hypochondriac

My thoughts are that it's quite good that a judge is responsible for weighing up the available evidence and then coming to a judgement. If it was up to someone like Ian Wright then the mitigating circumstances and context would be irrelevant and this boy would have had his entire life ruined for writing something horribly racist on the internet. I still don't understand this whole moral panic over assorted weirdos, loners and kids sending racist tweets to a footballer when they've messed up. This strange demand for social media companies to somehow be responsible and demanding that they "take action". No one has ever articulated what action they expect and how they expect it to work. As long as there is a mechanism to instantly communicate online to people then there are going to be idiots who abuse that and send abuse to others whether that is racist, sexist or just general unpleasant comments. Work to find these people if that is possible by all means and punish them when necessary but the sooner legislators in general accept that it's not workable to moderate social media properly and that there is going to be some objectionable content on there the better. Why anyone thinks it's helpful to make a big song and dance about it and offer counselling every time some tool sends abuse to a black footballer I have no idea. Get the comments deleted as soon as possible and deal with the person if they can be identified but that's all that realistically can happen. You will never prevent racist comments in their entirety.

So what's the verdict on this? A kid posts something racist on social media towards a black man. Should he have been prosecuted as Ian Wright suggests? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55916729

Any quotes from Ralph?

Why would Ralph be sacked?

At least they won't mention leicester anymore! I really am not that worried about this, we aren't going down so I'm OK with it all.

Not sure how to feel about this one. Absolutely crazy.

Meh. I'd take that over relegation. Still a small chance in the cup. A club with our resources we've done well to get where we are this year.

Not really. He's a kid on his debut who made a silly mistake probably due to his excitement. I'm sure he'll learn.

Of course we'll be safe. We would have to get something like ten more points from the next seventeen games and we've got a load of players to come back in. We will finish about 14th imo.

Oh dear. Thank goodness we got so many points at the start of the season. Lower mid table mediocrity it is.

An elderly relative of mine isn't due theirs until the 8th of March after initially being promised it in early January. I get the change of strategy but it's a bit off to give someone a date for their second jab and then cancel it. This person is 92.

TBF I think most people who voted remain would agree with that. Those who continue to argue the point are clearly the remaniacs and Owen Jones guardianista types who would back the EU whatever happened.

Cheers. The person I was looking for isn't eligible yet but they must be soon.

Cheers I'll have a look.

What's the online booking system?

No I said that many member states were in a position to sign an Oxford agreement months before they actually did but the EU commission persuaded them not to do so. That is what has caused the majority of the present issues. The efficacy of the French jabs wouldn't really have mattered had they sorted out their supply chain issues for the Oxford jab so that they were receiving their doses from their own supply chains at a similar rate to Britain.

As I already pointed out to you (and as shown in the incredibly detailed politico article I linked above.), the approval of the vaccine is not what is causing the issue, it is that the EU commission insisted on stepping in and delaying negotiations for two months which meant that supply chain problems had less time to be resolved. Had the EU approved the vaccine at the same time as the UK, they would still be facing the exact same supply chain problems that they are now. Germany and Hungary have not secured nearly enough of alternative vaccines and they have only done so after it became clear that the EUs own scheme was woefully inadequate and its why both countries are miles behind others in terms of their vaccine rollout. The UK would be in a similar position had they joined the EU scheme (which they obviously would have done had they still been in the EU.

Yes I agree. Hopefully if there's another crisis of this magnitude, EU member states will recognise the value of being an independent sovereign nation. Let's hope so.

I don't see how it would have been. The EU was much slower to negotiate because it insisted on controlling things and because it prioritised cost and legal details at a time when speed and amount of vaccine was what should have been prioritised. It was the EU commission that insisted on negotiating on behalf of all the member states. Had Britain been a member still they wouldn't have had any impact on the negotiations because they wouldn't have been involved in them. Even if they had managed to get more vaccine, it would have been shared out across the whole block and they would undoubtedly have received much less at a far later date as a consequence. It's easy to talk of noble and lofty goals about donating all our vaccine and sharing it out to others but personally I'd take a bit of so called nationalism if it gets my older relatives and friends with underlying conditions vaccinated and safer a few months sooner. Also if it allows us to go and socialise again sooner too. The main benefit of this unedifying episode is that it's highlighted the folly of giant beauracratic super-states in an emergency (once again after the ppe fiasco from earlier in the crisis) and shown why many thought that Britain was better off out of it.

So it wasn't incorrect for me to state that the EU commission stepping in and slowing everything down hasn't slowed vaccine procurement down in a number of EU countries? The rest of your post I agree with. The fact that the EU countries would have taken the view about it being untenable just underlines why we wouldn't have gone alone had we still been part of the EU. Individual countries looking out for their own interests, able to create deals tailored to their own individual circumstances and able to move quickly in this instance is demonstrably a superior thing here.

Be honest. If Britain had still been in the EU then its incredibly likely that they would have joined with the likes of Germany, France, Italy, Spain etc in this scheme. To suggest otherwise makes you look like one of those FBPE people on twitter. It's clearly fortunate from a brexiteer point of view that this has happened but I'd much rather there was enough vaccine for everyone at this point then it wouldn't be an issue.

Here's the (excellent) article I was referring to which lays it all out. The "inclusive vaccine alliance" had an agreement for the Oxford vaccine prior to the commission getting involved and they were persuaded to give up their head start to allow the commission to negotiate for the whole EU instead: https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-struggle-pfizer-biontech-astrazeneca/amp/ "EU27 health ministers signed off on a Commission plan to buy on their behalf on June 12. But the Franco-German initiative continued to press forward, having invited the Netherlands and Italy to join their buyers’ club. On June 13, the quartet — known as the “Inclusive Vaccine Alliance” — announced a deal for between 300 million and 400 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab." So as I said, some of the big EU countries had secured hundreds of millions of doses in mid June. Then the EU commission got involved and they didn't secure any agreements until two months later. Those two months have clearly been key as the UK have been able to iron out kinks in their supply chain earlier than the EU have been able to.

Are you saying that individual member states would have been unable to sign deals for the Oxford vaccine prior to the EU commission's deal three months after the UK? Because that's what member states have said. There was a really thorough article about it that I can't find at the moment. The spectator has alluded to it here: https://youtu.be/CT-HxrfC4Wc

Rules for thee but not for me. Are the EU 27 really all in it together?

So if that's the case, why are Germany and Hungary so behind with the vaccination rates and why is the EU commission so clearly in such a state of desparate panic?