By sheer incompetence of your neighbors, the UKs tail of the crisis, at least from an epidemical point of view, is looking pretty good.
Willing to wait a relatively long time before reopening. Down over 90% from the last peak.
Meanwhile over here in the Netherlands we are currently cresting our 4th wave (which we call our 3rd wave.....), and are discussing if we can open things again next week. or maybe the week after.
It has completely destroyed public morale to weekly be told "we're nearly there!" "Oh no wait more"
Also boomers loudly proclaiming they don't want to be vaccinated, that has upset me more than knowing it'll be years before <60 can be vaccinated.
Provided there's no more supply issues the time between each round of vaccinations should be getting smaller the younger it gets. What with this being a country of old people and all.
The "hey we can get to over 40s this week! Hahaha, psyche, just over-45s for now" has me feeling seriously trolled. That'll teach me to hope.
A woman I work with and her husband who are 40 are getting their jab this weekend - contact your gp, and aks to sign up, and they put you on a reserve list.
The "hey we can get to over 40s this week! Hahaha, psyche, just over-45s for now" has me feeling seriously trolled. That'll teach me to hope.
A woman I work with and her husband who are 40 are getting their jab this weekend - contact your gp, and aks to sign up, and they put you on a reserve list.
I tried this to cover my other half and I as we are increasingly helping out with palliative care for an elderly relative who hasn't been able to get vaccinated. We got told that they emphasised with us and wanted us to get the jabs but the Fylde coast only has got enough supply to cover the second jabs of everyone who has already had the first. No additional stock at all
So now we're waiting until May when the next delivery is expected
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
The "hey we can get to over 40s this week! Hahaha, psyche, just over-45s for now" has me feeling seriously trolled. That'll teach me to hope.
A woman I work with and her husband who are 40 are getting their jab this weekend - contact your gp, and aks to sign up, and they put you on a reserve list.
I tried this to cover my other half and I as we are increasingly helping out with palliative care for an elderly relative who hasn't been able to get vaccinated. We got told that they emphasised with us and wanted us to get the jabs but the Fylde coast only has got enough supply to cover the second jabs of everyone who has already had the first. No additional stock at all
So now we're waiting until May when the next delivery is expected
My mum and dad got theirs early because they were looking after my gran (but weren't officially carers). It seems very dependent on local decisions
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
The "hey we can get to over 40s this week! Hahaha, psyche, just over-45s for now" has me feeling seriously trolled. That'll teach me to hope.
A woman I work with and her husband who are 40 are getting their jab this weekend - contact your gp, and aks to sign up, and they put you on a reserve list.
I tried this to cover my other half and I as we are increasingly helping out with palliative care for an elderly relative who hasn't been able to get vaccinated. We got told that they emphasised with us and wanted us to get the jabs but the Fylde coast only has got enough supply to cover the second jabs of everyone who has already had the first. No additional stock at all
So now we're waiting until May when the next delivery is expected
There’s a lot of local disparity. I’m 38, but I got my jab about a month ago because the mobile vaccination buses in Newcastle were desperate for people to take their doses at the end of the day. In this case the staff on the buses were calling any vague personal connection they had, starting with people like teachers or other key workers. So my wife got hers, and they asked her if I wanted mine doing too. I have no reason to be offered one, except it would have gone to waste if I didn’t. I think I asked about five times that I wasn’t taking someone else’s spot, but they kept telling me it was fine. Even now I feel guilty about it.
We found out later that the bus was in an area that’s generally quite bad for people missing doctor’s and hospital appointments, but they’d really hoped that turning up basically on their doorstep would help mitigate that. Apparently it did help, but the take up wasn’t perfect - hence the leftover doses.
How many of you have been following the Greensill issue? And by 'issue' I mean 'blatant corruption'.
Naturally, when a thorough inquiry was proposed by Labour, the tories closed ranks and voted against it en masse. They're insisting their own much more limited inquiry, which will doubtless find that they did nothing wrong, is adequate. Now if you could just place that issue under the rug...yes I know there's not much space in there... just jam it in with the PPE contracts... *ahem* "we consider the matter closed".
It does seem like this one will stick around for a while. Labour are trying to get the "tory sleaze" label to stick and this case might be a useful way to do it. From there they could expand into the other mountains of dodgy contracts the government have given out. Interestingly the BBC were leading with it on the televised news. I'm surprised they haven't been told to back off yet.
I was surprised to see it plastered across the papers, though I think the Tory play will be to dump as much of the badness of it on Cameron who, as a hasbeen, can be sidelined to minimize impact.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
[hollow screaming intensifies]
Weren't we all just talking about how there's no way to get anything to stick to the Tories while vaccines are going well?
If a week is an eternity in politics, a couple days must be a good few eons at least.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Thanks y'all for helping my tired brain clear up the glossary.
I think I got confused when Red used them interchangeably and it was almost midnight.
If you're interested in learning more about it I'd highly recommend the book Say Nothing. It's about as even-handed as you can get when looking at that period in Ireland and is very informative for laypeople like me who knew very little about it.
so i'm dragging this back up from the other day
This book was amazing. I got it on audiobook and the experience of an Irish voice reading it to me was immersive to a creepy degree.
It's Narrative non-fiction and I highly recommend definitely reading all the way through, even the notes and the acknowledgements at the end.
I feel a lot more knowledgeable about this dramatic and traumatic, period of recent history.
Realizing that I was 14 when the GFA was signed but had no real idea about any of the conflict at all was really shocking.
Weren't we all just talking about how there's no way to get anything to stick to the Tories while vaccines are going well?
If a week is an eternity in politics, a couple days must be a good few eons at least.
Pretty much. I've never been that impressed by the reasoning there's nothing Starmer can do during the pandemic but sit on his hands and wait for it to pass, so I was pleased to see him actually pushing this one home. It's a wide open goal and not taking a shot at it would be Corbyn levels of ineptitude.
Thanks y'all for helping my tired brain clear up the glossary.
I think I got confused when Red used them interchangeably and it was almost midnight.
If you're interested in learning more about it I'd highly recommend the book Say Nothing. It's about as even-handed as you can get when looking at that period in Ireland and is very informative for laypeople like me who knew very little about it.
so i'm dragging this back up from the other day
This book was amazing. I got it on audiobook and the experience of an Irish voice reading it to me was immersive to a creepy degree.
It's Narrative non-fiction and I highly recommend definitely reading all the way through, even the notes and the acknowledgements at the end.
I feel a lot more knowledgeable about this dramatic and traumatic, period of recent history.
Realizing that I was 14 when the GFA was signed but had no real idea about any of the conflict at all was really shocking.
Well, your post just made me get the audiobook. I hope you're happy.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Weren't we all just talking about how there's no way to get anything to stick to the Tories while vaccines are going well?
If a week is an eternity in politics, a couple days must be a good few eons at least.
Pretty much. I've never been that impressed by the reasoning there's nothing Starmer can do during the pandemic but sit on his hands and wait for it to pass, so I was pleased to see him actually pushing this one home. It's a wide open goal and not taking a shot at it would be Corbyn levels of ineptitude.
Yeah, while it might not sway votes yet, gaining a reputation for not being incompetent and holding the Tories to account, helps build credibility for when you do go into election season.
Will it be enough? Who knows. But better than sitting on the sidelines, hoping the Tories fuck themselves over, and the electorate give you an election by default.
Sleaze is a label that's bought down Tory governments before. The slow, but never-ending drip-drip of cronyism, scandal, backhanders and chummy back-slapping builds up.
Sleaze is a label that's bought down Tory governments before. The slow, but never-ending drip-drip of cronyism, scandal, backhanders and chummy back-slapping builds up.
Like in 1997. It wasn't just Tony Blair and his smile.
Sleaze is a label that's bought down Tory governments before. The slow, but never-ending drip-drip of cronyism, scandal, backhanders and chummy back-slapping builds up.
Helps that it's an accurate charge. The party of plutocrats can't seem to help themselves from gorging at the government trough.
I think the "sit on his hands" idea was more about handling Covid than just anything. Because going on about the pretty accurate charge of "you guys messed up the handling of this" can be easily (and unfairly) rebutted with "but vaccination is going great!" and paint Starmer as a sour grape. The sleaze accusation is an entirely different issue and a good vaccination rollout doesn't absolve you of it. So yes, it's good Starmer didn't pull a punch on it.
NHS Wales gave the company, which specialises in the secure storage, shredding and scanning of documents, £300,000 of business this year.
Labour said it amounted to "cronyism at the heart of this government".
A government spokesman said that Mr Hancock had acted "entirely properly" and there was no conflict of interest.
Granted I was a kid and not paying much attention at the time, but stories like this and other general sleaziness seeming to appear every week is my prevailing memory of the end of the Thatcher/Major government. Given enough time in control, the tories will stop feeling like they have to obey the rules.
I think there's an element to which sleaze works cos the media actually love getting their teeth into a government's dirty laundry
All Starmer needs to do is say "isn't it dreadful" and then the papers will all be plastered with Greensill and then he can just repeatedly push the point that they're all noses to the trough
A health minister investing in medical anything is not a good look no matter how officially above board it is.
But wait, there's more! This wasn't a minor investment, he has 15% of the shares of the company. And his sister has a larger (unstated) percentage of shares. And I'm not even sure 'investment' is the right word since...
A Department of Health source said Mr Hancock had discussed the fact he was to be gifted shares in the firm with civil servants before he accepted them.
So 'bribe' might be a better description there.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I love the government's definition of no conflict of interest.
At an old job, I had to set up some contest submission forms for a website. These were extremely simple questions, like the TV ones which ask 'What is the Doctor's time machine named? A - The TARDIS, B - The Delorean, or C - The USS Enterprise'. Just a raffle, really.
It was a basic form, and I just filled out a test answer to make sure it was recorded properly.
I got in trouble for it, because I hadn't deleted it afterwards, and employees aren't allowed to enter the contest. This despite the fact that I put C as an answer.
With the Matt Hancock thing, the civil service is technically correct (the best kind of correct) in that it is really hard to see how the health secretary for England could conceivably influence the awarding of an NHS contact in Wales, and there doesn't seem to be any allegation he actually has. The specific failing is not declaring his family interest in this firm that got itself placed on an NHS procurement framework
This is actually a fairly common issue throughout the NHS, because if you're recruiting senior managers/directors you are going to run across the situation a lot where they have family connections to people that own or have significant interests in businesses, and if that's a finance director or other executive level of, they probably will be theoretically in a position to influence procurement decisions, were they so minded
Because the NHS is a massive organisation, it buys a lot of stuff, of a lot of different kinds, from a vast number of contractors and suppliers (in this case, document management services) so it would be impractical to say that no company with connections to the administration of the NHS should be able to compete for NHS contracts
I don't know that there's a good solution other than the existing one of transparency in public sector procurement
This is one of those aspects of Tory behaviour that is most grating, where they do something that even a child could judge to be morally corrupt then excuse it by saying "there's no law against it!". Yes Hypothetical Tory minister, that's what we're mad about! There obviously should be a law against it, and you're the one responsible for making the laws! The fact that all the self benefitting corruption you pull is within the letter of the law is the problem!
My favourite is "There's no law against it!"
"We notice that there were plans for a law against it, but you voted against it."
"...We consider the matter closed."
This is one of those aspects of Tory behaviour that is most grating, where they do something that even a child could judge to be morally corrupt then excuse it by saying "there's no law against it!". Yes Hypothetical Tory minister, that's what we're mad about! There obviously should be a law against it, and you're the one responsible for making the laws! The fact that all the self benefitting corruption you pull is within the letter of the law is the problem!
Remember the good old days of "Yes I claimed expenses to buy a luxury second home that i then rented out and yes I hired my family members at like 40000 to be a secretary, but it doesn't state in the rules that being an evil shit is wrong so we're cool right?" And then they kept their second homes and staff.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
[hollow screaming intensifies]
As expected the BBC response to the saturation coverage last week amounts to "lol, get fucked"
"We have arranged for 24 extra hours of broadcasting on Tuesday to make up for the time you lost"
"We've heard your feedback, and we'll do better the next time a consort dies"
"If you didn't like that, you're going to be fucking livid when Liz dies, let me tell you"
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
+12
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
[hollow screaming intensifies]
I didn't expect more than what I got, but some admission that they overstepped the mark a little by turning all their output over to the same "developing" (it wasn't) news story would have been nice.
"We acknowledge your complaint" feels a lot like "I'm sorry you were offended"
Probably just trying to appease flag-shaggers again. The slightest hint that maybe they went a smidge overboard and you can imagine the hysterical reaction from 83% of the UK print press...
For a significant number of viewers, replacing the final of MasterChef with programming celebrating the life of Prince Philip was the wrong decision. Quite how many would have complained if the BBC had done the opposite is the unanswered question.
Posts
Also boomers loudly proclaiming they don't want to be vaccinated, that has upset me more than knowing it'll be years before <60 can be vaccinated.
Crazy and unworkable, you say? Let's test it out, maybe with a small segment of the country that happens to include my house
Steam | XBL
A woman I work with and her husband who are 40 are getting their jab this weekend - contact your gp, and aks to sign up, and they put you on a reserve list.
I tried this to cover my other half and I as we are increasingly helping out with palliative care for an elderly relative who hasn't been able to get vaccinated. We got told that they emphasised with us and wanted us to get the jabs but the Fylde coast only has got enough supply to cover the second jabs of everyone who has already had the first. No additional stock at all
So now we're waiting until May when the next delivery is expected
My mum and dad got theirs early because they were looking after my gran (but weren't officially carers). It seems very dependent on local decisions
There’s a lot of local disparity. I’m 38, but I got my jab about a month ago because the mobile vaccination buses in Newcastle were desperate for people to take their doses at the end of the day. In this case the staff on the buses were calling any vague personal connection they had, starting with people like teachers or other key workers. So my wife got hers, and they asked her if I wanted mine doing too. I have no reason to be offered one, except it would have gone to waste if I didn’t. I think I asked about five times that I wasn’t taking someone else’s spot, but they kept telling me it was fine. Even now I feel guilty about it.
We found out later that the bus was in an area that’s generally quite bad for people missing doctor’s and hospital appointments, but they’d really hoped that turning up basically on their doorstep would help mitigate that. Apparently it did help, but the take up wasn’t perfect - hence the leftover doses.
Oh neat, Stirling Castle!
That's the name of my ABBA cover band!
Naturally, when a thorough inquiry was proposed by Labour, the tories closed ranks and voted against it en masse. They're insisting their own much more limited inquiry, which will doubtless find that they did nothing wrong, is adequate. Now if you could just place that issue under the rug...yes I know there's not much space in there... just jam it in with the PPE contracts... *ahem* "we consider the matter closed".
It does seem like this one will stick around for a while. Labour are trying to get the "tory sleaze" label to stick and this case might be a useful way to do it. From there they could expand into the other mountains of dodgy contracts the government have given out. Interestingly the BBC were leading with it on the televised news. I'm surprised they haven't been told to back off yet.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/14/boris-johnson-does-not-rule-out-more-officials-having-greensill-links
If a week is an eternity in politics, a couple days must be a good few eons at least.
so i'm dragging this back up from the other day
This book was amazing. I got it on audiobook and the experience of an Irish voice reading it to me was immersive to a creepy degree.
It's Narrative non-fiction and I highly recommend definitely reading all the way through, even the notes and the acknowledgements at the end.
I feel a lot more knowledgeable about this dramatic and traumatic, period of recent history.
Realizing that I was 14 when the GFA was signed but had no real idea about any of the conflict at all was really shocking.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Pretty much. I've never been that impressed by the reasoning there's nothing Starmer can do during the pandemic but sit on his hands and wait for it to pass, so I was pleased to see him actually pushing this one home. It's a wide open goal and not taking a shot at it would be Corbyn levels of ineptitude.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Yeah, while it might not sway votes yet, gaining a reputation for not being incompetent and holding the Tories to account, helps build credibility for when you do go into election season.
Will it be enough? Who knows. But better than sitting on the sidelines, hoping the Tories fuck themselves over, and the electorate give you an election by default.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Like in 1997. It wasn't just Tony Blair and his smile.
Helps that it's an accurate charge. The party of plutocrats can't seem to help themselves from gorging at the government trough.
Matt Hancock and sister own shares in NHS contract firm Granted I was a kid and not paying much attention at the time, but stories like this and other general sleaziness seeming to appear every week is my prevailing memory of the end of the Thatcher/Major government. Given enough time in control, the tories will stop feeling like they have to obey the rules.
All Starmer needs to do is say "isn't it dreadful" and then the papers will all be plastered with Greensill and then he can just repeatedly push the point that they're all noses to the trough
But wait, there's more! This wasn't a minor investment, he has 15% of the shares of the company. And his sister has a larger (unstated) percentage of shares. And I'm not even sure 'investment' is the right word since... So 'bribe' might be a better description there.
At an old job, I had to set up some contest submission forms for a website. These were extremely simple questions, like the TV ones which ask 'What is the Doctor's time machine named? A - The TARDIS, B - The Delorean, or C - The USS Enterprise'. Just a raffle, really.
It was a basic form, and I just filled out a test answer to make sure it was recorded properly.
I got in trouble for it, because I hadn't deleted it afterwards, and employees aren't allowed to enter the contest. This despite the fact that I put C as an answer.
This is actually a fairly common issue throughout the NHS, because if you're recruiting senior managers/directors you are going to run across the situation a lot where they have family connections to people that own or have significant interests in businesses, and if that's a finance director or other executive level of, they probably will be theoretically in a position to influence procurement decisions, were they so minded
Because the NHS is a massive organisation, it buys a lot of stuff, of a lot of different kinds, from a vast number of contractors and suppliers (in this case, document management services) so it would be impractical to say that no company with connections to the administration of the NHS should be able to compete for NHS contracts
I don't know that there's a good solution other than the existing one of transparency in public sector procurement
>.>
<.<
Steam | XBL
"We notice that there were plans for a law against it, but you voted against it."
"...We consider the matter closed."
Remember the good old days of "Yes I claimed expenses to buy a luxury second home that i then rented out and yes I hired my family members at like 40000 to be a secretary, but it doesn't state in the rules that being an evil shit is wrong so we're cool right?" And then they kept their second homes and staff.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
"We have arranged for 24 extra hours of broadcasting on Tuesday to make up for the time you lost"
"We've heard your feedback, and we'll do better the next time a consort dies"
"If you didn't like that, you're going to be fucking livid when Liz dies, let me tell you"
"We acknowledge your complaint" feels a lot like "I'm sorry you were offended"
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
Steam | XBL
That probably ought to be the official response, because it's very true.
Reading their piece here: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-56756296 I'm most interested in this specific line:
I really wonder what "the opposite" would be.
No, the outcome was good. They aren't doing a media shutdown for the funeral as planned