onlooker

It was just a case of one group of language/cultural/racial nationalists favouring another. The Scottish Nationalists in the years up to WW2 also favoured Nazis for the same reason, something the present SNP leadership likes to keep quiet about (ttps://www.scotsman.com/news/mi5-file-links-former-snp-leader-nazi-plan-2512735).

Staggering comment from an Irish nationist republican, whose leader in the 1940's was a supporter of Nazi Germany. You won't find a generation like Captain Tom in the Republic. In fact the Republic vilified and persecuted those southern Irish who fought for World freedom (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16287211). So any Captain Toms in the Republic had to stay hidden for fear of retributions.

Since WW2 infant mortality has been at very low levels, while adult life expectancy has risen steadily at about 1 year per decade. My grandfathers died at 58 an 69 from now treatable diseases. I take pills for 2 different conditions which would have killed me only 30 years ago. That is the reality of getting old today. I don’t believe a small sugar tax would make any difference. What is needed is a complete dietary reset. I don’t mean extreme stuff like veganism, just a common sense rejection of sugary drinks, sweets and high calorie fast food. I’m not sure how it can be done though.

No, what we are seeing is that keeping most people alive past the age of 60 means giving them lots of pills which generally are quite cheap to produce. . There are many ailments which would kill most of the population, or at least make life very uncomfortable, and in former times most people died before they reached 60. Unfortunately, modern lifestyles combined with age encourages hypertension, and that causes a range of subtle deadly conditions. Encouraging a good healthy lifestyle should be Govt policy, but I'm not sure how they should do that. For many a big stick (in the form of denying treatment) might be needed.

I'll see your Serco, and raise you an Exercise Cygnus run by the NHS and DHSC which left the country utterly unprepared for a Coronovirus epidemic. PHE has been renamed, as a result.

Fine straw man, accusing the UK Govt of wanting a US style health service. Personally I would be happy with a German style system, which AIUI is largely private. The main threats to the health of the UK population remain smoking, drinking, a bad diet and lack of exercise, and the NHS offers no help in changing that.

Putting the NHS on a pedestal as some sort of religion is unwarranted. Their role is mainly the treatment of sickness, and although under pressure they have coped. e.g. I get my flu vaccinations from a private pharmacy, usually Boots. AIUI the entire design of the UK's vaccination strategy has had little or nothing to do with the NHS. It was designed by a partnership of Govt and private industry.

Are your grapes always sour? Or only where the UK is concerned?

Pathetic response in the light of what happened about PPE last year: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-idUSKBN20T166 https://www.ft.com/content/8c0a29fc-a523-4901-a190-fe5a2dcc8faa And that we should be exporting vaccines to the Republic of Ireland - words fail me.

There is a strategic issue as well. Handing over UK jabs is tantamount to rewarding bad behaviour, and sets a dangerous precedent in potentially elevating the EU contract above the level of 'Best Efforts'.

If giving away vaccines delays reopening our UK society, getting people back to work, saving businesses and re-starting non Covid hospital operations, that must be bad surely. What do you say to the Brit facing bankruptcy, or untreated cancer? The EU should just be told to sort their own problems out themselves. In a nice way of course. Maybe a bit of help to Portugal, our oldest ally.

The behaviour of Brussels, France and certain other EU countries over the last 48 hours has been a real education for some people. It explains precisely how war broke out so illogically in 1914, and inevitably in 1939. In a situation where quiet diplomacy and appeals for help were likely to have been favourably considered, instead Brussels and Macron wade in with both barrels, and now look not just stupid, but incredibly irrespionsible. Boris is now the only one who looks like an adult.

My understanding about fitting sprinklers in high rises is that it is a trade off between the safety provided by the sprinkler system, and the fact that (given poor maintenance, and the type of people who generally live in high rises) there will be frequent false alarms or minor chip pan fires, which will cause all the flats to be flodded. Then all the residents complain bitterly. The original designers of high rise building in the 50's and 60's knew what they were doing - build the things from concrete, so a fire in a flat is contained, and don't incorporate large volumes of combustible materials.

I am not a lawyer, but I would have thought the legal liability for this lies entirely with the freeholder. They are the ones who would have given the go ahead for the cladding, whether it was installed in a newbuild, or retrofitted. The problem would seem to be that the cladding was legal at the time it was installed, but is now deemed to be dangerous and therefore illegal. So it is up to the freeholder to put things right and try to recover damages from architects, fire safety officers, builders or ultimately the Govt as the regulating authority.

The famous UK smogs were caused by coal fires, mainly I believe due to the high suphur content of the British coal. Huge amounts were burned in factories, gasworks, power stations and railway locomotives, and also a bit in heating houses. It certainly caused large scale bronchial problems, though I suspect asthma is complicated. I heard of more asthmatics when I lived in Western Australia, even though the air there was really clear. Now we worry about nitrous oxide pollution from gas boilers, rather than sulphur from coal.

Because it's only called the UK strain because the genome labs in the UK (by far the biggest genome testers in the World) were the first to identify it as being different to the original strain. They also identified it as having been in the UK in a small way since late October I think. As likely as not it did not originate in the UK but suddenly appeared in Kent in two areas where cross channel one way tourists are held. It might have originated in the area of Israel.

Very unlikely they were short of food. The Swedes did well out of the war, selling iron ore to Germany, without which WW2 would have ended pretty quickly with a German defeat.

It will be about money, lots of it. https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14982 Today’s Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures show Scotland’s implicit budget deficit increasing to 8.6% of GDP in 2019-20, around 6 percentage points higher than the UK as a whole, largely reflecting higher government spending.

So Scotland doesn't have a huge structural deficit? No need for plan to eradicate it then?

Every supermarket and mini market in my UK town (at least 14 that I know of, and have recently visited) has eggs and vegetables in abundance. I wish you would stop complaining that there are shortages. Only in your imagination.

It's what happens when technical experts get pushed into a corner. When tall blocks were first being built, designers realized that fire risk was the major issue. So they made them out of solid concrete. In recent years, the experts were told, no, thermal insulation is the major issue, so go away and make these blocks meet the highest possible thermal insulation standards. But don't spend too much money. We end up with the cladding disaster. The same type of imposition of rules from above is about to happen with central heating. Gas will be banned, but electricity is very expensive, so old people will freeze, and then everyone will go around saying 'Oh dear, we must do something about this situation. We'll get the Govt (ie taxpayer) to subsidise people's heating bills'.

The UK Govt was desperate not to have a 3rd World state on its northern borders, without the ability to pay its own way in the World. You think the wrangling and division over Brexit was bad. Separation of Scotland from England/Wales would have been 100 times worse, and lead to years and years of deep bitterness. Of course, at the end of the day, if they want to go their own way, I wouldn't stand in their way.

I mainly shop in corner shops i.e. the mini Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose and M&S, all within half a mile of my house. No gaps on the shelves anywhere. If you can't get eggs, I suggest you find a different delivery service, rather than trying to blame it on Brexit. There was a farmer in Cornwall a couple of days ago giving away 250,000 eggs because restaurants are shut and not buying them.

There have been at least a couple of riots/demonstrations at the holding centres for illegals because the inmates want free houses now.

This leads to the situation where the poor (i.e. stupid and lazy) are incentivised to have lots of children, and the rich (i.e. clever and industrious) are penalized for having children. Can you see where that ends up?