Six Nations: The Gateway Drug

I was vaguely interested in rugby as a child; we used to play it in the playground, although we didn’t have a rugby ball (any kind of ball would do), none of us knew the rules, and it resembled a particularly vicious bout of British Bulldogs more than the game we know and love today.

Then, in my twenties, I found myself in Detroit working with a load of Brits and French, and there was a local Irish pub, Dick O’Dow’s, that put on all the Five Nations matches. Of course they started at an unreasonable time in the morning, and of course this did not deter us from assembling to watch them, and downing the Guinness in camaradic rivalry.

It starts like that: you think you’re just getting together with some colleagues for a little fun, then you start watching other Test matches, maybe a few European Cup matches, and before you know it, you’re obsessively watching obscure dead rubbers in the Pro-infinity and desperately starting a rugby blog because the one you’ve become addicted to has suddenly disappeared.

As a footnote, during the last World Cup but one, we went to a pub in Cardiff after one of the matches (possibly that horrible one where Ireland were knocked out by Argentina), and there was a bloke there who we overheard mentioning Detroit.

“Oh,” I said, “I used to live in Detroit. I went to watch all the matches at Dick O’Dow’s.”

Turned out the bloke was the one who’d brought the television rights to Detroit, so responsible for my addiction. Small world.

Kismet O’Dow’s

Right, on to the matches!

Italy v France

Teams

Italy: Jacopo Trulla, Luca Sperandio, Marco Zanon, Juan Ignacio Brex, Montanna Ioane, Paolo Garbisi, Stephen Varney, Cherif Traorè, Luca Bigi (c), Marco Riccioni, Marco Lazzaroni, David Sisi, Sebastian Negri, Johan Meyer, Michele Lamaro

Replacements: Gianmarco Lucchesi, Danilo Fischetti, Giosué Zilocchi, Niccolò Cannone, Federico Ruzza, Maxime Mbandà, Guglielmo Palazzani, Carlo Canna

France: Brice Dulin, Teddy Thomas, Arthur Vincent, Gaël Fickou, Gabin Villière, Matthieu Jalibert, Antoine Dupont, Cyril Baille, Julien Marchand, Mohamed Haouas, Bernard Le Roux, Paul Willemse, Dylan Cretin, Charles Ollivon (c), Grégory Alldritt

Replacements: Pierre Bourgarit, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Dorian Aldegheri, Romain Taofifenua, Anthony Jelonch, Baptiste Serin, Louis Carbonel, Damian Penaud

Blog ‘wisdom’

Anything but finishing first will be considered a failure in France. I doubt there’ll be a Grand Slam, given that France will travel to both England and Ireland, albeit in empty stadia. (Flair99)

France by 13 over Italy – the Italians will have their customary strong start to the 6N before injury and lack of depth give those following bonus point chances. (Deebee7)

That’s about all anyone had to say about this match.

England v Scotland

Teams

England: 15. Elliot Daly, 14. Anthony Watson, 13. Henry Slade, 12. Ollie Lawrence, 11. Jonny May, 10. Owen Farrell (C), 9. Ben Youngs, 1. Ellis Genge, 2. Jamie George, 3. Will Stuart, 4. Maro Itoje, 5. Jonny Hill, 6. Mark Wilson, 7. Tom Curry, 8. Billy Vunipola.

Replacements: 16. Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17. Beno Obano, 18. Harry Williams, 19. Courtney Lawes, 20. Ben Earl, 21. Dan Robson, 22. George Ford, 23. Max Malins.

Scotland: 15. Stuart Hogg (C), 14. Sean Maitland, 13. Chris Harris, 12. Cameron Redpath, 11. Duhan van der Merwe, 10. Finn Russell, 9. Ali Price, 1. Rory Sutherland, 2. George Turner, 3. Zander Fagerson, 4. Scott Cummings, 5. Jonny Gray, 6. Jamie Ritchie, 7. Hamish Watson, 8. Matt Fagerson.

Replacements: 16. David Cherry, 17. Oli Kebble, 18. WP Nel, 19. Richie Gray, 20. Gary Graham, 21. Scott Steele, 22. Jaco van der Walt, 23. Huw Jones.

BLOG ‘WISDOM’

There was a bit more interest in this match.

Full-strength Scotland at Twikkers confident of catching England cold, anticipating many England players off the pace.


As it turns out, Scotland, as usual, force the game and surrender numerous knock-ons in promising attacking positions.


Ford, Farrell, Slade, Daly kick, kick and kick. May secures two kick-chase TDs (Hogg missing his tackles) and Farrell doesn’t miss a kick – conversion or penalty. Slade intercepts a long, telegraphed Russell flat pass for England’s 3rd try. LC-D barrels over late in the game for the fourth.


Final score 40 – 10 as Ritchie gets the consolation and Genge gives up 3 points and a yellow card for lamping Watson.

Dream on……………………………………………………. (SladeIs42)

My dark horse, as often, are Scotland, specially as they start with England. With a bit of wind in their sails, they could go pretty far. But then, that’s what we say every year. (Flair, ibid)

Dayboo for young Redpath, and probably Cherry off the bench

Hope Turner can keep the heid & his darts are a worry. Not convinced yet by Fagerson junior at 8 but hope he steps up a bit. Bigger Gray back is good, he’s been looking back in form.

England by 20. (Chimpie)

” Daly = Hogg in many ways.”


Good lord, Slade. What pills have you been taking ?


Was going to announce Ford to bench before the team came out, Eddie just couldn’t play Ford ahead of Faz after Squidge report. Could this be the day a total Owen meltdown costs England the game? Dunno about chipping in behind Farrell, I think running thru him is a better option, with a nifty little offload down low.


So, the scene is set for George to come on with 20 mins to go, and England 20 points behind, will he secure the comeback win ? Has Owen been practicing spiral bombs ??? Nope, cos Eddie rarely brings on subs until its too late for them to change the game.


Scotland by 10. (SunbeamTim)

England by 12 over Scotland – Scots passion, fury and flingaboutery will keep them close until the 65 minute mark when George Ford comes on to change gears and get the spluttering engine purring. (Deebee7, ibid)

Wales v Ireland

Teams

Wales: 15. Leigh Halfpenny, 14. Louis Rees-Zammit, 13. George North, 12. Johnny Williams, 11. Hallam Amos, 10. Dan Biggar, 9. Tomos Williams, 1. Wyn Jones, 2. Ken Owens, 3. Tomas Francis, 4. Adam Beard, 5. Alun Wyn Jones (capt), 6. Dan Lydiate, 7. Justin Tipuric, 8. Taulupe Faletau.

Replacements: 16. Elliot Dee, 17. Rhodri Jones, 18. Leon Brown, 19. Will Rowlands, 20. Josh Navidi, 21. Gareth Davies, 22. Callum Sheedy, 23. Nick Tompkins.

Ireland: 15. Hugo Keenan, 14. Keith Earls, 13. Garry Ringrose, 12. Robbie Henshaw, 11. James Lowe, 10. Jonathan Sexton (capt), 9. Conor Murray, 1. Cian Healy, 2. Rob Herring, 3. Andrew Porter, 4. Tadhg Beirne, 5. James Ryan, 6. Peter O’Mahony, 7. Josh van der Flier, 8. CJ Stander.

Replacements: 16. Ronan Kelleher, 17. Dave Kilcoyne, 18. Tadhg Furlong, 19. Iain Henderson, 20. Will Connors, 21. Jamison Gibson Park, 22. Billy Burns, 23. Jordan Larmour.

BLOG ‘WISDOM’

The Irish have been shy on this one. Not surprised, because I honestly don’t have any idea either.

Wales by 2 over Ireland – early season burglary by Wales over a fancied Irish side. (Deebee7, ibid) (boo, hiss)

I had the grizzles with Pivac’s Autumn teams, but this feels a tick better. Amos back (as NostradamIks predicted) is alright, not too bothered one way or the other. I much prefer Beard to Seb Davies, especially for his Aardman features.

I’m glad those run-outs for Botham and the Other-backrower-who’s-name-I-can’t-remember-but-it-was-hyphenated, are over for now. Don’t know much about the next big thing at centre called Williams since the last big thing at centre called Owen Williams, who turned out to be overrated and over-hyped – except by me of course. I hope to see what the fuss is about on Sunday.

Lydiate coming back is an odd one. I should be horrified, but I’m not, for some reason. I’m more curious to see how it goes than anything.

Positives are mainly a good pair of 9s, the usual suspects in Faletau and Tips, and two Drags to liven things up off the bench.

What I’m expecting is a stodgy attacking display, an improved set-piece, a mix of iffy and whiffy defending, and a right-good rogering at the breakdown.

Ireland’s to lose. (MisterIks)

I think we’d take them in a packed-out stadium. In a empty echoing cavern it’s theirs all day long. (TomPirracas)

My flabber is gasted by the absence of Wainwright. I simply overlooked it. Says to me that Pivac’s pendulum has swung from adventure to stolid, and Lydiate is there to stop the opposition, rather than start a bit of Welsh rugby.

Pivac out! (Iks again)

Some more general thoughts on the tournament:

Both England and Ireland seem rather stale at the moment, with little threat in attack but they can defend. It will be tight.

Wales look mediocre, Italy pffft…

England will probably bully every team but France, so should finish 1st or 2nd.

Wooden spoon beckons for Italy while Ireland and Wales should fight within the soft belly of the tournament. (Flair99, ibid)

Wales’ matches will in all probability be tedious affairs with depressing results. Or depressing affairs with tedious results. With it being the last hurrah for the Six Nations on proper telly and the unlikely occurrence of Test cricket on Channel 4 I expect to spend February watching an inordinate amount of sport from which I will glean no satisfaction whatsoever.

They’ll probably score the odd nice try either before hopelessly capitulating or more likely after the game is done as a contest. (ClydeMillarWynant)

Don’t think we’ve got a hope in hell, really. Haven’t played a Test since lifting the Webb Ellis trophy, half of our players are being denuded of their skills and enthusiasm by playing in England, we’ve got a long injury list and our domestic competitions have been pretty poor fare. (Deebee7, who frankly seems to be confused about which tournament we’re on about.)

Let the games begin! We all have the HOPEFEAR.

Onna telly this week

Friday 5th February

Dragons v Connact19:35TG4 / Premier Sports 1
Bristol v Sale19:45BT Sport 1

Saturday 6th February

Wasps v Northampton13:00BT Sport Extra
Italy v France14:15ITV
Bath v Harlequins14:15BT Sport Extra
Leicester v Worcester15:00BT Sport Extra
London Irish v Gloucester15:00BT Sport Extra
England v Scotland16:45ITV

Sunday 7th February

Newcastle v Exeter13:00BT Sport 2
Wales v Ireland15:00BBC1 / S4C

1,003 thoughts on “Six Nations: The Gateway Drug

  1. I always liked Strictly. I think she had twins or something.

    Also, where’s Daff?

    Like

  2. Borderboy's avatarBorderboy

    Think Daf and Tov had a disagreement and disappeared at about the same time. That’s my memory of it anyway.

    Like

  3. slademightbe#42again's avatarsladeis#42

    Dai Halaholo bach called up by Wales

    Like

  4. slademightbe#42again's avatarsladeis#42

    …not intended to be racist; just lazily playing the ‘Jock van der MacMerwe’ selection game while I have my lunch

    Like

  5. slademightbe#42again's avatarsladeis#42

    BBC playing ‘pick your Scottish Lions’:
    https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/55830649

    I think I rate Jonny Gray higher than they do………………….

    Like

  6. I’m starting to get very nervous about the Lions tour (assuming it goes ahead). Two months without rugby for the Sarries mob and look what it did to England. Our guys won’t have played a Test in over 18 months and no competitive rugby for about five months if the tour goes ahead as scheduled. I’d imagine the Bok management will organise a few warm-up matches, but that’s not going to be enough. And the Lions look to have pretty decent depth in most areas too.

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  7. flair99's avatarflair99

    Am rather sanguine about the EU vaccine roll out. Won’t make much difference in the end whether it’s finished a few weeks earlier. It’s not going to affect much the number of seriously ill people nor deaths.
    I’d rather have a vaccine seriously checked before getting it. And I’ll get vaccinated asap. But what’s the point of getting millions of people vaccinated with a jab that gives you only 10% increased chances of not getting the disease? Bragging rights?

    Liked by 1 person

  8. sunbeamtim's avatarsunbeamtim

    Flair, as I see it, the aim of the vaccine(s) is to lighten the load on overstretched healthcare systems. It may not stop people getting it, but it does appear to massively reduce the effects of the disease, reducing deaths and hospitalisations. The ten percent figure you mention appears to relate to very limited statistics referencing the newer “South African” strain and the Astra Zeneca vaccine. I am not sure that bragging rights come into it ? I think it is more like a desperation to find a way out of the current situation as soon as possible, and therefore lighten the onrushing global financial meltdown.

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  9. Flair – that wasn’t what the EU politicians was saying a few weeks ago. Also, there will always be mutations and changing vaccines in the future. Luckily the AstraZeneca vaccine seems less effective against mild versions of the South African variant only.

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  10. OurTerry's avatarOurTerry

    There has been a lot of statistically-dubious AZ bashing over the past few days. I think it’s more of a Big Pharma hissy fit – there’s been a lot of money invested in mRNA technology over a few years (looking at cancer and all kinds of other diseases). They want to make a return and see this as a great opportunity to do that so will try and drown out the opposition. It’s a bit like VHS vs Betamax or Android vs Apple.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. tichtheid2's avatartichtheid2

    I like that Google French thing,

    One of the first things I was taught by my (Scottish) mate’s girlfriend was Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cent six scies scient six cent six cyprès

    Liked by 4 people

  12. flair99's avatarflair99

    I understand an imperfect vaccine is far better than no vaccine at all, as the aim is to relieve the hospital burden, thus allowing non covid related cases to be treated. But the vaccination program has almost no bearing on that. It will take months before the vaccination has any impact on the circulation of the virus. Hence my sanguinity about a few weeks delay. I’m more concerned about how we can avoid to catch the virus by acting responsably everyday.
    And I don’t care much about what the EU politicians say, they seem to pass the hot potato as well as anybody else. Get the rewards and never take the blame is quite international.
    A French politician had the nerve to say publicly, after a tremendous health scandal in which she played a major part (blood infected with HIV was given post-op to perfectly healthy people) that she was, in her own words : responsable but not guilty.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. flair99's avatarflair99

    Did I do that?
    Did I really killed it?
    Won’t stray from rugby talk then.
    England center conundrum, anyone?

    Liked by 4 people

  14. OurTerry's avatarOurTerry

    @flair

    There are calls amongst the journalist “experts” for Owen Farrell to be dropped.

    And they said 2021 couldn’t be stranger than 2020…..

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  15. OT – it never ceases to be that way in terms of an over reaction to a shite English performance. We were not at the races, Scotland were good, move on.

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  16. OurTerry's avatarOurTerry

    Faz was bobbins though. Despite Scotland being many times better than England they were only ahead by 5 points. If Sexton, Russell, Ford, Ntamack, Jalibert, or Andy Farrell had been in Faz Jr’s position for that massive overlap I would have put money on any of them creating a try from there. Instead he kicked it straight to Hogg.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. ClydeMillarWynant's avatarClydeMillarWynant

    “Did I really killed it?”

    Looked that way. And it was healthier than it had been for ages…

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  18. There’s an awful lot of shite been written (from both sides) about the vaccine procurement, but this long read was published in the European press a few days ago:

    https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/02/07/news/kate_bingham_interview_vaccines_covid_astrazeneca_uk_coronavirus_johnson-286384093/

    For my take, it’s shite that stuff gets given to people who know people, and Harding seems far from great, but T&T is now working more or less properly. Kate Bingham – practically the most qualified candidate out there, in terms of turning a medical solution into vast scale delivery.

    My question to those with 20/20 hindsight about all the screwups with PPE, and giving contracts to people they already knew: every country in the world had PPE shortages, and we needed vaccines, and a test and trace system. Do you think we should have gone through a full-blown tendering process? The vaccine process seems pretty much to have involved an (informed) throwing of darts whilst blindfolded, some of which will not come off and will represent tens of millions ‘wasted’.

    I’ll criticise the government for its comms which have been terrible, and the stupid ‘world beating’ type rhetoric – we aren’t in competition with the rest of the world, but with an unthinking virus, and of making itself a hostage to fortune (such as promising Christmas would go ahead as planned, and also schools in England opening in 2021 as planned).

    Some of the government’s decisions will have affected death numbers. But I’m struggling, particularly in the early stages, to be too critical of politicians juggling incomplete information, and weighing up the impact of doing (or not doing) something.

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  19. slademightbe#42again's avatarsladeis#42

    slider – i like what you say but e.g. contrary to advice given at the time johnson failed to attend the first (5) cobra meetings.
    uk playing catch-up pretty well from that point onwards.
    add to that chumocracy; using nhs name inappropriately; serco; test and tracer recruitment and training; disconnection with local govt/communities.
    only kate bingham and the vaccine programme* look like proper government action – and part of the latter success is down to blair-originated medical research development and luck.

    *part of Europe’s slowness is down to the culture of risk aversion regarding vaccines – caution at govt and public level.

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  20. There’s absolutely no debate in my mind that the government was so busy wallowing in its success of Brexit in late January it wasn’t keeping its eye on events to the extent it should have. Johnson’s lack of cobra attendance absolutely symptomatic of that. Talk about the wrong kind of leader for a crisis. I’d have had May ahead of him, a boring technocratic leader would have been much better. I would much rather have starmer in charge of the whole shebang but that wasn’t on offer at the time…

    I think it is somewhat harsh to denigrate the vaccine programme’s successes as good luck without also cutting slack for some of the missteps as bad luck.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    What Slade said, but I’d add that the particular problem with untendered PPE procurement is that they offered it companies that had absolutely zero experience in providing PPE, or anything like it. Who happened to be mates and/or donors. There don’t seem to have been any provisions in the contract to get a refund for PPE that didn’t meet standards, as much of it didn’t.

    The PPE fiasco was in large part down to Jeremy Hunt having thrown away the pandemic recommendations when he was Health Secretary.

    As Slade says, outsourcing TTI(S) to Serco et al was an obvious accident waiting to happen, as was appointing Dido Harding to anyfuckingthing.

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  22. There’s a whole difference between having a culture of caution at medicine approval level, and not having taken steps so that when the green light is given, there is a whole manufacturing and supply chain organisation in place to get things moving at the speed it needs to.

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  23. Chimpie's avatarChimpie

    I have some sympathy for the government for the first wave, albeit they were very slow to react. The fannying around not locking down for wave 2/ 3 and the whole Christmas thing in the face of experience and evidence was downright negligent.

    Liked by 2 people

  24. Thaum – the UK was far from the only western country that was scrabbling around for PPE. And even if we had a stockpile, it has quite a short life, how much, and at what cost, should be spent on a stockpile of just in case things, when the closest similar thing happened in the western world over 100 years ago?
    I concede that the counterpoint to that argument is probably that it would be a rounding error in terms of military spending, and that protection and spending against pandemics should fall under national security, not healthcare.

    I hate sounding like a shill for the Tories. I think they are generally useless and looking to feather their own nests, but I think there’s some things they got right in this, and plenty wrong. Part of that will be luck, and part of that luck will be down to, as Ross Brawn put it, ‘preparation in search of an opportunity’ (or lack of it).

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  25. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    Slider – I agree that they did well on vaccine procurement, and the subsequent roll-out (with reservations about the delaying of the second jab, especially for the Pfizer one). But this wasn’t luck: it was putting someone in charge who actually knew what they were doing, and not out-sourcing the roll-out.

    Similarly, the many fuck-ups haven’t been bad luck, for the opposite reasons.

    And TTI is not now working well; they’ve just radically changed their way of measuring ‘success’.

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  26. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    This article describes the problem far better than I could.

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  27. tompirracas's avatartompirracas

    Yes, that’s key, thaum. Some people can’t afford to take the test because being positive means a loss of all but 95 quid a week’s income.

    Slider, too much of your focus in what you wrote seems to be on personalities rather than structures. This from the BMJ blog yesterday gives an overview: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/02/09/allyson-pollock-testing-testing-for-sars-cov-2-in-asymptomatic-people/

    And Johnson had his eye on the prize in early February if you read the text of his Greenwich speech.

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  28. tompirracas's avatartompirracas

    Some highlights from the BMJ blog:

    Almost a year into the covid-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of the UK’s contact tracing, the key intervention for breaking the chain of transmission, has still not been evaluated; fewer than 20% of people isolate, with financial constraints and caring responsibilities the main impediments to compliance.

    “The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.” [8] The billions of pounds spent on contracts for tests without formal tender and bypassing tendering procedures reveals that thus far commercial interests have trumped the public health concerns.

    Communicable disease know-how built up over a century and more has been ignored. Experts in public health and communicable disease control and on the UK National Screening Committee have been sidelined, and replaced by captains of industry, most notably the appointment of Dido Harding and outsourcing of testing and tracing to Serco, Deloitte, and Amazon.
    The long established rules and standards for scientific evaluation have not been followed. And nowhere is this more evident than in the reporting of UK test and trace data on cases. These make no distinction between people who are asymptomatic, presymptomatic, paucisymptomatic, and symptomatic, or whether infectious or not. A case is simply a positive test, regardless of symptoms and purpose of testing. And yet a case definition is key to evaluating the effectiveness of screening, contact tracing, and estimating secondary attack rates. [9] To add to the confusion and blur, since 27 January 2021 people testing positive with lateral flow tests (LFTs) are counted as cases under track and trace, and confirmatory PCR is no longer required.

    Liked by 2 people

  29. dovahkin79's avatardovahkin79

    A shill for the tories? Round here?? I’ve been away to long…. the very idea!!!!!

    I get the argument that it was a difficult situation and unprecedented and in many ways unpredictable I suppose…..

    I’d have more sympathy for the government if they’d done what they claimed to be doing all along and followed the science. We now know they didn’t. So we’ll never know if that was right or not in reality as it can’t be proven conclusively.

    My hunch is that it might have had more impact than the effort that went into defending dom Cummins and his mates and crowing about their supposed victory verses the EU before anything had been done (which ended up being shit once it was partly done)

    Liked by 1 person

  30. OurTerry's avatarOurTerry

    @tomp

    Allyson Pollock is great – in that article she’s actually being quite mild by her usual standards. She points at certain things and she understands the significance of what she is saying – “Since 10 January mass testing using LFTs has been ramped up across local authorities such that LFTs now number approximately 350,000 tests or more each day, outnumbering PCR tests. “

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  31. ClydeMillarWynant's avatarClydeMillarWynant

    “fewer than 20% of people isolate”

    I always wonder about this. It’s reported as though it means fewer than 20% do anything at all, but I’m not sure it was ever supposed to really mean that?

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  32. I stand corrected on the test and trace. I would certainly agree that if people can’t afford to be off work, they won’t take the test, which is as big a problem as the failure to categorise.

    My biggest annoyance when it comes to the management of the spread: many of the countries listed implemented very harsh border controls. The defence seems to be from those saying we shouldn’t have the same is that it’s impractical – London is a world city, we can’t stop people coming in to the UK. An argument that countries in mainland Europe could use, but we are a bloody island, we could throw up the shutters and not let anyone in or out unless willing to stay in a guarded hotel like the ones they had in NZ. Perhaps it is easier when NZ’s international flight traffic is 3% of Heathrow alone.

    I don’t know whether this was just ineptitude, political in that all these people needed to exercise their post-Brexit ‘freedoms’, or they were trying to not bankrupt Heathrow, many other airports, and all the UK airlines, but it seems stupid they haven’t managed it better.

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  33. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    Slider – all of the above in your last para! And the suspicion that it would be embarrassing for the PM’s father to be done.

    We do need to allow freight in, or we’ll starve, but that can and should be managed appropriately.

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  34. Dov, I’m probably centrist, in that I see good and bad in all policy platforms, without automatically assuming that if it is the wrong team proposing or doing it then it’s automatically the wrong thing to do.

    I was probably closer to New Labour than anything else that’s been in power in my lifetime. My view of them has both mellowed and hardened over time. I recall arguing with Ticht about their legacy of the spending levels immediately prior to the GFC, and how that left us unprepared for the recession that followed: He pointed out the level of spending needed to undo the damage of 18 years of the Tories. The great shame of that period of time is that NuLab didn’t make the case that if we wanted Scandinavian levels of public services and benefits then that would come with Scandinavian levels of taxation. After 1997, they had the perfect opportunity to make that happen, given they had an almost certain 10 year period of office ahead of them.

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  35. And my final comment before I do my Bru picks:

    The mixed messaging on holidays – two weeks ago Hancock tries to be all positive and tell people that he’s booked his summer holiday, today Shapps is saying don’t book. It would be far better if they said we will give some indications for summer holidays at Easter. No one needs to know before then, but they’ve gone from making people hopeful to then disappointing them. When just saying nothing would have been fine.

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  36. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    I think we’ve all now discovered that there is a magic money tree after all.

    Liked by 3 people

  37. Roast Beef 40
    Pasta 10

    Hadrian 25
    Offah 15

    Guinness 20
    Champagne 35

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  38. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    I’ve booked a week’s holiday in Yorkshire for July. It’s fully refundable up to two days beforehand. I really hope it won’t come to that.

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  39. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    Them’s some cruel picks, Slider. All the more so for probably being accurate.

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  40. I don’t know, I rate there’s a good chance of a reaction from Wales and Ireland.

    It would be so typically Scottish to lose at home against Wales having just beaten England at HQ.

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  41. tompirracas's avatartompirracas

    After 1997, they had the perfect opportunity to make that happen

    They didn’t stand on that so it’d have been a policy u-turn and they didn’t want to do a u-turn on something so big because doubts about their handling of the economy was always their big fear and the Murdoch press probably would’ve turned on them.

    Plus they probably didn’t want to do it anyway.

    And then they did Iraq. Not forgetting their social authoritarianism and shameful treatment of asylum seekers.

    Blair was a much better Opposition leader than Starmer, mind, even taking into account it’s almost 30 years ago.

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  42. Chimpie's avatarChimpie

    RE PPE, nu lab did a review of existential threats if I recall correctly, and identified a pandemic at the top of the list. Plans and a PPE store were put in place but this was allowed to dwindle over the last decade. There were various articles on this last year.

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  43. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    Chimpie – yes, those were the plans Hunt threw away that I referenced earlier.

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  44. How big was the PPE store we had, and how long would it have lasted?

    I would hope that at the end of this, there is some review that determines we should have the manufacturing capability to make our own PPE, and the raw materials needed to make it.

    Liked by 1 person

  45. thaumaturge's avatarthaumaturge

    From what I recall, there was a rotation schedule on the PPE that got completely ignored, and the newer stuff was thrown out first or something, leaving only expired stocks, and the stocks were not replenished in the name of austerity.

    Absolutely agree on the need to make our own, and perhaps that is a lesson that might be learned now.

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  46. Chimpie's avatarChimpie

    Right you are, thaum

    Slider, no idea how much, or how long it would have lasted

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  47. OurTerry's avatarOurTerry

    @slider

    The pandemic was a wake up call for the government and they realised we need to bring back a lot of manufacturing capabilities, not just PPE but also complex medical devices (which we used to be really good at) like ventilators, vaccine manufacture, semiconductors/electronics (far too much from China you see) etc. So you’ll start seeing a lot of new capabilities in those kinds of areas cropping up.

    It’s all well and good being really good at R&D and design and all that malarkey but it doesn’t help when you need a lot of stuff quick.

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  48. tompirracas's avatartompirracas

    This is from the Joint Committee on Biosecurity and National Security report that was published at the end of last year:

    In December 2020, the Government reported to us that it was now sourcing PPE from a wide range of countries (reducing reliance on any single country), and that 70% of PPE supplies needed for the period to March 2021 would be produced domestically, up from 1% before the pandemic

    https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/4035/documents/40449/default/

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  49. Thaum – what an absolute load of useless fucks.

    TomP and OT – good news at least

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  50. sunbeamtim's avatarsunbeamtim

    10/10 to Slade for bringing Blair into it. All we need now is to debate what Jezza would have done, and we have a full house.

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