Not until we get to Thailand🇹🇭- 76 countries in, do we breach the 5% barrier.
Africa average: 1.5%
It isn't only about an unequal distribution of doses or money but head of WHO said at the year we were facing a "catastrophic moral failure" as a result in global vaccine inequalities without action. Six months later- judge for yourself.
This will matter all the more as Delta, which has/is going to cause major disruption across the West reaches further afield. At least in West those countries are dealing with it with big % of population vaccinated. It won’t be so everywhere by a long shot.
President Kenyatta of Kenya pulling no punches with @KimberleyeLeo: "One of the things which has shown how unequal this world is has been the kind of vaccine nationalism that we've seen...they have surpluses but are still not ready to share them with the rest of the world."
Kenyatta: "We worked together when we were doing clinical trials, when we were doing research into vaccines and then all of a sudden we're unable to access those same vaccines...if we were given the IP we could manufacture in Kenya in the shortest possible time."
Kenyatta: "You can't on the one hand say well if you want to buy that's not available and then on the other side you say well we can't give you the intellectual property to protect your own people. It's got to be one or the other."
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NEW: Lib Dems call on the govt to suspend arms sales to Israel.
@EdwardJDavey: “Clearly, the thought that British-made arms could have been used in strikes such as these is completely unacceptable.
“The government must take swift action to suspend arms exports to Israel."
There's been (more or less) a fragile consensus between Conservative and Labour on policy towards Israel and the war. Pressure is going to increase on Starmer to move. Possibly (and more importantly) Sunak too...
Flick Drummond, Tory MP for Meon Valley has also said arms to Israel should cease.
“This has been concerning me for some time. What worries me is the prospect of UK arms being used in Israel’s actions in Gaza which I believe have broken international law.”
For the general election, very little. This was a unique by election and little is transferable. But it does change politics before the election and possibly tells us something about the shape of politics after it as well.
In the short term the result is highly embarrassing for Keir Starmer and for Labour. The Labour vote collapsed by over 40 % points. Labour will point to the fact that they withdrew support. But that reminds us that they had to withdraw support in a safe seat, itself a shambles.
Questions for the leadership as to why the by-election was held so quickly and why the selection process happened so quickly. As it is a safe Labour seat has been handed to one of the party's most implacable opponents.
It’s not like the British Parliament makes everything about itself, no not remotely
Net result of all of this? Starmer has a lucky escape. Speaker is weaker. Commons is farcical. Nothing changes in Gaza. MPs don’t really get their vote. We continue not to scrutinise what matters (and even then not that much) , which is the government’s position and plan.
Btw attack the Speaker’s decisions or not, but the threat of violence against MPs is real. Speaker should be thinking about that. The fact we’ve just come to accept that as a kind of background to our politics is the grimmest thing of all.
Grim news from Birmingham today. City Council has announced cuts to deal with effective insolvency notice. Includes:
-sale of £750m of assets
-cuts of to public services by £300m over two years
-21% rise in Council Tax
-dimming street lights
-fortnightly bin collections
Breakdown of cuts for 2024-25
-£23.7m from adult social care
-£51.5m from children’s services
-£6.2m from housing
-£39.2m from city operations
More elsewhere. This follows long term reduction in spending power from the council, as per rest of local govt.
Libraries, cultural organisations in the city all set to endure substantial cuts. 600 job losses at the council likely.
If you’re a Birmingham resident (biggest local authority in Europe) you’re going to feel this in years ahead in all sorts of ways.
“Wokeism seems to be on the curriculum…there is confusion about basic biological facts, like what is a woman. Look at the net zero zealots…if you listen to the Today programme, I don’t recommend it, you’ll hear demands for more public spending…”
Another cheap BBC shot from Truss, for whom it’s a habit. Perhaps if she had subjected herself to more interrogations on Today and other non partisan media organisations her premiership would have gone better.
Truss: “Conservatives haven’t taken on the left wing extremists. They don’t call themselves socialists or communists any more…they’re still collectivists-it’s all about taking power away from people and families and giving power away to unaccountable bodies.”