France is considering simply closing the border, which would include truck traffic. Even some sort of driver screening is going to create a logistical nightmare at the ends of the Chunnel, and there is no prospect of that measure being removed before January 1. So the January 1 point is largely irrelevant now, the border will already a bigger mess than no-deal could manage. Where is the urgency to get it done for January 1 now?
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Where have you heard/read that? All I’ve seen so far are considerations about travel.
News here, so not on authority by any means - key thing is trains, and whether the definition of trains includes all Chunnel traffic or not.
Could be someone reading a newswire, thinking about the Chunnel, putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5.
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I know they’ve nicknamed him “Dishy Rishi” but that’s going a bit too far…
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Even if it’s No Deal as at 1 January, the UK government will just say that the chaos at the ports is caused by the French striking again.
At least half the country have pretty much been inculcated to this idea by now. Easy to believe for at least the first few weeks.
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Even if…Kentians have telescopes.
I guess Boris will make a few bob out of Brexit like Rees Moggs will .( has? )
I read somewhere that JRM stands to make 60mill and Boris about 40. Pretty sure the JRM stuff is real as investing money in off shore accounts is his business, less confident about Boris but they tend to scratch each others backs.
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To make it even more believable they can say French fishermen have blocked all French ferry ports and dumped rotting fish into the tunnel.
If France closes the border due to Covid it gives Botis a great excuse for an extension. Would he take it is another matter.
Similarly would France use Covid as an excuse to force more dialogue on Brexit?
Yeah it’s perfect for him. Chaos to create money and leaving the EU means no scrutiny of his taxes.
An interesting slip of the keyboard, as Botis, is the name of a Demon.
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I’m useless with a keyboard. Even worse on my phone.
Did fix the handbrake on the car today though.
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Could be worse, a clutch ratchet!
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From the replies to the above Twitter feed.
Michael Spicer
"One day they’ll be gone. Sure they’ll be writing columns for the Telegraph and publishing tedious memoirs and presenting documentaries about kings and railways but they’ll be gone. The whole relentlessly incompetent and vile lot of them will be gone. And it will be a good day. "
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Here is a good link on BMJ.
For me this paragraph is key.
“This variant is strongly associated with where we are seeing increasing rates of covid-19. It’s a correlation, but we can’t say it is causation. But there is striking growth in this variant, which is why we are worried, and it needs urgent follow-up and investigation.”
I suspect we could be seeing a founder effect. By chance there was a super spreader event (like a rock concert) that increased prevalence of one mutation.
For example earlier in the year D614G was touted as the strain with increased transmission. The reason the UK and US got hit so hard.
Recent paper in Nature (best scientific journal) believes it was simply founder effect.
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Interesting article. It seems the ingredients are there for a more contagious variant, but good to hear that there are little concerns at this stage over the vaccine’s effectiveness. That may change with time and further mutations by all accounts. Like flu.
What is clear to me though, is that the politicians have jumped on it and using it to push their reasoning for further restrictions. I cant really blame them for that. They need all the ammunition they can get at this tricky time.
What I cant forgive however is how we got to this position in the first place. That’s been indefensible IMO.
Given the UK’s overall performance, could we even see a founder effect? My understanding of the idea is that when a new population is established, the genetic characteristics of the ‘founder’ population become disproportionately represented, but covid was already well-established in the UK at the end of the summer.
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Could the UK be classed as one big founder in itself?
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I would say that such a sentence, about a rock concert, discredits the article. Tbf the BMJ hasn’t ever been great at such opinion articles they really should stick to their clinical stuff even if it’s outdated rhetoric.
It’s clear that the UK suffers because it is incapable of having (enforcing ) a lockdown which is also whatwe see in the USA. Where lockdowns are relatively effective the benefits are clearly seen.
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