nauseus

Could be with all the defections.

Damn! Brandon even got the card the wrong way round! Let's go Joe!

Looks who's making things up now. No links too.

Imo poor and lazy criticism - I wasn't actually criticizing rather pointing out a problem. The original report was indeed a few years ago but it is regularly updated - I have not been directed to or following OBR reports. The OBR advertises itself as being independent but it was set up by a UK government, is funded by HM Treasury and led by ex Treasury and BoE people, supported by the CS. I disagree. A few examples: The UK was one of the major influences in the formation of the Single Market and a strong supporter of the EU's attempts to forge trade deals - but the UK was not a major influencer of the content of these deals and foreign and defence policies are not needed by pure trading blocs, rather by nation states. It's true that with the expansion of the membership and more QMV, the influence of any one individual member state is lessened .... at least, in theory ...- and in reality? but let's not pretend all member states are equal - agree! France and Germany have more influence and power than Cyprus and Malta - er yes. When the UK was a member, it was one of the 'Big 3'. - but NOT a member of the biggest 2. Perhaps not. But the UK likes to think of itself as having a significant presence and influence on the world stage. In terms of size of the economy and population, the UK is somewhat smaller than Japan. As an individual nation, what real influence does Japan wield on the world state? I take it that you mean stage? I don't agree with your version of what the UK '"likes". When the UK joined the "Common Market" there was no aspiration to wield influence around the world. The EU as a whole has never been strong enough to influence much of anything globally, as we have seen recently with Russia and Ukraine. Imo any influence that the UK had on the world stage was dependent on our membership of the larger bloc i.e. EU. Moreover, inside the EU we were of use to the US, outside of it less so. As you must have seen from recent events, the UK is still of far more "use" to the US than the EU is. I would call that poor and lazy criticism Have a good flight.

I think it is difficult to isolate what might have been separate (Brexit) effects from the effects of the recent serious events in Europe and the world. especially given, the general nature of the questions. I don't recall being "repeatedly" challenged, particularly w.r.t. OBR's but maybe that's from years ago? It's a shame that more 'Leave' voters did not realize this pre, rather than post, referendum. If they had, perhaps the result would have been different. Perhaps different in that the leave vote would have even been greater? Any influence that the UK may have had over the EEC/EU from within was always weak. With successive losses of vetoes, then more and more QMV, it weakened more. The idea of Brexit was not to try to influence the EU from the outside after we left. The quality of EU decisions that it considers to be in the best interests of its members has always been questionable IMO. A matter of opinion, but these decisions seem to be getting worse. Today, almost every EU member government seems to have some major issue with either the EU itself, or with their own people due to EU politics and policies.

To try to avoid comments like this, I did add the below, obviously unsuccessfully, a while ago. Here it is again. = = = Don't agree with your first para and I wasn't pressed on anything. I'd say that the negative answers to the broad scope of questions about the state of UK now (3 years post Brexit) are driven and reasoned by far more than just Brexit. Any objections that I may have are unchanged, rather than generic. I agree that any government would have had trouble dealing with Brexit; I always said that and knew that leaving would be a problem because the EU of 2016 had gathered far more than power than the EEC had in 1972 - even though the concept of political union was already written into the Treaty of Rome - a pity more MP's couldn't be bothered to read it properly then. So, yes, the EU held most of the "cards' by 2016 and I think that was finally realised by the leave voters. The very difficulty of leaving highlighted the overriding political nature of the EU and the need to break free of it. There was a lot of nonsense spouted by both sides in the run-up to the referendum - personally, I ignored it - leaving "deals" were hardly discussed until the vote was over. No deal was the only way to leave completely but if the EU had truly been a trading bloc, it could have been relatively easy and amicable.

or just bored....

OK then. What a waste!

Open "Opinium" and it just asks another question immediately! Keep your cookies in a jar then! So many big questions in a single little poll, pretty much all of which seem to try to imply that sentiment on these issues in the UK today is only driven by Brexit, despite most all of the EU being badly affected by the pandemic, high immigration, too few homes, new wars, inflation and flagging economies! How can anyone make a fair judgement given all that? On top of that, the question of the process of actually leaving the EU was completely ignored. Tory UK governments, first misled by a dithering and weak May, then second conned by Boris, with the regurgitated Chequers (also May) withdrawal agreement, which was rushed in/out of the oven just to "get Brexit done", so that Boris could say that he did it. It was all such a waste, especially with such an enormous majority. It'll be a long time before the Conservatives see that again. What a waste!

I guess nobody knows for sure then.

Depends where you get your numbers. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/05/us-covid-coronavirus-death-toll Guardian suggests February 4th.

Filing or fling?

OK Dan, you keep digging them up and I'll count them after sunrise.

Er yes/

You are correct. Maybe the pilot missed that bit.

You want to talk about one day when I want to talk about two years. Anyway your highlight looks to be peakiest after Biden arrived. Here's some spares in case you want another go.

If you want to credit this Vanity Fair rubbish that's up to you. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-03-17/trump-tells-followers-to-get-vaccinated-against-coronavirus

When Trump had the vax it was widely reported at the time.

Full blown like your story? Already by April 2020 there were already 2.5k deaths/day in the US. Not peaky enough? There were several other similar peaks/waves post Biden's arrival at the high 20/21 winter peak, all the way onto 2022. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ Biden still lost more people in '21 than Trump lost in '20, despite new availability of vaccines, PPE, treatment techniques and information.

Lots of variables in there that are not accounted for but which the article itself acknowledges. However, the trend is there, indicating that Republicans who chose not to vaccinate but who contracted Covid were more likely to die. But that was their choice and Trump allowed that, although he received the vaccine in early 2021 and everyone knew it. There was no mandate and people were free to be free and tribal. I think that it has to be that way.

So how come Biden lost more people in his first year than Trump did? Even with vaccines rolling out by then?

And I am saying that most governments mismanaged the epidemic. There may have been many "additional" deaths however it was handled. There was very little information available early on.

Most leaders would not have wanted to create a panic. So what?

So you're saying covid was Trumps fault then?

I know that is supposed to be the case but sometimes I do wonder. Inflation just picked up again a bit last month so we'll have to wait and see, I suppose.