UK Politics Thread IX: Try turning the UK off and on again.

[Risottia]

..Brussels will start a trade war with Britain if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit treaty ...

I'd high time the EU trashed unilaterally the Brexit treaty. It's clear Britain has no intention to uphold their word. And build that bloody hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

[The Huskar Social Union]

So it technically happened in the Republic but because Sinn Fein is an all island party i thought i would mention it here: They gave instructions for party members to disguise themselves as workers for a non existent polling company to secretly canvass their supporters before and during elections. Providing them with fake badges and instructions on how to pass themselves off as poll workers to collect data on their voters.



Copy and pasted the article since its a pay walled article.

Well I have to hand it to them, I've not seen that one before.

So would this technically be illegal? There is no monetary gain but its surely shady to pass yourselves off as a fake polling company to gather information about how voters would vote?

[Dakini]

Also I see that the Daily Mail is gnashing its teeth about No Go Zones where non-Muslims are banned again.

Despite three weeks ago describing one of them as a property hotspot.

I laughed when they added Edinburgh to that list. It's the whitest place I've lived, but somehow is a "no go" zone for white people.

[Vassenor]

Also I see that the Daily Mail is gnashing its teeth about No Go Zones where non-Muslims are banned again.

Despite three weeks ago describing one of them as a property hotspot.

I laughed when they added Edinburgh to that list. It's the whitest place I've lived, but somehow is a "no go" zone for white people.

It is like they just put a list of towns and boroughs on a wall and then throw darts at it to decide where they're going to claim is a no-go zone next.

[Dakini]

People in the 25-30 age range in England (which I imagine is quite a few of you), there is good news and bad news.

Good news: the online booking system will now allow you to book a vaccination appointment.
Bad news: you can't actually book a vaccination appointment, because they just opened booking to 4 million mostly very tech-savvy people, and they're all trying to book simultaneously.

Is the UK really that far behind in vaccinations? Here in the US we opened vaccinations for that group months ago

Scotland opened up vaccinations to over 18s a few weeks ago. I don't know why England just opened them up to 25+ now.

Is the UK really that far behind in vaccinations? Here in the US we opened vaccinations for that group months ago

We're not behind: we're prioritising. The US got through the highest-risk categories then went "fuck it, open it up for everybody". We kept on working our way down in 2-5 year jumps all the way through the age range. We're aiming for maximal death rate reduction in a context where we have extremely high uptake and relatively limited (in the short term) capacity and very low background transmission, whereas the US is aiming for a mixture of death rate and transmission reduction in a context with lower uptake, higher capacity, and higher background transmission.

No, England seems behind. Scotland prioritised the highest risk people, even going so far as to ensure everyone in a care home was taken care of before moving onto the general population (while people were going on about how it was lagging behind England) and it managed to open up vaccinations to 18+ weeks ago (iirc, it is ahead of England on total vaccinations per capita as well).

Hell, I'm in the EU (which is apparently hopelessly behind) and I got vaccinated before a lot of my friends my age in the UK. Some of my friends in Canada have had two doses while people my age in the UK were barely being offered the vaccine.

[Dakini]

I laughed when they added Edinburgh to that list. It's the whitest place I've lived, but somehow is a "no go" zone for white people.

It is like they just put a list of towns and boroughs on a wall and then throw darts at it to decide where they're going to claim is a no-go zone next.

It's the Daily Heil. They've gotta tell people to live in fear of brown people as much as possible because that's what their readers want.

[Vassenor]

Is the UK really that far behind in vaccinations? Here in the US we opened vaccinations for that group months ago

Scotland opened up vaccinations to over 18s a few weeks ago. I don't know why England just opened them up to 25+ now.

We're not behind: we're prioritising. The US got through the highest-risk categories then went "fuck it, open it up for everybody". We kept on working our way down in 2-5 year jumps all the way through the age range. We're aiming for maximal death rate reduction in a context where we have extremely high uptake and relatively limited (in the short term) capacity and very low background transmission, whereas the US is aiming for a mixture of death rate and transmission reduction in a context with lower uptake, higher capacity, and higher background transmission.

No, England seems behind. Scotland prioritised the highest risk people, even going so far as to ensure everyone in a care home was taken care of before moving onto the general population (while people were going on about how it was lagging behind England) and it managed to open up vaccinations to 18+ weeks ago (iirc, it is ahead of England on total vaccinations per capita as well).

Hell, I'm in the EU (which is apparently hopelessly behind) and I got vaccinated before a lot of my friends my age in the UK. Some of my friends in Canada have had two doses while people my age in the UK were barely being offered the vaccine.

But we keep being told that the UK's rollout is the best in the world and noone could do it better.

[Dakini]

Scotland opened up vaccinations to over 18s a few weeks ago. I don't know why England just opened them up to 25+ now.


No, England seems behind. Scotland prioritised the highest risk people, even going so far as to ensure everyone in a care home was taken care of before moving onto the general population (while people were going on about how it was lagging behind England) and it managed to open up vaccinations to 18+ weeks ago (iirc, it is ahead of England on total vaccinations per capita as well).

Hell, I'm in the EU (which is apparently hopelessly behind) and I got vaccinated before a lot of my friends my age in the UK. Some of my friends in Canada have had two doses while people my age in the UK were barely being offered the vaccine.

But we keep being told that the UK's rollout is the best in the world and noone could do it better.

Well, Wales is doing the best in the world and all four home countries are in the top 10, but England seems slow at rolling the vaccine out to all age groups since they're just starting 25+ now.

Also, I was probably able to get vaccinated because I really wanted to. I get the feeling that the Romanian government can't organise a piss up in a brewery and I'm not sure that they've done a great job at reducing vaccination hesitancy. There seem to be plenty of doses and lots of appointment slots (assuming you have all the right paperwork and know how to get online).

[The Archregimancy]

..Brussels will start a trade war with Britain if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit treaty ...

I'd high time the EU trashed unilaterally the Brexit treaty. It's clear Britain has no intention to uphold their word. And build that bloody hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

Unfortunately, that hard border would breach the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland, and I'm not sure it would be sensible for the EU to be in the position of being the party that initiated that breach.

The difficulties involved in the United Kingdom maintaining its commitments to the Good Friday Agreement while leaving a European Union of which the Republic of Ireland remains a member are at the core of the current issues; but if someone has to be seen to breach the agreement (stressing that I very much hope we don't reach that point), I think it would be sensible for the EU to allow the United Kingdom to be the party that takes the initiative in both breaching our existing agreements with the EU and the Good Friday Agreement.

So, while appreciating your frustration, I would advise patience - if only for the optics of avoiding blame over the potential consequences.

[The Huskar Social Union]

..Brussels will start a trade war with Britain if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit treaty ...

I'd high time the EU trashed unilaterally the Brexit treaty. It's clear Britain has no intention to uphold their word. And build that bloody hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

How about fucking no. Might not mean much to you but i dont want my home's economy and stability being monumentally fucked over and risk turning in another god dam fucking conflict. We already have enough problems here in NI with the sea border with the UK being completely unprepared for it and lying their asses off and now you want to make it worse and try and implement a border between NI and the Republic?

The border between NI and the Republic is literally impossible to police/man effectively. Even during the troubles when the Army was literally blowing up some back roads to keep the amount of crossings limited they still couldn't do it properly.

A border between NI and the Republic with any kind of border infrastructure to facilitate checks is impossible and a monumentally stupid idea pushed forward by people either out of spite or because they have no idea what the fuck they are talking about.

edit: I fucking despise Brexit. What a non stop fucking shit show helmed by incompetent morons. Now i have to sit and watch as my home is bandied around as a threat against the other side and vice versa. What a fucking joke the last few years have been.

[The Nihilistic view]

Is the UK really that far behind in vaccinations? Here in the US we opened vaccinations for that group months ago

Scotland opened up vaccinations to over 18s a few weeks ago. I don't know why England just opened them up to 25+ now.

We're not behind: we're prioritising. The US got through the highest-risk categories then went "fuck it, open it up for everybody". We kept on working our way down in 2-5 year jumps all the way through the age range. We're aiming for maximal death rate reduction in a context where we have extremely high uptake and relatively limited (in the short term) capacity and very low background transmission, whereas the US is aiming for a mixture of death rate and transmission reduction in a context with lower uptake, higher capacity, and higher background transmission.

No, England seems behind. Scotland prioritised the highest risk people, even going so far as to ensure everyone in a care home was taken care of before moving onto the general population (while people were going on about how it was lagging behind England) and it managed to open up vaccinations to 18+ weeks ago (iirc, it is ahead of England on total vaccinations per capita as well).

Hell, I'm in the EU (which is apparently hopelessly behind) and I got vaccinated before a lot of my friends my age in the UK. Some of my friends in Canada have had two doses while people my age in the UK were barely being offered the vaccine.

People need to stop talking at cross purposes. The origional point was is the UK behind the US. Similar levels of coverage but different strategies. My 13 year old cousin has had the first dose in the US, my 18 year old cousin both. No health conditions. That's the difference.

If your friends in Canada experience is more like that of America, that doesn't mean they are ahead. It just means they aren't prioritising risk in the same way we are. Because by doses per head of the population it's clear Canada and the EU is well behind.

It's nothing to be proud of younger people getting the vaccine before older people. That means one of two things, either the government isn't prioritising by risk or more worryingly the uptake is far lower outside the UK. And that really will be a problem if a Country like America is done at say 120 doses per 100 people. Effectively that means 40% of the population aren't vaccinated seeing as you need 200 doses per 100 people at the present time for 100% coverage.

[Dakini]

Scotland opened up vaccinations to over 18s a few weeks ago. I don't know why England just opened them up to 25+ now.


No, England seems behind. Scotland prioritised the highest risk people, even going so far as to ensure everyone in a care home was taken care of before moving onto the general population (while people were going on about how it was lagging behind England) and it managed to open up vaccinations to 18+ weeks ago (iirc, it is ahead of England on total vaccinations per capita as well).

Hell, I'm in the EU (which is apparently hopelessly behind) and I got vaccinated before a lot of my friends my age in the UK. Some of my friends in Canada have had two doses while people my age in the UK were barely being offered the vaccine.

People need to stop talking at cross purposes. The origional point was is the UK behind the US. Similar levels of coverage but different strategies. My 13 year old cousin has had the first dose in the US, my 18 year old cousin both. No health conditions. That's the difference.

If your friends in Canada experience is more like that of America, that doesn't mean they are ahead. It just means they aren't prioritising risk in the same way we are. Because by doses per head of the population it's clear Canada and the EU is well behind.

Nope. None of my friends in Canada who were vaccinated recently have health conditions. They just jumped at the chance as soon as their age group became eligible for the vaccine. Some of them got end of the day appointments and that kind of thing, but the ones who had health conditions were vaccinated months ago, not weeks ago.

Also, did you check the link I provided? Canada is ahead of Northern Ireland and rapidly catching up to England on vaccinations per capita. Canada mostly had trouble obtaining the vaccine early on because it doesn't have the ability to produce vaccines (the vaccine labs in Canada were privatised by a previous government and then the private corporation moved to the USA) and some countries decided that they would rather refuse to export vaccines than honour contracts with other countries.

It's nothing to be proud of younger people getting the vaccine before older people. That means one of two things, either the government isn't prioritising by risk or more worryingly the uptake is far lower outside the UK. And that really will be a problem if a Country like America is done at say 120 doses per 100 people. Effectively that means 40% of the population aren't vaccinated seeing as you need 200 doses per 100 people at the present time for 100% coverage.

Older people in Canada got the vaccine months ago. They were eligible earlier, after all. My grandmother in the USA has been vaccinated for four or five months, my parents in Canada got their vaccines at least two months ago... my friends my age started getting them last month.

And as I said earlier, Scotland did a better job prioritising the most vulnerable at the start of the vaccination campaign than England did and it was accused of going too slowly with its vaccination campaign as a result (usually accompanied by the typical "SNP bad" rhetoric). However, the detailed and thorough work early on meant that it could move through the rest of the population much quicker and open vaccinations up to younger ages sooner while England was still slowly working through people in care homes at the same time it was vaccinating the general population. Now Scotland is ahead of England and Wales is ahead of everyone (I forget their strategy, but I seem to recall a time when the English were looking down on Welsh efforts too). Oh, and the website has been turning away 25-29 year olds saying that they aren't eligible as well. Super well organised.

[Old Tyrannia]

So it technically happened in the Republic but because Sinn Fein is an all island party i thought i would mention it here: Party members disguised themselves as workers for a non existent polling company to secretly canvass their supporters before and during elections. They were provided with with fake badges and instructions on how to pass themselves off as poll workers to collect data on their voters.

"Sinn Féin provided party members with fake ID badges and instructions on how to misrepresent themselves as pollsters to survey households before and during elections. An internal training manual reveals how activists were given detailed instructions on how to pose as researchers working for a polling company to covertly question voters. The 77-page document set out how Sinn Féin members should ask voters about their intentions under the guise of the “Irish Market Research Agency” (IMRA), which does not exist.

The Irish Independent asked the other political parties whether their members had ever posed as market researchers to collect information on voters. Fianna Fáil said it was “not aware” of its members doing so and the Labour Party said covert polling had not been done with the “knowledge or with the sanction” of party headquarters.

Fine Gael said the majority of polling it used was carried out by private research companies.

However, a spokesperson added: “Occasionally, polling would have been carried out by the organisation locally without direct supervision of headquarters.” The Social Democrats and People Before Profit said they had not posed as market researchers. Sinn Féin’s “Election Toolkit Dublin 2015” included sample ballot papers featuring an IMRA logo along with a page of printable ‘authorisation’ badges for the fake opinion poll firm.

The ID badges falsely describe IMRA as an “independent organisation that is dedicated to the compiling of accurate, political and social information in Ireland”.

“Properly designed and implemented opinion polling can be a very accurate and a useful intelligence tool for those running the political strategy side of the election campaign,” the document said.

In reference to real opinion poll companies, it added: “You are not RED C or Millward Brown and you don’t need to be so keep it simple.” The election manual gave Sinn Féin members detailed instructions on how research should be conducted when posing as the fake research firm. These included getting a clipboard, some sample ballots and an ID badge for the fake polling company. Sinn Féin canvassers were told to tell people they surveyed that they are “casually employed” by IMRA for one day only. They were to say the non-existent polling company ws based in Dublin. The information collated from the face-to-face surveys of voters was broken down by electoral divisions and entered in spreadsheets for analysis.

The election manual said the party was “of the view that the greater the amount of electoral, political and demographic data available to us, then the greater the opportunity there is for Sinn Féin to shape and mould its message to the electorate”. “It gives us the opportunity to micro-message to several sectors of our electorate, to adopt our capacity for best effect, and it allows us to expose our opponents in their own backyard,” it added. The manual said Sinn Féin used this type of “organised opinion polling” in several election campaigns since 2010 and most were “well within the margin of error when it came to results”. It said opinion polling by Sinn Féin activists was carried out ahead of the Donegal South West by-election in 2010 and 36pc of the people surveyed said they would vote for Pearse Doherty. Mr Doherty, now Sinn Fein deputy leader, got just under 40pc of the vote after ballots were counted. Ahead of the 2011 general election, Sinn Féin members carried out a covert opinion poll of Louth that found 25pc of people saying they would vote for Gerry Adams two weeks before polling day.

The former party leader got almost 22pc of the vote on election day. In response to queries about the fake polling company, a Sinn Féin spokesperson said: “All parties conduct private local opinion polling. The document you are referring to is many years old and these days we generally use professional companies for this service.” Sinn Féin said the information it collected from the opinion poll was anonymous and not entered into the party’s controversial voter database, the Abú system. The party did not respond to questions asking whether it believed it was ethical for its members to misrepresent themselves as workers from a research firm when knocking on doors and engaging with voters."

Copy and pasted the article since its a pay walled article.

Sinn Féin showing a flexible commitment to law and the transparency of the democratic process? Colour me shocked.

..Brussels will start a trade war with Britain if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit treaty ...

I'd high time the EU trashed unilaterally the Brexit treaty. It's clear Britain has no intention to uphold their word. And build that bloody hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

I have mixed feelings on this because on the one hand, I sincerely don't want to see the already fraught situation in Northern Ireland deteriorate any further given the likely conclusion would be a return to the Troubles; however, on the other hand it would benefit "my" political side- i.e. Eurosceptics and Northern Irish unionists- if the EU and the Republic of Ireland were the ones to break the Northern Ireland protocol and the Good Friday Agreement by attempting to impose a hard border between Northern Ireland and the South. As things stand it's difficult to defend my position when the pro-Brexit and unionist leadership in both Belfast and London insist on acting recklessly and illogically. It would be nice for the pro-EU side to be the ones having to cover for the stupidity and malice of their leaders for once.

[The Huskar Social Union]

SF sources tell me this evening it isn’t a done deal that Paul Givan will be appointed First Minister next Monday - as they’re still waiting for a timetable from Edwin Poots on when Irish language legislation will be passed

[The Archregimancy]

A little bit of humorous irony to leaven your afternoon...

How many of you remember Lembit Öpik, the slightly geeky Northern Ireland-born ethnic Estonian former LibDem MP for Montgomeryshire who became a figure of fun, but also baffled much of the UK with his success in dating Welsh meteorologist Siân Lloyd and half of the Romanian pop duo the Cheeky Girls - best known for the immortal 'Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)'?

Mr Öpik has just been expelled from the Liberal Democrats after appearing at a recent Conservative Party Welsh Senedd election event called 'How to Stop the Lib Dems, an insiders guide on how the Lib Dems plan their campaigns'. In the course of this event, Mr Öpik offered the opinions that his former party had 'become a parody of itself' and suggested that there is 'currently no vaccine against stupidity'.

Now, I appreciate that more than a few of you likely find yourselves in sympathy with Mr Öpik's general point, but it's important to stress that this is Lembit Öpik we're speaking about, a man who became considered such a vacuous celebrity-seeking self-parody of a politician that he managed to lose one of the historically safest LibDem seats in the country in 2010 - at the height of Cleggmania, on a swing of more than 12% against him - when his small-c conservative rural Welsh constituents finally tired of being represented by a politician best known for the eccentricity of his lifestyle.

So those comments are more than a bit rich coming from someone who came to embody unintentional political self-parody.

For historical context, Mr Öpik represented Montgomeryshire from 1997-2010. Up until 2010, this was one of the historically safest LibDem seats in the country, second only to with Orkney & Shetland, with a continuous history of Liberal and LibDem representation from 1880 through 2010, except for the brief period 1979-1983 (pedants will point out that Clement Davies held the seat as a Liberal National from 1931-45, but he first won it as a Liberal in 1929, and went on to become leader of the post-war Liberals at their 1950s nadir after returning to the Liberal fold to win the seat again in 1945). Losing this seat in 2010 required a certain level of political ineptitude.


Mr Öpik is today the Parliamentary Chairman of the Space Nation of Asgardia.

[The Nihilistic view]

People need to stop talking at cross purposes. The origional point was is the UK behind the US. Similar levels of coverage but different strategies. My 13 year old cousin has had the first dose in the US, my 18 year old cousin both. No health conditions. That's the difference.

If your friends in Canada experience is more like that of America, that doesn't mean they are ahead. It just means they aren't prioritising risk in the same way we are. Because by doses per head of the population it's clear Canada and the EU is well behind.

Nope. None of my friends in Canada who were vaccinated recently have health conditions. They just jumped at the chance as soon as their age group became eligible for the vaccine. Some of them got end of the day appointments and that kind of thing, but the ones who had health conditions were vaccinated months ago, not weeks ago.

Also, did you check the link I provided? Canada is ahead of Northern Ireland and rapidly catching up to England on vaccinations per capita. Canada mostly had trouble obtaining the vaccine early on because it doesn't have the ability to produce vaccines (the vaccine labs in Canada were privatised by a previous government and then the private corporation moved to the USA) and some countries decided that they would rather refuse to export vaccines than honour contracts with other countries.

It's nothing to be proud of younger people getting the vaccine before older people. That means one of two things, either the government isn't prioritising by risk or more worryingly the uptake is far lower outside the UK. And that really will be a problem if a Country like America is done at say 120 doses per 100 people. Effectively that means 40% of the population aren't vaccinated seeing as you need 200 doses per 100 people at the present time for 100% coverage.

Older people in Canada got the vaccine months ago. They were eligible earlier, after all. My grandmother in the USA has been vaccinated for four or five months, my parents in Canada got their vaccines at least two months ago... my friends my age started getting them last month.

And as I said earlier, Scotland did a better job prioritising the most vulnerable at the start of the vaccination campaign than England did and it was accused of going too slowly with its vaccination campaign as a result. However, the detailed and thorough work early on meant that it could move through the rest of the population much quicker and open vaccinations up to younger ages sooner while England was still slowly working through people in care homes at the same time it was vaccinating the general population. Now Scotland is ahead of England and Wales is ahead of everyone (I forget their strategy, but I seem to recall a time when the English were looking down on Welsh efforts too).

Ah you are getting confused between first dose coverage and overall doses.

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/202 ... cinations/

So the UK is on 101 and Canada is on 71. Yes that means we are ahead, quite a long way ahead.

It's all going fine, NI the worst country is on 95, Scotland is about 2 doses ahead of England (much wow) and Wales about 7. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-c ... per-capita

The same policy has basically been followed all over the UK, I'm not sure why people feel the need to split them out. We are one country.

[Dakini]

Nope. None of my friends in Canada who were vaccinated recently have health conditions. They just jumped at the chance as soon as their age group became eligible for the vaccine. Some of them got end of the day appointments and that kind of thing, but the ones who had health conditions were vaccinated months ago, not weeks ago.

Also, did you check the link I provided? Canada is ahead of Northern Ireland and rapidly catching up to England on vaccinations per capita. Canada mostly had trouble obtaining the vaccine early on because it doesn't have the ability to produce vaccines (the vaccine labs in Canada were privatised by a previous government and then the private corporation moved to the USA) and some countries decided that they would rather refuse to export vaccines than honour contracts with other countries.


Older people in Canada got the vaccine months ago. They were eligible earlier, after all. My grandmother in the USA has been vaccinated for four or five months, my parents in Canada got their vaccines at least two months ago... my friends my age started getting them last month.

And as I said earlier, Scotland did a better job prioritising the most vulnerable at the start of the vaccination campaign than England did and it was accused of going too slowly with its vaccination campaign as a result. However, the detailed and thorough work early on meant that it could move through the rest of the population much quicker and open vaccinations up to younger ages sooner while England was still slowly working through people in care homes at the same time it was vaccinating the general population. Now Scotland is ahead of England and Wales is ahead of everyone (I forget their strategy, but I seem to recall a time when the English were looking down on Welsh efforts too).

Ah you are getting confused between first dose coverage and overall doses.

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/202 ... cinations/

So the UK is on 101 and Canada is on 71. Yes that means we are ahead, quite a long way ahead.

It's all going fine, NI the worst country is on 95, Scotland is about 2 doses ahead of England (much wow) and Wales about 7. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-c ... per-capita

Yes, the UK had a head start because it was one of those countries that was refusing to export vaccines produced in the UK despite contracts that might exist with other countries. Canada is doing remarkably well considering it started later.

The same policy has basically been followed all over the UK, I'm not sure why people feel the need to split them out. We are one country.

Because the different home countries definitely have used different strategies for distributing the vaccine and until England was surpassed by Wales and Scotland, it seemed like certain people had no problem comparing the different home countries.

[The Nihilistic view]

Ah you are getting confused between first dose coverage and overall doses.

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/202 ... cinations/

So the UK is on 101 and Canada is on 71. Yes that means we are ahead, quite a long way ahead.

It's all going fine, NI the worst country is on 95, Scotland is about 2 doses ahead of England (much wow) and Wales about 7. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-c ... per-capita

Yes, the UK had a head start because it was one of those countries that was refusing to export vaccines produced in the UK despite contracts that might exist with other countries. Canada is doing remarkably well considering it started later.

The same policy has basically been followed all over the UK, I'm not sure why people feel the need to split them out. We are one country.

Because the different home countries definitely have used different strategies for distributing the vaccine and until England was surpassed by Wales and Scotland, it seemed like certain people had no problem comparing the different home countries.

First no there has been no export ban. There is a difference between a good commercial contract and an export ban. Second I never said Canada was doing badly, just rejecting it's done better than the UK so far because some lower age groups got a dose earlier.

I've never passed comment on the UK race. It's not important we have a finite amount of doses and we are all British.

[Ifreann]

A little bit of humorous irony to leaven your afternoon...

How many of you remember Lembit Öpik, the slightly geeky Northern Ireland-born ethnic Estonian former LibDem MP for Montgomeryshire who became a figure of fun, but also baffled much of the UK with his success in dating Welsh meteorologist Siân Lloyd and half of the Romanian pop duo the Cheeky Girls - best known for the immortal 'Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)'?

Mr Öpik has just been expelled from the Liberal Democrats after appearing at a recent Conservative Party Welsh Senedd election event called 'How to Stop the Lib Dems, an insiders guide on how the Lib Dems plan their campaigns'. In the course of this event, Mr Öpik offered the opinions that his former party had 'become a parody of itself' and suggested that there is 'currently no vaccine against stupidity'.

Now, I appreciate that more than a few of you likely find yourselves in sympathy with Mr Öpik's general point, but it's important to stress that this is Lembit Öpik we're speaking about, a man who became considered such a vacuous celebrity-seeking self-parody of a politician that he managed to lose one of the historically safest LibDem seats in the country in 2010 - at the height of Cleggmania, on a swing of more than 12% against him - when his small-c conservative rural Welsh constituents finally tired of being represented by a politician best known for the eccentricity of his lifestyle.

So those comments are more than a bit rich coming from someone who came to embody unintentional political self-parody.

For historical context, Mr Öpik represented Montgomeryshire from 1997-2010. Up until 2010, this was one of the historically safest LibDem seats in the country, second only to with Orkney & Shetland, with a continuous history of Liberal and LibDem representation from 1880 through 2010, except for the brief period 1979-1983 (pedants will point out that Clement Davies held the seat as a Liberal National from 1931-45, but he first won it as a Liberal in 1929, and went on to become leader of the post-war Liberals at their 1950s nadir after returning to the Liberal fold to win the seat again in 1945). Losing this seat in 2010 required a certain level of political ineptitude.

Well there you go, clearly a man with relevant expertise on how one goes about beating the Lib Dems.

Mr Öpik is today the Parliamentary Chairman of the Space Nation of Asgardia.

I would have thought he'd be on the Butlins circuit or something.

[Dakini]

Yes, the UK had a head start because it was one of those countries that was refusing to export vaccines produced in the UK despite contracts that might exist with other countries. Canada is doing remarkably well considering it started later.


Because the different home countries definitely have used different strategies for distributing the vaccine and until England was surpassed by Wales and Scotland, it seemed like certain people had no problem comparing the different home countries.

First no there has been no export ban. There is a difference between a good commercial contract and an export ban. Second I never said Canada was doing badly, just rejecting it's done better than the UK so far because some lower age groups got a dose earlier.

I never claimed that Canada was doing better than the UK. I was just shocked when I read that England had only just started vaccinating 25-29 year olds when I know that other parts of the UK have been vaccinating 18+ for a few weeks and some countries have been opening vaccination for 15+ year olds.

And okay, they just designed dishonest contracts so they could be like "we're the best evar" when they import vaccines and keep all the vaccines they produce too.

I've never passed comment on the UK race. It's not important we have a finite amount of doses and we are all British.

You might not have commented, but it was definitely something that was frequently commented upon, usually with the implication that England is the best and every other country in the Union is shite, voices which seem to have become much quieter once England was surpassed by two of the other home countries.

I generally consider vaccination a global effort. As long as any country is unvaccinated, everyone is at risk.

[The Archregimancy]

A little bit of humorous irony to leaven your afternoon...

How many of you remember Lembit Öpik, the slightly geeky Northern Ireland-born ethnic Estonian former LibDem MP for Montgomeryshire who became a figure of fun, but also baffled much of the UK with his success in dating Welsh meteorologist Siân Lloyd and half of the Romanian pop duo the Cheeky Girls - best known for the immortal 'Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)'?

Mr Öpik has just been expelled from the Liberal Democrats after appearing at a recent Conservative Party Welsh Senedd election event called 'How to Stop the Lib Dems, an insiders guide on how the Lib Dems plan their campaigns'. In the course of this event, Mr Öpik offered the opinions that his former party had 'become a parody of itself' and suggested that there is 'currently no vaccine against stupidity'.

Now, I appreciate that more than a few of you likely find yourselves in sympathy with Mr Öpik's general point, but it's important to stress that this is Lembit Öpik we're speaking about, a man who became considered such a vacuous celebrity-seeking self-parody of a politician that he managed to lose one of the historically safest LibDem seats in the country in 2010 - at the height of Cleggmania, on a swing of more than 12% against him - when his small-c conservative rural Welsh constituents finally tired of being represented by a politician best known for the eccentricity of his lifestyle.

So those comments are more than a bit rich coming from someone who came to embody unintentional political self-parody.

For historical context, Mr Öpik represented Montgomeryshire from 1997-2010. Up until 2010, this was one of the historically safest LibDem seats in the country, second only to with Orkney & Shetland, with a continuous history of Liberal and LibDem representation from 1880 through 2010, except for the brief period 1979-1983 (pedants will point out that Clement Davies held the seat as a Liberal National from 1931-45, but he first won it as a Liberal in 1929, and went on to become leader of the post-war Liberals at their 1950s nadir after returning to the Liberal fold to win the seat again in 1945). Losing this seat in 2010 required a certain level of political ineptitude.

Well there you go, clearly a man with relevant expertise on how one goes about beating the Lib Dems.

Granted; but I'm not sure event attendees would have been entirely satisfied if Mr Öpik's advice had consisted of nothing more than 'make sure your opposing LibDem candidate behaves like Lembit Öpik'.

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

..Brussels will start a trade war with Britain if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit treaty ...

I'd high time the EU trashed unilaterally the Brexit treaty. It's clear Britain has no intention to uphold their word. And build that bloody hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

This is how you restart the Troubles.

[The Nihilistic view]

Wales is just a semi-autonomous region of England anyway.

[Dakini]

Wales is just a semi-autonomous region of England anyway.

Wales does better than England, therefore Wales is basically part of England because obviously England is the only part of the UK that matters.

Do you happen to wonder why there are independence movements in the UK or do you just assume everyone else is being unreasonable?

[Vassenor]

Wales is just a semi-autonomous region of England anyway.

Wales does better than England, therefore Wales is just part of England because obviously England is the only part of the UK that matters.

Do you happen to wonder why there are independence movements in the UK or do you just assume everyone else is being unreasonable?

Wales does a bad thing, Wales is autonomous and devolved. Wales does a good thing, Wales is a part of England because History and thus England did the good thing.

Or something to that effect.