Trinnydad

It seems to be "Deutschland ?ber alles" once again as far as EU solidarity on vaccine procurement is concerned. It has been disclosed that Berlin ordered 30M doses on the quiet back in September in contravention of the EU procurement strategy. If the 27 EU members can't trust each other to adhere to an agreement what does this say for the Brexit agreement going forward?

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Sephiroth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ah bless. Those who don?t know their history are > doomed to repeat it > > It was a phrase made famous by John Major. Who > last time I checked was tory prime minister at the > time Not accurate. It was Churchill who said that when he plagiarised George Santayana's original quotation. Santayana also said :- "" Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual."" This ought to be memorised by the embittered and intolerant infants of the Left who don't seem to realise that Marxism/Leninism is but a failed philosophy.

Sephiroth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Trinny is just part of a wider Leave bloc* - from > Farage, to Redwood and all of the Tory "bastards", > they will never ever be happy. It's not enough to > be out of the EU - they want it destroyed > The EU will self-destruct with time. I can wait. You refer to Tory "bastards". That is a clear indication of your tribal intolerance of opposing views. A malaise often found in left-wing activist cliques akin to Momentum and Militant Tendency. They all were marginalised in the end.

If you are talking 'good' pandemic, then check out today's headline in The Times" EU?s coronavirus vaccination strategy in chaos as supplies run short https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eus-coronavirus-vaccination-strategy-in-chaos-as-supplies-run-short-9kfd593w0

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hancock seemed reinvigorated this morning. > I have real sympathy for the chap. He must be working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week without respite. Constant exposure to the media, parliament, No10 etc etc. And whatever he decides will be challenged by voices from every corner eg businesses, teachers union, medical experts, SNP, Labour, mayors etc, etc. All his critics jump on any issue they can think up - like the city mayors (Burnham et al) who were against lockdowns and they are now demanding them. They change direction on a daily basis. I just can't imagine anyone who would like his job. Cut him a bit of slack FGS.

From behind the DT paywall today .... EU didn't order enough vaccine, say German scientists behind Pfizer/BioNTech jab 'I was amazed' says Prof Ugur Sahin as EU faces shortage of vaccine developed in Germany The German couple behind the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine have criticised the European Union for failing to order enough doses. ?The process in Europe was not as quick and straightforward as it was in other countries,? Prof Ugur Sahin, the billionaire scientist and CEO of BioNTech, told Spiegel magazine. ?There was an assumption that many other companies would come with vaccines. Obviously the thinking which prevailed was: we'll get enough, it won't be so bad, and we have it under control. I was amazed.? Pfizer-BioNTech?s is the only vaccine to win EU approval so far, but the bloc had only ordered 200m doses until last week, when it ordered a further 100m. That is still not enough to provide the EU?s population of 446m with a single shot, let alone the two required for the vaccine to be effective. By comparison, the UK has ordered 30m doses as well as 100m doses of the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine, which is also approved for use in Britain ? enough to immunise the entire population. ?It?s also because the EU is not directly authorized, but the member states have a say. In a situation where a quick decision is required, this can cost time,? Prof Sahin said in an extensive interview with Spiegel.

@ Blah Blah From the FT today.... EU leaders have rushed to quell mounting disquiet over the slow pace of national vaccination campaigns, promising that everyone who wants to be inoculated will be. Meanwhile the founder of BioNTech, the German company that pioneered the first vaccine to be approved in Europe, said the EU had been too slow to secure stocks of the jab, and warned of possible bottlenecks with supplies amid surging global demand. France has been under the most pressure to accelerate its immunisation campaign, with only a few hundred doses administered so far, compared to tens of thousands in Germany and nearly a million in the UK. It takes two shots of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine for an individual to be fully protected.

@ Trousaprezz What you say matches exactly with the facts. Letter volumes have been in steady decline during the last 15 years and now RM's revenue from letters now exceeds that of parcels and that trend will continue. Inevitably, RM has to undertake a massive rebalancing and create new depots for distribution of parcels on an automated basis. Forget manual sorting. That is labour intensive and error prone. The courier companies already are fully automated and they achieve tis by having the sender apply a label with a barcode. It is inevitable that RM will have to go over to using printed labels.

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Oh do grow up. It is quite clear I am now your > no.1 target for whiny trolling. Pathetic. Some habits are difficult to give up, I see.

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 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. OK, if you can go into detail to refute Foxy's view then please do so. But why use your default judgemental tactic of dismissive put-downs? Are you aspiring to be the lead member of a self-appointed forum mafia intent on suppressing views that don't align with yours?

We all know that one's age has a strong influence on one's views on Brexit with the 60+ years demographic being most likely to be a "Leaver" largely because they are more familiar with the progression from the Treaty of Rome through to Lisbon. There was an interesting article by IDS in the DT yesterday. I have reproduced a snippet taken from behind the pay wall _______________________________ ""I recall how we were assured this huge market on our doorstep would boost the economy, protect us from the extremes of Union power and end poor productivity. Yet by the time I was elected in 1992, those assurances rang hollow. For in the preceding two decades prior to the referendum, the UK economy actually grew at 3.4pc, even running a surplus with our EEC neighbours. Yet in the following two decades, our growth rate fell to an annual 1.76pc. Worse, our original surplus with the EU has become a trade deficit of ?100bn a year. The Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty ? designed carefully, and hidden under the veneer of the market place ? were a powerful political power grab. In this, one-time Italian Communist Altiero Spinelli succeeded. The passage of the Maastricht treaty assured, through the massive increase in qualified majority voting, the huge push towards a genuine federal state. How ironic then that the UK government should claim that Maastricht was the high water mark of European federalism, when it was followed by the even greater advances of EU power through the Treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. I learned early on not to trust what British governments claimed they achieved in negotiations with the EU; from the game set and match of John Major to Tony Blair?s so called exemption from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, they never stood up to examination. And, as the next phase of the fight moved to the creation of the single currency and the prospect of our entry, many in the establishment claimed we had to join the currency or we would be left behind."" ____________________________

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What absolute nonsense DF. @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.

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have a dunnock who comes to my garden. The > sparrows do feed from my feeders, though! > > Dunnocks have a different bill (beak?) to sparrows > - longer and thinner. Also they don't go around in > groups. > > "Mine" hides at the side of the garden, then darts > out to feed, then hides somewhere else, sometimes > on the ground in the "undergrowth" :) > > I can't remember if it feeds from the feeders, > though I think so. > Our two dunnocks come to the feeder but what I'd give to have a squabbling family of regular sparrows.

nxjen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Details re EU vaccination programme can be found > at > https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail > /en/qanda_20_2467 including: > That EU press release goes big on the quantities ordered but fails to mention that they were ordered late and the vast bulk will not arrive until late 2021. Here's the Guardians take on it https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/27/vaccination-rolls-out-across-europe-but-anger-remains-over-late-start

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Oh do behave Trinnydad. Stop with the silly games. > > 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.

Sephiroth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Trinny could have said all they needed to say in > the main thread. Possibly, but it is useful to present different aspects in bite sized portions to let it sink in for those who are too blinkered to see truths that don't sit easily with their preconceptions. To provide more detail, here are the stats for doses ordered by the UK as of 12 Dec. 40m Pfizer - currently being rolled out. 100m Oxford - expected to roll out in next 7 days 60m Valneva - due first quarter 2021 60m GSK 30m Jansen 9m Moderna The facts clearly indicate the UK is well ahead and much better provided for than any other country. if you have facts/statistic to refute this, then feel free.

SpringTime Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Slum landlords like Priti herself qualify for the > noose every time John. .

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Pritti Patel apparently has asked a civil service > team to investigate bring in death penalty. Can you provide a credible source for your assertion?

Count our blessings! We are much better off than folks in Europe. They are watching on in envy as the UK conducts several million vaccinations a week all through January in a massive operation that draws on the best of the NHS and the British armed forces. There will be the same images in America, Canada, and elsewhere. Europeans will ask why no one has been vaccinated yet and why the EU has not ordered enough doses. The distribution of doses in the EU has been delayed by indecision, bureaucracy and software failures and Brussels has struggled to offer a credible answer. They are relying mainly on the Sanofi vaccine that will not be available in volume until late 2021. If EU elites don?t yet realise that this is going to mushroom into one of the biggest failures in the history of the European Project, they will find out soon enough. To add to the angst, they will be compelled to swallow their pride an buy our Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine.

diable rouge Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Trinnydad Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > One opportunity to consider is making a deal > with > > Hyundai, Kia and Toyota to set up factories > that > > use 100% LOCAL CONTENT and so reduce the volume > of > > VWs BMWs and Mercedes that have no UK content. > Why > > give jobs to the Germans? > > > Why indeed, or to the French. Perhaps we should > ask Brexit-backing billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, you > know, the one who recently announced he's moving > his car production operation from Wales to the > EU...https://www.businessinsider.com/brexit-billio > naire-jim-ratcliffe-ineos-grenadier-france-not-wal > es-2020-12?r=US&IR=T > #projectdreamon Ratcliffe's plan is an indulgent vanity project, miniscule in scale and unlikely ever to succeed. He touted it around to pick up government subsidies and didnt get any here. The genuine LR Defender was being produced at the very modest rate of around 13,000 pa. Compare this to the UK vehicle volume of around 1.5 million pa. Lot of similarities with De Lorean who prised out millions in funding from UK Gov to build a factory in Northern Ireland. They built around 10,000 over 2 years. Much in common with James Dyson's car project that was killed off before production started.

malumbu Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Should re-title this the Trinny and Sussnah > thread. Trinny I suggest you get a mirror and > then you can just rant at yourself. You come > across as s bit of an Alf Garnett sort of fella. Attacking the messenger, rather than the message, is one of the first acts of denial. Some people use denial as a defence mechanism, to protect themselves from the force of a truth they imagine will be too strong for them to cope with.

KidKruger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The Trump administration is rendered incompetent > by Trump - not by the collective abilities of his > cabinet. > The administration wallows on eggshells for fear > of upsetting the Master or through damage control > of the latest shoot-from-the-hip edict by the > tinsel-haired twot. > The administration over there is heavily > compromised by the POTUS, any view to the contrary > is fantasy ! Sure, even with Trump's total incompetence, the USA is still doing better with vaccine rollout that the EU.

ianr Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's preumably this one. > https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-pl > anning-disaster-germany-and-europe-could-fall-shor > t-on-vaccine-supplies-a-3db4702d-ae23-4e85-85b7-20 > 145a898abd Partially, yes. The same article said... The contrast is unmistakable. On the one hand, there is the supposedly incompetent Trump administration which will provide vaccines to 20 million Americans in the next two to three weeks alone. On the other hand, there is the supposedly well-prepared Europeans, who continue to have to wait for a vaccine that was developed in Germany. And who still don?t know exactly how much of the vaccine they will be getting in the coming months.

Sephiroth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Brexit IS project fear. Fear of a union of 28 > countries and banging on about lack of sovereignty It was the Remoaners were the ones that created and perpetuated project fear. They couldn't face the prospect of discarding the illusionary EU comfort blanket. A blanket that cost billions every year whilst maintaining a privileged and corrupt bureaucratic elite in Brussels. > > > The worst immediate disruption has been avoided by > a deal. But U.K. is still worse off in almost > every way than it was. Same old groove again. Get over it. Think of the opportunities such as free ports and freedom to make sweet tax deals to attract multi-nationals. One opportunity to consider is making a deal with Hyundai, Kia and Toyota to set up factories that use 100% LOCAL CONTENT and so reduce the volume of VWs BMWs and Mercedes that have no UK content. Why give jobs to the Germans? Apart from that, there is the point that the UK arguably was the one country that followed all the EU rules diligently and usually implemented them earlier than all the others. One such example was allocating the printing of UK passports which had to go out to EU wide tender. We will be better off being free to choose and prioritise.