Ah we're back to "what about Jeremy Corbyn" again are we.

When will Corbyn ever take responsibility for his disastrous handling of the economy and public services these past ten years, that's what we all demand to know.

Where has anybody suggested the state of the economy has anything to do with Corbyn? Just another one of your miss readings/understanding?

Well yes the EU has elected representatives and delegates with the key players all needing approval from our own elected government and the parliament being directly elected and major decisions requiring vote by the nation states. I do wonder what fantasy world you're talking about half the time.

Again, as if you're really upset about "protectionism" and all you've ever wanted in life is a bit of old liberal laissez-faire free trade. Really? Or is it just something to latch on to to beat the EU?

The world has divided into a number of regional trading blocs, regional because you trade most with those nearest at hand. Those blocs reduce or eliminate trade friction within. They don't massively raise friction externally.

You can believe that the UK is best served living outside this global reality. And I'm sure we could make a go of it as a low tax, low regulation, low pay economy as that's the best way to operate if you decide being inside your bloc isn't for you. (And especially if at the same time you passionately refuse to believe in making the investments which would differentiate us as a high knowledge, high skill, high wage economy).

The low tax and regulation route would work out just fine for some, maybe for you; not so much for the many however.

I dunno, you're the one who keeps mentioning them. Obsessed or deflecting attention, whichever. The reality is they've never been in power so what they would or would not have done is utterly irrelevant.

I would have suggested when we had a plan that could survive the scrutiny of even its own proponents and creators for more than a few weeks. And when adequate preparations were in place. I do have some sympathy people who really wanted to leave the EU because of legitimate anxieties about ever closer political ties to Europe, because all of the prominent figures offering it were/are cartoon-ish gormers.

As somebody with legitimate anxieties about late stage capitalism, inequality and ecological collapse, I feel their pain, having had to pin my hopes on Corbyn. I mean, he meant well from my political POV, but you have to give yourself a chance.

The problem, imo, was that with a clear and specific plan Leave probably doesn’t win the referendum. But without one, and with Johnson, Gove, JRM et al in charge of cobbling something together it was always going to be a mess.



That tells me almost nothing about the EU as a whole. There’s some information about its constituent parts that are in some cases making a bit of a mess of their vaccination programs. AZ is a British-Swedish multinational, with a Swedish chairman and a French-Australian CEO. I did quite a bit of work with them 2015 to 2017 and it did feel a bit more British than Roche and Novartis feel Swiss, for example. But the idea that the EU doesn’t want use their vaccine because it is too British is laughable paranoia. They’re more frustrated that they can’t get enough of it.



I’m not sure that leaving the EU really solves that broad problem. The freedom given by independence is often notional. In theory we’re a sovereign equal with the US but there is a massive power imbalance. It is going to be similar with the EU in some respects. With more resentment being stoked, admittedly.



Some of that I agree with. The simplicity of the NHS concept offers impressive value for the relatively small price we pay compared with most other wealthy countries, imo. Is commercial banking the part of banking associated with synthetic collaterized debt obligations, bankruptcies and massive public bailouts, creating a sense of injustice that led to stuff like Brexit and the Trump Presidency? Tbf, it is about 14 years since the entire system teetered on the brink of collapse, which is nice.

What new opportunities do you see for improving the areas you highlight, resulting from Brexit?
Well done on getting this far, if you have, btw.

Have an RLFANS house point.

100% this.
The weird patriotism BS being spread about the AZ, sorry err "Oxford" vaccine is mind-boggling. If people can't see they're being fed a line with that one I truly despair at what they'll believe.

Schrödinger's vaccine.

Is that the Oxford vaccine that was delayed from the factory in India ?
If they had gone with that headline in the Mail, the roll out would have stopped in it's tracks

How can a variant first found in Kent and sweeping through the EU and many other countries be washed up on our shores because we have it already.

I just don’t get the Nationalistic hype the tories are pushing with the covid vaccine rollout, but I guess it’s not aimed at me, as they know I won’t swallow it.



They make it sound like we’ve never undertaken a vaccination programme before.
The NHS has administered millions of jabs for donkeys years now, with about 20 million flu jabs in the 3 months before Christmas every year.

As the local doctor said, the NHS was already set up for vaccination programmes, all that was needed was bigger premises, which were quickly identified as the sports stadiums, and taxpayers money to implement.

It helps the narrative terrifically if you can pretend that it's all driven by those awful foreigners and no such stuff could possibly evolve here. Not with our superior genes and stuff.

Because the narrative is

Washed up on our shores with dodgy immigrants coming in on boats.

Sounds a lot better than flown in by Boris dad after he visits his holiday home to get it ready for summer season

You just don't get it - our influence as one of 27 is pretty small in a system set up to suit the French and the Germans primarily. Both the Dutch and the Irish voted against a treaty what happened? Do you honestly believe that say Holland could actually prevent legislation if the likes of Germany and France decided it was a good thing? We supposedly had a veto until Cameron tried to use it.

If the EU had remained a trading block brilliant but it didn't - it became a super state where regulation/control became the focus rather than mutual prosperity.

The difference with say the China is that as a trading block it doesn't have to refer/defer to anyone else in doing what is best for itself - the EU is very different all the other major trading blocks. China trades with everyone how does its location help it reduce trade friction?

Where have I said we shouldn't make investments in the private sector, better communications, better infrastructure - why would we invest in making the state bigger? You don't really believe investing in the public sector will deliver a high knowledge, high skill, high wage economy - do you?

This is about Government control - they need to keep finding things to extend the lockdown. Now we can't even go abroad even to countries with very low infection rates e.g. Israel. They want to extend the special measures way beyond the June end of restrictions. It has nothing to do with foreigners as you and Ghost and Durham would like it to be.

In 2019 they did 1.8m Flu jabs not 20m - this vaccination program is unprecedented in scale in this country 20 times the size of the flu jab roll out.

I only mention Corbyn when he patriotic credentials are raised and by comparison with current shambles we have as a government. I have never suggested the current state of anything has Grandad as its root cause.

=#BF0000What opportunities - I see far more aggressive approach to sales, marketing and distribution - product innovation e.g. pharma - where are the lipids for the Pfizer vaccine coming from?

In response to ZZB.

I think we could have planned a lot better for Brexit. But I understand the reasons (good, bad and inevitable) why we didn’t. Ultimately, people weigh the costs and benefits differently and we all made up our minds a long time ago.

The AZ-vaccine nervousness within the EU seemed very much to come at the national level. The EU regulatory body (the EMA) approved the AZ vaccine in all age groups and didn’t suspend approval in response the reports of thromboembolic events. I assume that was national health technology assessment agencies exercising an, imo excessive in the circumstances, degree of caution. Just as England has NICE (and Scotland has the SMA and Wales has the AWMSG), France has HAS and Italy has AIFA etc. The approval of all these vaccines was ‘expedited’, so I could kind of get a slightly wary reaction in countries that haven’t been hard hit by COVID. Where they’ve had it nearly as bad as us, it seems perverse to me. But these are independent, sovereign countries and they can make their own decisions.

I should have Googled commercial banking.

Dear Me,

What a very disingenuous response you slipped in there.

Your just a paid troll on here, most likely in the employ of the conservative and unionist party

Why do you keep saying "the EU" when you mean individual nation states?

You're the one who keeps raising them. Again, questioning someone else's loyalty to country just because they aren't right wing zeolouts is something that happens all too often and is something I find personally pretty despicable.

Well we need to start with education. And investment in that sector costs money. And I'm pretty sure you don't want anything close to an increase in our tax base. So what are we looking at? Wishing it into existence? Tax breaks for people who pretend to tick training boxes (been there, done that)? Anything which will actually address the issues we face?

Are we getting good value for money in our state education system - is the current system delivering the best outcomes and I don't mean loads of GCSEs. Perhaps before spending huge amounts of extra cash we develop a system that delivers maximum value and then start to re-invest - just a thought?

The 1.9m is on the HM Gov site - go check and come back when you can confirm your 20m jabs?

There was a couple of cases in Norway - but no correlation to AZ jab was ever made yet Germany, France etc jumped on the bandwagon - why? There were known side effects of the Pfizer jab which were far more prevalent than those of AZ jab - anaphylactic shock, respiratory problem, facial nerve paralysis yet nothing - why AZ and not Pfizer - the logic doesn't stack up.