euro referendum 23rd June

@sunlight wrote:

I would imagine, to be identified would put "Worldly" or "Universal."  To simply put "European" could be construed as you don't like others not of a "European" persuasion.  

I think you are missing the point. It is being suggested that you tick the British, English, etc box and the Other box and write in European. I don't think anyone is suggesting that they feel more European than say Scottish, etc.

I can see that xmiles but i still wouldn't class myself as a European. Its one of those daft ideas people come up with like putting you are jedi on the last census.

@Norpig wrote:I can see that xmiles but i still wouldn't class myself as a European. Its one of those daft ideas people come up with like putting you are jedi on the last census.

Fair enough. I wouldn't initially class myself as European either.

@Norpig wrote:Its one of those daft ideas people come up with like putting you are jedi on the last census.

I have the biggest lightsaber in Preston.

@gloswhite wrote:Well said Mr Pig, you are British, and anyone who says they are European will be declaring themselves stateless. Europe is made up of a bunch of countries and wouldn't put European.

We know what we are.

@boltonbonce wrote:
We know what we are.

At least the Puerto Rican's are being open about it and have held a vote on whether to become the 51st American state. 52% voted to give up their independence for the American dollar. Sad, but when your country is in such a poor state it seems like the obvious answer.

Do you think that is what we will be doing once Scotland and Wales are independent and Ireland reunited?

All thanks to brexit of course.

XM, you're at it again. Brexit is only the latest phase in a long running battle calling for independence of whoever finds it expedient at the time.

Brexit has made even the Welsh ask for independence and there was no real demand in Northern Ireland for unification before brexit.

I'm Welsh, and would be happy with the government just paying for all the natural resources they've had over the decades  
Mind you, Mid Wales where I come from is full of Brummies and Scousers, so at least there is less competition for the best looking sheep 

Looks like not being part of the EU is helping more UK people get a jab in their arm.

A pretty massive benefit wouldn't you say?

Come on xmiles, are you going to admit you owe Boris for getting your vaccine so quickly?

@Natasha Whittam wrote:Come on xmiles, are you going to admit you owe Boris for getting your vaccine so quickly?

You are just going to confuse sluffy posting stuff like this. After all he thinks we are the same person.

@xmiles wrote:You are just going to confuse sluffy posting stuff like this. After all he thinks we are the same person.

I'll let it go when you admit that the vaccine programme has been a benefit of Brexit.

It's the scientists that we should praise....and our country has the money to be able to order lots of all the vaccines unlike some of the poorer countries of the world. Not sure that Brexit is relevant. Trump would have said "America first, and sod the rest!" 

Our front-line workers have been wonderfully heroic, which rather puts into perpective Sluffy's simplistic, generalised view of a selfish humanity. It's the rich, uncaring, lying ones like Cummings that deserve contempt.

Is our government speading our good fortune around the globe fairly to help others?

@Natasha Whittam wrote:

I'll let it go when you admit that the vaccine programme has been a benefit of Brexit.

Nothing to do with Brexit, we had the same opt out to being part of that scheme before we left the EU as we do now. 

Government do deserve credit for vaccine strategy so far though.

Would like to see us make a gesture of goodwill to the EU over this current situation and help their supply issues though.

@T.R.O.Y. wrote:Nothing to do with Brexit, we had the same opt out to being part of that scheme before we left the EU as we do now. 

Nonsense, if that was the case then other EU members would have jumped ship.

@Natasha Whittam wrote:

Nonsense, if that was the case then other EU members would have jumped ship.

At the start of this why would you not want to be tied to Germany and France? Their pharma markets are top 5 in the world. 

They just weren’t as fast to move on building supply as we were. We bet on AZ and so far it sounds like it’s paid off.

@T.R.O.Y. wrote:

At the start of this why would you not want to be tied to Germany and France? Their pharma markets are top 5 in the world. 

They just weren’t as fast to move on building supply as we were. We bet on AZ and so far it sounds like it’s paid off.

It was the EU that “bet on AZ” - not us - a fact that seems to be eluding the press.

The EU provided AZ with 336 million to develop the vaccine in Oxford - a deal that guaranteed them 400 million doses.

Only the government is trying to squirm out of it AND put the blame on the EU.

Wankers.

@wanderlust wrote:

@T.R.O.Y. wrote:

At the start of this why would you not want to be tied to Germany and France? Their pharma markets are top 5 in the world. 

They just weren’t as fast to move on building supply as we were. We bet on AZ and so far it sounds like it’s paid off.

It was the EU that “bet on AZ” - not us - a fact that seems to be eluding the press.

The EU provided AZ with 336 million to develop the vaccine in Oxford - a deal that guaranteed them 400 million doses.

Only the government is trying to squirm out of it AND put the blame on the EU.

Wankers.

It's eluding the press because it simply isn't true - you been reading social media again?

AZ partnered Oxford University way back in APRIL to develop and roll out a vaccine -

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/30/astrazeneca-partners-with-oxford-university-to-produce-covid-19-vaccine

The EU in AUGUST (Four months later) placed an order and put down the money to buy what eventually was an agreed 400m doses and part of this was the money to build extra capacity to do so (this being the two factory's in the EU which are not able to meet that capacity yet).

This is no different from a US deal in which they agreed with AZ agreed in MAY (3 months before the EU) for $1.2billion and a upgrade to an already existing agreement with Brazil for $360 million also agreed in MAY (again 3 months before the EU).

https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/az-nets-396m-downpayment-for-300m-plus-eu-vaccine-doses

The real problem was that the EU turned up late to the party and didn't get their act together in time whilst many other country's had.

However please don't let the facts get in the way of your rant against the Tory government yet again.

@Sluffy wrote:

It's eluding the press because it simply isn't true - you been reading social media again?

AZ partnered Oxford University way back in APRIL to develop and roll out a vaccine -

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/30/astrazeneca-partners-with-oxford-university-to-produce-covid-19-vaccine

The EU in AUGUST (Four months later) placed an order and put down the money to buy what eventually was an agreed 400m doses and part of this was the money to build extra capacity to do so (this being the two factory's in the EU which are not able to meet that capacity yet).

This is no different from a US deal in which they agreed with AZ agreed in MAY (3 months before the EU) for $1.2billion and a upgrade to an already existing agreement with Brazil for $360 million also agreed in MAY (again 3 months before the EU).

https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/az-nets-396m-downpayment-for-300m-plus-eu-vaccine-doses

The real problem was that the EU turned up late to the party and didn't get their act together in time whilst many other country's had.

However please don't let the facts get in the way of your rant against the Tory government yet

AZ accepted the money didn’t they?

@wanderlust wrote:

@Sluffy wrote:

It's eluding the press because it simply isn't true - you been reading social media again?

AZ partnered Oxford University way back in APRIL to develop and roll out a vaccine -

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/30/astrazeneca-partners-with-oxford-university-to-produce-covid-19-vaccine

The EU in AUGUST (Four months later) placed an order and put down the money to buy what eventually was an agreed 400m doses and part of this was the money to build extra capacity to do so (this being the two factory's in the EU which are not able to meet that capacity yet).

This is no different from a US deal in which they agreed with AZ agreed in MAY (3 months before the EU) for $1.2billion and a upgrade to an already existing agreement with Brazil for $360 million also agreed in MAY (again 3 months before the EU).

https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/az-nets-396m-downpayment-for-300m-plus-eu-vaccine-doses

The real problem was that the EU turned up late to the party and didn't get their act together in time whilst many other country's had.

However please don't let the facts get in the way of your rant against the Tory government yet

AZ accepted the money didn’t they?

Only on the basis which is stated in the contract that both parties signed that they would do their "best efforts" to fulfil the order.

The problem being that the EU left it to the last minute to place an order and that AZ had to build the capacity in the plants to meet this demand - hence "best efforts" rather than a specified end date.

Try reading this lengthy article and see where the EU states are laying the blame and it is not at AZ's door, it is at the feet of the EU Commission itself...

" Here again EU politicians seem increasingly irritated with what is now perceived as incompetence at the highest levels of the Commission. Friday's mess-up over the Brexit Northern Ireland agreement is being described to me as "a symptom" of mismanagement of the wider vaccine programme.

The European Commission is under pressure to take effective action. But of late it has given the impression of firing hastily in all directions - threatening AstraZeneca with legal proceedings; demanding some of the company's vaccines be diverted to the EU from production centres in the UK; risking alienating allies in Japan, Canada and Australia with new authorisation requirements for vaccine exports from the EU; and dragging the Brexit deal on Northern Ireland into the fray.

None of this, so far, has resulted in reducing the EU's vaccine shortfall.

"It's like watching a car crash in slow motion," one irate EU diplomat told me. "President von der Leyen is a medical doctor. She wanted to take over the mass purchase of vaccines for all the EU - as a high-profile exercise. Normally health issues are dealt with nationally. This hasn't been a great advertisement for handing over powers to Brussels. I think that's the lesson member states will take away from this."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55872763

And the EU DIDN'T as you claim give AZ the money to 'develop' the vaccine, the money was for the 'supply' of the vaccine and to build extra capacity in order to manufacture further vaccine from this additional capacity. The problem being the late ordering of the vaccine didn't leave time enough to actually build the additional capacity for the intended deadline - hence why AZ insisted the "best efforts" clause be inserted into the signed contracts.

All this has NOTHING to do with the British Government but as I've said don't let facts get in the way of your hatred of the Tory Party.

Some early indications of how Brexit is affecting British companies in this article.

Obviously it’s still early doors and hopefully our wonderful government will be able to do something to ameliorate the problems despite missing every target for training up agents - but there will be casualties  in terms of lost revenue, businesses and jobs.
They need to act quickly to stop the slide.

And more of Boris' lies are being exposed. There always was going to be a border in the Irish Sea but of course he denied it and the gullible idiots believed him.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55901429

@xmiles wrote:And more of Boris' lies are being exposed. There always was going to be a border in the Irish Sea but of course he denied it and the gullible idiots believed him.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55901429

For me the real worry is that the peace agreement itself is being undermined.

@wanderlust wrote:
For me the real worry is that the peace agreement itself is being undermined.

An unforgiveable tragedy....

PS Most of his projects as London Mayor were risible.

And yet more! How many people in the fishing industry were stupid enough to believe the brexit liars? They are now finding out the hard way they have been taken for fools.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55903599