There’s been much talk of an NHS crisis in recent months, and you can understand why. Waiting times are up across the board – as the charts below indicate.
There are more than seven million people waiting for hospital treatment. The proportion of cancer patients waiting less than 62 days for treatment after a GP referral is less than 55%. The ambulance response time for category 2 calls exceeded 1 hour 30 minutes last December. And the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E is over 30,000 – compared to zero just a few years ago.
This is despite the fact that staff numbers have been rising consistently for the past decade. Compared to 2010, there are now 17% more nurses and almost 40% more doctors working in the NHS.
Interestingly, mortality itself has not risen. We can see this by plotting the monthly age-standardised mortality rate in England as a percentage of the pre-pandemic average – that is, the average from 2015–2019.
Since the summer of 2021, the line has been pretty much flat. Mortality in England is neither worsening nor improving. The ASMR in the first five months of the year was about the same as in 2017 – which is higher than in 2014 but lower than in 2015. (If mortality were improving, the line would be trending downwards.)
This is both good news and bad. It’s good news because it means that rising waiting times and declining patient satisfaction aren’t yet translating into higher death rates. It’s bad news because it means we’ve made essentially no progress in lowering death rates for the last decade.
British living standards tell a similar story. Real GDP per capita in 2021 was barely higher than in 2007 – just before the Great Recession. So Britons are living no longer than they were in 2014 and are no richer than they were in 2007.
In the grand sweep of history, 10–15 years of stagnation isn’t particularly remarkable. But it is the longest period of stagnation since the Second World War. And one political party has been in power for most of it. While I doubt that Labour would have done a better job, the Conservatives have little to be proud of.
With death rates and living standards stagnating, the NHS in crisis and net migration running at over 600,000, you could almost say they’re doing a lousy job in Government. So as little faith as I have in Labour, I’m not surprised they’re ahead in the polls. “You’ve never had it so good”, Harold MacMillan told voters in 1957. “You’ve never had it so mediocre,” Rishi Sunak might tell them today.
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Good morning all.
And to you – sorry it took two hours for a response! Mondays are like that ….
You think 2 hours is bad?
14.30hrs. Favourite Shoddy Custom Service.
NHS, RD&E Wonford Haematology on 3rd multiple choice phone option yesterday.
“Because of the current (Covid/Lockdown, whatever) Crisis we are experiencing an exemptionaly heavy workload” (?!? why?)
“YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US’.
“We apologise if you have to wait longer than usual but we will answer your call.’
“Your call is #7′
“Your call is #3′
“Your call is #5′
Nothing to do with Covid Crisis or staff training, just piss poor software.
16.45hrs. I gave up and am currently bleeding to death.
I profoundly hope not!
Have you tried screaming at the taped voice? When they tell me that “your call is important” to this, I sometimes shout “Then answer the fucking phone!”
Completely useless, but it stops me from breaking things …
Presently just a figure of speech but if I shout loud enough I might bust a blood vessel.
“Because of all the jabbed people with mucked up clotting we are currently experiencing a higher workload than usual” I think they meant to say
Actually, what they really mean is – “we haven’t got enough staff.”
Or they’re off with the C1984.
Or possibly all of the above!
Wonder what it means if you ring P+O Ferries?
“We just sacked all our staff and haven’t trained up the cheaper replacements yet”
I hope you managed to curtail the exsanguination across de nation.
Even before they had the all-purpose “Because Covid” excuse there were a good few companies who permanently had a holding message saying that they were receiving a “higher than usual number of calls”. If you had the misfortune to need to contact them quite often, it because clear that this message was on permanently – so evidently the alleged “higher than usual” was actually just “usual”, and therefore they didn’t have enough staff to cope with the volume.
And the weird thing is, it’s just the same in Australia ..
I used to work installing telephone recording systems, one subcontracting call center that handles utility/mobile service type contacts that had 2000 external lines only had 200 agent positions, on the night shift they only had 40 staff!
The only well staffed call centers are all premium rate (sex/tarrot lines)
possibly the worst culprits are the ‘GP@ surgeries?
(I just thought: GP used to stand for General Purpose??)
That’s obviously a stock announcement as each and every call center I ever had to call used it everytime.
You knee replacement op is very important to us so please **** off[
Your tax is very important to funding our Porsche and golf game, please wait quietly in the queue until you die.
Even at the height of the Cold War, no one thought of banning Russian literature, art, or music, says Gary Saul Morson in First Things.
Unfortunately this is symptomatic of a state that has too much power, as we have seen with the last two yrs and now with the harms bill etc, we are now in a situation whereby if the politicians do not like something, they are likely to either outright ban or try to ban something, its not just about russia but the landscape more broadly. The ridiculous argument a little while ago with dorris and jimmy carr’s jokes showed that if it upsets the state and they have laws on the books, it could be banned.
Personally, I like a good disagreement – even when it becomes heated. I have never wanted anybody, anywhere, to be cancelled.
We are being turned into, or invited to become, moral simpletons and bullies. When we encounter an opinion with which we disagree, we should want to know more, not less.
I enjoy the fights BTL here. They are the proof of intellectual liveliness. Those who wish to cancel others have no confidence in their own powers of persuasion – no respect for themselves or for others.
Likewise. Being with people who constantly agree with each other is sterile, unproductive and boring.
All opinions deserve an airing (unless illegal which itself is often debatable) especially if they differ from your personal point of view.
Yes I agree. I’ve found out the hard way that some people just cannot get past a difference of opinion on anything Covid related and would rather just ditch and ghost a person who stays sane and rational as opposed to follow every word of the official narrative like a faithful acolyte. It does say a great deal about a person’s character that they can behave like that, and I think many can relate with their own personal experiences with relationships. It’s not just ignorance it also shows a cowardice and emotional immaturity that was possibly not evident before.
Society has turned into a very much “Us vs Them” dynamic and I’m not sure how Biden spouting claptrap about “not seeing eachother as enemies”, when the politicians are the cause of the polarization and damage in the first place, is remotely helpful. I’m finding it hard to think of any world leader who’s head shouldn’t be on a spike for the disastrous way they’ve managed the last 2 years and the resultant damage caused. OK, maybe Sweden would be an obvious exemption…
Following every word of the official narrative like a faithful acolyte.
Lovely description. Thank you. Some also followed an amazing amount of U-turns, with barely a question, that should have left human beings dizzy if not collapsed in a confused heap. Only zombies or robots could do it!
I agree, If free speech is not allowed then the thoughts and feelings don’t go away they stay silenced, and people will find a way to vent, if free speech is not allowed how are discoveries made?, how can people question a thing that might be dangerous? prime example the current Covid 19 injections data from numerous sources including Government stats in the USA, uk, Europe point to something being seriously amiss with these products and yet no scientist, Doctor etc is allowed to raise a concern without risking losing their licence or being excommiunicated. When did it and why did it get so bad that Governments and their advisors and sponsors would prefer to risk seeing people enmasse being injured and killed rather than listen and then examine the issues being raised.
What next I wonder will the Gates and Schwabs etc have us all planted with a microchip so they can download our thoughts and then punish those with impure thoughta? Nothing would suprise me after what I have witnessed over the past 2 plus years,
No scientist, Doctor etc is allowed to raise a concern without risking losing their licence or being excommunicated.
Doctors with genuine concerns are forced to have strange, elliptical conversations; for fear of being informed upon.
What next I wonder will the Gates and Schwabs etc have us all planted with a microchip so they can download our thoughts and then punish those with impure thoughts? Nothing would surprise me after what I have witnessed over the past 2 plus years.
I used to think that dystopian fantasies were unfortunate products of pessimistic imaginations. Now I live in one.
My brother recalled going to East Germany when it was still Communist and meeting a pub landlord whose way was to repeat the government poster slogans with the additional ‘it must be so as the government says so’ line of dry humour tagged on. We are not far off that being close to the amount of freedom we have left with on some subjects. That is dire.
…
“I enjoy the fights BTL here.”
No you don’t!!
Good baiting – yes I do!!
(At the risk of sounding like something out of Annie, Get Your Gun) …
Especially the ones with trolls – though I don’t respond to them.
The Isle of Man is hosting the International Linguistics Olympiad this year, and last week the organiser, to my disbelief (but probably predictably), announced that the Russian team would be no longer welcome.
This means that Russian teenagers are being hysterically ostracised and punished for the actions of their politicians – this is now apparently ok and normal, when it would have been unthinkable not so long ago.
It is a disgrace and completely unjustified, I agree. The Ukrainian conflict has replaced Covid in terms of causing divisiveness and “othering” within our societies. It’s as unethical as it is unjust but human stupidity and prejudices reign supreme.
I know the organiser and he will be getting a piece of my mind next time I see him.
I’ll lend you a bit of mine to hand him.
Why not phone him up today?
Maybe she doesn’t have his phone number.
Did they boycott the Ukrainian’s when they were/are invading and murdering tens of thousands of Donbas citizens?
Don’t worry as David Beckham is going to do something with his Twitter account to end the war. Fortunately I managed to switch of the radio so I didn’t have to listen to the rest of the BBC drivel.
The thing is that thei highlights the hypocrisy of society, all the safe spaces, the don’t say this or that it might offend, the political correctness its all a heap of rubbish, people are nastier, and enjoy the sanctimony of turning on another person they deem to be less worthy than they are. Russian people are not responsible for what Putin has done, they cannot vote him out of office, he has been a monster to any one who has challenged him. Everyone knows this but hey why pass up a chance to demonise an entire population in the act of self promotion of your own “Holiness”. Society has been led down a dark path since the advent of Tony Blair and the Tories have continued with his creed of division dressed up as goodness,
Absolutely, where is all the ‘inclusion’ now?
If the west thinks it’s clever to sanction Russia to get their way, ultimately, all Putin has to do is flick a switch to turn the gas off to Europe and it’s instant disaster.
Our Political classes play on Air Epstein and Putin plays chess.
Makes you wonder why he hasn’t done it already. And keep all that gas for Russia itself.
Isle of Man ethnic groups: “white 96.5%, Asian/Asian British 1.9%, other 1.5% (2011 est.)” – not a lot of ‘Diversity’ on the IoM!
“Nearly half of the inhabitants of Isle of Man are native-born.” – sounds like the sort of place where marrying your cousins is commonplace.
Bliar, the most evil and dangerous person ever to hold a British passport.
Oh dear, the record is cracked.
I’ve got news for you – Tony won’t be going to prison.
But you could draw a picture of him behind bars if that will help?
You sound quite gleeful that “Tony” won’t do time.
Thank you for spelling his name correctly
It’s the only way to spell it Judy.
This Thursday, being the fourth Thursday of the month, is the occasion for our musical soiree.
I have decided, in order to annoy people, except most (all?) of those on here, to offer a programme of Russian music. Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Prokofiev, you know the sort thing.
Unfortunately, thee won’t be time from Yevgeny Onegin or Boris Godunov. Never mind.
Don’t forget Bogoroditse Devo by
Rachmaninoff.
You could try some Stravinsky – apparently he’s being cancelled too. Emigrating to the US didn’t save him.
Without wishing to be mischievous, it should be pointed out that Gershwin’s paternal grandfather served in the Imperial Russian Army. Sure, his parents emigrated – but, you know …
Yes, a state which has too much power – but also a population which is far too over-compliant and won’t object to things, even when they can see the ridiculousness, because of potential repercussions. The Wokeists have successfully created a culture where anyone opposing them is at risk of being excluded and vilified.
And if Boris likes something, he tries to foist it on others, like cyclists and classics -Latin for bright underperforming Northerners,it seems. Clearly just what you need in the context of Northern working class culture, and to solve the problems of single parent families and some of those cultures.
Perhaps the next thing is the de-stigmatization of serial adultery.
I just can’t wait for the obligatory Boris haircut to be imposed on all.
“to solve the problems of single parent families”
As a man who cannot deny he has been responsible for the creation of at least one that is known of – rich indeed!
Maybe so.
But in the current instances, is not THE STATE that is banning or cancelling Russian artists. It’s largely private businesses and institutions, And who can blame them?
Without getting into too many details, let’s just say that the vast majority of people in Western Europe and the Americas are frankly appalled by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But there’s not a lot most of us can do about it.
Is cancelling a performance of Swan Lake or the 1812 Overture going to make much difference? Probably not. They’re both long out of copyright, so it’s not even as if Tchaikovsky’s estate is going to suffer.
But I can understand why audiences, and performers, here in the West, aren’t too keen on paying respect to Russia at this particular moment. Not that country’s finest hour.
Banning oil/gas imports from Russia isn’t a state determined policy? Banks? Individuals? Businesses?
Where do you get the idea this isn’t “THE STATE”, more accurately, OUR STATE which isn’t sanctioning Russia?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/sanctions-against-russia-at-a-glance-people-organisations-uk-us-eu
The vast majority of Western Europe and America were wrong about covid, lockdowns, masks and ‘vaccinations’ but it didn’t stop them torturing their citizens with them.
Who is to judge whether Russia is right or wrong to invade Ukraine? The west, with our appalling record of aggression since WW2?
We are not the custodians of moral outrage. Indeed, we have a cheek even commenting on events in Ukraine. All we’re doing is making an enemy of a well armed nuclear power over a country that can’t possibly conform to either EU or NATO membership because of the tyranny exhibited in the country.
Where is your outrage over the invasion of the Donbas and murder of tens of thousands of civilians by Ukrainian military over the years? What protection did the west offer them? Where was the outrage? Why didn’t we supply the citizens with Javelin and Stinger missiles?
Nope, we just stood back impotently until Russia went in to sort the country out then we squealed like a child losing it’s dummy.
The means to stop this invasion was well within the gift of the west long before it began, but NATO (read the US), the UN and the EU decided to bully Russia into compliance, and it failed.
I can understand why audiences, and performers, here in the West, aren’t too keen on paying respect to Russia at this particular moment. Not that country’s finest hour.
People of all nationalities listened to Beethoven during the Second World War – including Russians as they were fighting and dying, in enormous numbers, against German invaders.
They weren’t paying respect to Germany. They were enjoying great music.
You read my mind AE – how can listening to or watching a thing of absolute beauty be considered “paying respect” to Russia.
talking of censorship, the babylon bee has been suspended from twitter for “hateful conduct” thats a satire site suspended for “hateful conduct”
we are living in 1984
https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1505663712266493958/photo/1
As today is supposedly World Poetry Day, may I be indulged with my bit of subversive doggerel.
BA BA
Resist defy do not comply
With the new world order
They demand your soul complete control
With no regard for border
Hung out to dry you must comply
With being marked and jabbed and muzzled
If you object to this project
You leave your masters puzzled.
Rules for thee but not for me
Says Soros Gates and Schwab
You’ll own nothing and be happy
With the green new dealing blob
Build back better makes you a debtor
As fiat pennies fall from heaven
Watch the old succumb to cold
As their clocks tick past eleven.
Stay at home is a palindrome
For the bought and paid for media
You will not find an inquiring mind
Without a case of agraphia
The poor old sheep are all asleep
As the wolves disguised as shepherd
Herd them into the shearing sheds
Where the unjabbed are now lepers.#
Patrick Healy
Very very good. Source please?
Palindrome well spotted.
Thanks Karen, the source is little old (very old) me.
Another 140 of them available, as if any one was interested.
Ye gods. That’s ridiculous.
If only.
even in jest your true motives are on full display
My phone failed to detect CL’s new avatar – and his comment put me in mind of this cartoon – which I duly posted only to open again on my laptop to find that it was actually his new avatar. What are the chances?
As for my ‘true motives’, I haven’t a clue what you mean.
sorry, my bad, had you mixed up with the troll, apologies.
That’s the second time you’ve done that to me in recent weeks. As I’ve only been posting here since 2020 I guess I have to expect these things.
Sorry, I’ll try to learn from it, I have a weird kinda word blindness/dyslexia especially bad on names, you’ll often see my typing with intermixed letters wrong way round etc. even tho I read through before posting I often don’t catch it on the 1st/2nd read, if I went back to edit I’d spend more time editing than posting.
I was unfortunate to be part of an educational expriment in the late 70’s, it was thought spelling words how they sound was more important than the correct spelling, I’m not surre if it sprang from the same root as “Esparanto” leanring a made up language was part of it too. The only good thing from that experiment was learning to speed read at a young age means I can fly though books in hours where it takes others days (Evelyn Wood method), speed writing was also part of it. I think this compounds my issues. I also have nerve damage in one hand from an accident, which effects typing, compounding the issue further.
This is how B.F.Finlayson was superinposed as Fingal in my mind.
I do appreciate your posts, and I recongize you as one of our more intelligent and errudite members. Sincere appologies.
Absolutely no apology necessary, especially on a supposed free speech forum!! My riposte was very much in jest – but I appreciate your post nevertheless. I well remember the phonetics fad, but thankfully managed to miss out on it. Even at the time I saw it as a barrier not an aid. It must have hampered access to older literature (Chaucer, Shakespeare), and probably made other languages very foreign indeed? Even glancing though those phonetic Ladybird books used to do me ‘ead in.
Indeed, the classics were very hard work! Written foreign language is extermely hard, but if I’m working in an environment where foreign language is spoken I can pick it up with relative ease, I’m part of a gaming community where everyone speaks in a mix of English, Polish, Ukranian, Russian, German, and Spanish, often all in one sentence, but not words you could use in polite company!
“the troll” lol. There’s more than 1!
there’s only 1 who appears semi-intelligent LOL
Haha yes, “he who shall not be named”. Gotcha!
But they’re trying to ban the victory gin and smokes.
As a whisky & bourbon man I can live without gin, but would defend other’s rights to their tipple of choice to the last. Ditto smoking, which should be a protected (inalienable) human right. I recall getting sublimely sozzled in a local hostelry on the miserable evening of 30th June 2007 while puffing through a box of duty free Havana’s thinking the bleakest of thoughts about where this was all going. For 13 years, at that point, I had tried to warn anyone who would listen about the dangers of Blair; indeed from the moment Smith died and Healey started openly canvassing. 1994 seems a lifetime ago, and I suppose it is for the poor youngsters who have succumbed to pressure and were vaxxed. The horror…
Arch Tyrant Blair has always been “lucky”.
Ooops spelling mistake should be bliar I won’t dignify his name with a capital letter
Most people do not understand the subtle art of satire anymore. I
Let me just open that in a private tab, since my 21st Twatter account is currently suspended again because (snap!) Twatter do not understand the concept of satire.
There’s only so many cancellations they can make.
Good grief.
Roundup, last: Kemi Badenoch well worth 5 minutes of your time.
My fantasy pick for replacing Carrie Antoinette’s puppet. One of the few actual conservatives left.
Possibly in some ways but wasn’t she quite covidian?
Roundup 2. German regions fearful of Covid freedom. Telegram.
“two world wars and one world cup La, La . . .”
(Over 60s only).
Roundup 11. Worcester college cancels Christians. Toby in the Telegraph.
I’m no longer even nominal CofE but neither do I feel ‘distressed’ by Christianity.
I used to enjoy the delights of Christmas, was a member of a Scout Group attached to the Parish Church for at least 10 years, going on several Scout Camps with a vaguely Christian ethos.
Never did me any harm
Gone too soon
30 year old advisor to MSP dies playing rugby for Holyrood team in Dublin
Nicola leads the mourning
jab death?
Some BS on Radio 2 news at 7am: Long Covid, some bloke from Carphilly with lung mucus and fatigue who’s had “Long Covid” for 7 months was supposidly given a double dose of vaccine as a treatment, which miraculously cleared his fatigue and mucus, he subsiquently tested negative on a test.
I can’t find reports on any paper, or trial, for this nonsense. The BBC don’t usually push something so silly without a starting point to base it on, all I can find is this nonsnse. Is this what it has really come to, the BBC using a Facebook poll used to push the death jabs?
20/852 voted “my long term covid symptoms have comepletely gone away after the vaccine”
https://www.eatthis.com/news-fauci-long-covid-vaccine-cure/
Because if someone from Carphilly was really given a double dose of the vaccine, as a treatment, the Dr should be reported to the GMC.
The 8am news just pushed 4th dose available from today…
Long Covid seems to be a synonym of tall tale
I also posted on this today somewhere else on the site.
My take on it was similar – but wondered was he allowed to try Ivermectin first or did they just g straight to jab when all else failed?
‘Survivor Corps’! Seriously? Hhahahahaha.
What next? Bad cold survivor group, Toenail Fungus Survivors, Rubella Survivors?
Is there a sudden demise of other publications or is it just me? that todays links seem to point me towards buying the terrorgraph as the main source.( Global health team funded by Mr Gates)
Tbf, it is just about the only ‘newspaper’ that even gives a look-in to sceptical viewpoints; albeit it often also features much of the propaganda crap so typical of most ‘newspapers’!
Richard North has some good analysis of the Ukraine coverage at Turbulent Times:
Ukraine: to distort more than convince
worth readinf in full: https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/ukraine-to-distort-more-than-convince/
What a wishywashy article in The Telegraph about Germany and it’s new/old covid restrictions starting today. But then no-one who is really interested what the situation in Germany is would rely on a short non-journalism piece like this to inform themselves I guess they had a gap to fill.
TrialSite news report on the situation in Hongkong. Our Sitp welcomed a couple who last week moved from Hongkong. He told us that injection rate is 93%, Trial Site states 73%. We were told it is a no injection no job policy, and most people’s contract are only for between 6months and 2 years, and usually easily get renewed, but now this system pressured people to get injected. It was also an enforced no entry to public buildings, if that was work, restaurants, or even the supermarket unless you have proof of injection. BionTech/Pfizer was the mostly used one, and since the start of injections, deaths with/from c rocketed from 148 in 2020 to 4870 until end of February this year.
Do you, though? In what tangible way do you stand with them? Not physically, I imagine.
It’s just more virtue-signalling nonsense. Who stands with pikeys, for instance?
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1011899/travellers-site-flytipping-waste-disposal
The idea is to engage the public emotionally to justify ostracising Russia.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less. Let them sort it out amongst themselves, just like the UK has done over hundreds of years.
I don’t think it’s smart to deliberately provoke, and make an enemy of a country armed as well as Russia is with nuclear weapons.
We are not the worlds policeman nor their moral judges.
Re the Convid 19 scam.. they’re not letting it go.. far from it.. they’re revving up for another variant of (??????) and Austria are going back to full ‘mask-oide’ after two weeks sans the face rag. Germany too making noises about ‘rising cases’.. and they are very-very-very-very-very.. concerned..
How long before the bedwetters are ‘stimulated’ again in the YUK.. any bets.. or are all bets off????
https://www.europereloaded.com/is-the-austrian-govt-completely-insane-mask-compulsions-coming-back-just-days-after-abolition/
https://www.europereloaded.com/in-germany-corona-fascism-limps-on/
As soon as the Ukraine situation runs out of steam / the UK public gets bored of it, we will be back to bedwettery!
Not sure that it will work as well next time round though – there’s a core of hardline, committed bedwetters who will love it, but a lot of the rest of the population will increasingly resent it – as we saw with the muzzle mandate over christmas where far fewer than previously wore them, and most businesses made no attempt at trying to enforce it.
depends how long of a gap they leave in between getting rid of all restrictions and trying to re-introduce them
If they wait to autumn they could find it a bit on the tricky side – people too used to not being restricted won’t be keen to start it all up again.;
I strongly suspect it’s the flu being labelled as Covid in this part of Europe. If we’re apparently having an epidemic in The Netherlands, what’s the betting this tiny country bordering Germany are some sort of isolated case, an outlier? Not likely. But what I’m still not clear on is how does a doctor diagnose which of the two viruses it is if both are currently circulating? The PCR test can hardly be relied upon to give definitive results. My suspicion is that people with the flu are getting a PCR positive result and this is feeding into the Covid numbers that are already present due to hypochondriacs routinely testing “just in case” or who are pathetically scared of a runny nose so run to the test centre like right fannies! When will these numpties realise no testing=no “cases”=no ‘pandemic’=no restrictions?
There is no doubt in my mind that if Boris and the re-grouped SAGE tell the British to put face masks back on, they will oblige.
This was seen to be the case between ‘Freedom Day’ last July and last Christmas.
Who knows what will happen? Looks like the 4th jab is being rolled out, and the 5-11 kiddies about to be injected with the ‘Magic Juice’. You’ve got people saying “the wheels of the bus are coming off”, and then the European Union saying they’re extending the EU Vaxx Pass until June 2023 (for starters!).
Who to believe? Those who say something is happening, or those who are really making something else happen?
Still 99-100% face masks here in Finland… so when people say “the house of cards is collapsing” that has just as much meaning as saying “Tony Blair will be going to jail.”
Does Finland still have a mandate then, or is this people just voluntarily wearing one because they’re a special kind of stupid? Is Finland a nation of submissive bedwetters who claim to be “informed” because they watch the breakfast/evening news every day? If this is what you’re experiencing every day over there then no wonder you’re so cynical. Here I’m pleased to say masked muppets are few and far between but I do see them every time I’m out. It’s if I’m still seeing them in 30+ degree heat in August I might just have to challenge them on their stupidity.
There’s really nothing new here. My personal guess at the cause would be: As there isn’t a legal requirement for self-isolation and the corresponding protocols anymore, the hobby Covidians who keep testing themselves at the other’s expense have started to report each positive result they get. Eg, someone getting positive test results for three days in a row would turn into three cases.
With some luck, the nonsense will finally end in England in 9 days when free testing of healthy people finally comes to an end. Until then, expect whatever COVID statistic fireworks can be made up somehow.
O/T but I hear that having condemned Novak Djokovic for not taking the clotshot, Rafael Nadal suffered breathing difficulties during a recent defeat.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/60816909
No sympathy from me.
Well, we all know how to respond to that. “Lucky he has been fully vaxxed, otherwise it would have been much worse.”
“It’s tough for me to breathe. When I try to breathe, it’s painful and it’s very uncomfortable,” said Nadal.
“When I’m breathing, when I’m moving it’s like a needle all the time inside here. I get dizzy a little bit because it’s painful. It’s a kind of pain that limits me a lot. It’s not only about pain, I don’t feel very well because it affects my breathing.”
Perhaps he might like to do some reading about others who have suffered the same symptoms..
is that the graphene hydroxide particles in his blood stream do you think?
It’s an interesting description from someone who is used to knowing how his body feels under pressure. He feels something inside him that is causing him pain.
Wonder when he had his most recent jab, as I am sure he needs to keep “up to date” in order to participate in those tournaments which require it.
‘Rafael Nadal suffered breathing difficulties’
Wow, sounds like Raffy needs to get himself a boosta.
Absolutely unbelievable!
A bit slow in the uptake…
https://www.hsj.co.uk/quality-and-performance/disproportionate-infection-control-holding-back-electives-say-nhs-bosses/7032119.article
Disportionate’ infection control holding back electives, say NHS bosses
By James Illman
21 March 2022
Infection control rules in hospitals are ‘now disproportionate to the risks’ posed by covid and should be relaxed, some of the NHS’s most senior leaders have warned.
The government rules – such as not allowing covid-positive staff to work, and separating out services for covid, non-covid and covid-contact patients – make a big dent in hospital capacity and slow slow through services.
Senior figures told HSJ they were a key reason why the NHS is still carrying out substantially less elective procedures than pre-covid, which has been highlighted by new analysis (see below).
Glen Burley, who is chief executive of three Midlands trusts and involved in national-level discussions on elective matters, told HSJ: “Pretty much every pathway has a covid and non-covid route, which slows down flow and staff productivity.
“There is a growing argument that these rules are now disproportionate to the risks. With covid cases in the community also rising now, we may have to question again the relative risks of continuing to isolate staff.”
HSJ understands other senior NHS officials are also pushing for a change to the rules, which are decided by the UK Health Security Agency, part of the Department of Health and Social Care.
NHS Confederation director of policy Layla McCay told HSJ: “Healthcare leaders are concerned the current [IPC] measures are having a serious knock-on effect on capacity and that the measures in their current form are reducing efficiency and capacity within healthcare settings.
“We need more clarity on if and how current measures can be safely adjusted so [the NHS] can further increase bed capacity and patient throughput, as well as the ability to transport patients more quickly and efficiently.”
Dr McCay said leaders wanted additional flexibility to be used depending on local circumstances. She stressed NHS leaders “know well [that covid-19 has not gone away] and will not take their eye off the ball when it comes to IPC”.
But NHS Providers, which has previously said relaxing the IPC guidance would not enable a “rapid” increase in the NHS’ capacity to tackle the elective care backlog and could pose significant “risks”, remains more cautious.
The calls come just days after new figures revealed the proportion of patients with covid who most likely caught the virus in hospital reached record levels, as reported by HSJ on Friday.
NHSP deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said: “Trust leaders recognise only too well the urgent need to bear down on care backlogs in hospitals, and in mental health and community settings as well.
“However, they also recognise the ongoing risk posed by covid-19 and the need to protect patients, staff and visitors. It is important to recognise the competing priorities of increasing activity levels while doing everything possible to keep rates of hospital-acquired infections down.
“Trust leaders will continue to follow national guidance in this regard.”
Mr Burley also stressed IPC rules were not the only barrier, as some staff are off sick with serious covid symptoms. He added: “Whilst covid occupancy was not as bad as it could have been in January, everyone experienced extremely acute staffing shortages. In my experience they were pretty much double the winter norms. Agency staffing to plug gaps was also harder to find.”
The defeat of public opinion – The Conservative Woman an excellent read with many 1st class insightful comments
Why are schools still closing?
https://www.andoveradvertiser.co.uk/news/20008199.endeavour-primary-school-norman-gate-school-partially-closed-due-staff-shortages-following-covid-outbreaks/
https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/20008289.westgate-school-partially-closed-due-staff-shortages-following-covid-outbreaks/
There are too many of these pointless tests being used to get a few days off ‘with a cold’ and creating more havoc fpor parents and children. Online learning is no substitute for personal contact, but the bureaucrats are in charge,, even though restrictions are supposed to have been removed and any virus being relatively benign! Still, got to keep the sheeple frightened, in case WWIII doesn’t kick off!
Tom Newton Dunn’s question to Kemi Badenoch perfectly sums up the stupidity of modern thought. (To paraphrase) “How on earth do you teach the British Empire, when the British Empire was so, you know, bad and evil and racist and should probably be cancelled?” Good answer from Badenoch (to paraphrase) “By teaching them what happened and not trying to virtue signal or brainwash them into being morally disgusted by their own history!” I like the idea of uniting history into a shared history, and not (yet again) being so woke you end up being racist and discriminatory!
When you look at a country like Rhodesia how can anyone claim it was better after colonial rule ended?
From agricultural abundance to complete sh*t hole that required white men to throw bags of flour out the back of a Hercules to keep people alive in the space of a few years.
Well the point is, children don’t need to be told whether things were ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – they just need to know what happened as accurately as possible – they can make their own minds up about the morality of it…
No school in Britain encourages independence of thought – no elite school, no down-the-road school.
I try to in my classroom!
I’m sure you do – and it’s vital and honourable work.
Teaching children how to find out what happened (or is happening) as accurately as possible is difficult and demanding.
To abandon the effort and take on preaching instead is a travesty of education. Children are force-fed half-baked opinions they cannot challenge, because very few are given the necessary tools.
otherwise you are left with “pretending they never happened” and a big hole where a chunk of years of history should have been
If I was teaching history, my first class would be a showing of the film ‘Rashomon’
Numerous people at my place of work are now off sick with the dreaded covids, actually ill not just false positives, all vaxxed up to their t*ts.
No vax for me and I’m alive and kicking.
But they’ll all be sooooo deeply protected from hospitalisation and death. Thank god they were wise enough to get themselves vaxxed.
And that they were sensible enough to take a vax to stop them from getting sick….oh, hang on….
They’ll probably be double plus-sensible enough to get their sixth, seventh, and eighth injections by Christmas if messages on their “apps” tell them. That’s assuming the mushroom clouds haven’t gone up by then.
Good branding doesn’t go stale.
And many suffer from lardarsery of the mind.
Actually I’m being a little unfair, because there are a minority of “pincushion for nursy” types who do say things like “Three times I did it, but I won’t do it any more now.” How solid they will be about this when a politician makes a plea on the telly and tells them it’s to save the babies, or to fight off some wicked Russians, I am not sure.
“Number 10” (the British prime minister’s office, on his authority) has said that the Russian state is responsible for the hoax calls that were made to British defence minister (“secretary”) Ben Wallace and interior minister (“home secretary”) Priti Patel.
I knew it was someone’s fault that these two couldn’t organise a p*ss-up in a brewery, or in other words that the British government’s security is a pile of cack. That’s Russia’s fault, apparently. Naughty, naughty Russia!
Who would ask Patel anything about that issue anyway? She got the sack after she was caught working for a foreign power, and then she was asked back into the cabinet.
She is supposed to be the minister responsible for MI5, by the way.
Clearly nothing is ever her own fault.
This reminds me of the Russian joke at the expense of the kind of idiot who can’t get his act together but always blames the Jews. “You didn’t sh*t your pants. The Jews came along and did it when you weren’t looking.”
British history, if we go back to the Romans that’s 2 000 years. British Black & Asian history is less than 70 years. Why should British history be taught appropriate to communities?
On a positive note the Equalities Minister – a post that shouldn’t exist because in order to justify it there will have to be a hunt for inequalities which some can find in a handful of dirt – is talking sense and being reasonable and rational. I am surprised. I don’t think she’ll last long.