Brexit, for once some facts.

Barry Shittpeas

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Bizarre that they say:

The vouchers should not be redeemed for any age-restricted items, such as alcohol, cigarettes or lottery tickets.

Which appears to open them for use against anything that isn't age-restricted however unrelated to food and drink. I'd have expected the guidance to say: The vouchers can and must only be redeemed for food and non-alcoholic drinks.
The only way is to provide free food directly. The vouchers will be spent on rubbish or sold for less than face value and the cash used to buy rubbish.
 
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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It's £15 a week not a day (same price as free school meals) The vouchers should not be redeemed for any age-restricted items, such as alcohol, cigarettes or lottery tickets.
If supermarkets are letting them buy alcohol, they shouldn't be.

Thanks, shows one can't trust sites other than official .gov.uk ones. The site I looked at after hearing that radio comment said £15 a day.

The supermarkets can't dictate since they are cash vouchers. "Should not" is just user guidance, not law forbidding.
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Barry Shittpeas

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Boris suffers from the usual gambler's affliction
I'm very impressed by Starmer, he's like a lawyer in a movie slowly building his case against an arrogant criminal who thinks he's untouchable. He is going to emerge as the hero when he brings the arrogant bastards to their knees.

Johnson is certainly no match for Starmer, he made made him look like a lost bumbling incompetent fool. I like him, no showmanship, just a quiet dignity and so far he appears competent. I guess the media have had their instructions to keep Starmer's performance out of the newspapers and off the TV though. That is unless a frantic and desperate search turns up some dirt.
 

oldgroaner

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I'm very impressed by Starmer, he's like a lawyer in a movie slowly building his case against an arrogant criminal who thinks he's untouchable. He is going to emerge as the hero when he brings the arrogant bastards to their knees.

Johnson is certainly no match for Starmer, he made made him look like a lost bumbling incompetent fool. I like him, no showmanship, just a quiet dignity and so far he appears competent. I guess the media have had their instructions to keep Starmer's performance out of the newspapers and off the TV though. That is unless a frantic and desperate search turns up some dirt.
They'll probably send some tart round to bang on his front door. (with a dozen photographers and Nigel if he's got back from Dover)
 
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oldgroaner

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Without knowing the basis of the failure, it is difficult to assess with any degree of confidence.

Could range from a minor issue resulting from over-zealous application of standards. Through to a load of garbage even the totters wouldn't take.

And could the original order have been messed up? We agreed to buy something but the detailed specifications were not fully checked.
Feeling generous today?
 

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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I'm very impressed by Starmer, he's like a lawyer in a movie slowly building his case against an arrogant criminal who thinks he's untouchable. He is going to emerge as the hero when he brings the arrogant bastards to their knees.

Johnson is certainly no match for Starmer, he made made him look like a lost bumbling incompetent fool. I like him, no showmanship, just a quiet dignity and so far he appears competent. I guess the media have had their instructions to keep Starmer's performance out of the newspapers and off the TV though. That is unless a frantic and desperate search turns up some dirt.
Just give it time. When it becomes necessary the right wing press will do the same undeserved character assassination on Keir Starmer they did on Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn.

The right wing media have no standards, backed by both the Tories and the Blairite fake Labour MPs, there's nothing stopping them publishing whatever they like. The gullibility of the British public means they'll believe the lies too.
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sjpt

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Johnson is certainly no match for Starmer, he made made him look like a lost bumbling incompetent fool.
That's the easy part (as Johnson is a lost bumbling incompetent fool); let's hope Starmer can do the much harder part of forcing some sense into the strategy.
 

oyster

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Thanks, shows one can't trust sites other than official .gov.uk ones. The site I looked at after hearing that radio comment said £15 a day.

The supermarkets can't dictate since they are cash vouchers with no specification as to use.
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I'm very impressed by Starmer, he's like a lawyer in a movie slowly building his case against an arrogant criminal who thinks he's untouchable. He is going to emerge as the hero when he brings the arrogant bastards to their knees.

Johnson is certainly no match for Starmer, he made made him look like a lost bumbling incompetent fool. I like him, no showmanship, just a quiet dignity and so far he appears competent. I guess the media have had their instructions to keep Starmer's performance out of the newspapers and off the TV though. That is unless a frantic and desperate search turns up some dirt.
I saw him on BBC news last night and Johnson looked even worse than usual.

Whenever someone points a finger at Johnson, they or comments say something about him only just recovering.

If he isn't up to the job, temporarily or permanently, he should not be allowed to do it.
 
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Wicky

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Is anyone surprised? The gowns from Turkey that were flown in by the RAF are to be returned as they don't comply with the NHS specification.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said it was "reassuring" that British experts were "ensuring the best quality of equipment".

I'm sure they can still sell it on as seconds to care homes ;-) - But seems odd they didn't have someone open a carton to check on what they were buying before using RAF as couriers.

A **** up worthy of Grayling.
 
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Barry Shittpeas

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I saw him on BBC news last night and Johnson looked even worse than usual.

Whenever someone points a finger at Johnson, they or comments say something about him having only just recovering.

If he isn't up to the job, temporarily or permanently, he should not be allowed to do it.
I agree.

I don’t think Johnson is well, he’s still a sick man. He wasn’t up to the job before he inflicted Coronavirus on himself, and he certainly isn’t now.
 

Barry Shittpeas

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Who thinks the loosing of lockdown is a good idea? We have nearly twice the death rate that we had on the day that lockdown was introduced. The new infection rate is also higher. What is “the science” behind this decision?

As usual, the rag newspapers are encouraging us to celebrate the scrapping of measures designed to keep us alive.

I’m concerned, I think it’s too early to release the lockdown and we don’t have sufficient testing, tracking and tracing capacity to move to this stage.
 

oyster

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Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said it was "reassuring" that British experts were "ensuring the best quality of equipment".

I'm sure they can still sell it on as seconds to care homes ;-) - But seems odd they didn't have someone open a carton to check on what they were buying before using RAF as couriers.

A **** up worthy of Grayling.
Not if they have sent it back - whether or not they have had a refund.

When did they find out they were not up to snuff? Surely not a fortnight ago and they have just been sitting on the embarrassing information?

Before or after they were distributed?
 

oldgroaner

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I saw him on BBC news last night and Johnson looked even worse than usual.

Whenever someone points a finger at Johnson, they or comments say something about him having only just recovering.

If he isn't up to the job, temporarily or permanently, he should not be allowed to do it.
It's true that few who suffer from " Malingeringitis" at Eton can live a normal life afterwards , they usually end up being shoehorned into the role of a Conservative candidate , capable only of being an abject parody of a politician when elected.
 
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oldgroaner

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Who thinks the loosing of lockdown is a good idea? We have nearly twice the death rate that we had on the day that lockdown was introduced. The new infection rate is also higher. What is “the science” behind this decision?

As usual, the rag newspapers are encouraging us to celebrate the scrapping of measures designed to keep us alive.

I’m concerned, I think it’s too early to release the lockdown and we don’t have sufficient testing, tracking and tracing capacity to move to this stage.
Yes indeed it would be a great pity to succumb to the virus at this stage because Boris let the side down twice running , and miss out on the debacle of Brexit
 
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Barry Shittpeas

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Hurrah! Lockdown Freedom Beckons! Happy Monday! Today’s newspaper headlines as the FT calculate that in excess of 50,000 people are dead from the disease that Lockdown is protecting us from.

This is just a stunt by a **** (Johnson). His attempt at a Churchillian VE style victory.

This lockdown needs to be eased on a set of predefined targets, at infection rate X we will ease measure Y for example. They are just pissing in the wind and leaking ideas to newspapers as a sort of opinion poll. No leadership whatsoever. No plan, no clue, no idea.
 

oldgroaner

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Hurrah! Lockdown Freedom Beckons! Happy Monday! Today’s newspaper headlines as the FT calculate that in excess of 50,000 people are dead from the disease that Lockdown is protecting us from.

This is just a stunt by a **** (Johnson). His attempt at a Churchillian VE style victory.

This lockdown needs to be eased on a set of predefined targets, at infection rate X we will ease measure Y for example. They are just pissing in the wind and leaking ideas to newspapers as a sort of opinion poll. No leadership whatsoever. No plan, no clue, no idea.
I have a cunning plan that will transform politics completely
Have a provision on the voting form that you can withdraw your vote of the government ballses up big time, and the numbers be continually monitored, when they go too low, the Government automatically falls
 

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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I have a cunning plan that will transform politics completely
Have a provision on the voting form that you can withdraw your vote of the government ballses up big time, and the numbers be continually monitored, when they go too low, the Government automatically falls
Slight snag. Judging by the performance of our governments for a few decades, few would last a week and some only one day.

Once again we'd be matching Italy!
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Danidl

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Who thinks the loosing of lockdown is a good idea? We have nearly twice the death rate that we had on the day that lockdown was introduced. The new infection rate is also higher. What is “the science” behind this decision?

As usual, the rag newspapers are encouraging us to celebrate the scrapping of measures designed to keep us alive.

I’m concerned, I think it’s too early to release the lockdown and we don’t have sufficient testing, tracking and tracing capacity to move to this stage.
Finally you are making sense. The World meter website shows a very interesting set of histograms, indicating infection rates, death rates etc. Both UK and USA show slight increases day on day so still in a linear growth phase, showing that lockdown measures are working to an extent. , Russia is still in the exponential growth phase, whereas France, Germany , Spain,, Italy are showing declining rates.
So no now is not the time for the UK to relax anything . Rather it needs to put teeth into its current legislation and bring thousands to court.. starting with those taking unnecessary journeys...and defining narrowly what a unnecessary journey is.
Amongst the large nations, the UK is unique in not disclosing any recovered case data.

The astonishing thing is that this virus can be killed off in a few multiples of 3 weeks. The cycle time is just 2 weeks .. Had the UK acted on the evidence , they would be nearly out of this now.
 
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flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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So no now is not the time for the UK to relax anything . Rather it needs to put teeth into its current legislation and bring thousands to court..
Londoners have been considerably easing lockdown for well over two weeks, in some details with official approval, and from being previously by far the worst affected part of the UK is now greatly improved. Quote:

"London has recorded a particularly rapid decline. The average number of new deaths in the capital – which has been consistently the worst-hit region in the country – has dropped to almost the level of the Midlands."

So the situation isn't as clear cut as you feel it is and bringing thousands to court would be very foolish indeed. Now more than ever the support of the community is needed and prosecuting on a large scale would only breed defiant disobedience.
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