we treat others experiencing that same kind of grief. Personally, I found the funeral very moving, because it felt like a dignified family funeral. There aren't a lot of good things to say about the pandemic but maybe this is one of them. The Royal Family for once were able to do something in a more personal and therefore normal way. No pomp, or ostentatious celebrity guest service. Just a quiet, almost private gathering, for someone very important to them all. It seemed very appropriate.

Well, it just gets more and more incestuous as more details leak out. Basically, wealthy people in government protect their own wealth and investments first. It has always been that way and there is no real will to stop it.

Leaving parcels outside is now par for the course. Why? Because delivery drivers have an insane amount of parcels to deliver. All delivery companies employ freelance van owners. If someone is driving a branded van, they are literally renting it from their employer. The last parcel we had delivered was from a driver that had 194 parcels to deliver that day. He was only halfway through when he got to us at 3 in the afternoon. Goodness knows what time his day would finish. That is the cost of cheap postage sadly.

Ultimately though, power resides with government. So the Mayor, like local authorities, is not a law unto itself, especially when it comes to setting and maintaining budgets. Failure to pass a budget is against the law in fact, and invites government to step in, in the way they have in Liverpool (following those corruption allegations). So while there is some sense in a body having overall responsibility for management of key services and infrastructure across a large city or region, the ability to change anything is very limited. The Mayor in reality is just the return of the Greater Metropolitan Authority, hence the body being an elected one. And when looking at the range of candidates this time round, most of the non main party candidates are citing things as policy they have no powers to deliver as Mayor. I suspect Count Binface will do better than all of the smaller candidates in the end, with Khan winning outright from first preference votes.

If there were no Mayor, there would still be a budget for all those things, and local authorities would still be the major player in local taxes after government guidelines. So the Mayor in reality is little else but a bureaucratic figurehead. The in-between guy (or gal) elected to manage the oversight of our metropolitan cities. The power for manoeuvre within that is very narrow.

Just to add as well that in that phase one group of 30 million offered the vaccine, around one and a half million have declined the offer. So this is still enough unprotected people in a vulnerable group to lead to a third hospital surge if the virus starts to spread freely. The hope of course is that as more data emerges, showing definitive proof that the vaccine protects from the virus, that some of these people will finally get the vaccine, but until that happens, we are still in a difficult place.

These are exactly the same scenes that last summer saw after the lockdown was eased. It ended with government bringing in a 10pm curfew. Meanwhile, 44 cases of the SA variant have been traced in Lambeth and Wandsworth and we are still two months away from all phase one being fully vaccinated (with two jabs). This is the lack of consistency. No doubt police will still be enforcing the rule of six in parks and at protests, while doing nothing as revelers gather in towns and cities. Alcohol removes common sense. A person does not need a degree in science to understand that.

Sephiroth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The variant clearly upset plans - but it was known about for weeks (months by end of Dec) and > certainly by start of Dec, it was obvious we needed to close....... Johnson's inability to make unpopular decisions > remains unforgivable to me. But polls show I'm in a minority Completely agree. Plenty of expert voices were warning about the December opening up/ Xmas and that a New Year surge would be the result. Many people caught the virus after avoiding it for 10 months because they were told to go back to work in December, where they caught the virus. Others caught the virus from their children who had returned to school and became infected. Having said that, the cautious road map is the result of that naysaying complacency. The real test will come if the R number starts to rise back over one. What will be government response, and how well with the vaccine perform in keeping hospital admissions down? The latter particularly is unknown and if a free moving virus (in a fully open society) suddenly mutates to bypass the vaccine, things could deteriorate very quickly. So that is what science will be looking for. That mutation that undoes everything, and in the meantime, government needs to improve the systems put in place, like track and trace, and keep them resourced for that 'what if' scenario, so that the response can be swift and effective. Things are not going back to the way they were before. We are going to be living with SARS for the foreseeable future and probably beyond.

I was going to write something along the same lines. We have a government and cabinet that is never accountable for its lies and failings. Of curse they feel like teflon. Who wouldn't?

Yes, Johnson had begun the distancing the day after it was published in full. What I don't understand, is how government ever expected to get away with it. Did they really think contributors would stay silent?

It is not a question of semantics though. The report concludes there is no institutional racism while pointing to the fact there clearly is. Worse than that, it deliberately omits any testimonies that identify potential institutional racism. That you seem to infer that is a question of language and semantics is pretty baffling. How about you ask instead, just why the report can't bring itself to acknowledge the obvious.

Alan Medic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Blah Blah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > I certainly wouldn't have 'expected' the exact same coverage on so many BBC platforms. It's > bloody weird in my opinion. > Meanwhile the government chooses to shut up shop while Belfast burns. Very convenient for Johnson. I am no Monarchist, but I can see why the death of the Queen's husband would be a major news event. We live in a Monarchy, with a history shaped by it. To underplay the importance of that institution is naive. As for Philip's gaffes, coverage is being respectful in its recollection of those. Not ignoring them, but not overtly pushing them either. I hated everything Thatcher stood for for example, but I took no part in celebrating her death. Whatever a person is or isn't, did or didn't do, death should always be met with dignity and grace. In time, history allows for debate of the merits of a person, but at point of death, compassion has to be shown for those directly impacted imo. As for Belfast, Parliament is in recess as it always is for Easter. Not sure why you think government have deliberately shut up shop there. The PM and NI secretary are in contact I am sure and the situation being monitored. MPs are back on Monday.

The coverage is to be expected to be fair. Whatever one thinks of Monarchy etc etc, the Queen has lost the closest person in her life after 73 years of marriage. Thoughts should be with her at this time.

Ted, anyone who starts a post with 'I'm not racist but', almost invariable goes on to display racist undertones in what follows. Slavery has a legacy. In fact exploitation of any group over another for any kind of gain has a legacy. Old money, that many of those wielding power at the top of our political and economic system benefit from, was born in the slave trade. When Boris Johnson used language like 'watermelon smiles', where do you think he learned such language? And it matters that the PM has that kind of record. It matters a lot. So how does that legacy of privilege and power play out? It is the reason why there is institutional racial bias as I point out in my post above. You never see that of course because you are not black. And that is the point really. Before you start accusing anyone of 'chips on their shoulder' consider first how their experience of life may differ to yours. Consider how their interactions with police and employers, may differ to yours. Sure, a lot of this is wrapped up in class privileges too, but even there, ask yourself why black people are over represented in lower socio-economic groups and under represented exponentially the higher up you go. Upward social mobility is falling for all in lower socio-economic groups. Why is that? As for language, when white people use the N word, it is nearly almost in a derogatory context. That does not mean to say that black people do not use that word in a derogatory context sometimes, and no, that is not ok either. Maybe you should just agree no-one should be using language in a derogatory way, whatever ethnicity they are. For the record, I don't think you are racist, but I do think you lack understanding of why black people feel held back or prejudiced in many areas. The statistics speak for themselves on that and I wish the report had been honest about the part institution racial bias plays in some of that.

And to be clear, here is a clear example of how problematic the report is. It acknowledges that black people are over represented in all areas of criminal justice. That black people are more likely to be stopped and searched, more likely to be jailed than white counterparts for similar offenses, and more likely to be given longer sentences than white counterparts at that. It also says juries are not the problem, as conviction rates are similar for all ethnic groups. So that only leaves one explanation - judges showing racial bias in sentencing. As glaringly obvious as that should be, the report can't bring itself to say that however, because that would be an admission of institutional racism, and let's remember that key figures writing this report start from and maintain a position that institutional racism doesn't exist. It doesn't try to explain why the sentencing disparities exist, launching instead into a long section on stop and search, to no doubt make sure any reader has forgotten about the sentencing by the time they get to the end of that long section. THAT is what is wrong with this report.

I have read the report and so have people like David Olugosa. The silence around the omitted testimonies and evidence is rather telling don't you think? At the end of the day, it is a government commissioned report. Those chosen to compile it were chosen for a reason. The cynicism that invites is predictable.

Ahhh, Darling of the Tory Party Calvin Robinson, who ignores his own anecdotal experience to stand by a report he of all people knows is flawed, for fear of damaging the Tory Party political career he is aspiring to. Let's start by asking Calvin why testimonies taken by the committee as examples of institutional racism, were not included in the final report shall we? People who don't believe institutional racism exists concoct a report that concludes that institutional racism doesn't exist by omitting testimonies that suggest it does exist, shocker. I will take a respected historian like David Olusoga on this report over a Tory Party mouthpiece any day of the week. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/02/historian-and-hundreds-of-academics-attack-no-10s-race-report

Insurance is expensive for new young drivers and has been for some time, but it's not just young people who get stung in this way but experienced drivers who get rid of their car and then decide to own a car again,. After 3 years of having no car insurance, all prior no claims statuses are lost, and you have to start again as we found out. 18 years clean driving experience counted for nothing and the average quote was also coming in at ?1000. In addition to suggestions above, he could look at mileage restricted policies. A few insurance companies offer those kinds of policies. In the end we opted for a car sharing arrangement and use this company, who are just useful to know about anyway because of all the flexible insurance arrangements they offer. Especially good for those who don't use a car every day, but need one more than hiring a car occasionally. https://www.cuvva.com/

first mate Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Cyclists, unless they are mountain bikers, do need > reasonably well kept roads so it is not impossible > that in time cyclists may also get taxed for road > upkeep. Never going to happen and impossible to enforce.

The school could however do something to make the perimeter fence into more of a sound barrier though. At present there really isn't anything to reduce the noise. Trellis covered with artificial grass on a solid fence would make a difference.