It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
Of course Northampton holds the grim distinction of being the seat of the UK's first and only assassinated Prime Minister - Spencer Percival.
My nearest town is St Neots. On one house in the centre of town, there's a blue plaque commemorating John Bellingham - Percival's assassin...
I reckon this is equally down to Tom Ellis and Nigel Farage.
Presumably no one in their right mind would call their child Beelzebub, Satan or, for the numerically inclined, 666. But more babies were named Lucifer last year than were called Nigel.
The latest statistics on babies’ names reveal that 15 babies were called Lucifer last year.
In contrast Nigel has completely dropped off the league table, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), meaning that two babies or fewer were given the name.
My son's name continues its relentless pursuit of the #1 slot. It wasn't even in the top 100 when he was born - we are clearly trend setters. Although my daughters' South Asian names are unlikely to ever trouble the top ten - sadly, as they are lovely names.
It's going to be quite *the moment* when Muhammad tops the list. Which it will do in the next ten years. It has risen inexorably for many years, it is now number five, up 2 this year
If you add in all the variant spellings then it is already number 1 by a distance, of course
To be honest, it's not quite as significant as people say.
If Muslims account for 10% of the births in the UK then ~5% will be boys and, if they call a third of those Muhammad (or variations thereof), then 1.5% of all babies will be called Muhammad. The 90% who are non-Muslim might have 200-300+ names, and so will top out at 0.3% or 0.4% at most.
Basically, there is a far far higher number of variations for babies names amongst non-Muslims (hundreds and hundreds) so it's very easy for it to top the list. However, it's very poorly distributed - it doesn't imply we're about to be greeted by a universality, like with Rimmers in Red Dwarf.
Psychologically, however, it will still be quite a shock
As long as some chavvy name like Mason or Connor doesn't get to number one we'll be doing OK.
We've got minorities in positions of high power. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Education Secretary etc are all from 'minorities' but I would like to think they're all in the job because [like them or not] they're the best person for the job, not because they're 'tokens'.
Furthermore for the benefit of @Nigel_Foremain who misquoted me in response too I never said that positive discrimination is a problem for "white people". I don't care about that particularly. Its bad for everyone - including minorities. If you instill an attitude of judging people by their skin colours then you're never going to move past that. That harms everyone, not just white people. It leads to conflicts and pushback of the worst sorts of people as you can see across the Pond in the USA. That conflict is repugnant and we shouldn't want to stoke it here.
It's great for the fight against racism that we have high profile people in Cabinet from minoritised groups. That hardly means that all racism has been banished from the country, however.
The conflicts and pushback in the US aren't because of positive discrimination. There has been conflict and pushback in the US to any move to counter racism. The Confederacy didn't secede because they objected to positive discrimination!
I never said that all racism has been banished from the country. I've backed 'taking the knee' and the BLM protests last year and more. Any racism in the country needs to be vehemently fought.
But you don't fight racism by being racist yourself. You fight racism, by fighting racism and not tolerating it - not normalising it as acceptable.
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
What a repulsively tasteless post.
Apologies. I was aware it might be a bit too close to the bone, which is why I put the separator.
There is a slight point to be made: Northampton's been trying for decades to become a city, and I believe has spent some money on its attempts. I don't begrudge Southend's promotion, but proud Northampton folk might feel slightly hard-done by.
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
My father's colleagues keep on looking at Israel, there's a definite vaccine waning going on around the sixth month level.
Winter is coming.
Good thread on this from the FT's Mr Covid Graphs;
So I hope we can now see that: • Yes, mask-wearing has plummeted in England and reversing that would help • But higher rates of crowded indoor mixing are likely a bigger issue • And both are almost certainly dwarfed by UK’s much more acute waning problem (as seen in Israel)
Excellent closing tribute from Rupa Huq recalling Sir David Amess with warmth and wit. They recently returned from a foreign delegation and she believes she was the last Labour MP to see him. He waited with her at the baggage reclaim.
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
Of course Northampton holds the grim distinction of being the seat of the UK's first and only assassinated Prime Minister - Spencer Percival.
My nearest town is St Neots. On one house in the centre of town, there's a blue plaque commemorating John Bellingham - Percival's assassin...
Perceval. Percival is famous for losing Singapore.
So... that august, world-renowed, body, the St Neots Local Historical Society, got the name wrong on the plaque? They should hang their heads in shame ...
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
What a repulsively tasteless post.
Apologies. I was aware it might be a bit too close to the bone, which is why I put the separator.
There is a slight point to be made: Northampton's been trying for decades to become a city, and I believe has spent some money on its attempts. I don't begrudge Southend's promotion, but proud Northampton folk might feel slightly hard-done by.
Not really - with Southend being made a City for unique reasons. outside the usually Jubilee Celebrations. it's likely that another English city will also be given the honour next year.
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
My father's colleagues keep on looking at Israel, there's a definite vaccine waning going on around the sixth month level.
Winter is coming.
Anyone have any news about the second jab for 16 - 17 year olds?
The government were at the top of their game during the original vaccine rollout.
They spotted things like the Asian population was 10% behind the white population on jabs so the government focussed on that and within a few months they were next to equal.
Now, they'd rather focus on other things.
Yes, the government has gone very quite on vaccinations and other Covid-related matters. Looking at the recent rise in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, it smacks of complacency to me.
I actually prefer it and think the nudge unit will be involved and it is deliberate rather than complacent. We have to start living post covid. Excess deaths are pretty high this year, presumably down to people late for cancer scans and otherwise avoiding the NHS.
My guess is the best way to improve the nations health now is to start talking a bit less about covid and enjoy ourselves.
No, I don't think so. The over 65's now have a pretty normal excess death rate, while it is still elevated under that. If it were missed cancers there wouldn't be that difference, as cancer rates increase with age.
Fascinating mortality patterns by age in today’s CMI Mortality Monitor for Q3 2021. Whilst year-to-date death rates at older ages are back within the normal range, at ages below 65 they are even higher than last year! https://t.co/HQpntIMpN2
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
The JCVI wasted so much time. The government should have forced them to come to a decision on kids and boosters by a set date or simply ploughed ahead without them. As it is they had to do that for kids. Our booster roll out should have started in at the beginning of September. Instead we waited for an extra 4 weeks and now have to play catch up. It's just idiotic really.
I do not understand it. There must have been some scientific resistance to vaxxing kids and doing boosters. But what was it, and why? Because there is no political rationale. Vaccines are popular. They make the government popular.
No one has given a satisfactory explanation for the sluggishness.
Many JCVI members wanted the government to give the vaccines away rather than have a wide booster programme or do under 18 vaccinations. They purposely held up the decision making process to try and force the government into giving the vaccines away, in fact I'm told now that our swap deal with Australia is related to this delay because we weren't able to use 4m Pfizer doses in time before they were due to reach their expiry date so we gave them to Australia and will get 4m Pfizer from them in February.
Hancock takes a lot of blame for this for not disbanding the JCVI when they were no longer necessary once vaccine scarcity in the UK became a non-issue.
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
Of course Northampton holds the grim distinction of being the seat of the UK's first and only assassinated Prime Minister - Spencer Percival.
My nearest town is St Neots. On one house in the centre of town, there's a blue plaque commemorating John Bellingham - Percival's assassin...
Perceval. Percival is famous for losing Singapore.
So... that august, world-renowed, body, the St Neots Local Historical Society, got the name wrong on the plaque? They should hang their heads in shame ...
However you are not correct unless you qualify your quote by including figures post the 23 boundary changes which gives a seat total of 325, 1 short of a majority
It's horribly inexact anyway- there are so many second order effects that can change the result by more than ten seats either way.
Even if we had a GE now, which we don't (and won't on these figures).
Think of it like a rough conversion, like weather forecasters saying "and that's in the seventies in Fahrenheit".
The important thing is that, even on the new boundaries, a Conservative government won't be sure of getting much done post-election unless it's about 4 (maybe 5) percent ahead of Labour. The chasm of chaotic coalitions is really quite wide.
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
What a repulsively tasteless post.
Apologies. I was aware it might be a bit too close to the bone, which is why I put the separator.
There is a slight point to be made: Northampton's been trying for decades to become a city, and I believe has spent some money on its attempts. I don't begrudge Southend's promotion, but proud Northampton folk might feel slightly hard-done by.
Not really - with Southend being made a City for unique reasons. outside the usually Jubilee Celebrations. it's likely that another English city will also be given the honour next year.
And knowing the way it's gone on recent occasions, Northampton will probably be outgunned by Hartlepool or Telford ...
In all seriousness, a friend of mine has been ****** off by his home town's status since I first knew him in the late 1990s
The government were at the top of their game during the original vaccine rollout.
They spotted things like the Asian population was 10% behind the white population on jabs so the government focussed on that and within a few months they were next to equal.
Now, they'd rather focus on other things.
Yes, the government has gone very quite on vaccinations and other Covid-related matters. Looking at the recent rise in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, it smacks of complacency to me.
I actually prefer it and think the nudge unit will be involved and it is deliberate rather than complacent. We have to start living post covid. Excess deaths are pretty high this year, presumably down to people late for cancer scans and otherwise avoiding the NHS.
My guess is the best way to improve the nations health now is to start talking a bit less about covid and enjoy ourselves.
No, I don't think so. The over 65's now have a pretty normal excess death rate, while it is still elevated under that. If it were missed cancers there wouldn't be that difference, as cancer rates increase with age.
Fascinating mortality patterns by age in today’s CMI Mortality Monitor for Q3 2021. Whilst year-to-date death rates at older ages are back within the normal range, at ages below 65 they are even higher than last year! https://t.co/HQpntIMpN2
So what are we dying of this year differently to previous years if not covid or cancer? If it would be preventable in normal years by people having more typical contact with healthcare then my point stands whether it is cancer or something else.
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
My father's colleagues keep on looking at Israel, there's a definite vaccine waning going on around the sixth month level.
Winter is coming.
Anyone have any news about the second jab for 16 - 17 year olds?
We've got minorities in positions of high power. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Education Secretary etc are all from 'minorities' but I would like to think they're all in the job because [like them or not] they're the best person for the job, not because they're 'tokens'.
Furthermore for the benefit of @Nigel_Foremain who misquoted me in response too I never said that positive discrimination is a problem for "white people". I don't care about that particularly. Its bad for everyone - including minorities. If you instill an attitude of judging people by their skin colours then you're never going to move past that. That harms everyone, not just white people. It leads to conflicts and pushback of the worst sorts of people as you can see across the Pond in the USA. That conflict is repugnant and we shouldn't want to stoke it here.
It's great for the fight against racism that we have high profile people in Cabinet from minoritised groups. That hardly means that all racism has been banished from the country, however.
The conflicts and pushback in the US aren't because of positive discrimination. There has been conflict and pushback in the US to any move to counter racism. The Confederacy didn't secede because they objected to positive discrimination!
I never said that all racism has been banished from the country. I've backed 'taking the knee' and the BLM protests last year and more. Any racism in the country needs to be vehemently fought.
But you don't fight racism by being racist yourself. You fight racism, by fighting racism and not tolerating it - not normalising it as acceptable.
I don't think positive discrimination is "tolerating" or "normalising" racism. It is saying that, for a limited time only, to undo the centuries of past racism, this is part of our armory to move to a post-racist society.
An analogy... If someone is ill, you might carry out an operation. Slicing into someone with a scalpel is not something we tolerate or normalise: it's something you do in a specific context to fix a problem. Positive discrimination isn't something to be done regularly for ever more. It's something that might help fix a problem.
Racism is not symmetrical. The solutions to racism may not be symmetrical either.
Conservative 40% (–) Labour 37% (+1) Liberal Democrat 9% (–) Green 5% (-1) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
SKS enemies, please explain.
"Any other leader would be 20pts ahead"
Also 2 YEARS before the last GE we had
Survation 2017-12-01 Con 38 Lab 46
And I think Sunil will confirm LAB still managed worst result since 1935
So SKS fans please explain
The rules are, in order for the Conservatives to benefit from swing-back they have to first swing down. So don't worry Keir will do just fine. Oh wait, I forgot, you say you are desperate for him to lose by a landslide.
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
Of course Northampton holds the grim distinction of being the seat of the UK's first and only assassinated Prime Minister - Spencer Percival.
My nearest town is St Neots. On one house in the centre of town, there's a blue plaque commemorating John Bellingham - Percival's assassin...
Perceval. Percival is famous for losing Singapore.
So... that august, world-renowed, body, the St Neots Local Historical Society, got the name wrong on the plaque? They should hang their heads in shame ...
So they did. Perhaps he wasn't local enough.
The error annoys me so much that I'm tempted to go there tomorrow and graffiti a correction onto the plaque. Unfortunately, I need to go to Huntingdon for my flu jab, so I'll have to content myself with running around the celebrated wonders of the Oxmoor estate ...
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
I think that's broadly right: there are still residual (albeit fairly minor) restrictions in most European countries and here in California.
I do think we were too slow to offer vaccines to teenagers, and booster shots. But, all in all, the UK is managing the move to an endemic relatively well. My only concern is that hospitals continue to have lots of Covid patients, and that's affecting their other work. The charts that have been posted by people like @Andy_Cooke also suggest that there's a slightly worrying uptick.
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
My father's colleagues keep on looking at Israel, there's a definite vaccine waning going on around the sixth month level.
Winter is coming.
Anyone have any news about the second jab for 16 - 17 year olds?
I presume it will be done with the standard spacing between the 2 jabs. Not heard anything otherwise.
The NHS vaccine booking site says:
"Between 16 and 17 years and 9 months old: 1st dose only with no 2nd dose currently required"
Doh. You're right. That was the advice from the JCVI as a compromise given the lower COVID risk in this age group. (I think those with specific risk factors still get 2 doses.)
For that to change will require a re-think. How quickly the different vaccines wear off is obviously a matter of ongoing research, so you can see why that decision might change in the future, but I guess nothing soon. 1 jab will be enough to get them through winter.
Conservative 40% (–) Labour 37% (+1) Liberal Democrat 9% (–) Green 5% (-1) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
SKS enemies, please explain.
"Any other leader would be 20pts ahead"
Also 2 YEARS before the last GE we had
Survation 2017-12-01 Con 38 Lab 46
And I think Sunil will confirm LAB still managed worst result since 1935
So SKS fans please explain
I can't because I am not an "SKS" fan, but he is clearly better than Mr. Thicky.
Corbyn, in spite of taking Labour to it's worst defeat in almost 100 years is still revered by a gullible section of the population. Corbyn fans (apologists) please explain.
He offered real change
He was impossible to buy off.
He proposed policies that were so good Boris has implemented many of them.
He came from 25pts behind to 3pts in 2017 and deprived the Tories of their majority
He was sabotaged by his own side in 2017 according to the independent report being hidden by the useless nonentity and then again by SKSs 2nd Referendum policy in 2019.
By contrast
SKS offers no real change
SKS has been bought off by the Sun and tax avoiding rich donors to offer nothing
SKS has no policies
SKS has so far achieved worse results than Mr Thicky in every single Electoral test LE 2021 and BE in Hartlepool and B&S being prime examples
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
The JCVI wasted so much time. The government should have forced them to come to a decision on kids and boosters by a set date or simply ploughed ahead without them. As it is they had to do that for kids. Our booster roll out should have started in at the beginning of September. Instead we waited for an extra 4 weeks and now have to play catch up. It's just idiotic really.
I do not understand it. There must have been some scientific resistance to vaxxing kids and doing boosters. But what was it, and why? Because there is no political rationale. Vaccines are popular. They make the government popular.
No one has given a satisfactory explanation for the sluggishness.
Many JCVI members wanted the government to give the vaccines away rather than have a wide booster programme or do under 18 vaccinations. They purposely held up the decision making process to try and force the government into giving the vaccines away, in fact I'm told now that our swap deal with Australia is related to this delay because we weren't able to use 4m Pfizer doses in time before they were due to reach their expiry date so we gave them to Australia and will get 4m Pfizer from them in February.
Hancock takes a lot of blame for this for not disbanding the JCVI when they were no longer necessary once vaccine scarcity in the UK became a non-issue.
So why doesn't the government just come out and say this, and let the boffins take the blame?
That's what I do not understand. Just be transparent. This fucking secrecy drives me mental
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
What a repulsively tasteless post.
Apologies. I was aware it might be a bit too close to the bone, which is why I put the separator.
There is a slight point to be made: Northampton's been trying for decades to become a city, and I believe has spent some money on its attempts. I don't begrudge Southend's promotion, but proud Northampton folk might feel slightly hard-done by.
Not really - with Southend being made a City for unique reasons. outside the usually Jubilee Celebrations. it's likely that another English city will also be given the honour next year.
And knowing the way it's gone on recent occasions, Northampton will probably be outgunned by Hartlepool or Telford ...
In all seriousness, a friend of mine has been ****** off by his home town's status since I first knew him in the late 1990s
It's conurbation name inflation gone mad. We need a fixed number with promotion and relegation each season.
It's great that Southend is going to be a city; a suitable memorial to a good man.
---
Now for a joking bit: Given how long they've been trying to become a city, I bet the good burghers of Northampton are annoyed they didn't think of bumping off one of their two MPs ...
Of course Northampton holds the grim distinction of being the seat of the UK's first and only assassinated Prime Minister - Spencer Percival.
My nearest town is St Neots. On one house in the centre of town, there's a blue plaque commemorating John Bellingham - Percival's assassin...
Perceval. Percival is famous for losing Singapore.
So... that august, world-renowed, body, the St Neots Local Historical Society, got the name wrong on the plaque? They should hang their heads in shame ...
So they did. Perhaps he wasn't local enough.
The error annoys me so much that I'm tempted to go there tomorrow and graffiti a correction onto the plaque. Unfortunately, I need to go to Huntingdon for my flu jab, so I'll have to content myself with running around the celebrated wonders of the Oxmoor estate ...
Regarding online harms, fake news etc... There should be a big difference between freedom of speech, and the freedom to broadcast. Social media means anyone can do the latter and reach an immediate audience of billions of people, a situation that came out of nowhere over the last 15 or so years. We haven't worked out how to manage it, but we really need to.
Yes, but. The freedom to broadcast dangerous claptrap has been around for years. Try North Korean media for an extreme example. The freedom to act libellously for most people most of the time also exists, as neither the cost nor the practicality allows action.
Even on such a civil and civilised place as PB there are occasionally contributions that are either clearly not 'libel proof', or their offensive character makes it inappropriate to a forum which is for discussion, not abuse.
It does seem to me that in the long run that Zuckerberg and friends ought to have to take responsibility for what is published on their platforms in a proactive rather than reactive way, just as the BBC, Sky or the Sun does for every scintilla of its output. Why should it be so different?
However there should be a difference between closed and open access. I can access the BBC online content, as can all the planet. we can't freely access the content of a closed Whatsapp group, nor the content of subscriber/member stuff on the internet. In such places different rules should apply - for it is more like a phone call when it come to public accountability.
I can see a world in which (say) PB was either open access but all content moderated (a job for which whatever they would be paid is not enough), or accessed only by those who signed up, including to terms and conditions that were clear.
Conservative 40% (–) Labour 37% (+1) Liberal Democrat 9% (–) Green 5% (-1) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
SKS enemies, please explain.
"Any other leader would be 20pts ahead"
Also 2 YEARS before the last GE we had
Survation 2017-12-01 Con 38 Lab 46
And I think Sunil will confirm LAB still managed worst result since 1935
So SKS fans please explain
The rules are, in order for the Conservatives to benefit from swing-back they have to first swing down. So don't worry Keir will do just fine. Oh wait, I forgot, you say you are desperate for him to lose by a landslide.
I see no evidence of SKS doing any better than Corbyn and think there is a 50/50 chance he will not improve on 2019 and a close to 0% chance he will do as well as 2017.
One of us will be proved right at the next GE until then lets agree to disagree.
Conservative 40% (–) Labour 37% (+1) Liberal Democrat 9% (–) Green 5% (-1) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
SKS enemies, please explain.
"Any other leader would be 20pts ahead"
Also 2 YEARS before the last GE we had
Survation 2017-12-01 Con 38 Lab 46
And I think Sunil will confirm LAB still managed worst result since 1935
So SKS fans please explain
The rules are, in order for the Conservatives to benefit from swing-back they have to first swing down. So don't worry Keir will do just fine. Oh wait, I forgot, you say you are desperate for him to lose by a landslide.
You forgot the main Centrist rule
Even if SKS loses by a landslide "Its Corbyns fault"!!
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
I think that's broadly right: there are still residual (albeit fairly minor) restrictions in most European countries and here in California.
I do think we were too slow to offer vaccines to teenagers, and booster shots. But, all in all, the UK is managing the move to an endemic relatively well. My only concern is that hospitals continue to have lots of Covid patients, and that's affecting their other work. The charts that have been posted by people like @Andy_Cooke also suggest that there's a slightly worrying uptick.
I have a colleague who just came back from Italy, she assures me that the restrictions there are far from minor with some indoor socialising still not open for business. A lot of Italians are now wondering if it will ever really end there. Our numbers might be bad but we're the one of the only country in the world that has no NPIs and almost normal levels of socialising and interaction.
We've taken a leap into life after COVID and slowly other countries will join us when they realise containing it means semi-permanent NPIs. I think some European countries are close to realising this and the rest will inevitably follow. Now that vaccines are freely available there is no restriction worth keeping for any reason.
Not quite as bad as it firsts seem as you have the Wales catch up effect from the weekend. So knock a couple of thousand off the score.
I also think catch up from the dodgy testing. Colleague who had this was asked to take another test. He declined, as he had had a subsequent positive Pcr, so did not want a new 10 day isolation...
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
I think that's broadly right: there are still residual (albeit fairly minor) restrictions in most European countries and here in California.
I do think we were too slow to offer vaccines to teenagers, and booster shots. But, all in all, the UK is managing the move to an endemic relatively well. My only concern is that hospitals continue to have lots of Covid patients, and that's affecting their other work. The charts that have been posted by people like @Andy_Cooke also suggest that there's a slightly worrying uptick.
I have a colleague who just came back from Italy, she assures me that the restrictions there are far from minor with some indoor socialising still not open for business. A lot of Italians are now wondering if it will ever really end there. Our numbers might be bad but we're the one of the only country in the world that has no NPIs and almost normal levels of socialising and interaction.
We've taken a leap into life after COVID and slowly other countries will join us when they realise containing it means semi-permanent NPIs. I think some European countries are close to realising this and the rest will inevitably follow. Now that vaccines are freely available there is no restriction worth keeping for any reason.
It varies a lot by country: France is basically open if you're vaccinated (but very much closed if you are not), the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark aren't that much behind.
I don't know as much about the Mediterranean countries, but my friend in Lisbon tells me that it is absolutely heaving.
With 4.8million people and rising coming into their individual 'waning immunity' period about to head into autumn and winter...
It's not a step function, it's a curve. And we will be boosting with Pfizer/Modena. So one would think that things will get better... So long as we're quick with the booster programme.
Students as well. Ultimately all them will have had their chance to get vaccinated. That they chose not to is on them.
We have had one student test positive in the last three weeks at Bath. One (1). Personally I don’t think they are getting tested as they don’t want to be locked up for 10 days. No other explanation makes sense to me.
The government were at the top of their game during the original vaccine rollout.
They spotted things like the Asian population was 10% behind the white population on jabs so the government focussed on that and within a few months they were next to equal.
Now, they'd rather focus on other things.
Yes, the government has gone very quite on vaccinations and other Covid-related matters. Looking at the recent rise in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, it smacks of complacency to me.
I actually prefer it and think the nudge unit will be involved and it is deliberate rather than complacent. We have to start living post covid. Excess deaths are pretty high this year, presumably down to people late for cancer scans and otherwise avoiding the NHS.
My guess is the best way to improve the nations health now is to start talking a bit less about covid and enjoy ourselves.
No, I don't think so. The over 65's now have a pretty normal excess death rate, while it is still elevated under that. If it were missed cancers there wouldn't be that difference, as cancer rates increase with age.
Fascinating mortality patterns by age in today’s CMI Mortality Monitor for Q3 2021. Whilst year-to-date death rates at older ages are back within the normal range, at ages below 65 they are even higher than last year! https://t.co/HQpntIMpN2
So what are we dying of this year differently to previous years if not covid or cancer? If it would be preventable in normal years by people having more typical contact with healthcare then my point stands whether it is cancer or something else.
I don't think that we can tell from excess death figures. There may well be missed cancers, but I would expect those to show some lag in those numbers as even late presenting cancers are not immediately fatal. Conceivably it could be suicide, alcohol related disease etc which cause death in under 65s but we really don't know yet.
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
We continue to drop down the league table for deaths while being fully open so I don't think you can say we've squandered the vaccine dividend. We're ahead of most countries in transitioning to treating covid as endemic.
My father's colleagues keep on looking at Israel, there's a definite vaccine waning going on around the sixth month level.
Winter is coming.
Good thread on this from the FT's Mr Covid Graphs;
So I hope we can now see that: • Yes, mask-wearing has plummeted in England and reversing that would help • But higher rates of crowded indoor mixing are likely a bigger issue • And both are almost certainly dwarfed by UK’s much more acute waning problem (as seen in Israel)
With 4.8million people and rising coming into their individual 'waning immunity' period about to head into autumn and winter...
It's not a step function, it's a curve. And we will be boosting with Pfizer/Modena. So one would think that things will get better... So long as we're quick with the booster programme.
It's about 200k per day at the moment but it's also ramping up a bit. I expect it will hit 2.5m per week, which is probably just about fast enough to stay ahead of the hospitalisation wave. Really we should be doing 4-5m per week and just get everyone done by mid-November.
I also expect take up will be an issue. Lots of people have been convinced that they don't need a booster jab, once again the slowness of the JCVI and general government prevarication hasn't helped. Being decisive helps, the government failed.
Conservative 40% (–) Labour 37% (+1) Liberal Democrat 9% (–) Green 5% (-1) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
SKS enemies, please explain.
"Any other leader would be 20pts ahead"
Also 2 YEARS before the last GE we had
Survation 2017-12-01 Con 38 Lab 46
And I think Sunil will confirm LAB still managed worst result since 1935
So SKS fans please explain
The rules are, in order for the Conservatives to benefit from swing-back they have to first swing down. So don't worry Keir will do just fine. Oh wait, I forgot, you say you are desperate for him to lose by a landslide.
You forgot the main Centrist rule
Even if SKS loses by a landslide "Its Corbyns fault"!!
It's Corbyn's fault that Labour have only 200 seats.
Not quite as bad as it firsts seem as you have the Wales catch up effect from the weekend. So knock a couple of thousand off the score.
I also think catch up from the dodgy testing. Colleague who had this was asked to take another test. He declined, as he had had a subsequent positive Pcr, so did not want a new 10 day isolation...
We are seeing monster jumps in the South West so very likely.
The question is how much is it "catch up" filling in of missing test being retested and how much is a new mini wave caused by Covid positive people off clubbing because they thought they were negative
So many Muslims call their son Mohammed, Why do so few Christians call their son Jesus?
It's quite common amongst the Hispanic.
And when they nail my pimpled ass to the cross I'll tell them I found Jesus that should throw them off He goes by the name Jesus and steals hubcaps from cars Oh Jesus can I borrow your crowbar? To pry these God damn nails out they're beginning to hurt Crucified and all I got was this lousy T-shirt I Can't Believe It's Not Butter I'll sing as I'm flogged Yeah that's what I would do if I were God -- Bloodhound Gang
The reaction to the shocking murder of Sir David Amess from Rupa Huq and others in the Labour Party who knew and worked with him, reminds me of the following:
Billy Frank, Jr was a Washington State legend in the fight to achieve recognition and enforcement of traditional Indian fishing rights guaranteed under treaties between the tribes and the US government. Rights that had been diminished, disrespected and denied for a century.
Frank, a member of the Nisqually tribe and a USMC veteran, emerged as a key lndian leader during the "Fish Wars" of the 1970s, culminating in the Boldt decision in federal court, guaranteeing the tribes half of the state fish harvest. Which turned out to be a MAJOR turning point in the even greater struggle to protect and preserve Washington State's salmon and other natural wonders and resources.
One of Billy Frank's fiercest opponents was Bob Williams, a right-wing Republican state legislator who ran (and lost) for Governor in 1988, on a very conservative platform including opposition to Indian fishing rights. Williams was also played an active role in the looooong, drawn-out legal battles over the issue leading up to the Boldt decision; fierce and bitter hardly do this dispute justice.
Anyway, one day in 2014 yours truly is watching the news, led by report of the death of Billy Frank, Jr at the age of 83. Which featured a number of tributes from a variety of local politicos and dignitaries.
The one I'll never forget came from Bob Williams.
Don't recall what he said exactly, something about how he'd known Billy Frank for years, and spent a lot of time with him in meetings and negotiations, and that while they'd battled hard for their own side, they'd grown to respect each other.
What I'll always remember, is that as Bob Williams spoke about Billy Frank, tears were rolling down his face.
Excellent closing tribute from Rupa Huq recalling Sir David Amess with warmth and wit. They recently returned from a foreign delegation and she believes she was the last Labour MP to see him. He waited with her at the baggage reclaim.
So when I next step on a lego brick I should say 'Joshua Christ!' ?
At my younger son's christening my 2 year old elder son recognised the words "Jesus Christ" in the prayers and so on from my use of them, so every time the vicar said them he said very loudly "Jeeeeesus Christ".
Not quite as bad as it firsts seem as you have the Wales catch up effect from the weekend. So knock a couple of thousand off the score.
I also think catch up from the dodgy testing. Colleague who had this was asked to take another test. He declined, as he had had a subsequent positive Pcr, so did not want a new 10 day isolation...
We are seeing monster jumps in the South West so very likely.
The question is how much is it "catch up" filling in of missing test being retested and how much is a new mini wave caused by Covid positive people off clubbing because they thought they were negative
With Pcr you will still test positive when not infectious, so a failed test three weeks ago with a Pcr today will likel be positive. Most people I know affected by the lateral flow positive, Pcr negative issue, were pretty sure they had Covid and behaved as such. My guess is the catch up will mainly be that, not a big surge of real new infections.
I used to hope that when Christian Fuchs and Islam Slimani played for the foxes that the Leicester Mercury would run the back page headline "Christian crosses, Islam converts!"
Conservative 40% (–) Labour 37% (+1) Liberal Democrat 9% (–) Green 5% (-1) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
SKS enemies, please explain.
"Any other leader would be 20pts ahead"
Also 2 YEARS before the last GE we had
Survation 2017-12-01 Con 38 Lab 46
And I think Sunil will confirm LAB still managed worst result since 1935
So SKS fans please explain
The rules are, in order for the Conservatives to benefit from swing-back they have to first swing down. So don't worry Keir will do just fine. Oh wait, I forgot, you say you are desperate for him to lose by a landslide.
You forgot the main Centrist rule
Even if SKS loses by a landslide "Its Corbyns fault"!!
It's Corbyn's fault that Labour have only 200 seats.
No no no no no.
That's the centrists fault. If they'd only made more of a fuss about Palestine, the voters would have flocked to them.
One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.
Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.
Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.
The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.
If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.
Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.
It's argued that H. sapiens ability to work together in reasonably large groups was a significant part of the reason for it's success vis-a-vis the Neanderthals, Denisovians etc.
Absolutely and 67 million people is a reasonably large group to be working with. Its possibly too large still.
Is 1450 million people in China too large for them?
Yes.
There's a reason China lacks democracy and there's a reason that the average salary in Taiwan is considerably better than the average in China.
Is 333 million people in the US too large for them?
Diversity, not size, is America's problem. Identity politics is a zero sum game. That's why it's close to being ungovernable.
(Of course diversity is also a huge strength, as a quick glance at any list of Silicon Valley CEO names will show).
I like Morgan Freeman's suggestion that we stop talking about it.
If we didn't endlessly talk about what race, sex, sexuality and gender everyone was - categorising and judging them accordingly - we might find out we had rather a lot in common.
Judging people by their race is racism. It should never be acceptable.
If racism exists it should be called out and opposed, so gestures like kneeling against intolerance are a good thing.
But to be racist yourself in reply is a very bad thing. You don't fix racism, by being racist yourself.
It's an interesting debate. Positive discrimination, for example, might have the ability to kickstart a process which otherwise would take a far longer time to address.
Not enough black people in the workforce or as CEOs? Then positive discrimination would redress that balance at the expense of, what? "The best candidate for the job"? Perhaps. But as with, ahem, Brexit, a transition period would mean that there are costs which are justified for the longer term overall benefit.
And I of course put "best candidate for the job" in quotation marks because it is far from clear that the best candidate for the job wouldn't be picked.
Kickstart what process?
I don't think an artificial, unjustified "balance" helps anyone. Hiring someone as your "token" minority individual doesn't really do either them, their "community" or your team any favours. Nor does it deal with any impediments of racism that made such an imbalance happen - and it creates a backlash that potentially makes such impediments worse not better.
Lets say you have an impediment stopping black people working in your team and want to address that. If you find out what impediments were stopping you from getting the good black applicants through then great, job done. But if you're not doing that then unless you suddenly have a way to eg find the best black person (in which case why aren't you hiring them in the first place?) if you're just hiring to meet "quota" requirements then you're going to overlook the best black person and potentially hire a dud because you overlooked the star that you were supposed to hire because you were too busy worrying about quotas rather than looking at the individuals involved.
That "positive discrimination" doesn't help the star that you should have hired but still hasn't been, and it doesn't help your team.
Positive discrimination is clearly a controversial and emotive issue. I'm not arguing it is necessarily the right thing to do. I think it may be the right thing to do in certain contexts.
Change takes time. The top people need experience, but racism has meant that non-white people haven't been able to get those experiences and so a non-racist selection for the top jobs still inherits past racism. The process to fix that is slow without positive discrimination. If a typical career takes 40 years, it might take 40 years of non-racist practice before you see a representative workforce. That's why some kickstarting may be valuable in some situations.
What if one of the impediments of racism is that people see a line-up at the top that is predominantly white and either perpetuate that racism by thinking that is how things should be, or don't see opportunities for themselves and go elsewhere? How do you fix that impediment? Positive discrimination may do that.
Why should positive discrimination mean you hire a dud? You can still apply all your other usual hiring decision making. You're just giving an additional leg-up to non-white candidates. If decision makers are so flustered by "worrying about quotas" that they don't look at the individuals involved, then they're hardly competent to be on hiring panels!
You do it through mentoring, coaching and outreach programmes, doing a lot of listening, challenging yourself to expand your personal social networks, and working to resolve unintended blockers at every level in the organisation.
Positive discrimination is not only lazy and counterproductive, through its ability to both patronise and deal injustice to real individuals by design, but also doesn't address the problem: it's cosmetic and plasters over the cracks.
It gives the company or organisation a PR defence, rather than addressing the real obstacles, and leaves resentment in its wake.
That's a lot of rhetoric with very little substance. It's clearly not an either/or situation. You should be doing everything possible to meaningfully improve hiring practices. All measures can be done in a cosmetic manner, just for the PR, and that should be avoided.
The only part of your response that might hold any weight is the question of resentment. Does positive discrimination leave resentment in its wake? I mean, maybe, but I'd be more sympathetic to the argument if we didn't see resentment from those with power to any move, however reasonable, to achieve more equality.
When it feels like every move to counter discrimination is met by a chorus of complaints that it's "woke nonsense" and "unnecessary"... well, maybe we should pandering to those who have benefitted from past discrimination? We know there is still a problem. Time and again, research shows this. If we can achieve change without positive discrimination, fantastic, but it's not like most employment sectors are doing a great job so far.
The only rhetoric without substance I can see is in your post in response.
The objective is to treat all groups fairly in recruitment and career progression so that it ceases to become an issue and to bring everyone together on that journey.
Keir Starmer has declared war on the people and party members of Liverpool.
After having an aide brief the media that he intended to ‘break legs’ in the city, Starmer went on to interfere in the candidate selection process for the Liverpool mayoral election, write for the rag known on Merseyside as the Scum and then barred all left-wingers from shortlists for three by-elections in the country’s most left-wing city – embarking on a programme seemingly calculated to turn Liverpool into the kind of Labour wasteland the party’s right made of Scotland before and during the Scottish independence referendum.
And now, he and his cronies have appointed a woman to be the party’s ‘Liverpool officer’ – who quit Labour to join Change UK
Francois calls for big toughening of social media harm laws
I suppose reducing freedom for everyone is much easier than taking action about the specific relevant factor which is a bit too embarassing for the modern Conservative party to touch.
Is there a basic fundamental right to be an anonymous troll online?
There's a case to be made for the law on littering in the countryside to be tightened up, but it would be about equally relevant to what happened to Amess.
Stopping anonymous trolls on the internet threatening violence on MPs has nothing to do with what happened? I think there is quite a significant connection between the two. Certainly more of a connection than littering.
And we already have practise and law around "credible / non-credible threats".
Remember the "twitter joke trial", where an initial conviction was overturned on appeal after work by the likes of David Allen Green.
On 6 January 2010, an intending traveller, Paul Chambers, then aged 26, who was planning to fly to Northern Ireland to meet his then girlfriend (later wife), posted a message on Twitter:
A week later, an off-duty manager at the airport found the message while doing an unrelated computer search. The airport management considered the message to be "not credible" as a threat, but contacted the police anyway. Chambers was arrested by anti-terror police at his office, his house was searched and his mobile phone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated. He was later charged with "sending a public electronic message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003".
On 10 May, he was found guilty at Doncaster Magistrates' Court, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs. As a consequence he lost his job as an administrative and financial supervisor at a car parts company.
..
The approved judgement concluded that "a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated, or who may reasonably be expected to see it, falls outside this provision [of the 2003 Act]". Accordingly, the appeal against conviction was "allowed on the basis that this 'tweet' did not constitute or include a message of a menacing character".
So his defence was basically that it took the airport a few days to see his message?
If they’d picked it up immediately, he’d have been in a whole load of trouble.
IMO direct threats to named businesses or individuals should damn well be illegal, whether they’re phoned in or posted on Twitter.
That’s very different to protecting whistleblowers.
The problem is that a lot of humour involves saying things that are ridiculous.
Is @IshmaelZ really suggesting that he would prefer you extracted his eyeballs with a rusty nail, than to watch a short speech?
Threats need to be credible. This wasn't.
If someone posted to Twitter "political betting down. If their sysadmin doesn't get it back in the next 30 minutes, I'm going round his house with a baseball bat", I wouldn't actually be concerned.
What if their IP address showed they were based in LA?
One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.
Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.
Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.
The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.
If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.
Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.
It's argued that H. sapiens ability to work together in reasonably large groups was a significant part of the reason for it's success vis-a-vis the Neanderthals, Denisovians etc.
Absolutely and 67 million people is a reasonably large group to be working with. Its possibly too large still.
Is 1450 million people in China too large for them?
Yes.
There's a reason China lacks democracy and there's a reason that the average salary in Taiwan is considerably better than the average in China.
Is 333 million people in the US too large for them?
Diversity, not size, is America's problem. Identity politics is a zero sum game. That's why it's close to being ungovernable.
(Of course diversity is also a huge strength, as a quick glance at any list of Silicon Valley CEO names will show).
I like Morgan Freeman's suggestion that we stop talking about it.
If we didn't endlessly talk about what race, sex, sexuality and gender everyone was - categorising and judging them accordingly - we might find out we had rather a lot in common.
Judging people by their race is racism. It should never be acceptable.
If racism exists it should be called out and opposed, so gestures like kneeling against intolerance are a good thing.
But to be racist yourself in reply is a very bad thing. You don't fix racism, by being racist yourself.
It's an interesting debate. Positive discrimination, for example, might have the ability to kickstart a process which otherwise would take a far longer time to address.
Not enough black people in the workforce or as CEOs? Then positive discrimination would redress that balance at the expense of, what? "The best candidate for the job"? Perhaps. But as with, ahem, Brexit, a transition period would mean that there are costs which are justified for the longer term overall benefit.
And I of course put "best candidate for the job" in quotation marks because it is far from clear that the best candidate for the job wouldn't be picked.
Kickstart what process?
I don't think an artificial, unjustified "balance" helps anyone. Hiring someone as your "token" minority individual doesn't really do either them, their "community" or your team any favours. Nor does it deal with any impediments of racism that made such an imbalance happen - and it creates a backlash that potentially makes such impediments worse not better.
Lets say you have an impediment stopping black people working in your team and want to address that. If you find out what impediments were stopping you from getting the good black applicants through then great, job done. But if you're not doing that then unless you suddenly have a way to eg find the best black person (in which case why aren't you hiring them in the first place?) if you're just hiring to meet "quota" requirements then you're going to overlook the best black person and potentially hire a dud because you overlooked the star that you were supposed to hire because you were too busy worrying about quotas rather than looking at the individuals involved.
That "positive discrimination" doesn't help the star that you should have hired but still hasn't been, and it doesn't help your team.
Positive discrimination is clearly a controversial and emotive issue. I'm not arguing it is necessarily the right thing to do. I think it may be the right thing to do in certain contexts.
Change takes time. The top people need experience, but racism has meant that non-white people haven't been able to get those experiences and so a non-racist selection for the top jobs still inherits past racism. The process to fix that is slow without positive discrimination. If a typical career takes 40 years, it might take 40 years of non-racist practice before you see a representative workforce. That's why some kickstarting may be valuable in some situations.
What if one of the impediments of racism is that people see a line-up at the top that is predominantly white and either perpetuate that racism by thinking that is how things should be, or don't see opportunities for themselves and go elsewhere? How do you fix that impediment? Positive discrimination may do that.
Why should positive discrimination mean you hire a dud? You can still apply all your other usual hiring decision making. You're just giving an additional leg-up to non-white candidates. If decision makers are so flustered by "worrying about quotas" that they don't look at the individuals involved, then they're hardly competent to be on hiring panels!
You're right that people who are "worrying about quotas" shouldn't be on the panels, but that's what happens when you start judging people about quotas. Unintended consequences and all that.
We've got minorities in positions of high power. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Education Secretary etc are all from 'minorities' but I would like to think they're all in the job because [like them or not] they're the best person for the job, not because they're 'tokens'.
Furthermore for the benefit of @Nigel_Foremain who misquoted me in response too I never said that positive discrimination is a problem for "white people". I don't care about that particularly. Its bad for everyone - including minorities. If you instill an attitude of judging people by their skin colours then you're never going to move past that. That harms everyone, not just white people. It leads to conflicts and pushback of the worst sorts of people as you can see across the Pond in the USA. That conflict is repugnant and we shouldn't want to stoke it here.
It also means if you're not fighting to judge people on their merits, but on quotas etc instead, then you can harm minorities. If the best candidate for a job is a minority individual, but the 'hiring panel' is still bigoted but thinks they've 'met their quota' already then will they promote the minority individual who is the best candidate for the job? Or will they promote a dud white person because the quota is OK as it stands and they're not having to look past that?
If there's discrimination against minorities then quotas doesn't remove the discrimination. Its like trying to patch bad code, with a very badly written hack to by-pass it, while still leaving the original flaw behind. You're just piling problem onto problem, even if you mitigate a problem a bit, you aren't fixing the original flaws - you're taking the easy way out instead.
Nigelforremain seems to have something personal against you, which I don't understand.
Conservative 40% (–) Labour 37% (+1) Liberal Democrat 9% (–) Green 5% (-1) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Reform UK 3% (-1) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
SKS enemies, please explain.
"Any other leader would be 20pts ahead"
Also 2 YEARS before the last GE we had
Survation 2017-12-01 Con 38 Lab 46
And I think Sunil will confirm LAB still managed worst result since 1935
So SKS fans please explain
The rules are, in order for the Conservatives to benefit from swing-back they have to first swing down. So don't worry Keir will do just fine. Oh wait, I forgot, you say you are desperate for him to lose by a landslide.
You forgot the main Centrist rule
Even if SKS loses by a landslide "Its Corbyns fault"!!
It's Corbyn's fault that Labour have only 200 seats.
No no no no no.
That's the centrists fault. If they'd only made less of a fuss about a 2nd Referendum, the voters would have flocked to them.
One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.
Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.
Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.
The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.
If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.
Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.
It's argued that H. sapiens ability to work together in reasonably large groups was a significant part of the reason for it's success vis-a-vis the Neanderthals, Denisovians etc.
Absolutely and 67 million people is a reasonably large group to be working with. Its possibly too large still.
Is 1450 million people in China too large for them?
Yes.
There's a reason China lacks democracy and there's a reason that the average salary in Taiwan is considerably better than the average in China.
Is 333 million people in the US too large for them?
Diversity, not size, is America's problem. Identity politics is a zero sum game. That's why it's close to being ungovernable.
(Of course diversity is also a huge strength, as a quick glance at any list of Silicon Valley CEO names will show).
I like Morgan Freeman's suggestion that we stop talking about it.
If we didn't endlessly talk about what race, sex, sexuality and gender everyone was - categorising and judging them accordingly - we might find out we had rather a lot in common.
Judging people by their race is racism. It should never be acceptable.
If racism exists it should be called out and opposed, so gestures like kneeling against intolerance are a good thing.
But to be racist yourself in reply is a very bad thing. You don't fix racism, by being racist yourself.
It's an interesting debate. Positive discrimination, for example, might have the ability to kickstart a process which otherwise would take a far longer time to address.
Not enough black people in the workforce or as CEOs? Then positive discrimination would redress that balance at the expense of, what? "The best candidate for the job"? Perhaps. But as with, ahem, Brexit, a transition period would mean that there are costs which are justified for the longer term overall benefit.
And I of course put "best candidate for the job" in quotation marks because it is far from clear that the best candidate for the job wouldn't be picked.
Kickstart what process?
I don't think an artificial, unjustified "balance" helps anyone. Hiring someone as your "token" minority individual doesn't really do either them, their "community" or your team any favours. Nor does it deal with any impediments of racism that made such an imbalance happen - and it creates a backlash that potentially makes such impediments worse not better.
Lets say you have an impediment stopping black people working in your team and want to address that. If you find out what impediments were stopping you from getting the good black applicants through then great, job done. But if you're not doing that then unless you suddenly have a way to eg find the best black person (in which case why aren't you hiring them in the first place?) if you're just hiring to meet "quota" requirements then you're going to overlook the best black person and potentially hire a dud because you overlooked the star that you were supposed to hire because you were too busy worrying about quotas rather than looking at the individuals involved.
That "positive discrimination" doesn't help the star that you should have hired but still hasn't been, and it doesn't help your team.
Positive discrimination is clearly a controversial and emotive issue. I'm not arguing it is necessarily the right thing to do. I think it may be the right thing to do in certain contexts.
Change takes time. The top people need experience, but racism has meant that non-white people haven't been able to get those experiences and so a non-racist selection for the top jobs still inherits past racism. The process to fix that is slow without positive discrimination. If a typical career takes 40 years, it might take 40 years of non-racist practice before you see a representative workforce. That's why some kickstarting may be valuable in some situations.
What if one of the impediments of racism is that people see a line-up at the top that is predominantly white and either perpetuate that racism by thinking that is how things should be, or don't see opportunities for themselves and go elsewhere? How do you fix that impediment? Positive discrimination may do that.
Why should positive discrimination mean you hire a dud? You can still apply all your other usual hiring decision making. You're just giving an additional leg-up to non-white candidates. If decision makers are so flustered by "worrying about quotas" that they don't look at the individuals involved, then they're hardly competent to be on hiring panels!
You do it through mentoring, coaching and outreach programmes, doing a lot of listening, challenging yourself to expand your personal social networks, and working to resolve unintended blockers at every level in the organisation.
Positive discrimination is not only lazy and counterproductive, through its ability to both patronise and deal injustice to real individuals by design, but also doesn't address the problem: it's cosmetic and plasters over the cracks.
It gives the company or organisation a PR defence, rather than addressing the real obstacles, and leaves resentment in its wake.
That's a lot of rhetoric with very little substance. It's clearly not an either/or situation. You should be doing everything possible to meaningfully improve hiring practices. All measures can be done in a cosmetic manner, just for the PR, and that should be avoided.
The only part of your response that might hold any weight is the question of resentment. Does positive discrimination leave resentment in its wake? I mean, maybe, but I'd be more sympathetic to the argument if we didn't see resentment from those with power to any move, however reasonable, to achieve more equality.
When it feels like every move to counter discrimination is met by a chorus of complaints that it's "woke nonsense" and "unnecessary"... well, maybe we should pandering to those who have benefitted from past discrimination? We know there is still a problem. Time and again, research shows this. If we can achieve change without positive discrimination, fantastic, but it's not like most employment sectors are doing a great job so far.
The only rhetoric without substance I can see is in your post in response.
The objective is to treat all groups fairly in recruitment and career progression so that it ceases to become an issue and to bring everyone together on that journey.
Positive discrimination does none of that.
Only through treating all groups fairly can everyone, including minorities, be treated fairly and given the opportunities they deserve.
Take the current Cabinet for instance, it is currently more ethnically diverse than the nation as a whole. If there were a 'quota' system then the quota would have been met and when Williamson was axed he could have been replaced with a white dud like Williamson since that wouldn't affect any quotas. But because the best person for the job is being chosen instead, he was replaced with Nadhim Zahawi instead.
That's the way it should be. Best person for the job and if the best people for the job are disproportionally more from minorities then great. If you're only going off quotas then you're going to miss the best people and that's going to hurt minorities as well as the majority.
You dont seem to understand what sort of person Starmer really is. He has a toxic CLP. His associates are terrible. He has attacked members. Hes antidemocratic. Hes not fit to run a tea shop let alone the country.
"It all had deep historical roots deriving from the claim in the 1937 Constitution that the national territory embraced the whole island of Ireland."
Interesting.
For the sake of the GFA this needs to be dropped from the ROI's Constiution.
It was! As part of the GFA.
Yeah - I didn't read the whole article which makes that clear.
Just another Briskin error.
I'm currently pondering now though -
What comes first:
An Island of Ireland Border poll
OR
Indyref2 in Scotland
?
The former given there has not yet been a border poll and if SF and the SDLP win more seats than the combined Unionist parties and the Alliance also vote for a border poll there would be one under the GFA. (At present though while SF lead the combined Unionist parties have more votes than the Nationalist parties and the Alliance also oppose a border poll).
As long as there is a UK Tory government it will refuse indyref2 for a generation after 2014 and as union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 nothing the SNP could do about it
You dont seem to understand what sort of person Starmer really is. He has a toxic CLP. His associates are terrible. He has attacked members. Hes antidemocratic. Hes not fit to run a tea shop let alone the country.
Labour is going nowhere until he is replaced
Redfield & Wilton
At this moment, which of the following individuals do you think would be the better Prime Minister for the United Kingdom? (18 Oct):
Boris Johnson: 43% (+1) Keir Starmer: 32% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
But your choice is worse
RedfieldWilton At this moment, which of the following individuals do you think would be the better Prime Minister for the United Kingdom? (18 Oct):
Francois calls for big toughening of social media harm laws
I suppose reducing freedom for everyone is much easier than taking action about the specific relevant factor which is a bit too embarassing for the modern Conservative party to touch.
Is there a basic fundamental right to be an anonymous troll online?
There's a case to be made for the law on littering in the countryside to be tightened up, but it would be about equally relevant to what happened to Amess.
Stopping anonymous trolls on the internet threatening violence on MPs has nothing to do with what happened? I think there is quite a significant connection between the two. Certainly more of a connection than littering.
And we already have practise and law around "credible / non-credible threats".
Remember the "twitter joke trial", where an initial conviction was overturned on appeal after work by the likes of David Allen Green.
On 6 January 2010, an intending traveller, Paul Chambers, then aged 26, who was planning to fly to Northern Ireland to meet his then girlfriend (later wife), posted a message on Twitter:
A week later, an off-duty manager at the airport found the message while doing an unrelated computer search. The airport management considered the message to be "not credible" as a threat, but contacted the police anyway. Chambers was arrested by anti-terror police at his office, his house was searched and his mobile phone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated. He was later charged with "sending a public electronic message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003".
On 10 May, he was found guilty at Doncaster Magistrates' Court, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs. As a consequence he lost his job as an administrative and financial supervisor at a car parts company.
..
The approved judgement concluded that "a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated, or who may reasonably be expected to see it, falls outside this provision [of the 2003 Act]". Accordingly, the appeal against conviction was "allowed on the basis that this 'tweet' did not constitute or include a message of a menacing character".
So his defence was basically that it took the airport a few days to see his message?
If they’d picked it up immediately, he’d have been in a whole load of trouble.
IMO direct threats to named businesses or individuals should damn well be illegal, whether they’re phoned in or posted on Twitter.
That’s very different to protecting whistleblowers.
The problem is that a lot of humour involves saying things that are ridiculous.
Is @IshmaelZ really suggesting that he would prefer you extracted his eyeballs with a rusty nail, than to watch a short speech?
Threats need to be credible. This wasn't.
If someone posted to Twitter "political betting down. If their sysadmin doesn't get it back in the next 30 minutes, I'm going round his house with a baseball bat", I wouldn't actually be concerned.
What if their IP address showed they were based in LA?
interesting piece from the Great White North . . .
cbc.com - 'What just happened?' Former Bloc candidate explains how it feels to lose by 12 votes 'Every vote counts, and I think I’m living proof,' says Bloc candidate Patrick O’Hara
Patrick O'Hara was driving home to Léry, Que., from Parliament Hill earlier this month when he got the call telling him that he wouldn't become a member of Parliament after all.
In the end, he came up 12 votes short.
"There's a feeling of ... what just happened? You're in awe and shock," O'Hara said.
Two weeks earlier, the rookie Bloc Québécois candidate in the riding of Châteauguay-Lacolle had every reason to believe a summer federal election had changed his life forever.
Feeling "ecstatic" and energized after having been declared the winner, he had started the process of hiring staff and "building the roadmap to taking over the riding."
The results had him unseating Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan by 286 votes in one of the tightest races in the country.
In a Facebook post two days after election day, Shanahan conceded defeat, congratulated O'Hara and tried to buck up supporters by reminding them that "life is good."
But days later, Shanahan requested a judicial recount in the riding, overseen by a superior court judge, in response to a "potential anomaly" in the count of one ballot box from an advance poll.
The request came on the heels of an earlier issue: A returning officer noticed that 410 votes had been mistakenly recorded for O'Hara, rather than 40 votes — an error that was corrected in the validation process.
O'Hara said he was still "pretty confident" everything would work out in his favour.
The recount started on Oct. 4. O'Hara was in Ottawa for orientation sessions at the time, meeting with other incoming MPs still buzzing from their victories in September.
The final numbers, released on Oct. 6, showed Shanahan had finished with 18,029 votes to his 18,017.
"Twelve votes," O'Hara said with a chuckle. "You know, you'd rather lose by 2,012. And then you're trying to figure out who are the 13 people that didn't make it to the voting." . . . .
O'Hara said he plans to run again and believes that, while it's a tough pill to swallow, gracefully accepting defeat is "how you prove to the people that you're fit for the job."
For Shanahan, it's a "testament to our democratic system" that a close-fought contest could be sorted out peaceably.
Campaigns are a time for partisan politics, she said, "but once the election is over and the people's choice has been made, the elected person is now the member of Parliament."
Democracy, O'Hara said, is a privilege.
"Every vote counts, and I think I'm living proof."
Comments
Approve: 39% (+3)
Disapprove: 41% (-1)
Net: -2% (+4)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
Keir Starmer Approval Rating (18 Oct):
Approve: 25% (-1)
Disapprove: 35% (-2)
Net: -10% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bellingham#/media/File:Bellingham_plaque.png
Perceval. Percival is famous for losing Singapore.
But you don't fight racism by being racist yourself. You fight racism, by fighting racism and not tolerating it - not normalising it as acceptable.
There is a slight point to be made: Northampton's been trying for decades to become a city, and I believe has spent some money on its attempts. I don't begrudge Southend's promotion, but proud Northampton folk might feel slightly hard-done by.
Keir really isn't cutting through. There should be a leadership challenge before the next election, but there won't be.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1449801652207239176?t=PuKGJM7cZetXFBFQq5F6LA&s=19
With this punchy punchline;
So I hope we can now see that:
• Yes, mask-wearing has plummeted in England and reversing that would help
• But higher rates of crowded indoor mixing are likely a bigger issue
• And both are almost certainly dwarfed by UK’s much more acute waning problem (as seen in Israel)
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1449801701381349378?t=6fExI-SP1vOAXXiVhQ9Weg&s=19
Just another Briskin error.
I'm currently pondering now though -
What comes first:
An Island of Ireland Border poll
OR
Indyref2 in Scotland
?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln12vbn-BtA
So... that august, world-renowed, body, the St Neots Local Historical Society, got the name wrong on the plaque? They should hang their heads in shame ...
Fascinating mortality patterns by age in today’s CMI Mortality Monitor for Q3 2021. Whilst year-to-date death rates at older ages are back within the normal range, at ages below 65 they are even higher than last year! https://t.co/HQpntIMpN2
https://twitter.com/ActuaryByDay/status/1447958785159581696?t=MphZncj652aMJmslg1ur5A&s=19
Hancock takes a lot of blame for this for not disbanding the JCVI when they were no longer necessary once vaccine scarcity in the UK became a non-issue.
Even if we had a GE now, which we don't (and won't on these figures).
Think of it like a rough conversion, like weather forecasters saying "and that's in the seventies in Fahrenheit".
The important thing is that, even on the new boundaries, a Conservative government won't be sure of getting much done post-election unless it's about 4 (maybe 5) percent ahead of Labour. The chasm of chaotic coalitions is really quite wide.
In all seriousness, a friend of mine has been ****** off by his home town's status since I first knew him in the late 1990s
"Between 16 and 17 years and 9 months old: 1st dose only with no 2nd dose currently required"
An analogy... If someone is ill, you might carry out an operation. Slicing into someone with a scalpel is not something we tolerate or normalise: it's something you do in a specific context to fix a problem. Positive discrimination isn't something to be done regularly for ever more. It's something that might help fix a problem.
Racism is not symmetrical. The solutions to racism may not be symmetrical either.
I do think we were too slow to offer vaccines to teenagers, and booster shots. But, all in all, the UK is managing the move to an endemic relatively well. My only concern is that hospitals continue to have lots of Covid patients, and that's affecting their other work. The charts that have been posted by people like @Andy_Cooke also suggest that there's a slightly worrying uptick.
For that to change will require a re-think. How quickly the different vaccines wear off is obviously a matter of ongoing research, so you can see why that decision might change in the future, but I guess nothing soon. 1 jab will be enough to get them through winter.
He was impossible to buy off.
He proposed policies that were so good Boris has implemented many of them.
He came from 25pts behind to 3pts in 2017 and deprived the Tories of their majority
He was sabotaged by his own side in 2017 according to the independent report being hidden by the useless nonentity and then again by SKSs 2nd Referendum policy in 2019.
By contrast
SKS offers no real change
SKS has been bought off by the Sun and tax avoiding rich donors to offer nothing
SKS has no policies
SKS has so far achieved worse results than Mr Thicky in every single Electoral test LE 2021 and BE in Hartlepool and B&S being prime examples
That's what I do not understand. Just be transparent. This fucking secrecy drives me mental
Get in touch.
Even on such a civil and civilised place as PB there are occasionally contributions that are either clearly not 'libel proof', or their offensive character makes it inappropriate to a forum which is for discussion, not abuse.
It does seem to me that in the long run that Zuckerberg and friends ought to have to take responsibility for what is published on their platforms in a proactive rather than reactive way, just as the BBC, Sky or the Sun does for every scintilla of its output. Why should it be so different?
However there should be a difference between closed and open access. I can access the BBC online content, as can all the planet. we can't freely access the content of a closed Whatsapp group, nor the content of subscriber/member stuff on the internet. In such places different rules should apply - for it is more like a phone call when it come to public accountability.
I can see a world in which (say) PB was either open access but all content moderated (a job for which whatever they would be paid is not enough), or accessed only by those who signed up, including to terms and conditions that were clear.
But I don't like any of the options.
45 deaths
It is absolutely tearing through the kidz
One of us will be proved right at the next GE until then lets agree to disagree.
Even if SKS loses by a landslide "Its Corbyns fault"!!
We've taken a leap into life after COVID and slowly other countries will join us when they realise containing it means semi-permanent NPIs. I think some European countries are close to realising this and the rest will inevitably follow. Now that vaccines are freely available there is no restriction worth keeping for any reason.
BTW opinion polls are NOT real elections, just to let you know!
It has held that distinction for five of the last seven years.
I don't know as much about the Mediterranean countries, but my friend in Lisbon tells me that it is absolutely heaving.
I also expect take up will be an issue. Lots of people have been convinced that they don't need a booster jab, once again the slowness of the JCVI and general government prevarication hasn't helped. Being decisive helps, the government failed.
The question is how much is it "catch up" filling in of missing test being retested and how much is a new mini wave caused by Covid positive people off clubbing because they thought they were negative
Why take the risk of going to Hell?
I'll tell them I found Jesus that should throw them off
He goes by the name Jesus and steals hubcaps from cars
Oh Jesus can I borrow your crowbar?
To pry these God damn nails out they're beginning to hurt
Crucified and all I got was this lousy T-shirt
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter I'll sing as I'm flogged
Yeah that's what I would do if I were God
-- Bloodhound Gang
Thank you for bringing that up Sunil
LE 2021 - Worse (The Labour Party won 1,345 seats, 28% of those up for election, giving a net loss of 326.)
Hartlepool - Worse (Con Gain) Worst result ever for LAB
B&S worse Lost 9,000 votes and Lab Maj reduced to 300 (Worst result ever)
Police Commissioner elections - Worse Lost 10 PCCs
Maybe you meant some other real elections
Please show your workings
Billy Frank, Jr was a Washington State legend in the fight to achieve recognition and enforcement of traditional Indian fishing rights guaranteed under treaties between the tribes and the US government. Rights that had been diminished, disrespected and denied for a century.
Frank, a member of the Nisqually tribe and a USMC veteran, emerged as a key lndian leader during the "Fish Wars" of the 1970s, culminating in the Boldt decision in federal court, guaranteeing the tribes half of the state fish harvest. Which turned out to be a MAJOR turning point in the even greater struggle to protect and preserve Washington State's salmon and other natural wonders and resources.
One of Billy Frank's fiercest opponents was Bob Williams, a right-wing Republican state legislator who ran (and lost) for Governor in 1988, on a very conservative platform including opposition to Indian fishing rights. Williams was also played an active role in the looooong, drawn-out legal battles over the issue leading up to the Boldt decision; fierce and bitter hardly do this dispute justice.
Anyway, one day in 2014 yours truly is watching the news, led by report of the death of Billy Frank, Jr at the age of 83. Which featured a number of tributes from a variety of local politicos and dignitaries.
The one I'll never forget came from Bob Williams.
Don't recall what he said exactly, something about how he'd known Billy Frank for years, and spent a lot of time with him in meetings and negotiations, and that while they'd battled hard for their own side, they'd grown to respect each other.
What I'll always remember, is that as Bob Williams spoke about Billy Frank, tears were rolling down his face.
Which make you wonder why the Mosques are all designed so elegantly.
Most people I know affected by the lateral flow positive, Pcr negative issue, were pretty sure they had Covid and behaved as such. My guess is the catch up will mainly be that, not a big surge of real new infections.
That's the centrists fault. If they'd only made more of a fuss about Palestine, the voters would have flocked to them.
Joshua bar Jehovah
Of total nonsense
The energy we are expending on this gibberish, as China races away...
The objective is to treat all groups fairly in recruitment and career progression so that it ceases to become an issue and to bring everyone together on that journey.
Positive discrimination does none of that.
Keir Starmer has declared war on the people and party members of Liverpool.
After having an aide brief the media that he intended to ‘break legs’ in the city, Starmer went on to interfere in the candidate selection process for the Liverpool mayoral election, write for the rag known on Merseyside as the Scum and then barred all left-wingers from shortlists for three by-elections in the country’s most left-wing city – embarking on a programme seemingly calculated to turn Liverpool into the kind of Labour wasteland the party’s right made of Scotland before and during the Scottish independence referendum.
And now, he and his cronies have appointed a woman to be the party’s ‘Liverpool officer’ – who quit Labour to join Change UK
Take the current Cabinet for instance, it is currently more ethnically diverse than the nation as a whole. If there were a 'quota' system then the quota would have been met and when Williamson was axed he could have been replaced with a white dud like Williamson since that wouldn't affect any quotas. But because the best person for the job is being chosen instead, he was replaced with Nadhim Zahawi instead.
That's the way it should be. Best person for the job and if the best people for the job are disproportionally more from minorities then great. If you're only going off quotas then you're going to miss the best people and that's going to hurt minorities as well as the majority.
@ElectionMapsUK
Westminster Voting Intention:
CON: 40% (-5)
LAB: 32% (-2)
GRN: 9% (+2)
LDM: 6% (+1)
SNP: 6% (+1)
RFM: 3% (=)
Via
@NCPoliticsUK
, 11-18 Oct.
Changes w/ 7-14 Jun.
You dont seem to understand what sort of person Starmer really is. He has a toxic CLP. His associates are terrible. He has attacked members. Hes antidemocratic. Hes not fit to run a tea shop let alone the country.
Labour is going nowhere until he is replaced
Redfield & Wilton Strategies
Johnson vs. Starmer (18 Oct):
Johnson Scores Best In:
Can build a strong economy 43%
Stands up for UK 42%
Can work with foreign leaders 42%
Starmer Scores Best In:
Good physical & mental health 40%
Willing to work with other parties 36%
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-58959930
As long as there is a UK Tory government it will refuse indyref2 for a generation after 2014 and as union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 nothing the SNP could do about it
At this moment, which of the following individuals do you think would be the better Prime Minister for the United Kingdom? (18 Oct):
Boris Johnson: 43% (+1)
Keir Starmer: 32% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
But your choice is worse
RedfieldWilton
At this moment, which of the following individuals do you think would be the better Prime Minister for the United Kingdom? (18 Oct):
Boris Johnson: 46% (+1)
Andy Burnham: 28% (+1)
Changes +/- 11 Oct
Cameron by contrast had a 26% deficit in Tory-Labour marginals in 2014 and an 18% deficit across GB
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1449687194864660482?s=20
cbc.com - 'What just happened?' Former Bloc candidate explains how it feels to lose by 12 votes
'Every vote counts, and I think I’m living proof,' says Bloc candidate Patrick O’Hara
Patrick O'Hara was driving home to Léry, Que., from Parliament Hill earlier this month when he got the call telling him that he wouldn't become a member of Parliament after all.
In the end, he came up 12 votes short.
"There's a feeling of ... what just happened? You're in awe and shock," O'Hara said.
Two weeks earlier, the rookie Bloc Québécois candidate in the riding of Châteauguay-Lacolle had every reason to believe a summer federal election had changed his life forever.
Feeling "ecstatic" and energized after having been declared the winner, he had started the process of hiring staff and "building the roadmap to taking over the riding."
The results had him unseating Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan by 286 votes in one of the tightest races in the country.
In a Facebook post two days after election day, Shanahan conceded defeat, congratulated O'Hara and tried to buck up supporters by reminding them that "life is good."
But days later, Shanahan requested a judicial recount in the riding, overseen by a superior court judge, in response to a "potential anomaly" in the count of one ballot box from an advance poll.
The request came on the heels of an earlier issue: A returning officer noticed that 410 votes had been mistakenly recorded for O'Hara, rather than 40 votes — an error that was corrected in the validation process.
O'Hara said he was still "pretty confident" everything would work out in his favour.
The recount started on Oct. 4. O'Hara was in Ottawa for orientation sessions at the time, meeting with other incoming MPs still buzzing from their victories in September.
The final numbers, released on Oct. 6, showed Shanahan had finished with 18,029 votes to his 18,017.
"Twelve votes," O'Hara said with a chuckle. "You know, you'd rather lose by 2,012. And then you're trying to figure out who are the 13 people that didn't make it to the voting." . . . .
O'Hara said he plans to run again and believes that, while it's a tough pill to swallow, gracefully accepting defeat is "how you prove to the people that you're fit for the job."
For Shanahan, it's a "testament to our democratic system" that a close-fought contest could be sorted out peaceably.
Campaigns are a time for partisan politics, she said, "but once the election is over and the people's choice has been made, the elected person is now the member of Parliament."
Democracy, O'Hara said, is a privilege.
"Every vote counts, and I think I'm living proof."