Wednesday 5th January 2022

[refitman]

Morning all.

[gilsey]

Good morning.

Keir Starmer has tested positive for coronavirus, a Labour spokesperson has said. Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, will deputise for him at PMQs.

[gilsey]

This is really helpful from Keegan, I'm sure she'll be handing out magic wands to the ambulance services promptly.

In her interviews this morning Gillian Keegan, the health minister, said it was not acceptable for patients waiting for an ambulance to take them to hospital to be asked to get a relative to give them a lift instead.

As the Health Service Journal has reported, an internal note at North East ambulance service NHS foundation trust said that where there was likely to be a risk from the delay in an ambulance reaching a patient, call handlers should “consider asking the patient to be transported by friends or family”.
Asked about these reports, Keegan said this should not be happening. She told Sky News:

I’ve actually asked NHS England to look at that particular case because that doesn’t sound to me like that’s an acceptable approach - people should be able to get an ambulance if they have a heart attack and that’s why we’ve put that extra funding in place, and why we’ve been building up our ambulance service over the last couple of years.

She also claimed that more ambulance crews were in operation than ever before and that the service had received an extra £55m to help it cope over the winter.

Heart attack patients told to make own way to hospital as Covid surge hits northern England

[tinyclanger2]

Now, more than ever, we need a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/

[gilsey]

Meanwhile, it's all kicking off in Kazakhstan, ostensibly about energy prices. Often see people asking whether such-and-such and issue is Johnson's poll tax, imo energy prices really will be, because there are an awful lot of people out there who just won't be able to pay. I don't think it'll be enough to get us to 'spend the night on the square' though.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Good morning.

Keir Starmer has tested positive for coronavirus, a Labour spokesperson has said. Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, will deputise for him at PMQs.

So does that mean BoJo gets out of it as well?

EDIT: for those who think you might have missed it - devastated I'm sure - its not until 3PM today for some reason.

[Willow904]

...its not until 3PM today for some reason.

That did confuse me. I suspect I'll have lost interest by then.....

[AnatolyKasparov]

Of course in the "good old days" it was 3PM on both Tuesdays and Thursdays - only for 15 minutes though.

[PorFavor]

Good morfternoon.

PMQs -

Boris Johnson says that the Warm Homes Discount is £140 per week. That's news to me. It's a one-off annual winter bill discount.

And what's this "she" business? "He" does that a lot to female MPs, whereas the men get the full "the\my Honourable" treatment.

[PorFavor]

Boris Johnson has taken to suggesting that only those who support(ed) "Brexit" are entitled to want the much vaunted "advantages" of it to materialise.

[refitman]

[tinyclanger2]

I've just filed 18 years of admin.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good afternoon.

Oops. Robert "I love all statues" Poll is really not going to be happy...

[AnatolyKasparov]

Well, wasn't expecting that. Nice

[refitman]

[AnatolyKasparov]

Short of resigning, Whitty can't do much else but "go along" with it can he?

(and yes, some will no doubt argue he should do just that - but equally I can see its the "nuclear option" only to be used as a very last resort)

[refitman]

[refitman]

Winnie the Pooh is now public domain (as long as you don't include the t-shirt)

[tinyclanger2]

I think I prefer the original.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Confused smear grinder thinks desecrating Marx’ grave is now legal (6,6).

[RogerOThornhill]

Confused smear grinder thinks desecrating Marx’ grave is now legal (6,6).

Ah yes, poor little Darren who can't tell the difference between Hampstead Heath and Highgate Cemetery...this is a pretty bad take too complete with spelling mistakes. No sure who Scott is either...

[frog222]

Goodbye US Democracy ?

A list of some of the unscrupulous working hard to do just that —

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... tion-index

A VERY powerful piece —

” What the American left needs now is allegiance, not allyship. It must abandon any imagined fantasies about the sanctity of governmental institutions that long ago gave up any claim to legitimacy. Stack the supreme court, end the filibuster, make Washington DC a state, and let the dogs howl, and now, before it is too late. The moment the right takes control of institutions, they will use them to overthrow democracy in its most basic forms; they are already rushing to dissolve whatever norms stand in the way of their full empowerment. “

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... -to-see-it

Obama Biden and Clinton were very brave watching OBL being taken out on a screen

” We came, we saw, he DIED ”

But none of them are brave enough to even begin fixing America .

Same applies to UK .

[PaulfromYorkshire]

@RoT class!

The number of people posting on Twitter that it’s a disgrace and we have to uphold the rule of law is rather amusing when the four were cleared by a jury in Bristol Crown Court.

How exactly do they want the rule of law to be upheld?

[PaulfromYorkshire]

This Tweet made me laugh

“ Does Maureen Lipman just have a direct line to BBC News?

We don’t need daily updates on what she thinks, that isn’t news”

[gilsey]

@RoT class!

The number of people posting on Twitter that it’s a disgrace and we have to uphold the rule of law is rather amusing when the four were cleared by a jury in Bristol Crown Court.

How exactly do they want the rule of law to be upheld?

Someone on twitter suggested that a possible 10 year sentence under Patel's new bill would make it even less likely that a jury would convict.

[RogerOThornhill]

More really, really shit opinions...I'm getting all of the terrible right wing tweets again even though I don't follow them.

[gilsey]

This is quite extraordinary, and based on a study of 1.3 million cases.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... geon-study

Women who are operated on by a male surgeon are much more likely to die, experience complications and be readmitted to hospital than when a woman performs the procedure, research reveals.

Women are 15% more liable to suffer a bad outcome, and 32% more likely to die, when a man rather than a woman carries out the surgery, according to a study of 1.3 million patients..........

“In our 1.3 million patient sample involving nearly 3,000 surgeons we found that female patients treated by male surgeons had 15% greater odds of worse outcomes than female patients treated by female surgeons,” said Dr Angela Jerath, an associate professor and clinical epidemiologist at the University of Toronto in Canada and a co-author of the findings.

“This result has real-world medical consequences for female patients and manifests itself in more complications, readmissions to hospital and death for females compared with males.

“We have demonstrated in our paper that we are failing some female patients and that some are unnecessarily falling through the cracks with adverse, and sometimes fatal, consequences.”

[PaulfromYorkshire]

@gilsey yes interesting point

[gilsey]

Novak Djokovic’s attempts to compete at the Australian Open this month are over after the No 1-ranked male tennis player was told his visa has been rejected. He is due to be flown out of Melbourne on Thursday amid a spiralling outcry over his controversial “medical exemption” agreed by the tournament’s organisers.

The reigning Australian Open champion was held up at passport control on Wednesday night at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne, the host city of the tournament, for several hours late at night as he was questioned.

The Australian Border Force confirmed on Thursday morning he would not be allowed to remain in the country.

Get the impression that Federer, Nadal, and of course Andy Murray, are decent human beings while Djokovic is a shit.