[syhprum (OP)]

the organization for administrating the Pfizer vaccine has broken down, is someone's head going to roll or at least their cushy job going to be terminated no bloody way ?
In its place we are getting the roll out of the cheaper Oxford vaccine a triumph of British invention (like TV ,Radar, Jet engines Penicillin  ET all).
One is reminded of the incident in "1984" when the big news was that the chocolate ration was to be increased to 20 grams per month when the previous month it had been 30 

[alancalverd]

"Saving Christmas" is newspeak for mass murder and economic destruction. "Education" is the polite term for genocide. 

[Bored chemist]

Saving the economy by trashing the economy is doublethink.

[alancalverd]

The idea of destroying a village to save it really gained currency in 1968 (My Lai). It resurfaced in the early 1980s with the UK Transition to War policy to turn the country into a police state in order to prevent it becoming a police state, but this is the first serious attempt since the Crusades (or possibly Margaret Thatcher) to bankrupt the country for political gain.

[Petrochemicals]

More like "Catch 22", tier 5 now but the main vectors of colds and flu, the dirty dirty children, are all going back to school, along with their siblings to various classrooms for 6 hours a day I have a social bubble of 1 other person, no other households. My brother who's children attend school have a social bubble of approximately 10K other people. This is really not an exaggeration.

[Bored chemist]

but this is the first serious attempt since the Crusades (or possibly Margaret Thatcher) to bankrupt the country for political gain.

Which?
Covid or Brexit?

[alancalverd]

Sorry, I forgot about joining the Common Market. 

[Bored chemist]

Sorry, I forgot about joining the Common Market. 

probably wise, in your case.
But I was talking about Brexit.
https://www.ft.com/content/a434b756-afe0-454d-9d70-ef2d42ea8d55?fbclid=IwAR2m8fFGTKcxlHCydwi0MbuOjRGc7UHxo0Ir-PmGIbXumZ9vLEKdBp-pFVM
To wave goodbye to £6 billion of trade in the first working day is quite an impressive start on wrecking the economy, isn't it?

[alancalverd]

And to wave goodbye to an ever-increasing trade deficit is the best way to prevent the UK turning into a cold version of Greece.

[Bored chemist]

And to wave goodbye to an ever-increasing trade deficit is the best way to prevent the UK turning into a cold version of Greece.

Or a slightly milder climate version of Germany.
Why do you think we would turn into Greece?
We have made no move towards "Greek-ness" in the last 50 yea5ras. Why would it start now?

[alancalverd]

Ask the architects of austerity. Ask who owns UK railway companies. Or EDF. Or any large-ish manufacturing plant. The UK isn't quite a vassal state yet but whatever profit is made here, soon finds its way overseas. 

[Bored chemist]

vassal state

So, after 50 years or so , it hasn't happened.
The interesting thing is that, if it was actually to look like it would happen, the UK could have invoked article 50 and left.

That's one of the things it was for.
(the other was if the EU enacted a law that we really couldn't stomach we could leave the EU; some might say the  EU proposals on tax avoidance ticked that box and we left for the benefit of tax dodgers.)

[alancalverd]

if it was actually to look like it would happen, the UK could have invoked article 50 and left.

And it did, so we did.

[Bored chemist]

Do you understand that the decision to sell off infrastructure like rail and electricity generation was a "stupid Tory" thing, rather than a "European" thing?
If it was a consequence of being in Europe then the French and Germans would have had to do it.
They didn't- because their governments had more sense.

That's the same "stupid Tories" who decided that they didn't like the tax structures the EU was proposing, so they set us on a path to leave.

The issues you raise are nothing to do with being in Europe (one of our rail companies is owned by a Hong Kong based company).

The Tories have screwed the country. They have blamed "immigrants"; "lazy workers" and "Europe" for problems which they (deliberately) generated.
It looks like you have only fallen for one of their lies, so I guess that's a start.

Fundamentally, you need to explain the asymmetry.
If Europe is bad for the UK, why isn't it bad for Germany?.

And it did,

I will, of course, dismiss that without evidence.