Brexit, for once some facts.

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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We can't keep on treating China like years past and lecture them on human rights violations.
Trade is the only thing that still keep the situation under control, we don't need to whip up another row.
Put it simply. they don't need us as much as we need them.
When western businesses have to pay $10,000 for a container from China to bring goods in while the same container returns empty to China, there is something very seriously wrong.
They don't want nor need to buy from us while we keep on buying from them.
The blockage of the Suez canal could well be China showing who is boss.
I absolutely agree and have long disagreed on our policy vis a vis China. No matter how much we dislike some of their internal policies, that is none of our business.

I feel the same about the USA's insistence on policing the China sea and objecting to China having that role. The days of Western bullying and Empires are long gone and we and the USA need to recognise that and act accordingly.

As for the matter of the Islamic Uyghurs, I think China is being sensible in clamping down hard. They've long suffered increasingly militant Uyghurs who want separation, which is unrealistic since the Uyghurs are only half the population of Xingiang province, the province being part of China since the 18th century. Separation of Xingiang would soon mean enforced Islam for the Chinese half of the population, an even greater human rights violation.
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oyster

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 7, 2017
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But what sort of a plan is that?

The trials of Novavax have been two doses. Not, so far as I am aware, a single dose as a booster.

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n296

Is it another make-it-up-as-you-go (making sure you keep your fingers crossed and don't step on the lines of the pavement)?
 
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oldgroaner

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Nov 15, 2015
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But what sort of a plan is that?

The trials of Novavax have been two doses. Not, so far as I am aware, a single does as a booster.

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n296

Is it another make-it-up-as-you-go (making sure you keep your fingers crossed and don't step on the lines of the pavement)?
The obvious way forward (which naturally means it will never happen)
Is for nations to club together and fund a Research and manufacturing facility that is tasked with protecting humanity from all emerging threats of a biological nature
Instead we are like gamblers at the races, spaffing money in all directions in the hope of backing a winner and worse cornering their products and denying them to the rest of humanity.
This really sums up the mind set of people who think Brexit is a good idea.
The old "I'm all right Jack!" attitude once again, which is utterly foolish as we can never as a species win against deadly biological threats by protecting a few rather than all humanity
 
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oyster

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Nov 7, 2017
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Meanwhile, the government scraps another scheme:

The government has scrapped its flagship green homes grant scheme, the centrepiece of Boris Johnson’s promise to “build back greener” from the Covid-19 pandemic, just over six months after its launch.

The abandonment of the £1.5bn programme, which offered households grants of up to £5,000 or £10,000 to put in insulation or low-carbon heating, leaves the UK without a plan for tackling one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

What sunny uplands?
 
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oyster

Esteemed Pedelecer
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Don't you love the inevitability of the state the bleedin' obvious language?:

It was his second term of office and he was married to now ex-wife Marina, mother of their four children.

Just who else could be mother of their four children?

Anyway - now I have skimmed through, it reads pretty much how it appeared at the time the story broke.
 
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oldgroaner

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Nov 15, 2015
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j
Don't you love the inevitability of the state the bleedin' obvious language?:

It was his second term of office and he was married to now ex-wife Marina, mother of their four children.

Just who else could be mother of their four children?
Possibly several other women? :cool:
 

oldgroaner

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 15, 2015
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Meanwhile, the government scraps another scheme:

The government has scrapped its flagship green homes grant scheme, the centrepiece of Boris Johnson’s promise to “build back greener” from the Covid-19 pandemic, just over six months after its launch.

The abandonment of the £1.5bn programme, which offered households grants of up to £5,000 or £10,000 to put in insulation or low-carbon heating, leaves the UK without a plan for tackling one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

What sunny uplands?
Rishi Sunak has confirmed the following to Johnson

Sooty Uplands are far cheaper (up till the next GE)
 
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sjpt

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Jun 8, 2018
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Meanwhile, the government scraps another scheme:

The government has scrapped its flagship green homes grant scheme, the centrepiece of Boris Johnson’s promise to “build back greener” from the Covid-19 pandemic, just over six months after its launch.

The abandonment of the £1.5bn programme, which offered households grants of up to £5,000 or £10,000 to put in insulation or low-carbon heating, leaves the UK without a plan for tackling one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

What sunny uplands?
Don't worry, the government are committed to build back greener; see their 27 billion road building plan.

I wanted to stop that short at 'the government are committed' with 'and so they should be'.
 

oyster

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 7, 2017
10,422
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West West Wales
And another bit of the "put the dough into a slightly warm oven for not very long" approach to government:

Lorry drivers arriving in England must take Covid tests from 6 April, says minister
Grant Shapps says drivers from outside Britain and Ireland staying more than 48 hours will need to take test

1) If it needs doing, why only England, not Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland?

Even if there is a technicality that it needs to go through the devolved organisations, could they not have got it agreed all round - then announced it for all?

2) If it needs doing, why not start now?

3) If it needs doing, why only if they are staying more than 48 hours?

Some misbegotten notion that you can't pass it on in less than 48 hours?
 
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oldgroaner

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 15, 2015
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Just a note on honesty
"Germany spent €375m funding BioNTech, 20m doses of whose vaccine have gone to UK.
UK spent £84m funding the Oxford vaccine, precisely 0 doses of which have gone to the EU.

 
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