[*UK not refusing to export]
I think the Conservatives are an absolutely toxic force for evil in our country.
I think the Pandemic response, in which it’s leaders sought to profit and serve themselves, even as the death toll soared to levels few imagined, proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And there is a part of me, not a part I’m particularly proud of, that enjoys that feeling of being right.
Kopstar has been trying to convince us of the flaws in the EU project for years. How he feels posting a story that shows his point about the danger of the EUs bureaucracy and intransigence has validity, is probably exactly the same as how I feel posting a story that shows the Tory’s are corrupt, amoral arseholes. I’m not going to criticise him for thinking ‘see, I told you so’, when I have done more than my share of that down the years.
I don’t agree with him on the EU, and I still think leaving is a huge mistake. But the EUs vaccine response shows that the leave arguments have some merit. And all the Brexit shit that has happened to this point, and will continue to happen until the UK is a tiny irrelevant, damp little island, trying to live vicariously off its past glories will show the merit of remains.
The grown up thing to do here is accept that on this particular issue the EU fucked up, and in the process, revealed a little of the flaws it’s critics have been shouting about for years.
To me, it’s like your team playing badly in a game for a couple of minutes and conceding a goal, in a match that you’ve otherwise played well in and comfortably won.
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The suggestion does seem to be that if there are failures on a side you are otherwise generally supportive of that these should be ignored. I don’t think that’s healthy. At all.
Just like there are many, many issues that the UK government ought to be held accountable for (including individually) so ought the EU (or whoever) take ownership of its own missteps. In Germany, they have had their own procurement corruption scandals, but politicians have resigned and are being prosecuted. That level of holding people to account needs to happen here too.
It’s why, despite my personal dislike of Jolyon Maugham, some of what the Good Law Project is doing is not only laudable but vital. It shouldn’t be down to such a partisan “public” interest group to do this but nevertheless dirty aspects of government must be exposed and individuals held to account.
It’s also important, for public confidence in the justice system if nothing else, that these issues are accurately reported.
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out of interest what are the differences between Germany and the UK that have allowed the politicians taking the piss over there to be rightly held accountable?
I agree that what the GLP is doing is both essential and the absolutely the right thing to do but I do also agree that it should not be up to them. There should be absolutely no need for them.
I also think that this idea should be spread wider and include the press and those that basically spread garbage. But that’s a whole different discussion and massively difficult.
It should also be said that this pandemics is an indirect result of the loss of biodiversity and natural spaces on earth. According to many scientists, this is only the beginning. The more we will lose biodiversity, the more pandemics will happen in the future.
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Apologies for bombarding the thread with information.
Tsssss, just when some people thought Biden can walk on water…
Also, on vaccine take-up in the UK…
For those in London
I read this week that Virs technology & GSK have ended a phase 3 trial early because of positive results and will be seeking clearance from the FDA and other national bodies to allow use of their covid treatments. Good to see the number of available vaccines increase.
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Yes, I posted that news (I appreciate I post a lot in here!). That’s particularly good because it’s about effective treatment, I think? We need to fight this from both sides. Prevention and cure.
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Sorry mate, I don’t know.
Here’s some more on it
https://mobile.twitter.com/ciabaudo/status/1368820595631210497
As you can see, the scale talked about in Germany is tiny compared to the concerns raised in the UK. I’m a little reluctant to talk about £m’s of corruption in the UK when these allegations haven’t yet been the subject of determination by the Courts, but we need the kind of public accountability for politicians that seemingly occurs in Germany.
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34m doses of COVID19 vaccine exported from the EU to 21 countries since reporting on exports began on 30th January. Clearly millions more doses before that though exact quantities would be anyone’s guess. Am I right in saying that only the EU, Russia and China have exported vaccine to this point?
Btw, the media department at the EU and their general media relations strategy stinks. Charles Michel played the man in attacking the UK when they should have been showing their export history when there was pushback from Italy’s block of vaccines to Australia. They are in effect encouraging the narrative by making this a UK vs EU fist fight.
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Well, vaccines have left the UK and I’m pretty sure India as well, no?
EU hasn’t approved all export requests though, as we know, but your article is a month old.
The document, circulated to EU ambassadors, shows that the bloc exported doses to 31 countries, having authorized 249 of 258 export requests.
Here’s a link
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-10/eu-exported-25-million-doses-out-of-bloc-8-million-to-u-k
The EU has now extended its vaccine export checks to the end of June
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-eu-export/update-1-eu-extends-vaccine-export-checks-by-three-months-until-end-june-idUSL8N2L93IO
I think it is probably something that has been a gradual process of erosion in the UK but has just got worse over the last 5 or so years thanks to those behind Trump and the campaign for Brexit (where Johnson appears to have picked up a lot of his current support/advisors from). When someone believes there is no negative consequence to them from their actions, they are more likely to misbehave. Both Trump and Johnson are happy to push the boundaries as far as they can. In Johnson’s case, there appears to be nothing to stop him. The code says he should resign but it isn’t enforceable and until Labour gain enough support to threaten an election win, it is unlikely his own party will push him.
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you obviously haven’t read my recent posts then
US and Asia allies launch major vaccine drive to counter China
The 1bn Covid jabs will be funded by US and Japan, made in India and distributed by Australia
The US has crafted a plan with Japan, India and Australia to provide 1bn doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine to south-east Asian nations in a bid to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
President Joe Biden and his counterparts will unveil the initiative on Friday when they convene the first “Quad” summit. Under the deal, the US and Japan will finance production of the vaccine in India, while Australia will help to distribute the jabs across south-east Asia.
One US official described it as a “historic deliverable” that would demonstrate the importance of the Quad, which emerged in 2004 when the nations co-operated on disaster relief after a tsunami devastated Indonesia.
“It’s deeply strategically significant,” the official said. “The fact that the Quad has rallied and engaged deeply, essentially around the clock, over the course of the last few weeks . . . is significant.”
The plan came together after weeks of shuttle diplomacy between Kurt Campbell, the top White House official for the Indo-Pacific, and the ambassadors representing the Quad nations in Washington. The Financial Times was the first to report that the four countries were working on a vaccine diplomacy initiative.
The plan will be couched as a positive effort to tackle the pandemic, but it is also part of a broader strategy of finding common areas where the countries can counter Beijing without seeming too anti-China.
Biden has made clear that he sees China as his biggest foreign policy challenge and that he would seek to work with allies to deal with Beijing.
The Quad meeting will be Biden’s first summit as US president. Next month, Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s prime minister, will be the first foreign leader to meet Biden at the White House.
Since holding its first “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue” in 2007, the Quad had fallen dormant, particularly over concerns in India and Australia about antagonising China.
Michael Green, former Asia adviser to George W Bush, said Biden had to “reset the chessboard quickly” to deal with China, but warned that the US president faced constraints in a lack of consensus on trade policy and debates about levels of military spending.
He said the Munich Security Conference, at which German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron adopted softer approaches to China, reinforced the view that the “Europeans were still obstreperous” about crafting a common China policy.
“This was the fastest play on the board and they did it big,” Green said. “The provision of public goods is not something that China can call containment, but it shows the limits of Beijing’s influence.”
The US official said Biden wanted to take the Quad, which was resurrected by Donald Trump, “to the next level” with a practical initiative that would address the vaccine shortage in south-east Asia.
But the official added that the effort was also a critical test of whether the four-nation partnership could prove strategically important. “The thing that has brought all these countries together is an insistence on providing practical concrete help. If the Quad cannot constructively address these issues, we will quickly lose relevance.”
A second US official said the leaders would also create working groups to focus on areas such as climate change, emerging technologies and setting standards for crucial technologies.
Tanvi Madan, an India expert at the Brookings Institution, said the plan showed that the Quad could make a positive contribution that would help alleviate doubts about its effectiveness. “It can be visible proof of concept for a grouping that has been dismissed by critics as . . . a meaningless talk shop,” she added.
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No because our government is shite and the EU are a paragon of magical perfection.
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