An escalation into a full-blown “vaccine war” between Britain and the EU would be a disaster for both on many levels. The production of vaccines depends on intricate multinational supply chains. Take the Pfizer dose. Ingredients for that vaccine are shipped from the UK to the company’s plant in Belgium before some of the finished product is exported across the Channel. A round of beggar-my-neighbour export bans will be self-defeating. The EU’s problems will deepen, while the government will find it harder to realise its ambition to get a shot into every adult by July.

Vaccine nationalism is already a dimension of this crisis. It would set a terrible example to the world if countries that advertise themselves as mature, sophisticated and internationalist democracies were to unleash a vaccine war in Europe. Britain and her near neighbours are going to have to live and work with each other long after Covid-19 has become history. The UK’s security and prosperity still depend in great part on what happens within the EU. It cannot be in the EU’s interests to have permanently toxified relations with such a substantial country on its border. A vaccine war would be a conflict without a winner, only many losers.

I’m not here to mansplain the experiences of women. My point is that this commentary was responded to by men insisting that they not be tarred with the same brush. While women talked about their experiences of rape, sexual assault and daily street harassment, the only response men could come up with was to wave their little victim arms for fear that they be thought of badly. Social media even came up with #notallmen, just to make sure no boy feelings were hurt.

And yes – even here I have to do it – not all men responded this way. Not even most of them. There you go, diddums.

Yet the fact that even a minority of men insisted that an exception be made in the normal social contract illuminates the problem. It’s about territory. While women spoke about their experiences and fears, (some) men felt they had the right to barge in and try to dominate the terms of that conversation; many with the express aim of trying to de-genderise the issue: it’s about crime, not the behaviour of (some) men. Some of the (some) men even tried a self-defeating equivalence by pointing out that men suffer more from violent crime. From other men.

The Tories have robustly insisted that ‘FLAGS!’

It comes in the wake of some controversial rhetoric yesterday that many saw as not ‘FLAGS’.
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It is expected that there will be 92 laws about flags created today and everyone who doesn’t like flags will have to go to prison.

It is expected that Tories will continue to insist that ‘FLAGS’ throughout the weekend until Tuesday or Wednesday when they will begin to demand ‘STATUES’ or possibly ‘MONARCHS’ instead.

172 House Republicans voted against renewing the Violence Against Women Act Wednesday, just 24 hours after eight people – including seven women, six of Asian decent – were gunned down in a shooting spree at a series of Atlanta spas by a shooter who is now claiming he has a sex addiction.

Right now, the Tennessee Constitution states that slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited in the state, except as a punishment for convicted crimes. Democratic State Senator Raumesh Akbari out of Memphis is sponsoring a constitutional amendment proposal that would simply take out that exception.

"I just think it's ultimately fake history to be telling our voters next year that the 1870 Constitution allowed slavery," Senator Brian Kelsey (R) District 31 said. "It clearly did not, and it was passed five years after Tennessee and the United States ratified the 13th Amendment, forever prohibiting slavery. So that to me, Mr. Speaker, is fake history, and for that reason, I'll actually be voting no."

Listening to Stephanie Cho tonight point out that Asian women are the bulk of the victims of anti-Asian hate crimes I couldn't help but think of similar stats showing Muslim women are overwhelmingly the victims of Islamophobic hate crimes.
The bigots always target women first...
The Mehdi Hasan Show
@MehdiHasanShow
An armed man killed 8 people, including 6 women of Asian descent, in 3 Georgia spas, but the police say that this attack was *not* racially motivated.
Stephanie Cho of @AAAJ_Atlanta does not believe that for a second. Listen to what she tells @mehdirhasan: