UK Politics - We Don’t Want to See Your Papers, Please

[Spockydog]

US, UK and Australia forge military alliance to counter China

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The US, UK and Australia are setting up a trilateral security partnership aimed at confronting China, which will include helping Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines.

The initiative, called Aukus, was announced jointly by US president Joe Biden and prime ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison, joined virtually by videoconference. They presented it as the next critical step in an old alliance.

Morrison said teams from the three countries would draw up a joint plan over the coming 18 months for assembling the new Australian nuclear-powered submarine fleet, which will be built in Adelaide. The project will make Australia only the seventh country in the world to have submarines propelled by nuclear reactors.

 

What I want to know is what happens when Trump returns? Morrison apparently did not want him involved in this, so when he comes back in a couple of years will the scheme be scrapped?

[Spockydog]

Also, as Theresa May just asked, what happens when China invades Taiwan?

Do we go to war with China?

Glorious Leader basically refused to answer the question.

 

[DaveSumm]

This report from the ONS in August has the upper end of vaccine hesitancy in the UK at 7%:

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Areas that recorded the highest hesitancy rates during January to March had seen a reduction by April to July, such as Inner London East (13% to 7%), Outer London West and North West (12% to 7%), and West Wales and The Valleys (11% to 5%). 

…you’d think care home staff would sail under that number, but apparently they’re at 7% as well:

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Ministers have previously said they estimate that about 7% of the 570,000 CQC-registered care home staff in England – about 40,000 people – will refuse the vaccine and therefore no longer be able to care for elderly residents after 11 November.

How in the fuck you work in the care industry for the last 18 months, witness residents dying of Covid, see first hand the situation get vastly better as your residents and then colleagues get a vaccine, and then come out concluding “Hmm … yea, still not sure” I have no clue. Possibly that number includes those who can’t and ‘refuse’ isn’t the right word? I’m not sure.

I also have no idea which is worse, increasing their residents potential exposure to Covid or suddenly losing 7% of the staff. Both very bad options.

[Heartofice]

I wonder what percentage of care home staff have already had Covid and whether that is introducing their decision. 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Also, as Theresa May just asked, what happens when China invades Taiwan?

Do we go to war with China?

Glorious Leader basically refused to answer the question.

Effectively, yes. Or rather, the USA goes to war with China and we send a single submarine and a detachment of marines to help patrol Taipei Airport or something.

However, as discussed recently in the foreign events thread, the chances of China invading Taiwan in the imminent future are fairly remote. China has probably a 30-40% chance of winning a war against the United States at the moment, but in another ten to twenty years, that figure will likely increase above 50% and that's when they'll consider it. The only thing likely to upset that is Taiwan declaring independence unilaterally (which there is some support for in Taiwan, on the basis that doing that now will much more likely result in their actual independence - once they clear up the mess - then in another ten or twenty years).

China, the USA and the world would pay a horrific economic price for that, though.

[Week]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

I wonder what percentage of care home staff have already had Covid and whether that is introducing their decision. 

Resistance from previous infection is improved by a subsequent vaccination. This may be a 'reason' given, however it is incorrect to think there is no benefit. I imagine tracking/verifying resistance for compliance is more difficult to include suspected or even confirmed cases on addition to vaccine records. They should still get vaxxed.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/9/14/which-offers-the-best-protection-a-covid-infection-or-vaccines

 

[mormont]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

This report from the ONS in August has the upper end of vaccine hesitancy in the UK at 7%:

…you’d think care home staff would sail under that number, but apparently they’re at 7% as well:

How in the fuck you work in the care industry for the last 18 months, witness residents dying of Covid, see first hand the situation get vastly better as your residents and then colleagues get a vaccine, and then come out concluding “Hmm … yea, still not sure” I have no clue. Possibly that number includes those who can’t and ‘refuse’ isn’t the right word? I’m not sure.

I also have no idea which is worse, increasing their residents potential exposure to Covid or suddenly losing 7% of the staff. Both very bad options.

I'm not an expert but I believe that the 'free rider' problem exists with every vaccination - people who calculate that not every single individual needs to be vaccinated to produce herd immunity and decide that they will opt out, benefiting from the herd immunity without the need to get a vaccination. 7% seems like a fairly believable number for free riding in these conditions.

[Hereward]

I am highly dubious, given recent events, that that high a percentage of the population is capable of such intricate, if immoral, reasoning.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Effectively, yes. Or rather, the USA goes to war with China and we send a single submarine and a detachment of marines to help patrol Taipei Airport or something.

However, as discussed recently in the foreign events thread, the chances of China invading Taiwan in the imminent future are fairly remote. China has probably a 30-40% chance of winning a war against the United States at the moment, but in another ten to twenty years, that figure will likely increase above 50% and that's when they'll consider it. The only thing likely to upset that is Taiwan declaring independence unilaterally (which there is some support for in Taiwan, on the basis that doing that now will much more likely result in their actual independence - once they clear up the mess - then in another ten or twenty years).

China, the USA and the world would pay a horrific economic price for that, though.

I have a hard time seeing China actually engaging in a traditional war over Taiwan as the costs would massively outweigh the benefits. Wouldn't it be much more likely that they wait for a point in time where they think the U.S. and the West are least likely to intervene, and then annex Taiwan similarly to how Russia took Crimea? 

[Werthead]

The UK government setting out a requirement for public service broadcasters to make shows that are "distinctively British" without spelling out what that means. Slightly oddly, they unironically number Derry Girls among those shows. They also mentioned Planet Earth, Fleabag, Only Fools and Horses, Top Gear, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, The Great British Bake-Off and The Bodyguard. Interestingly, some recent successes like It's a Sin, Years & Years, I May Destroy You, Luther and Top Boy were not mentioned. 

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I have a hard time seeing China actually engaging in a traditional war over Taiwan as the costs would massively outweigh the benefits. Wouldn't it be much more likely that they wait for a point in time where they think the U.S. and the West are least likely to intervene, and then annex Taiwan similarly to how Russia took Crimea? 

Given that Crimea already had Russian military forces and a massive military base already within it, the majority of the population appears to have genuinely wanted to remain part of Russia, Russia and Crimea were separated by just a few miles of water easily bridged by ferries and boats with no opposed landings (so close they literally built a bridge from nothing in a couple of years), and Crimea did not have a guarantee of American defence, then no, China cannot "annex Taiwan" as easily as Russia took Crimea. The two situations are completely different.

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be opposed by the Taiwanese military, which would be defeated but not without heavy Chinese casualties. Taiwan's coast allows massed landings at around only a dozen sites, which can be covered by artillery and short-range fire. Chinese aerial superiority would eradiate those defences, but Taiwanese AA systems are capable of shooting down Chinese aircraft (they're not rocking anything comparable to top-tier US fighters and bombers with a stealth capability). China would win but it would cost them. American assistance to Taiwan would make a successful Chinese landing right now doubtful. In a few more years when China has a ton more warships, better fighters and better missiles and AA systems, that equation will change dramatically. You also have to consider that although a hypothetic future isolationist US might decide not to protect Taiwan, countries like Japan and Australia might have to make a dramatically different calculation on what's happening in their backyard.

China might think the West are least likely to intervene now, having turned tail and ran out on Afghanistan, but the weakness there is that China is also not seriously prepared for an invasion of Taiwan. Their current wargamed plan requires using a ton of car ferries from Shanghai and Hong Kong to carry armour and large numbers of ground troops, which experts are divided over the effectiveness of under opposed fire.

[Werthead]

The slight problem here is that lots of people now primarily use metric, so places that only use imperial measurements might find confused younger customers going elsewhere, so they'll probably continue to use both as they've been perfectly free to do for the past two decades.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I have a hard time seeing China actually engaging in a traditional war over Taiwan as the costs would massively outweigh the benefits. Wouldn't it be much more likely that they wait for a point in time where they think the U.S. and the West are least likely to intervene, and then annex Taiwan similarly to how Russia took Crimea? 

1. You are underestimating the significance of Taiwan to the Chinese. It's not merely an economic or geo political issue. For the Chinese this is a matter of national identiy/pride/whatever. So don't underestimate their determination, and the lengths they'd go to, to get that rogue province back to heel. Check Xi speech from early July.

Either way, the Chinese army has actual training sites, that are exact replicas of the Taiwanese Presidential Office Building. Go figure. If you think that's merely empty talk, I can't help you.

2. Arguably, yes. But then again, the US are on the retreat from the World Stage. It started under Obama, and got way more momentum under number 45. So had the orange one won a second term, there's a pretty good chance that they could've gone there before the end of this decade.

 

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The slight problem here is that lots of people now primarily use metric, so places that only use imperial measurements might find confused younger customers going elsewhere, so they'll probably continue to use both as they've been perfectly free to do for the past two decades.

Yeah, but this is a policy designed to appeal to people over 50.

It's highly unlikely that any large consumer brand or supermarket will want to muck about with sourcing or producing different packaging for the UK market (by which I mean different size cartons, bottles, cans, jars, etc. rather than labels) so for most this will mean, at best, going back to dual measures listed on the label.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Effectively, yes. Or rather, the USA goes to war with China and we send a single submarine and a detachment of marines to help patrol Taipei Airport or something.

However, as discussed recently in the foreign events thread, the chances of China invading Taiwan in the imminent future are fairly remote. China has probably a 30-40% chance of winning a war against the United States at the moment, but in another ten to twenty years, that figure will likely increase above 50% and that's when they'll consider it. The only thing likely to upset that is Taiwan declaring independence unilaterally (which there is some support for in Taiwan, on the basis that doing that now will much more likely result in their actual independence - once they clear up the mess - then in another ten or twenty years).

China, the USA and the world would pay a horrific economic price for that, though.

I would think that China would only invade Taiwan when it is 90% sure the USA won't even go to war with them over Taiwan. There is no way China wants a shooting war with the USA, so why would it invade Taiwan when a US assessment would be that they have an even chance of beating China back and China loses all claim to Taiwan forever? The US appetite for war over Taiwan will fall away precipitately when the chance of China winning goes over 60%. When China assesses a War with the USA over Taiwan has a >60% chance of a China win, then they will confidently conclude that there won't be a war, and they will walk in unopposed. The world will voice loud disappointment, and then things will return to more or less normal.

[Heartofice]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

The slight problem here is that lots of people now primarily use metric, so places that only use imperial measurements might find confused younger customers going elsewhere, so they'll probably continue to use both as they've been perfectly free to do for the past two decades.

Well it’s all a bit mixed. I tend to measure most weights now in metric, except for maybe myself sometimes in stones. I measure lengths of things in metric, except for people.. or penises, which are imperial of course.

Either way I think the law is more about removing the ban on using other measures that the EU  brought in , so yeah will probably have zero real world effect

[The Anti-Targ]

I thought from other people's posts there was no ban on using non-metric units, it's just that if you are going to only use one unit for your labeling it has to be metric.

A technical Brexit win, I suppose.

[Soylent Brown]

Yes, it will be great to finally be able to order a pint again, after all these years of having to ask for 568ml of beer instead.

[Spockydog]

 

[Spockydog]

Hooray! Another Brexit benefit...

(The Guardian also reported on this, but linking the BBC story as the Guardian's story is literally throbbing with agenda because they just want to terrify everyone.)

Marks & Spencer blames Brexit as it closes 11 French stores

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Marks & Spencer has said it is closing 11 of its French stores because of problems supplying them with fresh and chilled foods since Brexit.

The UK retail giant said all 11 franchise stores it operated with partner SFH in France would shut by the end of this year.

M&S said supply chain problems since Brexit had made it "near impossible" to maintain standards of food supply.

Nine M&S stores run at French travel hubs will continue to operate.

"M&S has a long history of serving customers in France and this is not a decision we or our partner SFH have taken lightly," said Paul Friston, M&S managing director of international.

"However, as things stand today, the supply chain complexities in place following the UK's exit from the European Union now make it near impossible for us to serve fresh and chilled products to customers to the high standards they expect, resulting in an ongoing impact to the performance of our business.

"With no workable alternative for the High Street stores, we have agreed with SFH to close all 11 franchised stores."

 

[Spockydog]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Either way I think the law is more about removing the ban on using other measures that the EU  brought in , so yeah will probably have zero real world effect

What will happen is that your 500g of pickled pigs feet will now be 1lb of pickled pigs feet, which is 453g. The price, however, will remain the same.

Win, win, win!