The UK has administered 10.5 doses per 100 people. The best performing EU member state is the tiny country of Malta, with four doses administered per 100 people. The EU average is just two doses per 100 people.
Tsk.
The UK has administered 10.5 doses per 100 people. The best performing EU member state is the tiny country of Malta, with four doses administered per 100 people. The EU average is just two doses per 100 people.
Tsk.
As I keep saying, the British are not doing too badly. Quite well even.
It is just that the media is toxic and they are determined to smear Boris at every stage regardless of what the facts are.
Didn’t you get the memo? Apparently its not a race and we shouldn’t be beastly towards the EU.
The real problem is that it is a race and the EU has has entered as a carthorse.
As I keep pointing out to people, the question isn’t whether this government has done badly compared to a Utopian ideal as all governments fail that test, it’s whether a Corbyn or Starmer government would have done better.
And Given that Starmer has not actually proposed anything other than lockdown earlier and harder, it is not clear why everyone keeps bashing on Boris. Strangely though, Guardian readers think that the BBC is biased in favour of Boris. I suppose this just demonstrates the peculiar inability to see reality that you need to read the Graun
I’m not sure what Starmer has proposed, it keeps changing and his recollection of what he wanted previously is, shall we say, hazy
The labour party is currently making habit of demanding that the government does things they have already announced they are doing. See Guido for details
I think the current record is 3 weeks after the government did something
Yeah but EU is gonna use this to make commission/presi/superstructure stronger. OK UK knew that the only way to guarantee supply is have it produced on its soil, so they took steps to try and ensure that. Got a bit lucky(definitely not just luck) with Oxford vac working well. Maybe they also did deals that they couldnt’ guarantee wouldn’t be vetoed… but a case of cross that when we come to it. Anyway France Germany Italy and Belgium have significant pharma production. Were they independent they could have done similar but in EU there’s an insurance aspect of pooled risk coz your one (like the French) might not work. But what of Malta, Slovakia, Estonia, Luxembourg, Hungary, Ireland? They’re less likely to come up with home grown vaccines. In the EU they can at least have leverage to get stuff that isn’t produced on their soil. So I expect EUists will, perhaps benignly, use this as an argument for further federalisation, perhaps more sinister, a little bit more of an arm twisting to accept further EU powers.
Even the Guardian can’t spin this to blame evil Nazi, Little Englander, Brexiteers. Or can they?
Got a bit lucky(definitely not just luck) with Oxford vac working well.
How many Nobel Prizes have Oxbridge colleges won? You know, it is remarkable how often British scientists are lucky.
And Given that Starmer has not actually proposed anything other than lockdown earlier and harder,
Which is very easy to say when you haven’t got the treasury pointing at the economic impact. Although his main advantage is that there isn’t anyone in the Labour Party who appears to believe in individual freedom to at least counter the authoritarian arguments and make him think for a few seconds. Boris does have at least a few in his party who are trying to hold his feet to the fire.
So Much For Subtlety- i accept your point.
Even the Guardian can’t spin this to blame evil Nazi, Little Englander, Brexiteers. Or can they?
Give them time, Jonathan. Give them time.
the question isn’t whether this government has done badly compared to a Utopian ideal as all governments fail that test, it’s whether a Corbyn or Starmer government would have done better.
I have no doubt that Corbyn would have been ruinous. I’m fairly certain that Starmer would been worse, but not sure enough to stop me voting against the Plastic Tories in future.
I stand second to none in my hatred of the EU. But pointing out Blojob is the star of the shitshow is hardly much benefit to us. He can inject the entire UK load of the vax into his dick. And then stop ruining the UK.
That he is a slightly less ineffective Camp Commandant than Colonel Clink-Merkal or Little Corporal Macron is not a cause for celebration.
“…it is remarkable how often British scientists are lucky.”
Thanks only to diversity!
A bit OT.
I just had an idle thought, will Remainers who went out of their way to get Irish passports and tell us how bad we are and how good the EU is wait until their equivalents in the EU get their jab or will they be happy to grit their teeth and take one here?
Maybe one of Spud’s many fans whose real persona resides here could be bold enough to broach the subject?
” Give them time, Jonathan. Give them time.”
Oh:
” The UK’s #coronavirus vacation rollout is going to be challenged by the EU, a legal challenge and legislation are being drawn up as the UK is depriving EU citizens of vaccine supplies with a “predatory” policy of buying up Supplies and rushing regulatory approval.”
https://twitter.com/mi6rogue/status/1353967445850140674
I do wonder if, perversely, this will be what saves the EU.
The EC’s power grab has gone so badly that in future there won’t be the appetite to allow them to take over anymore “competencies” so the EU will limp along as it is without becoming more of a superstate and eventually disintegrating.
He’s an odd fish, Boris. His first six months as PM were a triumph, wiggling out of the rotten position May had left HMG in, somehow persuading the Opposition to vote for an election and then hammering them. The Brexit bit of the next year went well too.
But his long term stuff – the Greenery – will be stupid and hugely destructive.
As for Covid I suspect that the habit of unthinkingly attributing almost everything to government action or inaction is just a reminder of how far we are along the Road to Serfdom. A couple of bits that are a government responsibility – the vaccine purchases and the genomic monitoring of the virus – are a triumph, and the first of those is a Borisian triumph.
Me, I’d replace him by … um … er …
@ SMFS
The standard answer is “More than France”
That was, until a few years ago, just my wife’s college on its own – nowadays it lags France but still has more than Russia or Japan or …
Cambridge University has more Nobel prizes than any EU country. Oxford, sadly, is 1 behind France and several behind Germany but has more than twice as many as any of the other 25 EU countries.
“How many Nobel Prizes have Oxbridge colleges won? You know, it is remarkable how often British scientists are lucky.”
None, because the Nobels are awarded to people, not “houses”…
And in the fields that actually have something to do with CoVid, and especially with the technology required for making the vaccine: few, almost never as principal, and most of the time Cambridge, not Oxford…
Not to mention that Nobels in the Sciences are generally awarded well over a decade after the original research, when the actual impact of research has become apparent..
So, ummm….
replace him by… um … er …devolving more powers to people and LAs (for when government is needed), and then it doesn’t matter as much.
@ Grikath
A college is a group of people, not a building. So my comment, using English English, is correct. What “college” means in American I neither know nor care.
As far as Covid-related science is concerned – sure: the Nobel prizes won’t be awarded for several years yet as it will take time for the importance of various discoveries to be fully ascertained *but* the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is the result of brilliant work by a team of Oxford scientists: they may well get one albeit Drs Sahin and Tureci are also strong candidates.
Cambridge is well ahead of Oxford in Physics (37 to 15) but Oxford has 19 Nobel prize winners in Chemistry and 19 in Physiology and Medicine – those alone amount to more than the total for *all subjects* for any country in the world apart from the USA, UK, Germany and France.