He truly is the son of god.
He's the second coming according to the Guardian!
Heals lepers,wants to feed the 5000,etc
Never thought the Messiah would come from Whythenshawe and be wearing tracky bottoms instead of sandals.

Fair play to him. Exposed the tories for what they really are, a bunch of heartless , out of touch, selfish, greedy bastards. As for those who support them, but have no real wealth or security of their own, well, words fail me.

Yea,I really should have abandoned my expensive children to the State for you lot to pay for. I’d be much better off. How exactly did his father get ways with walking out on 5 children?

Whats that got to do with anything?

I know we're all bored because of the lockdown but this is poor.

Marcus Rashford speaks from his own experience about a single issue. He's resisted attempts by others to politicize his stance - for example, he's unfailingly polite when he describes conversations he's had with the Prime Minister. He's been so effective precisely because he's refused to be manipulated by the media or anyone else. Maybe that's because he's getting good PR advice, maybe he really is the very well grounded young man he appears to be. Still managing to play decent football despite all the attention. Can think of a hundred high profile footballers whose heads would have exploded in his shoes.

just cannot understand why a decent young lad who is thinking about others instead of living a selfish me, me me type of life has to get crap like this spoken about him. its as if they want a backlash by some on his efforts.

*Wythenshawe

hth

I just threw a test grenade nothing more. Words from another site.

According to the guardian in a recent poll 72% of the black and ethnic minority group are unlikely to take up the offer of a vaccine.
Another job for Marcus perhaps.

no one has asked me so its another false poll.

Surely if someone refuses the vaccine then the NHS should refuse treatment if that person subsequently contracts the disease. Why should the NHS risk their lives trying to save someone who refuses to help themselves and risks the lives of others.
None of us are safe until we are all safe.

Do you have your very own natural swimming lake in the garden? Funnily enough, me neither. But along with hot tubs and garden offices, they’ve supposedly become lockdown must-haves for people with money to burn and nothing else to spend it on, what with never leaving home any more. The Beckhams had one dug during the first lockdown, which means it’s probably only a matter of time before they’re two-a-penny in the Cotswolds.

The paradox of lockdown is that the more comfortably off Britons were at the beginning of it, the more likely they are to emerge with an unexpected bonus: savings racked up by months of not commuting, eating out, buying clothes or going on holiday. In parliament this week, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, described the resulting record levels of household savings as a hopeful sign of economic resilience. Yet for those most in need of a windfall, as research from Resolution Foundation spelled out this week, the opposite is true.

It found that lower-earning families whose wages are eaten up almost entirely by the basics were twice as likely to see their outgoings rise over summer and autumn than to see them fall. With everyone home and raiding the fridge, they spent more on food, heating, or mobile data for kids trying to follow lessons on a phone. Meanwhile, lockdown cut them off from survival strategies, such as buying clothes from charity shops. (Higher earners also spent more on food and heating, but that was far outweighed by what they saved on pleasures suddenly denied them.)

Half of adults with less than £1,000 savings also raided them, which is hardly surprising given nearly a third of lower earners lost their jobs or were furloughed in the first wave, compared with just a tenth of higher earners. But it leaves them with less to fall back on this time. And that’s the context against which Sunak ducked subsequent questions from MPs about whether he still plans to go ahead with cutting the incomes of struggling households – many of them working – by more than £1,000 a year, from April.

The planned cut stems from a Treasury deadline set last spring for clawing back the emergency £20 a week added to universal credit and working tax credit during the first lockdown. Back then, Boris Johnson was claiming Britain could “send coronavirus packing” in 12 weeks. Now, 10 months on, it’s not even clear whether schools will be open again by Easter.

But timing isn’t the only problem here. The footballer and food poverty campaigner Marcus Rashford is among those calling for the April cut to be reversed, a recognition that food parcels are merely sticking plasters over the deeper and more enduring problem of not having enough money to live on. Given Rashford’s campaign record, the Treasury might as well give up now. But if it doesn’t, it’s likely to come under increasing pressure from some of the newer Tory MPs sitting on relatively fragile majorities, worrying about how to explain this income cut to many of their constituents.

So perhaps Sunak is merely holding back – cruel as the uncertainty is for families whose money worries keep them awake at night – because he wants to announce a reprieve as part of a balanced spring budget. But until he says otherwise, the suspicion remains that the government is digging in for the same reason it’s been so unwilling to raise statutory sick pay, even though ensuring people can afford to self-isolate is critical to controlling Covid: it doesn’t want more generous welfare to become the norm.

It doesn’t want the widespread understanding that benefits don’t cover living costs in a pandemic to grow into a realisation that they’re not enough in normal life either. It doesn’t want to own the legacy of a five-year benefit freeze pre-Covid, nor perhaps to admit how long a post-Covid recovery may take.

Economists are speculating about the risk of a recovery shaped not like a V or W but a rotated K, with higher earners roaring back to where they were, while lower earners flatline. Imagine the post-crash decade all over again, but this time with the lingering effects of “long Covid” hampering some people’s ability to work, and the virus stubbornly taking hold in neighbourhoods where endemic poverty gives it greater opportunities to spread. It would be a recipe not just for individual distress, but social unrest and the politics of desperation.

For Sunak, who likes to see himself as a pragmatist willing to do whatever it takes, waiving the April cut should be the easy bit. But it’s not enough to be a chancellor who, in extremis, proves willing to spend money. It’s what, and who, you spend it on in the long term that counts.

[quote="horden"]

Economists are speculating about the risk of a recovery shaped not like a V or W but a rotated K, with higher earners roaring back to where they were, while lower earners flatline. Imagine the post-crash decade all over again, but this time with the lingering effects of “long Covid” hampering some people’s ability to work, and the virus stubbornly taking hold in neighbourhoods where endemic poverty gives it greater opportunities to spread. It would be a recipe not just for individual distress, but social unrest and the politics of desperation.

history gives you an idea which members of the population are more effected by illness, disease and early death. even when the present virus does eventually diminish, not go away as it will not, there will be pockets of the country where it may run rife. we all know the areas where this will happen and it certainly will not be in the cotswolds. the economy for so many will be either getting crums from the government or just actually keeping their jobs at the same rate of pay. hope i am wrong but i think we have seen nothing yet. once the furlough schemes comes to its obvious end we will then see what percentage of unemployed we actually have. firms who are struggling will just make the excuse in allowing people to go or the other ploy they use of reducing wages to keep everyone on.

Just as a precaution Mr H, I am assuming that this is entirely your creation and not a reproduction of someone else's work but in the unlikely event that it is copied can you please quote the source. We don't want lawyers crawling all over the place.
I have asked the wife to bake a cake with a file in it just in case.

Thankfully our nurses n doctors have a lot more compassion than you, otherwise they'd never treat smokers or drinkers with health conditions.

On the contrary I have oodles of compassion and it extends to everybody. I want everyone to be as safe as possible, even you. I want everyone in the World to have free access to the vaccine and to get it as soon as it is humanly possible but this refusal to have the vaccine needs to be debated and addressed. I don't see why our front line key workers should be put at risk unnecessarily, when there is a perfectly good deterrent freely available. Compassion works both ways.
I can see some countries making it mandatory, others refusing access to people who have refused it, firms refusing to employ people who can't prove they've received it, travel bans etc etc. Is that what you want?
If you want analogies. Covid is deadly, just like weapons are deadly. Do you want to give people the choice to walk around carrying a weapon that could potentially take lives, like the lives of your loved ones? Do you really? How long is it before litigation starts, especially in places like America, when someone gets sued for refusing to protect themselves and subsequently kills someone else's loved one. Don't say it won't happen because as sure as eggs is eggs it will.
And then there is common sense.........................

[quote="derwent"][

On the contrary I have oodles of compassion and it extends to everybody. I want everyone to be as safe as possible, even you. I want everyone in the World to have free access to the vaccine and to get it as soon as it is humanly possible but this refusal to have the vaccine needs to be debated and addressed.

exactly debated and debated properly. there are reasons why people are swerving the jab. calling em stuff like anti vaxers, conspiracy theorists is not going to win them over. nothing is ever as clear cut as the government is telling us on this or any subject regarding the virus. if there is nothing to fear in having this debate from the governments angle to totally debunk the reasons not to have the jab then more would take it. my fear is the government may not hold all the cards they need to win this debate against scientist who hold a different view on the subject.

The scientists don't seem to be agreeing with each other though ,i read this in the guardian.

they haven,t from day 1 and that just leaves many not getting answers. picking which scientist that has a similar view to you is no help as the one you pick might be miles out. this is on both sides of the question as well.

It's not easy but more and more I get the impression that the constant scrutiny by the media is putting people off giving all the answers, opinions and forecasts. They stoke up controversy, highlight different opinions, play people off one another and the fact is that, by doing so, they create most of the confusion, anxiety and concern amongst the general public. How many times, for instance, are they going to ask the same question over the target set for Feb 15th. Why can't they just accept that it is ambitious and it will either be beaten, achieved or fall short. That's what happens with targets. The important factor for me is that the NHS and all their helpers are stretching sinews to get it done, whilst the media are scouring the countryside to find problems with the collective effort.
The media are now smelling blood over these revelations surrounding the Manchester Arena bombing.
I will make a forecast over this. Two things are going to happen. The Lawyers driving this will make millions and first aiders will disappear in their droves. I know quite a lot of first aiders, volunteers all of them, and mutterings are already taking place. One quote I can give you word for word and it's this.....I volunteer to being a first aider because I believe my first response will save lives and so I do it. I don't do it to be a victim of a witch hunt if I get it wrong................ That statement was made after the person in question watched the BBC's coverage of it this morning.
Now I know there could be a bit of knee jerking on behalf of the first aider but I also know that the BBC caused that reaction.

agree about the first aider situation. i for one hope there will be one close to me if i ever have a problem. like everything else there will be some more compitant than others but i imagine really poor ones would have been asked to leave pretty early in their first aid careers. bet they have saved and helped far more people than the bloody legal proffesion have ever done and for free.