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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Mikey10 said:
It’s almost as if the party in power between 2020-2024 hugely increased the national debt and oversaw a flatlining economy, thus rendering previous plans null and void. (I see the OBR said today that the holes in the spending plans put forward by the Conservatives before they left office may well have crossed into areas of illegality.)

I’d imagine from a simple vote-winning perspective Starmer would love to get rid of tution fees, but with the universities being another area left in an absolute mess by the last government, with many on the verge of bankruptcy, reality unfortunately bites.
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The OBR didn't say that at all. They said that The Treasury (not ministers or MPs) have a legal obligation to disclose all known spending pressures that would impact the OBR's analysis of the budget. The Treasury failed to disclose c. £9.5 billion of spending pressures that would have materially altered the OBR's analysis.

I'm not sure if serious about your finger pointing in relation to national debt increasing and the economy flat lining between 2020 and 2024 - as if that wouldn't have happened if anyone was in power in those years....
 
Answers within the body of you reply...

Kompakted said:
They weren't looking at developing a vaccine for a coronavirus at the time Covid broke out
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I am not sure what angle you're offering here. MY point was that generally, scientists are consistently evaluating potential vaccines for a myriad of potential and developing strains. For the record, I think this is a GOOD thing.


Kompakted said:
and while they do keep viruses under surveillance for pandemic potential, coronaviruses are generally considered low risk from a pandemic potential:
- Humans are generally not very susceptible to coronaviruses, only 6 coronaviruses had ever been catalogued to infect humans:
- SARs & MERs caused short local health emergencies before fizzling out.
- 4 coronaviruses circulate annually amongst humans and cause the common cold symptoms (by contrast, there are over 100 catalogued rhinoviruses that cause a cold in humans)
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I understand the various strains of coronavirus. I am struggling to determine what your point is?

Kompakted said:
- The Pfizer Covid vaccine was repurposed from an experimental cancer vaccine using new technology.
- The Astrazenica vaccine was developed from scratch using a tried and tested technique where the rna of the covid virus is placed inside a neutered adenovirus (which is another virus that causes cold symptoms) and introduced into your system to trigger an immune response, giving you antibodies that will attack the covid rna.
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Again, I am at a loss as to interpret what you're trying to say.
Let me be cleat about what I am trying to say, and that is that science is continually working on a variety of trials, research and vaccines which can have a profond effect on the speed of a vaccine being developed in a 'real need' situation. And the facts tell us that groundwork research, both directly into coronviruses and indirectly, were of supreme importance in seeing a vaccine developed as quickly as it did.
I'd be fascinated to see your source which says that Atrazenica vaccine was developed 'from scratch'? I personally find it virtually impossible to believe that this particular company did not have some prior research fundamentally involved in its development.

Here is some interesting reading.

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering...onavirus-research-paved-way-covid-19-vaccines
 
Kompakted said:
I mean, a company always has ties to someone. I think there is an

That's not what the OBR said. The OBR said the Treasury have a legal obligation to inform the OBR of spending pressures and they committed to tell them about £9.5 billion which was enough to have materially altered the OBR's analysis of Hunt's last budget. The Treasury are independent of Conservatives or Labour. They're part of the civil service.

I daresay any party in power between 2020 - 2024 would have overseen a huge increase in national debt and a flatlining economy. Or have you been living under a rock for the last 4 years?
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The OBR have been pretty clear on potential illegality. The figures provided were certainly opaque, at very best.

www.theguardian.com

Treasury may have broken law by failing to reveal £9.5bn spend in Tory budget, MPs told

Head of OBR says spending commitment would have ‘materially changed’ its forecast on Jeremy Hunt’s pre-election budget
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

On your second point, yes, an increase in national debt was a given in those four years - although a flatlining economy was not, as any quick glance around the world shows. The point being made was that it would have been strange had Starmer not revisited some of his statements and plans from 2020 given what happened in that and subsequent years.
 
Mikey10 said:
The OBR have been pretty clear on potential illegality. The figures provided were certainly opaque, at very best.

www.theguardian.com

Treasury may have broken law by failing to reveal £9.5bn spend in Tory budget, MPs told

Head of OBR says spending commitment would have ‘materially changed’ its forecast on Jeremy Hunt’s pre-election budget
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

On your second point, yes, an increase in national debt was a given in those four years - although a flatlining economy was not, as any quick glance around the world shows. The point being made was that it would have been strange had Starmer not revisited some of his statements and plans from 2020 given what happened in that and subsequent years.
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Flatlining economy certainly was - UK is in line with its peers and the extent to which your economy struggled from 2022-2024 was almost exactly in line with how reliant you were on fossil fuels and particularly how reliant on Russian fossil you were. France (went big on nuclear post-war) did better than us, we were middle of the pack, Germany (reliant on Russia) was the dunce of the class. I actually think Germany's problems are more structural - their major industries have failed to innovate and fallen behind competing industries from other nations (e.g. Chinese EVs are significantly undercutting their vehicle sales globally) and they've failed to invest in new industries such as, not only EV technology but green energy and AI.

You contrast that with the UK where as per an article posted by someone else few pages back, about a fifth of the City of London jobs are now in the tech industry rather than FS. Similarly at the other end of the country, similarly to how we killed our own mining and steel industries before other countries outcompeted us, we've effectively killed our own fossil industry with leaving Aberdeen a bit of a ghost town and searching for new revenue sources. While these decisions seem painful at the time, you've got to constantly change and adapt in this world.
 
thfcsteff said:
Answers within the body of you reply...



I am not sure what angle you're offering here. MY point was that generally, scientists are consistently evaluating potential vaccines for a myriad of potential and developing strains. For the record, I think this is a GOOD thing.




I understand the various strains of coronavirus. I am struggling to determine what your point is?


Again, I am at a loss as to interpret what you're trying to say.
Let me be cleat about what I am trying to say, and that is that science is continually working on a variety of trials, research and vaccines which can have a profond effect on the speed of a vaccine being developed in a 'real need' situation. And the facts tell us that groundwork research, both directly into coronviruses and indirectly, were of supreme importance in seeing a vaccine developed as quickly as it did.
I'd be fascinated to see your source which says that Atrazenica vaccine was developed 'from scratch'? I personally find it virtually impossible to believe that this particular company did not have some prior research fundamentally involved in its development.

Here is some interesting reading.

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering...onavirus-research-paved-way-covid-19-vaccines
Click to expand...
A close family member is a pathologist working for a large life science company that conducted the UK clinical trials for the AZ vaccine. "From scratch" - well you're correct it wasn't entirely from scratch, as I've said it built on existing tried and tested vaccination techniques for e.g. flu. But it wasn't repurposed from an already in-development vaccine. It was based on an incredible piece of research by Oxford University working with colleagues in Wuhan who had already isolated the Covid viruses rna
 
Kompakted said:
A close family member is a pathologist working for a large life science company that conducted the UK clinical trials for the AZ vaccine. "From scratch" - well you're correct it wasn't entirely from scratch, as I've said it built on existing tried and tested vaccination techniques for e.g. flu. But it wasn't repurposed from an already in-development vaccine. It was based on an incredible piece of research by Oxford University working with colleagues in Wuhan who had already isolated the Covid viruses rna
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So does this mean you were agreeing with my initial comments on the vaccine? Genuinely not sure where we are in this chat...
 
Mikey10 said:
The OBR have been pretty clear on potential illegality. The figures provided were certainly opaque, at very best.

www.theguardian.com

Treasury may have broken law by failing to reveal £9.5bn spend in Tory budget, MPs told

Head of OBR says spending commitment would have ‘materially changed’ its forecast on Jeremy Hunt’s pre-election budget
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

On your second point, yes, an increase in national debt was a given in those four years - although a flatlining economy was not, as any quick glance around the world shows. The point being made was that it would have been strange had Starmer not revisited some of his statements and plans from 2020 given what happened in that and subsequent years.
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So as expected from you Kier gets a free pass to lie, lie and lie again for the next 4 years, if he lasts that long which he won't
 
Trump's Republicans stand for nut job policies, but they stand for something and the Democrats do not! All around the world, progressive parties have allowed drones such as Nancy Pelosi to run them. You know that Nancy, who thought it was a good idea to show her kitchen, that was more expensisve than most American's houses. She is just so in touch. The same will happen to Labour, unless they start standing for some things that resonate with ordinary people. Nationalizing the water companies would be a good start and cleaning up the putrid water ways of Britain in doing so .
 
Gilzeantoscore said:
Trump's Republicans stand for nut job policies, but they stand for something and the Democrats do not! All around the world, progressive parties have allowed drones such as Nancy Pelosi to run them. You know that Nancy, who thought it was a good idea to show her kitchen, that was more expensisve than most American's houses. She is just so in touch. The same will happen to Labour, unless they start standing for some things that resonate with ordinary people. Nationalizing the water companies would be a good start and cleaning up the putrid water ways of Britain in doing so .
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Labour will lose because they will do f*ck all to end mass migration.

Not deport all illegal immigrants and those that crossed by boats.

Imprisoning people for being correct, regarding the stabbings.

Labelling the majority of people far right.

People ain't gonna vote for a c*nt who hates them.

I said it before and i will say it agsin.

Don't listen at your peril.
 
markysimmo said:
This clam has more front than Brighton

View attachment 17967
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When all these people say that a trump victory brings democracy into question I'm not sure what they're implying - that voters only get to vote for people they like in a true democracy? I'm unsure, but it's a common theme from many that democracy is only properly functioning if people they like get voted in.
 
Kompakted said:
When all these people say that a trump victory brings democracy into question I'm not sure what they're implying - that voters only get to vote for people they like in a true democracy? I'm unsure, but it's a common theme from many that democracy is only properly functioning if people they like get voted in.
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I suppose when the incoming president tells the electorate during the campaign that “after this election you won’t have to vote any more”, having previously incited an insurrection when he lost a free and fair election, it tends to set a few alarm bells ringing.
 
Mikey10 said:
I suppose when the incoming president tells the electorate during the campaign that “after this election you won’t have to vote any more”, having previously incited an insurrection when he lost a free and fair election, it tends to set a few alarm bells ringing.
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But what he says is kind of irrelevant - he was democratically elected. Churchill said the greatest argument against democracy was a 5 minute conversation with the average voter.
 
Kompakted said:
When all these people say that a trump victory brings democracy into question I'm not sure what they're implying - that voters only get to vote for people they like in a true democracy? I'm unsure, but it's a common theme from many that democracy is only properly functioning if people they like get voted in.
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Have you seen anything Trump has said in regards to future elections, his lack of ability to admit having lost the election after his first term or perhaps any comments regarding the literal insurrection that he fanned the flames of?

This isn't about liking someone or the standard "orange man bad" rolled out, are you seriously unaware of any genuine concern regarding democracy from what has happened and what has been said? It's either thar or wilful ignorance and either way it's frustrating. Talking about what people are implying ffs, keep sleepwalking through it all of it suits I guess.

Edit - Ever the hypocrite as I have just posted here but this should be in the American politics thread, this one is already enough of a clusterfudge without adding drama from across the pond as well!
 
spurspinter1 said:
Have you seen anything Trump has said in regards to future elections, his lack of ability to admit having lost the election after his first term or perhaps any comments regarding the literal insurrection that he fanned the flames of?

This isn't about liking someone or the standard "orange man bad" rolled out, are you seriously unaware of any genuine concern regarding democracy from what has happened and what has been said? It's either thar or wilful ignorance and either way it's frustrating. Talking about what people are implying ffs, keep sleepwalking through it all of it suits I guess.

Edit - Ever the hypocrite as I have just posted here but this should be in the American politics thread, this one is already enough of a clusterfudge without adding drama from across the pond as well!
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I mean my point, whether in America or here, is that it doesn't matter what someone says - Trump is very open about who he is, warts and all. Not in a self-reflective way of course, more in a "what he is, is there for all to see". People voted for him in huge numbers. That's democracy. If there was a democratic vote to end democracy, would that be undemocratic? Interesting debate question right there....
 
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