Comments by "Helen Trope" (@heliotropezzz333) on "The Independent" channel.

  1. As a remoaner I am pleased, as I was expecting a complete bollox next year and it's a relief that perhaps it won't be quite as complete as I was expecting.
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  2. They weren't 'allowed' marches. The police dispersed the crowds on both occasions.
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  3.  @Andrewx4  Rightists have never known how to win democratically. They only win by lying and cheating.
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  4. For what? What was well done?
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  5. 'And now he's touched it we'll have to dispose of it, because it's not sterile'.
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  6. Not really. He's not a w*anker, Master Bates.
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  7. I'm glad William Shakespeare is being protected. We don't want to lose a national treasure.
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  8. * Ever heard of Marcus Rashford and his campaign for kids to get vouchers for food during the holidays until next Easter? Unfortunately the Tories voted the proposal down yesterday.
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  9. In the words of the song 'Reason to Believe' If I listen long enough to you I'd find a way to believe that it's all true Knowing, that you lied, straight-faced While I cried But still I'd look to find a reason to believe
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  10.  @davedave4699  That's a silly statement. What evidence do you have that he doesn't want to lock up murderers?
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  11.  James H  *Name anything good Boris did as Mayor? 1) Khan capped some tube fares. He also introduced 2 bus journeys (within an hour) for one fare. These all helped workers, particularly the lowest paid who used buses to get to work. 2) He allocated more money to the police after the government had massively cut the police budgets to the extent that police numbers were reduced by 20,000 nationally. He could not make up fully for the government cuts as he didn't have as big a budget. 3) He introduced more stop and search. 4 ) He tackled air pollution by introducing air quality audits and an ultra low emissions zone.5) Between March and December 2019, 12,546 affordable homes were started in London, reaching 74% of his 17,000 target. Of these 41% were for social rent, or London affordable rent equivalent.
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  12.  @Billy2011C  Cummings was caught. He was visited by the police but they've decided to go easy on him (probably as they don't want to get involved with political shit)
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  13. If he's so anxious he should have taken action sooner to stop it entering the country.
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  14. Breaking the rules he created when others ARE being punished (fined) for doing the same is a case of thinking the rules don't apply to him but only to the 'masses'. Boris also thought the rules didn't apply to him which is why he boasted of shaking the hands of everyone he met in a hospital shortly before coming down with Covid. He may well have been the one who passed it to colleagues Hancock and Raab and the Chief Medical Officer also.
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  15. A medical scientist once said 'We spend years studying science and medicine and years getting professional qualifications and years (normally) developing cures and treatments and the response of some commenter on social media is 'bollocks'.
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  16. Why would the Independent heading refer to an Australia style deal when Australia has no deal with the EU?
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  17. Wrong way around. They film it themselves or ask the media along.
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  18. Some people manage to find ways to 'grind their axes' in comments on every other subject, even when it's obviously irrelevant. So far 7 people have agreed with the comment that the way back from Japan is via EU customs - mindblowing, and assume that customs declarations are a one way imposition rather than an inevitable and foreseen consequence of Brexit that they probably voted for.
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  19. Looks like an alien.
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  20. Because she was crowned Queen alongside Charles when he was crowned King.
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  21. This is well below the police's minimum payscale, so is it true?
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  22.  @0808-w9q  I did receive a proper education. It didn't stop me from 'making money' as you put it, but It also gave me some perspective on that and it taught me to understand the value and importance of science and the scientific methodology. We are already vaccinated.
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  23.  @0808-w9q  Run out of arguments so attacking the messenger now? I've had my vaccine as you'd know if you read the comments and I have worked all my life and am happy.
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  24. This is what Blood.co.uk says: 'Does NHS Blood and Transplant sell plasma for profit? No, NHS Blood and Transplant does not sell plasma for profit. NHS organisations charge each other for the cost of services, on a cost recovery basis. For example, an NHS commissioning group might give an NHS hospital a fixed sum of money for a hip operation. In the same way, NHS Blood and Transplant receives money for each unit of red cells, platelets and plasma that it supplies to hospitals. This money covers NHS Blood and Transplant’s costs.'
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  25. It's the Tories that were keen on having Mayors and pushing local areas to vote to have them. Mayors can represent and can stick up for their areas but I think the Tories just thought dealing with one person per area, it would be easier to buy them off or ignore them.
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  26.  @gordonmcdonald1064  Not at all. The government has a raft of nasty measures now it want to impose on London and the Mayor is resisting.
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  27. You could see he didn't know how to respond to this clear evidence of his intentions. In the end he opted to deny everything in spite of the evidence. Unbelievable in every sense.
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  28.  @billisaac326  The views of racists like you don't count because you can't see beyond race. Khan has done quite a few good things for London. Bailey is just a Tory mouthpiece with no brains or thoughts of his own.
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  29.  @unionjackjackson4352  P.S. 7,000 of the houses started in one year, before Covid lockdowns, will be for social rent and that is more than all the social housing produced in the whole of Boris's term as mayor. The rest of the houses are at 'affordable' levels which is a term coined by the Tory government with the precise meaning of 80% of market value.
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  30.  @pauld5723  Shaun Bailey has changed his tune on stop and search for election purposes. I've seen a video of him in a GLA meeting where Khan is talking about increasing stop and search and Bailey is shouting at him that it's racist. Increased spending well controlled and used is not wasteful but Khan is limited in what he can spend because the government cut central funding to local authorities by 80% since 2010 and he's limited in what he's allowed to raise from local taxes too. The Tory government since 2010 has centralised a lot of power and control, taking much away from local government. Boris Johnson was the wasteful one with the money he's wasted on vanity projects when he was Mayor: £53m on the failed Garden Bridge project, a new fleet of buses at over £1m per bus, and buying second hand German water tanks that turned out to be illegal to use in the UK. As P.M he's really upped the ante. He spent £37bn on contracts to friends and supporters that he's not published, as legally required, and he's set aside £100bn for bi-weekly Covid testing with a test that's only 50% accurate and which experts say is highly unlikely to meet his objectives. As for bus fares, I've lived in London over 30 years and it's a long time now since fares were 80p. They do go up with inflation but having 2 journeys for the price of one cuts down travel costs and makes a significant difference to the lowest paid (minimum wage) workers .
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  31.  @pauld5723  I don't think the police are demoralised. Where do you get that idea from? Police are only demoralised when they are constantly criticised by the communities they police, not when occasional mistakes are made but in an ongoing way. Good training ensures they can take the appropriate action to fit circumstances, work with and for communities and not against them, and have confidence in what they do. The police in the UK are better trained and trained for longer, than those in the USA.
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  32. That's because you don't think much at all, I suspect.
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  33. If you like fake or low quality or dangerous goods and scams.
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  34. It's to do with population size and resources but it's not all about being at the top of the table. It's also about enjoying the performances.
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  35. They were never real.
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  36. A liar calling another liar, a liar. Hmm! Who to believe?
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  37. Starmer does. You and Boris don't
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  38. Probably a lot of the idiots who voted for them last time.
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  39. Traitor to whom or what?
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  40. Why not be angry about the government's poor leadership which is affecting many more people now.
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  41. He sounds like Tony Blair.
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  42. Millions of people do, so why are you on this site?
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  43. That's silly. No one can police people's thoughts but hate speech is against the law.
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  44. @Lee Davies I think you must be talking about the US because in the UK the vaccination being rolled out at the moment is Astra Zeneca (aka the Oxford vaccination). That's the one I just had 2 days ago.12 million people have had it already. Since the virus mutates it will probably end up like the flu vaccine where a vaccine is needed every year. People may still die after having the vaccine if they had Covid already or within 10 days of having the vaccine because antibodies don't begin to be made for about 10 days, and a second dose of the vaccine is needed for maximum protection. I don't think Astra Zeneca has polyethylene glycol which I think is the ingredient that is most blamed for some allergic reactions to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccinations. I've been reading up on that.
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  45. @Chaz Jankel More people would die without a lockdown because if hospitals become overwhelmed they would not be able to treat all Covid patients in need, or people with other serious conditions either. Hospitals have saved many people's lives so the death toll would be a lot higher without them.
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  46. @Lee Davies That's good. Presumably they've been able to make inroads into waiting lists for other serious illnesses then. Sadly it's not the case where I live. There are 1000 cancer patients waiting for treatment that has been delayed because of the demands of Covid on hospitals.
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  47. @Lee Davies People would not be allowed into occupied hospital areas to film and I can only speak for myself. I had a cancer operation in June. It was delayed by 3 months because of Covid but what they did was contract with a private hospital nearby to use their facilities for cancer patients to keep cancer and Covid patients apart in different hospitals. So if anyone had wandered into the local NHS hospital they would not have found cancer patients there.
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  48. @Lee Davies You're right that Pfizer is approved for use in the UK also. I just didn't know anyone who's had it. Vaccines don't usually have long term side effects. Name a vaccine that has had long term side effects? It's too early to assess the impact of the vaccines on the spread of the virus because only 12million people have been vaccinated and it takes 10 days to start building antibodies and for maximum protection a second vaccine is needed before 12 weeks after the first one. Astra Zeneca is said not to work as well against mild and moderate cases of the South African strain according to a South African study but the study numbers were small and didn't include many severe cases in the elderly who are the most vulnerable group. In any case there aren't many cases of the South African variant in the UK and vigorous attempts are being made to keep those numbers low.
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  49. @Lee Davies That's your choice. I guess eventually the vaccine will be an annual one for people over a certain age or with health conditions that make them vulnerable. No one's forced to have it but take up has been high in the UK in the age groups that have been offered it so far. I can't afford to get antibodies by getting Covid because the disease itself would likely kill me. Nothing in life is risk free and we all have to die sometime but vaccinations over history have reduced the death toll in the population (along with better food and sanitation). When I was born the population of the world was 2.7 billion. Like many in my generation I grew up having a number of vaccines and vaccination spread around the world. The world population is now over 7 billion. Science and medicine have helped a lot in reducing deaths.
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  50. @Lee Davies I'm old enough to take the risk on the long term. As someone once said 'in the long term we're all dead'. I've just looked it up. The Astra Zeneca vaccine (which I had) is not mRNA based. This is how it works' At the heart of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is a virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees. The chimp virus is modified so it cannot multiply and cause disease in the body. It is then loaded up with the gene for the coronavirus spike protein, the club-shaped part that dots the surface of the virus and is used to penetrate human cells.' As I understand it it uses and delivers part of the Covid virus, but not the part that makes you ill, but a part that can ensure your body recognises the virus. If you caught Covid you'd have the whole virus in you anyway, and most people recover so I don't see the harm in having an impotent part of the virus injected.
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