RandoEFC

Isn't Tony Abbott the one who was hired by the UK government to advise on trade or something? There was a bit of a kerfuffle because of his chauvinistic comments in the past? This lot just fronted it out though and the media just forgot about it after a day or two.

I don't want to start a massive thing again but with the vaccine rollout my understanding is that Boris Johnson, Nadhim Zahawi and the government are responsible for the procurement of the vaccines which has gone extremely well, and they do deserve an enormous amount of credit for that. They also made the right call on the 12-week gap instead of the 3-week gap even if that was a bit of a risk at the time. The NHS are responsible for mobilising so effectively and getting jabs from containment into bloodstreams so for that, it's them that deserve enormous credit. As for Brexit, as an EU member the UK could have taken the exact same route on procuring vaccines independently of the European Commission (who embarrassed themselves with the NI vaccine border thing several weeks ago) but I think most of us would admit that we probably wouldn't have done that if we were still members. The EU have done things more slowly but that's one of the drawbacks of trying to get so many different countries and governments to work together in the same way towards a common goal. It's fair to say that the vaccination success at the back end of this pandemic has improved the overall performance rating of the government and shown us some benefits of Brexit. It doesn't make all of the things they got wrong in the first place go away, and it doesn't mean that Brexit, when evaluated several years down the line, will be judged as a good idea overall. Anyway, I came into this thread to talk about Scotland, Sturgeon and Salmond. I'm not going to pretend to know the details of the whole thing, I wonder if anyone else is better informed? @Inverted most likely. But it does seem that there's at least a chance that Nicola Sturgeon doesn't come out of this episode very well and if there's serious damage to her politically you have to wonder what that does to the Scottish independence movement. Obviously the whole movement doesn't depend on a single politician but people are prone to lose faith in a cause or an idea if the figurehead falls from grace. I think it would be a disaster for England and the UK if the union fractured. I have nothing against Sturgeon really but it could be a blessing in disguise for the UK if she doesn't come out of this smelling of roses...

I don't understand why they think he's their path to victory. He has a base that are absolutely in awe of him, he inspired loyalty in those people probably more than any other candidate, I get that, but that base isn't a majority in America and he's lost his appeal to the extra ones you need to win elections. He won the presidential election without the popular vote, and then oversaw the Republicans losing control of Congress, the Senate and the Presidency in the space of one term. I don't get which part of that makes them think he's the one to get them back into power. You see the same thing in the UK with Labour actually. People still absolutely convinced that Jeremy Corbyn is worth backing to the hilt despite taking the party further away from power than they have been since getting voted out, all because he appealed so strongly to a noisy minority.

I do think the whole Trump 2024 movement will do well to make it to the actual election season without completely losing momentum and favour.

Big.

There was a Scottish independence referendum a couple of years before the EU membership vote. One of the reasons Scots are pissed off now is because during the campaigning for the Scottish referendum, David Cameron, the PM at the time told Scots that the best way to stay in Europe is to vote No to Scottish independence. Then obviously that proved to be false. Scotland voted something like 55:45 in favour of Remain during the EU referendum. Support for independence has risen again because Scotland dislike Brexit and Boris Johnson more than the rest of the UK, and because it is, or at least was until recently, perceived that Nicola Sturgeon had managed the Covid-19 crisis better than Boris Johnson. More fuel for the narrative that they'd be better off without being part of the UK. For many months, polling has suggested that support for leaving the UK is above 50%, although it is lower now than it was when it peaked in the upper 50s a few months ago. I imagine having an adviser on making sure Westminster govern with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and their own devolved governments in mind probably isn't that unusual. Perhaps they made a bigger song and dance of it this time because they're spooked by the polling after the Northern Irish support for breaking off from the UK is closer to tipping in favour than it has been for years primarily because of the issues with the trade border in the Irish Sea, and they want to show the public across the union that they're taking it seriously.

Because Scotland already tried to leave the union once and polling shows a narrow lead amongst Scottish voters who would vote for independence from the UK if they were asked again now. Things are on the borderline in Northern Ireland as well in light of recent Brexit issues. The union adviser is there to help keep the union together and keep Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland happy.

The public are so disinterested in stories like this that even BBC and Sky News have it pretty low-key. Ministerial standards have been eroded to an incredible extent under this government and it hasn't hurt them in the polls so looks like this is just a thing now. Honestly think it won't be until the last few months before the next election day that stuff like this will seriously matter again and it will only matter then if Labour get their strategy right at that point in time.

I actually think he knows his limitations by now but he's an expert at using the media and their sympathetic reporting on British managers to create this myth around him that he might actually be halfway competent and that he's only failed to hit the heights because of these unlucky things that the world keeps inflicting upon him.

This guy's still talking after spending £50m on Tosun and Walcott.

We are the mainland now .

Only in the Isle of Man

I walked past this again on Friday night, it's still there for some reason .

Ancelotti had a safe robbed by masked burglars overnight. How could you do it to the man.

I don't know if anyone else reads much of Marina Hyde's stuff but I enjoyed her recent column on Keir Starmer, particularly this poignant comparison that most of us can appreciate. Full article: Not the first critical piece I've seen on Starmer from Labour-sympathising figures in the media recently. I do feel that he has stalled badly recently. The pandemic makes things tricky for him because being a massive thorn in the government's side is simultaneously his job as leader of the opposition but also incredibly counter productive in a life and death crisis. Early on it felt good just to have an adult in the room and the polling was positive for quite a few months but now things have sort of fizzled out and he needs a lot more oomph. It would be easy to claim now that most of Labour's polling gains have been less to do with him and more to do with just not having Corbyn in charge, the cut through of the Cummings incident and dissatisfaction with the government's handling of the pandemic.

Here is the table after 5 rounds this season: Impressive scores in France see @Mel81x and @CaaC (John) jump to joint 2nd on 14 points each, with @nudge also putting herself in the picture in 5th place. Just a reminder again here that @CaaC (John) didn't even take part in the first three rounds . @Viva la FCB retains top spot despite a pointless Ligue 1 round while @DeadLinesman also remains firmly in the mix. 3 points for @Pyfish in the most recent round see him go clear of part-timers @Eco and @Batard at the other end of the table.

I'm starting to find this pretty emotional now to be honest. Personally I've found that the more you can begin to believe that an end to this whole thing is actually going to arrive, the more I've realised just how much worry, anxiety and pain I've repressed over the past year because of there being nothing I can actually do about it, and a fear of getting my hopes up only for some new complication to set us back again. My Nana is the first person really close to me to be getting vaccinated, I've just found out she'll be getting her first jab on Friday and it's triggered this reaction where suddenly I can see a window into the relatively near future where I no longer have that worry at the back of my kind nibbling away at me that I could be the vessel carrying a virus to people I care about that could make them seriously ill or even kill them.

It's madness looking back. My housemate has a background in wildlife and animal habitat/ecology so he has a semi-relevant area of expertise if you believe the theory about the virus coming from a wet market in Wuhan, which I think is broadly accepted? Anyway, he agrees because of our lack of respect towards the environment and the way we store and treat animals in ways that aren't really natural and certainly aren't hygienic, that there will be more coronaviruses in our lifetime. Obviously SARS was the last major one and it didn't become a global crisis like this one has but I tend to lean towards agreeing that we won't be as lucky as to go another 100 years before something like this happens again.

Looking at these numbers, if we had the testing and contact tracing capacity and the knowledge of the virus that we do now, I think it's actually conceivable that you could have more or less eliminated the virus with quarantine, early lockdowns and precautions such as masks and social distancing. Nonetheless, I'm in awe of the science we have at our disposal and the treatments and vaccines that have been developed in the space of a year, which is still a relatively short amount of time. You just hope that firstly, it's a long, long time before we face something like this again, but if it isn't, we can put the lessons learned over the past year into action and prevent a lot more damage.

I don't mean to pick on anyone or catch anyone out here, so sorry if I quoted you, especially TAD who apologised a few posts later. I just had a sudden urge to look back at the conversations we were having a year ago, sort of inspired by the On This Day Covid account on Twitter a few people I know are aware of. The way I remember it, we were starting to process the significance of this by the time we got into February. Really we still had no idea. These are all posts from a year ago today. Italy had 2 confirmed cases. 5 weeks later they were in a national lockdown.

Yeah I mean I wouldn't call it a good thing either . I'm happy to be called out on it when it occurs. Maybe leave it an hour first. But yeah, its more that after spending my working days checking basically everything that comes out of my mouth before it comes out, sometimes I just log in on here while I'm having a welcome home shit and go fuck it I'm going to just say this and not think it through fully because it's my gut reaction and it's only some forum on the internet. Moving on...

I do see where you're coming from but I still don't think this is an entirely fair comparison. The first comment you quoted is me not wanting to see the UK or the EU engage in hostile behaviour against each other because it isn't good for anyone. UK vs EU in the context of an actual conflict between the two. I'd rather see us work together. The second comment is harsh on the UK leadership in retrospect but reflective of the EU being an embodiment of international cooperation with the UK being minded to remove themselves from that. The US at the time were still led by Trump so I stand by that part of it. But on the UK part it's a lazily worded comparison that's aged horribly in light of the European Commission's behaviour last weekend, I can admit that. You'll have to forgive me, I try my best to be thoughtful most of the time but sometimes I'm just a dickhead on a forum who lazily posts what I feel like without bothering to think it through properly. However, I don't think this contradicts the first point because this is UK vs EU in the context of a comparison between the two and their apparent world views. I'm not going to go back and count them and when they were but to be fair, the whole vaccine procurement episode and the drama between Astra Zeneca and the EU had the Northern Irish border and Brexit at its heart so that's hardly surprising. We also discussed before January the false claims made by some politicians that the UK was able to approve the Coronavirus vaccines earlier than the EU were because of Brexit, then I asked what on earth Europe were doing and why they weren't getting on with vaccinations out of curiosity. The comparisons that can be drawn between the UK's vaccination success and the relative struggles of our closest neighbours wouldn't exist if not for Brexit. These two things have crossed paths with each other constantly over the past month, it's not like it's irrelevant. You should also see from my slating of the European Commission last week that I'm not just banging a "EU good, Brexit bad" drum constantly. I might lap it up in the sense that I pay attention to the news and like to talk about what's going on. But the phrases you're using imply a much more intense engagement than that which I dispute. In the news and politics part of the forum I talk about news and politics, I express my opinions, I leave and get on with my life. I disagree with the notion that I actively seek out this stuff because I'm addicted to getting wound up by it. Those people do exist, but you seem to be making a false assumption that I'm one of them so my response above was to set the record straight.

Looks like the UK has called it right on the three month gap with at least the AZ vaccine:

Harsh I think, I can only speak for myself but I've always tried to come at my pro-Remain/socialist political views from a 'better together' perspective and not "all Brexit voters are massive racists and Tories are all scum". Admittedly, I care enough about it to get cross sometimes but I can't help that and I won't apologise for it. Being apathetic or staying out of it is fine but some people need to be passionate about things like honesty and fairness or they'll cease to exist. You're a highly intelligent and knowledgeable guy, I think you have better contributions to make to discussions like this than persistently dismissing or laughing off people who come on here and express their views. For me personally, I like to get shit that makes me cross off my chest. This place is one of the best places to do that because it doesn't mean inflicting emotionally or politically charged views about the world on the people around me in real life who mostly don't care as much as I do and can't really do anything about it, while being more personal and less toxic than places like Twitter and Reddit. You said a while ago when a few of us were getting upset because literally thousands of people in the UK were/are dying and government incompetence was contributing to it, and that we need to be less partisan because we're "representing the Labour Party" or something. I gave it some thought at the time but at the end of the day, it's an Internet forum, we're all just anonymous dickheads at the end of the day. I don't come on here to post this stuff because I think I'm changing the world by doing so, or campaigning for a cause or a political party, I do it because it's a good place to come and get stuff off your chest. I try to conduct my life day to day with compassion and I genuinely care about people looking after each other and helping each other have better lives, and I believe the stuff I post is mostly consistent with those views on here (not always, nobody's perfect) so I'm just not having the "fuelled" part of this comment if it's aimed at me. Lapping up I think is a misrepresentation too but I'll accept it on the basis that you're referring to me getting wound up by stuff that's intended to wind people like me up. We're all different, I don't know whether or not you have the same world views or political views as me or not, whether the same things wind you up and you just have a better outlet than me for reacting to it and getting on with your day but coming on here and mouthing off and maybe taking it a bit beyond being reasonable sometimes is what works for me. I just want that to be clear. Call it a "safe space" if you want but be in no doubt that I'm perfectly aware that there's a world outside this place and Twitter. In fact, the majority of my friends probably couldn't even tell you what my political views are. Perhaps this explanation will give you a slightly different perspective the next time you make a comment like this because it's not the first time you've said something pretty dismissive that's come across (very possibly only to me because you certainly haven't put it into words yourself) along the lines of thinking that me and others are simply being tribal, thoughtless and a bit over the top while you're a little bit above it all without really having to explain why. If you think different and you're arsed about it then you won't stop it from being an echo chamber by saying nothing. If you're not arsed about it then I suppose that's fair enough too. I'm happy to be challenged and set right on stuff where necessary, you and nudge explained the global vaccine program to me and others less than a week ago after we were talking about how there should be one.