When will this shit end?

[zahidf]

[zahidf]

Oh crap

[st dan]

4 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Is she trying to distance herself for a leadership bid?

May God have mercy on us all.

Hadn’t even considered that but it’s certainly possible. Her words of ‘I was an advocate of closing them last March’ were very direct and very obvious, so she must have other intentions. 

[efcfanwirral]

1 hour ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Yeah. Not loads and loads, and they were socially distanced, but there were small comedy gigs, big outdoor gigs etc. Main one I can think of was the Hot Chip Margate gig - I watched online but you could buy tickets to attend as a socially distanced punter. The Jazz Cafe IN Camden and Ronnie Scott's in Soho were both open for socially distanced gigs.

I didn't go to any of them as I didn't feel it was wise personally. But they were happening. My point is just that if they can do events with restrictions last summer then I can't see why they wouldn't this summer.

Until this new variant was pushed I was convinced we'd have a summer of Newcastle-style socially distanced gigs with those platforms but I'm not sure even those will be allowed now

[jparx]

Even our country wouldn’t vote in Patel for prime minister, surely?!

[Ozanne]

12 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Is she trying to distance herself for a leadership bid?

May God have mercy on us all.

Yeah I think you might be onto something there, she’s loved by the Tory members so could be lining up a bid. I hope she gets it, the country wouldn’t elect her as PM. 

[efcfanwirral]

4 minutes ago, jparx said:

Even our country wouldn’t vote in Patel for prime minister, surely?!

Don't need to - the party pick their own leaders. don't think anyone would last 4 years with that lot

Edited January 20, 2021 by efcfanwirral

[JB15]

5 minutes ago, jparx said:

Even our country wouldn’t vote in Patel for prime minister, surely?!

Depends how many of us fancy her

[Zoo Music Girl]

Guys, she's not going to fuck you.

Not in that way anyway.

[xxialac]

At some point Patel is going to be responsible for a massive cock up. Like (cough) losing 400,000 records on her watch.

At that point her only way back to the very top - given how she's already been massively over-promoted - will be through a leadership challenge. No PM in their right mind would ever give her a position in cabinet again, given her proven incompetence (and frankly, lack of intelligence).

 

[Ozanne]

3 minutes ago, xxialac said:

At some point Patel is going to be responsible for a massive cock up. Like (cough) losing 400,000 records on her watch.

At that point her only way back to the very top - given how she's already been massively over-promoted - will be through a leadership challenge. No PM in their right mind would ever give her a position in cabinet again, given her proven incompetence (and frankly, lack of intelligence).

 

In normal times she would have gone for this latest cock up. 

[Copperface]

15 minutes ago, st dan said:

Hadn’t even considered that but it’s certainly possible. Her words of ‘I was an advocate of closing them last March’ were very direct and very obvious, so she must have other intentions. 

She looks to be at least positioning herself. I came through Heathrow on Sunday and the increased measures and scrutiny re PLFs and other questioning checking of docs etc was noticeably more stringent than last September, and even last week when I went out (although not that many UK outbound checks). One of the BF women I spoke to just laughed and said 'politics innit?'

The secondary checks haven't really been increased at all. 

Probably all linked to the early May local elections, which could provide a perfect storm for Johnson if they go tits up for the Conservatives, and the CRG nutters are still causing trouble on the backbenches. If Johnson goes in the event of bad results then it's up for grabs.

The government are really resisting moving the elections back to October under huge pressure from councils to do so, so read into that what you will.

 

[xxialac]

On subject of homeland security, just a gentle police reminder not to bring hand grenades with you on the plane, ta.

[squirrelarmy]

9 minutes ago, jparx said:

Even our country wouldn’t vote in Patel for prime minister, surely?!

I’m trying to imagine the mental gymnastics the UKIP type voter will go through if she was leading the party at the time of the election. 
 

Farage will have his new reform party set up by then so could see a large contingent of knuckle draggers heading that way. 

[steviewevie]

16 minutes ago, JB15 said:

Depends how many of us fancy her

yeah, she'd definitely get my vote. Phwoar.

[xxialac]

Patel could position a vote for her as a referendum on the death penalty for terrorists (or in her case anti-terrrorists).

Cos what we really need in our society is more division and she'd love a bit of hanging immigrants on pay-per-view. 

[mazola]

1 hour ago, MrBarry465 said:

The zero covid strategy is gradually reached over an extended period, vaccinating consistently, aggresively and with restrictions being eased. It just takes longer to get there. The zero-covid strategy is aspirational, it's not something I am saying will be achieved overnight. It might not even be 'zero-covid' strategy, but just really aggressive supression so that we are not back to square one in 10 months.

It's key that the border restrictions are enforced properly. 

Zero covid is impossible,  it can be achieved in the short term with super strict border controls, lockdown and a functioning track and trace system, but it is not a long term solution. The vaccine doesn't eliminate the virus, but it protects against the most severe symptoms. The virus is with us now and we must learn to live with it.

What we need to see from the government is what the strategy is for coming out of lockdown, if they even have one.

My opinion is it should be based on hospitalisations and deaths, and what figure is acceptable. If we get the figures below that of an average flu year deaths, then it should be business as usual.

I'm just waiting for next weekend, that will be 3 weeks since my mum had jab, and she is going to be hugged for the first time in nearly a year

[Ryan1984]

17 minutes ago, mazola said:

Zero covid is impossible,  it can be achieved in the short term with super strict border controls, lockdown and a functioning track and trace system, but it is not a long term solution. The vaccine doesn't eliminate the virus, but it protects against the most severe symptoms. The virus is with us now and we must learn to live with it.

What we need to see from the government is what the strategy is for coming out of lockdown, if they even have one.

My opinion is it should be based on hospitalisations and deaths, and what figure is acceptable. If we get the figures below that of an average flu year deaths, then it should be business as usual.

I'm just waiting for next weekend, that will be 3 weeks since my mum had jab, and she is going to be hugged for the first time in nearly a year

Can those of us not on the priority list hug our parents three weeks after first jab? My mum is coming up to that timeframe now. Not that I will see her for a while yet but would be good to know.

[mazola]

1 minute ago, Ryan1984 said:

Can those of us not on the priority list hug our parents three weeks after first jab? My mum is coming up to that timeframe now. Not that I will see her for a while yet but would be good to know.

According to the rules? No I don't think so

[ShakeyCrash]

On 1/19/2021 at 12:47 PM, DareToDibble said:

I read an interview with Drakeford the other day where he essentially said they are going to spread out the administering of the vaccine. His reasoning was "so the vaccinators aren't sat around doing nothing". So we could be vaccinating at a higher rate but he's decided not to. How can he justify that, if just 1 person who should have had the vaccine dies because he's spaced them out, it's on him. Unreal.

 

EDIT: Here's the quote.

The First Minister said Wales was using all the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is made in the UK and can be kept in a fridge, as they get it. But he defended keeping back tens of thousands of doses of the Pfizer vaccine that had been given to Wales as he said it had to last until the beginning of February.

"We won't get another delivery of that until the end of January, probably the beginning of February," he said. "We have to use that over that six week stretch. It would be logistically very damaging to try and use all of that in the first week, and then to have all our vaccinators standing around with nothing to do for another month."

A little bit of a change if tune from Vaughn Gethin today which is more reassuring.  Talks of a big ramping up this week and that the slow off the marks things was due to issues with deploying the Pfizer vaccine but these should now be in the past.  Calmed me down a little.

Given that yesterday's was a good indicator for the rest of the UK, also keen to report Wales' numbers are back up and are slightly higher than the figures we had last Friday (a 0.44% increase versus 0.33% increase yesterday).   For Information the UK total for Friday last week was 300k. 

 

[fraybentos1]

Scotland's figures going up a bit : 18th Jan- 19,591 

Today announced for 19th Jan- 25,327

Picking up gradually thankfully!

[zahidf]

That's better

 

[fraybentos1]

298,373 first doses for England yday! More like it 

[fraybentos1]

298,373 England, 25,327 Scotland, 13,989 Wales = 337,689 plus whatever Northern Ireland do 

[Crazyfool01]

YAY 🙂