diable rouge

SpringTime Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Five banks sanctioned along with three people. > That'll scare Putin. Pathetic. He's not going to cut-off money supplies to the Tory coffers. Johnson's Boosterism exposed yet again as Blusterism...

Nope, last Friday there was a deadline for the 'suspects' to fill out a Met questionnaire, so presume they are now collating that info and cross-referencing with Sue Gray report and anything else they've unearthed. Standby for the Tories next line of apologia...''now isn't the time to change leader because of the Russkis etc''...

Storm Eunice was soooooo two days ago, enter Storm Franklin...

Surely a Blue Plaque in honour of Mrs Bob is in order for 'services to the building industry'...

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > everyone's watching planes trying to land at > Heathrow live. Big Jet TV...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPQh1FrbOc0

Week 23 fixtures... Saturday 19th February West Ham United v Newcastle United Arsenal v Brentford Aston Villa v Watford Brighton & Hove Albion v Burnley Crystal Palace v Chelsea Liverpool v Norwich City Southampton v Everton Manchester City v Tottenham Hotspur Sunday 20th February Leeds United v Manchester United Wolverhampton Wanderers v Leicester City Wednesday 23rd February Burnley v Tottenham Hotspur Watford v Crystal Palace Liverpool v Leeds United Thursday 24th February Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wanderers

Strange, I'm sure I posted Week 22 fixtures! Week 22 points... Week 22 table...

Hopefully this is just more grandstanding on Putin's part, playing to a domestic audience and in the process seeing how the West/Nato reacts. It hasn't exactly been a united front in that respect. France and Macron seem to be the main players. Russia/Putin has been seeking to weaken the Western/Nato alliance for sometime now, and why they were so keen on the success of Trump and Brexit, both seen as destabilisers, France also accused Russia of 'interfering' their Presidential election. Bill Browder is worth checking out, he reckons that the West just needs to 'follow the money' and cut-off Putin's money supplies in the West, e.g. London based oligarchs, and he would soon back-off. And on that subject, just who and how much Russian money is financially influencing our politics? Hasn't the Tory party in particular received donations from UK based Russians?...

''I'm sure if you dug hard enough into any large organisation, no matter how well they are at stamping out racism, misogyny, homophobia, and even 'institutional corruption' that you will still find individuals who secretly or amongst friends foster those ideas. With the Met (and UK policing in general) being such a large organisation its possibly a struggle to root out the bad apples who ruin it for everyone especially if they keep their views to themselves or a select few.'' That only holds true on an individual level, the problem with the Met however is that it goes beyond that, it's become institutional. When an independent inquiry accuses it of ''institutional corruption'' it's not talking about a bad apple here and there. Dick herself was accused of 'frustrating' the enquiry. It's the enablement of the bad apples and how you deal with them that's the problem she failed to address...

Some thoughts on the future Covid world from Prof Christina Pagel... I keep being asked when we can go "back to normal" or "like it was before". My personal thoughts: We've added a new disease to our population, more infectious and more severe than flu. The world pre 2020 no longer exists - we may want it to, but it just doesn't. Vaccines are amazing but do wane - esp vs sympomatic infection. Immunity from infection wanes too. Surely Omicron has proven that high levels of antibodies in your population are no guarantee against v high levels of illness & disruption. We *could* act as we used to & accept millions of people getting sick once or twice a year. Yearly education, business disruption. And gradually, a slightly sicker pop'n. That seems to be the current plan in UK and e.g. US. But that's NOT the *old normal* - it's worse We *can't* go back - but we *can* go forward *if* we accept we need some adaptations - driven by what we have *learned*. Learning: 1. Outdoors is pretty safe - so let's invest research and funding into making indoor air as much like the outdoors as possible It's *not* easy, but it *is* possible - we did it with clean water, electricity infrastructure, CFCs, telephone and broadband... The best thing about cleaner indoor air is it works against *any* airborne disease and also reduces e.g. allergies. 2. Vaccinate the world as soon as possible - and keep working towards vaccines that are longer lasting and more variant proof. 3. Invest in global infrastructure to support surveillance of new variants of Covid *and* other new infectious diseases. There will be more. Add permanent surveillance of Covid infection rates in UK to existing programmes for flu, measles etc in public health 5. Invest in understanding & treating longer term clinical impacts of Covid, inc organ damage & Long Covid + treatments (eg antivirals) for acute phase. 6. We need to urgently increase funding and staffing for NHS if it is expected to cope with regular Covid surges *and* existing backlogs *and* years of understaffing and not enough money. This includes *supporting* existing staff to stay. There *will* still be future surges. We need to have a plan to deal with these surges - as we do for other diseases. A plan which is supported by the rapid outbreak identification & rapid understanding of virulence & transmission we've learned to do so well in the UK! The plan might include (temp) reintroduction of large scale testing (inc better tests?), high quality masks in indoor spaces and - *if & only if* there is a serious threat from e.g. a new variant (or disease!) - further measures, such as targeted test, trace & isolate. A plan should *not* mean long national lockdowns, which represent a failure of public health systems. In fact, refusing to do the *learning* in "learning to live with Covid" is the biggest risk for such future lockdowns. We also need to invest massively in reducing inequalities: in health, in housing, in workplaces, in sick pay, in education - this will make us more resilient to future outbreaks and reduce ill health and death - from Covid & everything else! Both nationally & globally Fundamentally, world is different now. Acting as if it isn't, which UK seems determined to do, may feel good in short term but will result in a new normal worse than the old one. I prefer for us to build a new normal that's *better* than frequent sickness & disruption.

''Sad to see a leader respected by rank and file being ousted by someone who's repeatedly failed to deal with youth knife crime in the capital.'' For a force that in recent times has been accused of having a festering culture of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and even 'institutional corruption'' by an independent inquiry, that's hardly the ringing endorsement you seem to think it is. And it's unbelievable how she remained a police officer, let alone later promoted, after her supervision of the Menezes shooting. As ever Policy and Law commentator David Allen Green nails it succinctly... The problem with our political system is not so much Boris Johnson There are always Boris Johnsons It is about how he was allowed to ascend Similarly, problem with Metropolitan Police is not so much Cressida Dick The problem is cultural and systemic, and not easily solved.

RC on a charge. Week 21 points... Week 21 table...

There will no doubt be racists piling-in, but I'm sure the vast majority of people are just repulsed by what he did, not who did it. I blame the club for not suspending him straight away until an investigation was carried out, that way he would've at least been taken out of the firing line for a bit...

KK having finally resolved his front of house WC problem, reveals all to Mrs KK... ''Ta-daaaaa!..Yeah, I know it looks like a Portaloo, but the builder who sold it to me swore blind it's a Continental Shower and they're all the rage in Clapham!''

Have you done a speedtest on your wifi connection? I only ask because if you look at Virgin's smallprint, the 100mb is for an ethernet cable connection, not wifi. I've done tests on my wifi and at times have got as little as 20mb...

If only it were ignorance, the people who promoted Brexit can't blame Brexit, all part of the Trump/Johnson playbook of denial and non-apology. Always the victim, it's never their fault...

Plagiarism is never a good look...

Sorry to disappoint you keano, but I'm not in the public eye let alone the PM, so I, and anyone else on here for that matter, doesn't have to adhere to the high standards we expect of those that hold elected public office. Anyway, shouldn't you be washing your socks tonight?...

It's not just about ''blaming him as a departmental head for the actions of subordinates''. What's upset many people ian is that Johnson knowingly wrongly smeared Starmer with the failure to prosecute Saville, and therefore the associated child sex aspect therein. That crossed a line of decency. I don't recall anyone on 'the other side' ever criticising Johnson for the mistakes of underlings with similar repulsive overtures...

Deary me. I had hoped with a new Leader of the House replacing the pantomime toff, we might get some much needed gravitas from the new incumbent. But no, same old same old... People in the "real world" don't care about parties held in Downing Street during lockdown

It's a difficult balancing act for sure, we do need to try and 'live with Covid' like we do with 'flu, keep the economy as open as possible etc, but we also know that Covid has the potential to mutate into something much nastier, and by dropping all restrictions we are at risk of creating a hothouse for it to do just that. So I don't understand this Gov's obsession that all restrictions have to be lifted in order to 'get back our freedom', there are some like wearing masks in densely populated indoor spaces e.g. public transport and shops that could be retained without having an adverse effect on the economy. Of course there's nothing to stop people doing that anyway, but one of the things that has struck me about the whole situation is how compliant people have been with the various rules. It seems unless some people are told what to do they won't do it even if it's in their best interest...

I was initially going to include Amess alongside Cox, but after thinking about it I didn't feel they were the same, in that Cox's murder was clearly political i.e. she was specifically targeted for being a 'treacherous' Remain supporting Labour MP, whereas Amess' murder was fueled by religion not his politics, he could've equally been a Labour politician. Had Starmer been murdered, that too would've been solely political, and was very similar to Cox's with calls of 'traitor' echoing around Whitehall. Adding Amess felt like a false equivalence in that he was killed for different reasons...