adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 12, 2024 13:30:41 GMT
Hmm, let's look at the reality of those "firsts"... DNA - originally isolated by a Swiss physicist in 1869. RNA's structure identified by a Russian-American in 1909, who went on to further discoveries in 1929. Inheritance via a double-helix first described by a Russian in 1927. Location in cell nucleus identified by a Belgian in 1933. X-Ray diffraction showing structure by a Briton in 1937. Major steps forwards by two Canadian-Americans, an American, and an Austro-Hungarian American in 1943. Then the usual "eureka" Nobel moment - Crick (UK)/Watson (US)/Wilkins (NZ/UK)/Franklin (UK). But before profiling was possible, there was another Nobel - two Americans and an Indian-American. DNA sequencing was first done by a Belgian team in 1972, then developed by Sanger (UK) and a team at Harvard. WWW - yes, a Brit... working on a pan-European project in Switzerland, building on top of what was originally a US defence network. SMS - yes, the first message was sent by a Brit... working for an Anglo-French company contracted to a phone network that was a joint venture between a UK comms company and a Swedish-American one, six years after the concept was defined as part of the GSM standard by a Franco-German-led pan-European GSM standards body, incorporating functionality that was well established via radio pagers that were developed in the US three decades earlier. Covid vacc - there was, if you recall, a global race to get the first to market. Yes, the first to mass market was from a UK/Swedish pharma company's Oxford research institute, together with some US-funded spinoffs from the university - while China and Russia had already released vaccines locally in restricted quantities. That AZ vacc was fairly quickly withdrawn from the market due to the effectiveness and side-effects having led to it being totally surpassed by others. The Nobel prize went to an American and a Hungarian-American for their mRNA work, while the first vacc to actually get to clinical trial and then to be approved was US-German developed. Largely parroted from Wikipedia but at the very least you would say the British were either sole or co-inventors of these enormous advances in medicine, science and technology. I'd say that there was some British involvement in all of them, but that it's simply not true to say that they're somehow uniquely or solely British achievements. This kind of chauvinistic one-upmanship is really just a slightly different flavour of xenophobia. "We're SO MUCH better than everybody else in the world."
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Oct 12, 2024 21:00:56 GMT
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Oct 13, 2024 12:41:42 GMT
"Temporarily" suspending asylum claims. Even Farage wouldn't do that. Some evidence that the EHCR was written in a different era and doesn't solve the problems of today.
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travolta
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Post by travolta on Oct 13, 2024 17:15:48 GMT
Just relieved to be born English.
It could have been different,because my Dad was born canadian but both my parents were bored to death there and returned in 1947.
Its jolly good, despite the self deprecating detractors.
WE really do NOT need the ECHR. Just another layer of talking shop for self promoters.
You really expect ANY Eastern European States to soak up immigrants with a welome arms? OK Mutti Merkel was welcoming at first ,but they too are pretty quiet now.
Yes,we really ARE head and shoulders above ANY other country in tolerance of others . Maybe not wonderful ,but the others are SO AWFUL.
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Post by captainconfident on Oct 18, 2024 15:34:27 GMT
I must say I'm no more proud of the Victorian sewers than I am of the sewers of Paris. I think there's something fundamental here shaping attitudes. You are Liberal minded if you appreciate people and their achievements in general, Conservative if you feel personal share in the achievements of .. Henry V?
Just back from Poland. What a massive change is going on there! Lodz was a total pit last time I saw it, now there has been massive investment there and its become wonderful. I think the Poles may have eaten the Germans' lunch.
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Oct 18, 2024 16:46:30 GMT
I must say I'm no more proud of the Victorian sewers than I am of the sewers of Paris. I think there's something fundamental here shaping attitudes. You are Liberal minded if you appreciate people and their achievements in general, Conservative if you feel personal share in the achievements of .. Henry V? Just back from Poland. What a massive change is going on there! Lodz was a total pit last time I saw it, now there has been massive investment there and its become wonderful. I think the Poles may have eaten the Germans' lunch. EU funds? Bit like all those perfect Spanish roads.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Oct 18, 2024 18:19:25 GMT
I must say I'm no more proud of the Victorian sewers than I am of the sewers of Paris. I think there's something fundamental here shaping attitudes. You are Liberal minded if you appreciate people and their achievements in general, Conservative if you feel personal share in the achievements of .. Henry V? Just back from Poland. What a massive change is going on there! Lodz was a total pit last time I saw it, now there has been massive investment there and its become wonderful. I think the Poles may have eaten the Germans' lunch. EU funds? Bit like all those perfect Spanish roads. I've seen that in Poland. Not in England. What lies were we told about the £350million being false. Yeah it was kind of false due to the amount we then got back but still in the hundreds of millions. There was clearly a movement of capital from wealthier EU nations to poorer ones with the Commission and the rest of the "institutions" creaming off a bit for their own extortionate salaries, gold plated pensions, 50+ days of annual holiday, business class travel et al.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Oct 18, 2024 18:32:19 GMT
EU funds? Bit like all those perfect Spanish roads. I've seen that in Poland. Not in England. What lies were we told about the £350million being false. Yeah it was kind of false due to the amount we then got back but still in the hundreds of millions. There was clearly a movement of capital from wealthier EU nations to poorer ones with the Commission and the rest of the "institutions" creaming off a bit for their own extortionate salaries, gold plated pensions, 50+ days of annual holiday, business class travel et al. I haven’t been following the numbers. Does our government still send money to EU each week after so many years of Brexit? 40bn deficit even after that money not going to EU?
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Post by bernythedolt on Oct 18, 2024 20:59:17 GMT
I must say I'm no more proud of the Victorian sewers than I am of the sewers of Paris. I think there's something fundamental here shaping attitudes. You are Liberal minded if you appreciate people and their achievements in general, Conservative if you feel personal share in the achievements of .. Henry V? Just back from Poland. What a massive change is going on there! Lodz was a total pit last time I saw it, now there has been massive investment there and its become wonderful. I think the Poles may have eaten the Germans' lunch. EU funds? Bit like all those perfect Spanish roads. Poland, 20 years on the gravy train. THE biggest beneficiary of the EU. 163bn EUR and counting... www.gov.pl/web/funds-regional-policy/ministerEven the Poles themselves admit they've "taken advantage"  .
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 18, 2024 22:12:48 GMT
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Oct 18, 2024 22:22:25 GMT
That made me smile I have to admit. Whether its 350m, 250m or 160m every week which is ten to twenty billion annually is a huge spend. Who cares whether its half the real figure or not? You have to remember that I actually wish we hadn't left the EU. But this is one of the positive reasons for leaving. Or are you gonna tell me that when weighing up the pros and cons or leaving/remaining paying a few hundred million per week is one of the pros ?
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 18, 2024 22:34:53 GMT
That made me smile I have to admit. Whether its 350m, 250m or 160m every week which is ten to twenty billion annually is a huge spend. Who cares whether its half the real figure or not? You have to remember that I actually wish we hadn't left the EU. But this is one of the positive reasons for leaving. Or are you gonna tell me that when weighing up the pros and cons or leaving/remaining paying a few hundred million per week is one of the pros ? Well, yes, given leaving has cost the economy far, far more... GDP about £130bn/year lower as a direct result. And, yes, £8.3bn is a big number. But in the context of the total government expenditure (roughly £1tn/year, so about 0.8%), or even GDP (0.3%), it's tiny. "Price of everything, value of nothing"
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Post by bernythedolt on Oct 18, 2024 23:39:49 GMT
That made me smile I have to admit. Whether its 350m, 250m or 160m every week which is ten to twenty billion annually is a huge spend. Who cares whether its half the real figure or not? You have to remember that I actually wish we hadn't left the EU. But this is one of the positive reasons for leaving. Or are you gonna tell me that when weighing up the pros and cons or leaving/remaining paying a few hundred million per week is one of the pros ? Well, yes, given leaving has cost the economy far, far more... GDP about £130bn/year lower as a direct result.And, yes, £8.3bn is a big number. But in the context of the total government expenditure (roughly £1tn/year, so about 0.8%), or even GDP (0.3%), it's tiny. "Price of everything, value of nothing"I'm intrigued by that figure. Do you have a link please? What I saw empirically was roads in France, Spain, the Spanish Islands - and no doubt Poland and the rest - in beautiful condition, and massively overengineered, dual carriageways where a single would suffice (with the "underwritten by EU" star insignia banner prominently displayed), while our roads in the UK were falling to bits. Conclusion: the EU was taking the rise for far too long. Had we been net beneficiaries on the other hand, for sure the vote would have gone the other way. Just imagine what we could have done with Poland's EUR 163bn largesse... that's about the same figure as we've paid over in that same 20 years. If the notion is correct that the UK economy has several years of inbuilt inertia before it naturally corrects, I hope we can look forward to a brighter future. I still struggle to see how parting with a net £7.0bn - £9.2bn per year was ever likely to help us.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Oct 19, 2024 7:07:00 GMT
Well, yes, given leaving has cost the economy far, far more... GDP about £130bn/year lower as a direct result.And, yes, £8.3bn is a big number. But in the context of the total government expenditure (roughly £1tn/year, so about 0.8%), or even GDP (0.3%), it's tiny. "Price of everything, value of nothing"I'm intrigued by that figure. Do you have a link please? It's a figure from a 2019 (so pre-pandemic) Bloomberg calculation, based on how much lower GDP actually was than if pre-Brexit trends had continued, as they did in other EU countries. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/-170-billion-and-counting-the-cost-of-brexit-for-the-u-kfullfact.org/europe/online-cost-brexit-net-contributions/Obviously, it's an estimate and others are available. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/how-much-has-brexit-cost-the-uk_uk_5e303703c5b6ce51a4ebc7d8The nearest to an official figure is 4% of long-term GDP from the ONS (£91bn/year on 2023 GDP). www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59070020
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Post by bernythedolt on Oct 19, 2024 11:28:58 GMT
Thanks. Worth pointing out this 'uncertain estimate' of £130bn looks to be cumulative rather than per annum as you quoted.
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