Vince Green

but only to India, although based in India the plant is actually the biggest vaccine producer in the world and completely funded from outside India. So if India are getting funny about the vaccine they have to consider the bigger implications. Its not really their vaccine

You are right about the European Parliament, it has absolutely no power at all. People think they run the EU but in reality it is a complete side show, and a very expensive one at that. Its bizarre. like something out of the Hunger Games or similar. This huge meaningless pantomime. Why the pretence? What it suggests to me is that right from the very start somebody had an agenda to create the illusion of a democratic union that was in reality nothing of the sort. Thats a bit of a smoking gun when you see how things turned out subsequently. Red House Conspiracy anyone?

I have been asked have you done one

yes i went in today to look at one, its much bigger but not really what I had in mind

a mate and I seriously discussed starting a charity about ten years back It beats working for a living

Very nice bike

Actually they weren't aimed at you at all, if they were I would have tagged you but why are you so wound up about it? its only a flipping mask. It occupies less than one percent of one percent of my thought process. And in truth I find it quite handy because I don't feel the need to shave before popping out to get my paper

Whats the big deal with wearing a mask? Its not a big deal. Just put it on and stop behaving like my mate who refuses to wear one "on principle". And his principle? he doesn't like being told what to do. So he lies and says he's exempt. I remember the same sort of idiots going on about seat belts and crash helmets

Yes it now appears the shipment has been blocked by the Indian Government because they want the vaccines for their own use. Things are getting bad in India

It now emerges that the 5 million doses that have been delayed in coming from India is because the Indian Government has diverted it to home use. The number of cases in India is rising so quickly that they too are in panic mode now The UK's vaccination efforts will be paralysed from next month because the Indian Government is temporarily holding exports, according to the CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII), Adar Poonawalla, whose company is manufacturing the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Thats the EU for you

Yes we can cut them some slack but lets not forget it was them that resorted to name calling and mud slinging. So a little smugness can now be enjoyed. The real benefit of brexit, the financial one, is still very much on target to be achieved, but much less visible, Every time there is a queue of lorries at Dover the BBC seems to delight in sending down a news crew with a tale of gloom and doom for the six oclock news. Never once pointing out that delays like that happened before Brexit too. I don't think the BBC has ever put a positive spin on any Brexit related story

Thats exactly what Hancock did say, that only 5 of the 10 million doses expected from the plant in India have been delivered. The crisis is understood to have been triggered by the late delivery of five million doses of the AstraZeneca jab being manufactured in India. In total, India's Serum Institute was due to send 10 million doses to the UK this month – but just half have arrived, with the five million due at the end of this month now delayed by four weeks.

Rather bizarrely, the German regulator has abandoned his purely detatached professional medical position to enter into the political arena in support of his Government's position over the A-Z vaccine. His choice or arm twisting? Guess we will never know Look, if they don't want it thats fine, I don't give a f-f-fig, if they don't want it. So why are they threatening to stop our imports?

Yeah, funny that, they are not saying much any more but an apology would be nice because a lot of their rhetoric was bloody insulting. We are all ignorant tattooed racist working class chavs with beer bellies according to them.

Gordon, this is panic now

What we are starting to see now is blind panic read this \/ \/ The vaccine fiasco will ignite a second Eurozone crisis that will bring the EU to its knees As spring unfolds, we will see plummeting confidence in Eurozone economies and a panic in the bond markets that drives up borrowing costs MATTHEW LYNN17 March 2021 • 3:03pm Angela Merkel’s panel of economic advisers have cut their growth forecast for this year as the country battles to contain a third wave of Covid-19. President Macron is locking down the Ile-de-France, the powerhouse of the French economy, as hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, while the OECD has sliced its projections for the continent. With infections and casualties plummeting in Israel, the UK, and the United States as vaccine programmes ramp up, Covid-19 is finally coming under control everywhere – except, of course, for mainland Europe. So far that has mainly been a health catastrophe, but very soon it will turn into an economic one as well. Greece sparked the first Eurozone crisis, but the vaccine debacle will ignite the second one. The EU was already stumbling its way from one vaccine blunder to another. It ordered too few shots, spent too little money to ensure adequate supply, put an obscure Cypriot party hack in charge of the most important government programme since World War II, and then lashed out at the companies making the vaccines in a blind panic. Now, presumably working on the premise that once you are in a hole the only option is to keep digging, half the continent, including Germany, France and Italy, have put the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab on hold while some statistically insignificant side effects are investigated. We will find out soon enough what the cost of that is in lost lives. With infections rising, even as the spring weather arrives, and hospitals filling up again, the toll will likely be a heavy one. But very soon it will be a financial crisis as well. Here’s why. First, economies will remain locked down for far longer than necessary. Right now, the differences are hardly noticeable. Israel has opened up again, but few other countries have managed to do so. Over the next few weeks, however, that will start to change, and dramatically so. As the UK and the United States cruise past 60 to 70 per cent vaccination levels, shops, restaurants and gyms will be reopening. Their economies will be growing in the 7-8 per cent range compared to zero in the EU. That is a vast gulf. At the same time, trashing property rights, and arbitrarily seizing vaccine production plants, will make it virtually impossible for multi-nationals to invest in the zone. Next, borrowing will soar. Across Europe, huge, expensive support measures will have to remain in place, potentially for months, while they are lifted elsewhere. At the same time, tax revenues will remain depressed (closed restaurants don’t generate a lot of revenue). Budget deficits of close on 10 per cent of GDP will roll on and on. That might not matter a lot for Germany, but it does for Italy and France, two of the most heavily indebted countries in the world (they rank in third and fourth place respectively measured by the total amount owed). How much debt is too much? No one really knows, until the markets suddenly decide a threshold has been reached. Once that line is crossed, however, chaos is unleashed. Finally, muddled vaccine roll-outs will create a political backlash. We are already seeing that in Germany. Angela Merkel was always the world’s most over-rated leader, but her chronic caution, indecision and dithering, along with her personal responsibility for putting her inept "mini-mutti", Ursula von der Leyen, at the top of the EU, will bring her long reign to an ignominious close, as well as potentially handing power to the first Green leader of a major economy (although, in consolation, Robert Habeck is probably more of a "conservative" than the CDU leader ever was). President Macron is facing a tight presidential contest next year, amid a deepening crisis, while across the border in Italy it is hard to see the point of having an unelected technocrat as Prime Minister – the former ECB President Mario Draghi – if he can’t get shots into people’s arms. In truth, the Eurozone is about to enter a period of fraught political uncertainty at the very worst time. The net result? As the spring unfolds, we will witness plummeting confidence in Eurozone economies, and a panic in the bond markets that drives up borrowing costs. Global investors have not started to price that in yet. But as the evidence becomes unavoidable, and as the gulf in performance widens, that will change. It was the Greek crisis that sparked the first Eurozone crisis in 2010 as a decade of incompetence and spiralling debt brought the single currency to the edge of collapse. It is now surely inevitable that the "vaccine crisis" will trigger the next act in that unresolved drama.

I thought that but I actually enjoyed mine.

You can't use India as an example of anything, one way or another, because nobody knows (not even the Indian Government) what is going on in the rural areas. They don't have a unified healthcare system. So no centralised way of reporting back or collating figures. Much the same in Africa, last year people were saying how come Africa doesn't seem to be affected? Clearly it was but no way of recording the numbers.

Actually, the evidence is (rather strangely) that the vaccine may actually prevent blood clots because the rate is lower than for a normal sample of the age related population It just goes to show how low the likes of Macron and Merkel are prepared to descend to score points against Britain, playing silly games with people's lives. So glad we are out of the vile cesspit that is the EU

Nothing in life is 100% but thats no excuse not to be vaccinated.

The fishing bag is great value

I am not into PCP but our club gets its bottles from British Oxygen for refilling rifles on the range. Can anyone explain how that works?

People who don't have the vaccine will increase the risk of mutations happening in the future.

It seems strange to me that all this comes from three cases of blood clots reported by Norway, and quickly shown to be unrelated to the vaccine. It seems the EU is trying very hard to discredit what they see as the British vaccine. I suppose its easier to say they suspended its use than to admit they haven't got enough. First they said it didn't work in over 65s, then they had to admit that wasn't true. Now this, well carry on, all the more for us