Brexit, for once some facts.

[jonathan.agnew]

I think it's vapourware or diversion tactics. City folks don't really have any limit, they never have. They have many ways to fill their pockets: share options, pension plans, credit cards for expenses, holiday homes, invoices to shelf companies etc
They know they can't stop the strikes, they can't fix myriad of other things: the economy, the health service, transport, pension, education. If I were BJ, I would chuck it in now.

We do have a big problem with inequality

The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK | The Equality Trust

The UK has the 7th most unequal incomes of 30 countries in the developed world, but is about average in terms of wealth inequality. While the top fifth have nearly 50% of the country's income and 60% of the country's wealth, the bottom fifth have only 4% of the income and only 1% of the wealth.

equalitytrust.org.uk

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It's why big parts of the UK are such dystopias (ito services, education, health care) compared to Europe. And this can be fixed.

 

[Woosh]

But the RMT are right that a big pay rise is necessary just to hold on to present living standards. And not just for the RMT, for everyone receiving pay, pensions or benefits.

the problem is after reaching the eventual deal, those earning above average are much better off than those below average. Let's say that the average spending of a household is £30k a year and inflation will reach 10% and somehow, the deal is they get 10% pay increase. So they'll need at least £3k more to hold on to their living standard. It's clear that those earning more than £50k/year will have spare cash and those earning £25k won't be able to keep up.
In my view, government should give the job to the OBR to publish recommended increases for various levels of earnings and occupations.

 

[oyster]

I see the Indie is making noises:

Collapse in Tory support threatens ‘Conservative Celtic fringe’ in southwest, poll finds

Dramatic 19-point fall in vote share threatens 15 seats, including constituency of Jacob Rees-Mogg
https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/uk-news/poll-southwest-conservative-celtic-fringe-b2108097.html

 

[oyster]

I see the Indie is making noises:

Collapse in Tory support threatens ‘Conservative Celtic fringe’ in southwest, poll finds

Dramatic 19-point fall in vote share threatens 15 seats, including constituency of Jacob Rees-Mogg
https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/uk-news/poll-southwest-conservative-celtic-fringe-b2108097.html

Well, the tories lost both of them.

Boris Johnson has faced a double hammer blow to his authority after the Conservatives lost two key byelections on the same night, with Labour taking Wakefield and the Liberal Democrats overturning a 24,000-plus majority to snatch Tiverton and Honiton.

The Tiverton and Honiton result, where the Lib Dem candidate, Richard Foord, defeated the Tories’ Helen Hurford by 6,144 votes to take a constituency that has been Conservative in its various forms for well over a century, is believed to be the biggest numerical majority ever overturned in a byelection.


A Labour win in Wakefield was more expected given Labour had consistently held the seat before the 2019 election, but the 4,925 majority for Simon Lightwood against the Conservatives’ Nadeem Ahmed is a major boost for Keir Starmer in the battle to regain “red wall” seats.


And Oliver Dowden, tory chair, has resigned.

 

[Woosh]

the captain is away and no one in the cabinet is prepared to talk to the BBC. Oh dear.
are we seeing the last few weeks of BJ's premiership?

 

[oyster]

the captain is away and no one in the cabinet is prepared to talk to the BBC. Oh dear.
are we seeing the last few weeks of BJ's premiership?

Diary note: 13th July - 1922 Committee elections.

(If he lasts that long.)

 

[Woosh]

The BBC managed to get Tim Montgomery (https://conservativehome.com) to comment. He lamented the fact that BJ has no solution to current crises. Oliver Dowden in his resignation letter: 'somebody must take responsibility'.

 

[flecc]

Johnson is right that he is Churchill's natural successor. For his whole life Churchill was nothing more than a hopelessly incompetent windbag with a consumate ability to fool the public with his oratory and humour, while taking the credit for what others achieved and in denial about his failures.

Johnsons failure is that he's never quite matched Churchill's undesirable skills.
.

 

[GLJoe]

Anyone here ever had shingles?

I've a nasty feeling that this has been festering away since my Pfizer/BioNTech booster vaccine... Not for one minute claiming this is proof of anything, but I have a suspicion.

Association study between herpes zoster reporting and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines

https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bcp.15280


Also:
https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
This is part of the documentation that pfizer were forced to release after a court order. Seems they knew it was a risk all along

 

[oyster]

Association study between herpes zoster reporting and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines

https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bcp.15280


Also:
https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
This is part of the documentation that pfizer were forced to release after a court order. Seems they knew it was a risk all along

Thanks - that is interesting. I have continued to be very unsure of a relationship. But with quite a lot of cases in the UK (2715), it does make me think it is more likely.

The main reason for veering towards no issue is the time between vaccination and HZ. Which was something like six weeks whereas the documents suggest one week is more typical.

At the same time, I did start to feel something after a few days. Perhaps it simply took longer to develop in me?

Still, I do feel justified and right in having put in a Yellow Card. And I'm still not right with ongoing neuropathy. Stopped the amitriptyline (which itself has plenty of side effects) but continuing with capsaicin cream which really does help.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

Johnson is right that he is Churchill's natural successor. For his whole life Churchill was nothing more than a hopelessly incompetent windbag with a consumate ability to fool the public with his oratory and humour, while taking the credit for what others achieved and in denial about his failures.

Johnsons failure is that he's never quite matched Churchill's undesirable skills.
.

That's a bit harsh. Churchill managed to kill half a million in the dardanelles in no time at all (and the kind of world war one agony that makes covid seem lame) and return a war hero to become prime minister. Boris has some way to go before he can match that.

 

[flecc]

That's a bit harsh. Churchill managed to kill half a million in the dardanelles in no time at all (and the kind of world war one agony that makes covid seem lame) and return a war hero to become prime minister. Boris has some way to go before he can match that.

Hence my last sentence.
.

 

[flecc]

Also:
https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
This is part of the documentation that pfizer were forced to release after a court order. Seems they knew it was a risk all along

Indeed they knew and I've already protested about this since I'm one of the cardiac - tachycardia victims of their booster.

Prone to tachycardia but with no events for almost a year from 28/1/21 to 16/12 21, receiving their booster provoked the following:

15 tachycardia events between 16/12/21 and 8/5/22

Basically I had to wait over four months for the booster to wear right off before these attacks finally ceased.

Yellow card reported of course.
.

 

[oyster]

That's a bit harsh. Churchill managed to kill half a million in the dardanelles in no time at all (and the kind of world war one agony that makes covid seem lame) and return a war hero to become prime minister. Boris has some way to go before he can match that.

Can't imagine Johnson even managing to get onto a cavalry horse, let alone charging on horseback. He's way behind his hero there.

 

[flecc]

Can't imagine Johnson even managing to get onto a cavalry horse, let alone charging on horseback. He's way behind his hero there.

Like Churchill, Johnson was fit and slim in his earlier decades:

 

[oyster]

Like Churchill, Johnson was fit and slim in his earlier decades:

True - but it was more of a mental image of him now.

Seems he is now threatening us with being PM for a further two terms.

As I see it, pretty much any tactical voting would be worth it if it gets rid of him. The vote for the less-appealing other party seems very likely to end up with less negative impact than allowing the tories in again.

(In my own constituency, it looks a dead cert. that Labour would be the one gaining tactical votes.)

 

[flecc]

True - but it was more of a mental image of him now.

Seems he is now threatening us with being PM for a further two terms.

As I see it, pretty much any tactical voting would be worth it if it gets rid of him. The vote for the less-appealing other party seems very likely to end up with less negative impact than allowing the tories in again.

(In my own constituency, it looks a dead cert. that Labour would be the one gaining tactical votes.)

The Tories best ploy would be to keep him for one more year, thern dump him, leaving the whole blame on Johnson, while giving the new leader a chance to introduce attractive policies without having to prove they work in the brief time before the GE.

Dumping Johnson now means the new leader will be as big an electoral failure, because, whoever leads, they'll have no chance to better ourselves short term in our current situation of massive debt and rapidly declining prospects.
.

 

[oyster]

The Tories best ploy would be to keep him for one more year, thern dump him, leaving the whole blame on Johnson, while giving the new leader a chance to introduce attractive policies without having to prove they work in the brief time before the GE.

Dumping Johnson now means the new leader will be as big an electoral failure, because, whoever leads, they'll have no chance to better ourselves short term in our current situation of massive debt and rapidly declining prospects.
.

Maybe.

But with his going off on his current tack, some might start looking at him as some sort of Third PM who will last a thousand years. (Or claiming that!)

Which could end up with a disaster in the next GE, or even in the run up, so bad that the tory party itself breaks apart and any/all fragments become wholly unelectable.

 

[flecc]

But with his going off on his current tack, some might start looking at him as some sort of Third PM who will last a thousand years. (Or claiming that!)

There's no chance of that, most Tories know he's a liability and his time is up. So time for tactics, getting rid of him at the most suitable point and no just rushing into it without thinking.

That best point is when there's not enough time for a new leader to be seen to fail before the GE. That isn't now since two years is plenty of time to fail, especially since failure is inevitable.
.

 

[GLJoe]

Indeed they knew ...

This might be of interest:

https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:506291-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML

Its a tender from our MHRA, dated October 2020.
Its for an AI software tool.
I quote from part of the document:
"
Explanation:

For reasons of extreme urgency under Regulation 32(2)(c) related to the release of a Covid-19 vaccine MHRA have accelerated the sourcing and implementation of a vaccine specific AI tool.

Strictly necessary — it is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine."