That’s what I suggested a better way/name
I’m a recipient of the George Cross and a former Time Person of the year. I haven’t included these on my CV yet, but perhaps I should start from now on.
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Which former Time Person of the year did you get? I got Gorbachev two years ago and I don’t know what the fuck to do with him.
[Fun fact - if you contributed to content on social media sometime prior to 2006, you’re a Time Person of the year.]
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Fair play to Angela Rayner. I think we need to se more of this. I didn’t think it was a disaster for Boris at PMQ’s though but glad this was picked up by the opposition as too much of it goes unchallenged IMO.
I really don’t want that lying cunt off on a technicality, but in the Sky interview he was talking about fears of inflation in the past (assuming since Conservatives have been in power?) being unfounded and wasnt really speaking of forward projection. Is he lying by saying he didn’t say that? Well yes I guess but not in the context that Angela was framing it in.
I know but I’m glad she’s called him out on it in a live setting and in the same session. This needs to happen more IMO. He just gets up and spouts whatever he wants and is never directly challenged. Basically it’s move onto the next question.
Still it was a bit of good ole ding dong between the two.
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To be honest I find these moments are an embarrassment. Doesn’t matter which side it is, the jeering and whooping from a bunch of fully grown men and women who are elected officials is shameful.
And the snickering about everything. These people are playing with normal people’s lives, and they all think it’s so fucking hilarious because none od it affects them with their two houses, high salaries and thousands in ‘expenses’.
They can all fuck off.
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Basically a shit show - the only saving grace is covid jabs, and without Covid, those green bars wouldn’t be any better.
People are hard to please, it seems.
Fastest vaccine roll-out of the G20, fastest recovering economy of the G20, Brexit will continue to divide on ideological grounds regardless, world-leading on tackling climate change, praiseworthy handling of taxation and public expenditure (record investment into the NHS, for example), tougher on crime, further investment into policing, education would be a negative, record investment into the North and deprived areas, borders have been a shambles.
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Doesn’t that depend on where you put the finish line? Fastest start, sure. But it is over a year on and the UK hasn’t hit 75% coverage yet.
I would also question the climate change line.
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I would also question the NHS and Police investment when it was his own party that slashed their budgets so heavily over the last 11 years
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Come on now, that’s naughty.
If your economic impact from Covid was really bad combined with early reopening then of course your economic recovery will be larger. I don’t think it’s grown much beyond where it was pre pandemic
But let’s also not forget that the government’s own people have estimated the impact of Brexit to be twice that of Covid.
NHS is on its knees. New hospitals actually means a new paint job on existing ones. Stories I heard from NHS workers this morning on the radio was heart breaking.
Care homes became Covid petri dishes. Remember that?
Taxation that has hammered the poorest in society. Removing free school meals, NI hike, dementia tax.
Police investment is only replacing previous cuts.
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I agree with some of your points, which are certainly relevant when considering the position since 2010, but the time frame in the question was from December 2019.
But taking your points one by one…
I don’t think it’s grown much beyond where it was pre pandemic
I’m not sure that it’s quite there yet but it’s on course to be the first Western economy to do so, I think by the end of this quarter.
But let’s also not forget that the government’s own people have estimated the impact of Brexit to be twice that of Covid.
Covid caused a contraction of the economy. Brexit, beyond the immediate hit that’s since recovered, is projected to slow growth, in the short to medium term.
NHS is on its knees. New hospitals actually means a new paint job on existing ones.
Covid is obviously placing unique stresses on the NHS. New hospitals means new hospitals though, as well as modernising existing infrastructure.
Stories I heard from NHS workers this morning on the radio was heart breaking.
I agree. They’re heroes who ought to be better supported and rewarded. My Mum was a nurse, I fully sympathise.
Care homes became Covid petri dishes. Remember that?
I do. It shouldn’t have happened. It seems that the government wanted to ring-fence them but Hancock dropped the ball and then lied about it to Johnson.
Taxation that has hammered the poorest in society. Removing free school meals, NI hike, dementia tax.
The poorest now pay considerably less tax than they did 2 years ago. The national minimum wage has increased significantly and wage growth has outstripped inflation for the first time in decades. Free school meals weren’t removed? More families qualified for free school meals than at any point in history.
The government fucked up with the food voucher system through the school holidays though. Definitely.
National Insurance hike is directed at creating additional funding specifically for Social Care. It’s one of the most progressive tax initiatives in the last 40 years. Same for the dementia tax (which predates Johnson). People will be able to retain more of their assets and there will be a cap on any individual’s cost of social care.
As someone who had to help fund my Mum’s social care costs to the tune of £56k per year in the last few years of her life, I can assure you this is a welcome change that will disproportionately benefit the poorest.
Police investment is only replacing previous cuts.
The cuts that came before December 2019.
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That largely depends on what % of your population is eligible.
The UK has fully vaccinated 82.7% of its eligible population. Over 60% have had a booster. Has any other G20 country done better?
Re climate change. Does any other G20 nation have a more ambitious net zero target? Is any other G20 nation phasing out the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines sooner?
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That is all well and good if people have assets, and in the current market, most younger people have fuck all. Not to mention being staddled with debt by going to University, only to come out with a peice of paper that majority of the population also have, so chances of using that degree to get a better job is fuck all as every other candidate also has a peice of paper saying they are smart.
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Boosters are hard to know, the data is not good, but the UK is likely the leader. But by total population two dose, the UK is well down the list. Eligible population makes the UK’s performance look better, given the restricted roll-out among young people in the UK. But the UK has surged up that league table in the past month, which makes it hard to credit it as the fastest rollout.
I would say the UK’s vaccine procurement has been an unambiguous success, among the very best in the world (with Israel and Chile to my mind). But the rollout was more troubled, not in terms of the logistics so much as the outreach - I was surprised at the point where the dose administration levelled off, where some sort of resistance was discovered, and I think the UK government has been rather less effective at dealing with that until quite recently.
Using targets to assess leadership is a dubious metric, we have had some great ones here. UK’s performance in this century has been good, but that is a function of better performance up to 2015. Emissions have been close to flat since. Judging this government (BoJo, or the Conservative one in continuity), performance on climate change has not been compelling. The UK is nowhere near its own defined path to net zero.
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Are you taking the piss?
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It’s absolutely irrelevant what headline grabbing targets have been set. There are no credible pathways set to achieve those things.
If the government was in anyway serious about Climate Change it wouldn’t be trying to exploit oil reserves in Surrey, develop the cambo oil field off the coast of Scotland, open new massive coal mine in Whitehaven, or be committed to spending million of taxpayer money on funding fossil fuel exploration overseas.
Like everything else with Johnson, it’s say what every is necessary to get the headline, do the opposite in reality.
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