UK politics - Dry Your Eyes Mate, ...

[Hereward]

Typical Johnson, a day* late and a dollar short.

*Only a day being pretty impressive for him.

[ants]

11 hours ago, Hereward said:

Typical Johnson, a day* late and a dollar short.

*Only a day being pretty impressive for him.

He was waaayyyy more forceful in denouncing things than the Australian Prime Minister. 

[Spockydog]

Remember certain people saying that just because we had left the EU, Boris Johnson's government would not seek to remove any regulations designed to protect the people and the planet?

Government breaks promise to maintain ban on bee-harming pesticide

Quote

A pesticide believed to kill bees has been authorised for use in England despite an EU-wide ban two years ago and an explicit government pledge to keep the restrictions.

Following lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and British Sugar, a product containing the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam was sanctioned for emergency use on sugar beet seeds this year because of the threat posed by a virus.

Conservationists have described the decision as regressive and called for safeguards to prevent the pollution of rivers with rainwater containing the chemical at a time when British insects are in serious decline.

These fucking people. Cunts, the lot of 'em.

 

[Heartofice]

6 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Remember certain people saying that just because we had left the EU, Boris Johnson's government would not seek to remove any regulations designed to protect the people and the planet?

Government breaks promise to maintain ban on bee-harming pesticide

These fucking people. Cunts, the lot of 'em.

 

I feel like as usual you didn't read the article.

[Spockydog]

The EU agreed to a ban on all outdoor uses of thiamethoxam in 2018 to protect bees. When the UK pledged to back the ban, Michael Gove, then the environment secretary, said: “The weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to the bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our £100bn food industry, is greater than previously understood … We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.”

He also wrote in the Guardian: “Unless the evidence base changes again, the government will keep these restrictions in place after we have left the EU.”

Has the evidence changed? Will this stuff no longer kill bees? I don't fucking think so.

[Spockydog]

Oh, look. Turns out Bozo's Brexit deal isn't all it was cracked up to be. Quelle Surprise. 

Baffling Brexit rules threaten export chaos, Gove is warned

Quote

Ministers must restart trade negotiations with Brussels immediately to sort out the “baffling” array of post-Brexit rules and regulations that now threaten much of the UK’s export trade to the EU, leading business groups have said.

Amid mounting anger among UK firms at cross-border friction they were told would not exist, British manufacturing and trade organisations met Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove in an emergency session on Thursday to discuss problems resulting from the deal struck by Boris Johnson with the EU before Christmas.

The prime minister had hailed what he claimed was a “zero-tariff” and “zero-quotas” deal that would allow free and simple access to the single market. Less than a month on, however, Britain’s EU departure appears to be anything but pain-free.

One leading figure involved in the talks with Gove described the new rule book as a “complete shitshow”. Another said Gove seemed “very concerned” at hearing reports of problems, after a week in which Marks & Spencer was among leading companies to warn that more bureaucracy would increase costs. The source added: “He [Gove] seemed to realise the full gravity of the situation that is unfolding and about to get worse.”

Gove admitted on Friday that there would be “significant additional disruption” at UK borders as a result of Brexit customs changes in the coming weeks.

In the first week after the UK finally left both the single market and customs union, the parcels firm DPD suspended some of its services, bookseller Waterstones halted sales to customers in the EU and UK fishermen warned they would not be able to sell their fresh produce into EU markets because of delays at borders.

But, none of this matters, because less immigrants. Amirite?

[Heartofice]

Quote

The UK, however, has now joined EU countries including Belgium, Denmark and Spain in signing emergency authorisations for its use, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

So it’s not just the UK. Spain appears to be in the EU as well. So this really has nothing to do with what you were insinuating firstly.

Quote

 The temporary use of this product is strictly limited to a non-flowering crop and will be tightly controlled to minimise any potential risk to pollinators.”

So it’s a temporary measure used in an emergency, which a number of European countries are doing.  Very far from the over reaction in your post that so generously used the C word. I don’t want to say your making it sound like a conspiracy, that would be far too easy

[DaveSumm]

To repeat myself from somewhere: if someone says something racist, report them to mods. They should get reprimanded. If it’s not racist but you just don’t like it, ignore them. There’s a block feature if you need it. But just make your peace with it, stop picking fights where none exists. I take issue with people being accused of racism off the back of literally no comment at all, just cos you felt like having an argument today. If you find out new information about Brexit, that’s actually not HoI’s fault.

[ants]

A bit odd, the forum is telling me this topic is "hot" with over 150 posts ... yet I'm seeing less than 20 new ones.  Is that happenning with anyone else? 

[BigFatCoward]

It would be best if everyone just stopped this now. For a start i dont want to read it. Attack the post, not the poster. 

[Spockydog]

Just now, BigFatCoward said:

It would be best if everyone just stopped this now. For a start i dont want to read it. Attack the post, not the poster. 

Good idea. I'm off to watch the footie.

[BigFatCoward]

@Spockydog and @Heartofice after lockdown do you fancy going for a pint? Ill stream it to the board. 

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

@Spockydog and @Heartofice after lockdown do you fancy going for a pint? Ill stream it to the board. 

I’m up for it, though I have Klan meetings on Tuesdays and Thursday, and Saturdays I’m grand wizard bingo caller for our local royal legion. Oh and can’t do Mondays as then when we plan our invasions of Poland.. otherwise I’m free.

[Spockydog]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I’m up for it, though I have Klan meetings on Tuesdays and Thursday, and Saturdays I’m grand wizard bingo caller for our local royal legion. Oh and can’t do Mondays as then when we plan our invasions of Poland.. otherwise I’m free.

I'd love to, but I'm afraid I'll be updating my mad wall with the latest details I have uncovered about Elon Musk's evil plans to move to the moon and steal all the Helium 3 so we can never have fusion power.

Wibble.

[Spockydog]

21 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I’m up for it, though I have Klan meetings on Tuesdays and Thursday, and Saturdays I’m grand wizard bingo caller for our local royal legion. Oh and can’t do Mondays as then when we plan our invasions of Poland.. otherwise I’m free.

Well played. Peace.

[mormont]

[mod] Folks, while it's nice to see people resolve their differences or at least step down hostilities, it's annoying as hell for everyone else to have to watch you do it in public where they have to wade through it to read a thread topic. So, we discourage that. Take personal questions or discussions to PM - even personal disagreements, if you feel you can remain civil.

More seriously, a word was used on this thread that, as Hereward points out, is in a UK context considered an extremely nasty racial slur. Let me be clear about this: no use of that word on this board is acceptable. Not 'ironic', not as a joke, not attributed to someone else or quoting another post. No use of it in any context will be tolerated. For future reference. [/mod]

[Werthead]

The NHS is currently in a highly dangerous state. Assuming numbers follow the same pattern as during the first lockdown - and due to COVID-19 B117's much greater transmissibility, that is in some extreme doubt - we may still be several weeks away from seeing deaths and hospitalisations start to come down, probably more as infection rates still seem to be going up. Daily death figures have surpassed 1,300 and are heading to break the record of 1,500 set during the first lockdown in mid-April.

The NHS is currently running with an absence rate estimated at 12%, twice that during the first lockdown, with more people hospitalised and long queues forming at some hospitals before patients (not just COVID patients, everyone) can be admitted. This seems to be negating one of the achievements of the first lockdown, the development of treatments to help reduce the number of deaths. People seem to be dying who'd be fine if they could get into hospital, but they can't. 

A big problem with this lockdown is that it is in no way as comprehensive as the first. Many businesses are still open and many more people have been classified as "key workers" this time around. My friend is a head teacher in London and noted that during the first lockdown they only had around 50 children still attending a school of over a thousand, but during this lockdown it's closer to 300. The combination of a much looser lockdown and a much more transmissible virus would seem to suggest that we might be waiting a long time for figures to go down, if they even can under these conditions.

The good news is that the advent of the second vaccine seems to have given vaccination rates a boost and more than 2 million people have now been vaccinated in the first month of availability. We should get the hard figure on that tomorrow. They're also now ready to open the mass vaccination centres with volunteers giving the treatments, which should result in an explosion of vaccination figures in the coming weeks.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

I really feel like the Government is pinning too much on the vaccine having a profound impact too quickly so they can not have to lock down further.

[Derfel Cadarn]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

The NHS is currently in a highly dangerous state. Assuming numbers follow the same pattern as during the first lockdown - and due to COVID-19 B117's much greater transmissibility, that is in some extreme doubt - we may still be several weeks away from seeing deaths and hospitalisations start to come down, probably more as infection rates still seem to be going up. Daily death figures have surpassed 1,300 and are heading to break the record of 1,500 set during the first lockdown in mid-April.

The NHS is currently running with an absence rate estimated at 12%, twice that during the first lockdown, with more people hospitalised and long queues forming at some hospitals before patients (not just COVID patients, everyone) can be admitted. This seems to be negating one of the achievements of the first lockdown, the development of treatments to help reduce the number of deaths. People seem to be dying who'd be fine if they could get into hospital, but they can't. 

A big problem with this lockdown is that it is in no way as comprehensive as the first. Many businesses are still open and many more people have been classified as "key workers" this time around. My friend is a head teacher in London and noted that during the first lockdown they only had around 50 children still attending a school of over a thousand, but during this lockdown it's closer to 300. The combination of a much looser lockdown and a much more transmissible virus would seem to suggest that we might be waiting a long time for figures to go down, if they even can under these conditions.

The good news is that the advent of the second vaccine seems to have given vaccination rates a boost and more than 2 million people have now been vaccinated in the first month of availability. We should get the hard figure on that tomorrow. They're also now ready to open the mass vaccination centres with volunteers giving the treatments, which should result in an explosion of vaccination figures in the coming weeks.

NHS absence sounds a real problem.

A patient my wife (neuro theatre nurse) attended to on Friday (neg for covid) tested positivr on Saturday, so her and her colleagues who treated him have to isolate for 10 days. That’s 8 nurses, 2 anaesthetists and 2 surgeons removed from one dept by one patient alone. Not including any ward staff who came into contact with him.

Because of this, my wife had to cancel her vaccination for yesterday

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

I really feel like the Government is pinning too much on the vaccine having a profound impact too quickly so they can not have to lock down further.

I think it's all anyone can cling to at the minute. I'm not sure any lockdown would be well enough observed to generate the results required. Because for 10 months people have been given freedom to ignore the rules due to enforcement being so wishy washy.