EvilRedEye wrote:

The government's Union unit is, err, falling to bits apparently.

Just like the actual union.

Yeah this isn’t the hill to die on. The judgement wasn’t as damning as anti-tories would like; more of a slap on the wrist than anything more significant. If anything it provides cover for more serious foul play. Cf Hancock this morning being able to say “yes we should have published sooner but a fortnight’s delay at the beginning of a pandemic is not awful. Would you prefer me to say “drop everything, no more procurement till we’ve done this bureaucratic thing”?”

That said starmer is more disappointing than I could have feared. True purge of the left, a whole speech on economy and it’s waffly nothing with specific and deliberate omission of the B word.

Time to give up hope, progressives. Starmer is a true power hungry centrist which I guess I should’ve known.

Could be both I guess

I think the world would explode before we turn blue here.  Greens and lib dems made some gains about a decade ago, but while the greens maintain a steady presence the lib dems were lambasted as traitors for the coalition and the party died here.

I could register at my family home but it's been a safe tory seat for as long as I've been alive.  Either seat turning would be a sign that the world has ended.

I dont think railing against Johnson and demanding resignations every 5 minutes would do anything to lower Johnson's support. Probably the opposite.

They fucked up everything but the vaccine and can justifiably say it’s because we left the EU. Starmer is fucked or not depending on how the “good” bit of the pandemic plays out and the brexit mess. If post brexit Britain is tolerable in four years Starmer has zero chance. In reality this is what we should be hoping for at least a little bit.

mistercrayon wrote:

They fucked up everything but the vaccine and can justifiably say it’s because we left the EU.

Eh?

It’s possible, I suppose, but the issue is the vaccine procurement programme rather than the EU as a whole.

Who knows, if the U.K. was still in the EU, perhaps the vaccine procurement would have been handled differently because of pressure from us.

Yossarian wrote:

It’s possible, I suppose, but the issue is the vaccine procurement programme rather than the EU as a whole.

Who knows, if the U.K. was still in the EU, perhaps the vaccine procurement would have been handled differently because of pressure from us.

This is a pretty lame reach. The EU might be better than us on a million and one things but this is a definitive win for the post exit UK.

For one some of the delay in this whole process is because there because countries were each batting for themselves - should X get any support or should it be equal etc etc. But there’s no movement until there is 100% agreement.

These are inherent properties of the EU that make getting fast deals really hard.

Congratulating Boris for the vaccine is like saying well done to the guy at work who gets a hundred quid off the bookies every few months but gives them £20 every day. Gambles pay off every so often, it doesn't mean being a gambler is a good idea.

I'm also waiting to see how the whole thing comes out in the wash, we're doing well at vaccinating people, we need to see the end result though.

Yossarian wrote:

But none of that changes the fact that the U.K. could have rejected being part of the programme even as part of the EU.

I suppose that’s true.

I normally refrain from posting Cold War Steve stuff because they are all hold but today's particularly tickled me.

No Griff, those really are the rugs they have.

mistercrayon wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

But none of that changes the fact that the U.K. could have rejected being part of the programme even as part of the EU.

I suppose that’s true.

I think we'd have been allowed to keep more than our fair share as producers, while losing plenty at the same time. A compromise would've been sought from both sides.

I don't know if we still have the large excess formerly reported, but I'd always factor in potential incompetence and err on the side of caution re: our retention for now. Like maybe storage difficulties could lead to decimated stock or something? @tin_robot ?

Because as much as I'd like to be nice and do the right thing, thanks to my absent faith in our government, I'd regrettably rather we had too much than too little. And I'd suggest this view isn't entirely selfish, because nobody wants us turning into Mutation Island.

Escape wrote:

mistercrayon wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

But none of that changes the fact that the U.K. could have rejected being part of the programme even as part of the EU.

I suppose that’s true.

I think we'd have been allowed to keep more than our fair share as producers, while losing plenty at the same time. A compromise would've been sought from both sides. I don't know if we still have the large excess formerly reported, but I'd always factor in potential incompetence and err on the side of caution re: our retention for now. Like maybe storage difficulties could lead to decimated stock or something? @tin_robot ? Because as much as I'd like to be nice and do the right thing, thanks to my absent faith in our government, I'd regrettably rather we had too much than too little. And I'd suggest this view isn't entirely selfish, because nobody wants us turning into Mutation Island.

It would be fairly easy to damage stock, certainly.  All you'd have to do is unplug the relevant freezer.

That said I don't think we have a massive stockpile of vaccines.  I suspect the reality is we're getting what there is, as it's made, but there's certainly not an abundance of jabs available.  (We've twice had deliveries stop entirely, and have today been told we're not getting any more until the 5th March - despite NHS England promising us we'd be "flooded" with vaccine.  )

Essentially the UK's strategy with vaccines had less to do with ensuring we had some spare if stock was destroyed, and was more to do with buying every possible vaccine in massive numbers so that whichever one became available first, it would be available to us, and in large volumes.  So far the UK's ordered 407 million vaccines for 67 million people.  People have described it as "taking a gamble", but in reality it's the opposite.  We've invested massively in (almost) every vaccine in order to secure a supply of whichever came first, and whichever worked best. (It's the latter that means we're still buying them.)  It's open to debate whether this is good planning, ethically dubious, or a bit of both.

There was a good piece in the BMJ about it last year - including some consideration of the ethics of the practice.