Well Said Robin.
Couldn’t agree more.
Mr Scully clearly hates his country of birth and is happy to bash it at every opportunity.
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It would be interesting to know how cases are recorded in other European countries.
In the UK we know that any death within 28 days of a covid diagnosis is included as death due to covid. Even if run over by a bus. Earlier in the pandemic, I believe it was any death that happened to someone who had had covid (but I may be wrong).
What is the criteria used in France, Germany etc?
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The Conservatives are only being allowed to continue their march forward by the collapse of the Red Wall.
You can blame that on the extremism of Jeremy Corbyn and Northern folk were not taken in by it, but the South was seduced.
I still stand in the middle ground and always will.
I don’t think the Oxford announcement was rushed. I have read the original press release from Oxford. It did not pretend anything - it says exactly what the results show. The press and the government have hyped up the jingoism bit, agreed. But let’s stop and think for a bit before we go on to say this is somehow symptomatic of a UK wide problem. The Pfizer vaccine is doubtless exceptionally good - new technology. But in practice? Is has to be maintained at -80 deg C. It cannot be moved easily and if moved more than 3 or four times it deteriorates to the point where it cannot be relied on. So, made in Belgium, sent to a distribution centre in France and then on a hospital or vaccination site, that is as many moves as it can safely do. Let’s not get hung up about the 62% vs the 90% either. Even if you are one of the 38%, it will still make sure you do not get more than a flu like illness at the worst. You will not need to go to hospital. But there are also signs that the Oxford vaccine may well prevent further infection, a finding that needs further confirmation. If this is indeed the case, then it will be a very powerful way of preventing the speed of infection, in addition to preventing serious illness.
When you also factor in that the Oxford vaccine is non-profit, at approx £3 per dose, while the Pfizer is US$18.95 (in USA) and the Oxford version can be stored at -5 deg C in a normal fridge and does not get travel sick, well it is hard to deride the optimism that it generates as a genuine world-changer. Finally, I am always a bit suspicious of a commercial announcement which leads to a massive increase in stock price, and the same day the CEO trousers nearly US$5m in share sales.
Ultimately I am pleased to be able to receive a vaccine - any vaccine! So quibbling about which make I get is not going to be my worry.
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… 
Testing too, if the same person in the UK is tested a number of times that is added to the stats so squewing the figures.
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I don’t believe anyone can say the UK government figures are accurate. The FT has deaths at 30% higher than the government. Who can say what criteria the government is using, and that their criteria for counting cases, deaths etc has not mutated into something that makes the figures look better than they really are. In any case, this is a secretive government and one that does not do details.
(Just edited, to get all the 'not’s in the right places!
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A propos of nothing in particular other than idle hands at the keyboard, and an enjoyment of watching the ping pong (or ‘whiff-whaff’ as my former MP, the bumbling Bozzster, calls it) of insults flying back and forth…
- for my money, I would have most confidence in the way Germany has handled all and any aspects of the virus, out of the EU nations;
- while many nations have made a mess of the pandemic, there are too many similarities between the way the UK and US have developed (politically, socially, economically, culturally) over the last 40 years AND probably as a consequence, in the way they have responded to the virus, for me to feel happy about either country and its future prospects in general;
- as further personal opinion, I am attached to evidence-based, rational, scientific thought but experience that this approach is increasingly out of favour in both the US and the UK (which famously has “had enough of experts” - though as of 1st Jan I think we’ll find that to be a typo for “exports”). While under threat everywhere, I find that it is an approach still largely supported and used a basis for governing in major EU nations, including France and Germany; hence my decision to settle permanently outside the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ axis.
It is sad to remember that when I was at college, Neil Ferguson (for it was he) was down the corridor, Michael Gove across the quad, and Boris, ‘call me Dave’, Rees-Mogg, Osborne, and all the rest of them were elsewhere just down the road. But none of them seem to have changed since then, in any detectable manner. Which is probably why things are in the state they are.
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In France too according to my DIL who’s in A&E and Covid wards.She reckons people can be counted three or four times for the same person infected !
See we are all the same really not sure if thats in a good way
I can’t really see the Fascist analogy. Where is a “totalitarian one party state” going to come from? There are aspects which are authoritarian, such as the attacks on lawyers and the judiciary. But this new law in France which has stirred up so much opposition seems very Draconian, and authoritarian.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the govt caves in and cancels article 24.
Careful Fleur. Dissent will not be tolerated 
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Peas in our time.
This wasn’t the Country I was born in Anne. (thanks for the link Geof, I missed the article this morning).
The Country I was born in had just created the NHS, was encouraging people of colour to come and help rebuild Britain and had aspirations to improve the life of its citizens, Now the NHS is being destroyed and privatised by stealth, the immigrants of the sixties are being chucked out and Patel is pulling up the very ladder her parents used to come to the UK and better themselves.
Maybe you and Fanshaw are content to see the Country go to hell in a handbasket, but many, including myself are not.
That’s just one - very thin - definition of fascism Ronald - which you can easily see if you apply it historically: it would make most monarchies before the constitutional monarchy period, for example, ‘fascist’, which is not what most people understand by the term fascist (such monarchies would normally be seen as ‘feudal’).
Moreover, most fascist regimes actually start from multi-party democracies. The Nazis were a political party in a multi-party system, and Hitler initially gained power because he led the largest party. Pinochet came to power via a coup, but actually introduced a new constitution, including multi-party elections, before he seized absolute power. Then there are figures like Orbán, Erdogan, Putin, etc, that are widely regarded as fascist because by various means they suppress key freedoms, manipulate elections, etc, while not actually outlawing other parties.
I wouldn’t say the UK Tory party overall is fascist, by the way - what I said was that Thatcher was ‘close to fascist’, and that the current UK government in some ways is similar - and I stand by that. The evidence is there for anybody to see.
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That article made my blood boil Geof. The gurning face of Gove only made it worse.
I think Gove is genuinely dangerous John. I regard people like Johnson and Trump as lightweight figureheads - but Gove is genuinely part of the Bannon/Cummings/etc extreme right clique.
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Gurning isn’t the right adjective. The Germans have the perfect word.
Backpfeifengesicht.
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I agree entirely, aided and abetted by his wife.