Buy a block of basic student like flats. Offer that to MPs to use whilst they're in London. Stick a canteen at the bottom. Job done.
I know you’re being facetious, but I would actually do something like this
But make them big, luxury flats owned by the state in a nice part of Westminster. So the state ultimately gets the capital value of the investment - but the MPs get free accommodation in a very agreeable part of town
It would be a decent perk of the job. All MPs would be equal. No one would be forced to live there but if they decide not to, they won’t get any expenses for somewhere else
Simple.
There was a block of flats at the bottom of Waterloo bridge (Stamford street?) they looked at and passed on. Imperial turned it into student accommodation.
Your proposal seems reasonable. I’d make them 2 bedroom flats (no need to be mean). If MPs want to bring their families to London they can rent a hotel like everyone else.
Yes, no need to scrimp. The taxpayer will benefit as the state will get the capital gain from the property. Spacious 2 bed flats.
Takes away all the hassle of renting in London. You can move in immediately. Day one of Parliament. Don’t like it, fine, don’t live there but you won’t get money for anywhere else
A nice little perk of the job, but impossible to abuse the system. Sorted
Don’t MEPs have something like this? Official apartments owned by the EU? Or maybe they just sleep in their offices. They are known for their selflessness
No.
They just get ~10k Euro per month in their Daily Allowance, which covers accommodation and related costs.
Paid tax-free into their personal bank account, and from which they pay their staff and expenses.
None of this having to actually account for the spending stuff.
When the UK MPs expense scandal happened, the European Parliament reacted quickly, decisively and nearly unanimously.
They made their expenses a specially protected secret, with severe penalties for leaking them.
Yes. There was an investigation for German TV which showed dozens of MEPs turning up on Friday morning at the singing-in office (to qualify for teh daily 300 Euro or whatever allowance) with their suitcases ready to go straight to their travel arrangements.
What do they have to sing? Beethoven's ninth? And why singing? Wouldn't tap dancing do? This raises more questions than it answers.
Buy a block of basic student like flats. Offer that to MPs to use whilst they're in London. Stick a canteen at the bottom. Job done.
I know you’re being facetious, but I would actually do something like this
But make them big, luxury flats owned by the state in a nice part of Westminster. So the state ultimately gets the capital value of the investment - but the MPs get free accommodation in a very agreeable part of town
It would be a decent perk of the job. All MPs would be equal. No one would be forced to live there but if they decide not to, they won’t get any expenses for somewhere else
Simple.
Wasn't there somewhere like that at one time? Dolphin Square, Court or something like that. Got, after a while, a slightly 'iffy' reputation.
Dolphin Square. But it was never official, just a block used by a lot of MPs because of proximity. And yes it got a seedy rep
Also really ugly
But super convenient. You could walk to Chelsea or the West End.
Only slight downside was that Lupus Street was (and still is I believe) pretty iffy.
Iffy? In what way!? It is the middle of Pimlico!
364 crimes within half a mile in September this year.
If you zoom in on the map, it's just behind Pimlico Academy, and it shows the recorded crimes on the streets around Dolphin Square in one recent month.
There's "violence and sexual offences" recorded on almost every street around Dolphin Square.
Is that not "iffy"?
According to Dolphin Square, Dolphin Square is "LONDON'S MOST DISTINGUISHED RENTAL ADDRESS"
*{scans down page}*
Jeeeeesus. £450 a WEEK for a 460 sqft 1 bed flat...
There seems to be a running theme on this thread where certain uhh y I hung we ff red g people are confusing expenses and pay.
Expenses are provided as needed to enable you to do your work in a business. That's why they're expenses and not pay.
If you live and work in Derbyshire, say, and own a flat in London, are you required to stay there when travelling on business? Or can you stay in a hotel like your colleagues?
Can you stay in the flat overnight at immediate notice ? If so, no you can't expense the hotel.
Erste et eh Dewe we’re qq have qqqqbs BD MBF hi u
Cox can’t - he has a tenant
The relevant question is whether he was living in the flat when he became an MP, and only began renting it out î when he had an opportunity for the state to pay his rent on a different flat?
If he already had a tenant when he became an MP then it would be unreasonable to expect the tenant to be evicted, but otherwise I would see it as an abuse of the system.
AIUI he bought the flat and claimed mortgage interest as an expense when it was allowed
From 2011-2017 he lived there without claiming expenses
In 2017 he moved to a new rented apartment (which he claims for) and rented out the old flat
I’ve no idea why he moved out, but my guess is the flat was no longer what he needed (too large may be?) put rather than sell at a discount post Brexit he rented it out.
I really can’t see what he has done wrong.
That looks quite clearly like an abuse of the system to use it to extract extra income for himself, rather than for the reimbursement of reasonable expenses.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Ofsted reports wax and wane. This year's outstanding school will be just rated good in a few years. While the in need of improvement school gets upgraded. You're best sending your kids somewhere local, where they can walk to school and have easy play dates. In my experience there is little to differentiate between primary schools in any case, and what works for one kid may not be so good for their sibling.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
When we moved in to our present house (before children!) a few people asked us about schools. We had the same view as you - largely irrelevant as a good school now could be a terrible one in - as it turned out - seven years and vice versa. There was one we were keen to avoid, as mentioned, but that was due to the area, which is something a school struggles to do much about (and also, although close-ish to us in a straight line, a real pig to get to).
We tend to think that a school needs to be 'good enough'. Decent teachers who are committed; decent discipline, not too many disruptive kids making it hard for everyone else. Beyond that, in the state sector at least, I think it mostly comes down to the child and the parents.
Just back from Waitrose and for the first time noticed a serious shortage problem. Many gaps on shelves with apologetic notices in lieu of products. Snacks section particularly denuded. No hula hoops, no crisps apart from poncy rip off brands, not much by way of nuts. Any impact on me? Yes, a very tangible one. Pringles aren't my idea of a taste sensation but I was left with little choice other than to buy some of those. Blow cushioned just slightly by them being on special offer, £1 off.
Is there a particular problem with crisps?
They are garbage and not even food but are easily the best accelerant if you want to burn a car with no suspicious forensics left behind.
You've always been one of my favourite posters on this site, but I'm not sure I can trust someone who doesn't like crisps.
The most efficient fat delivery system known to man. I love them too!
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
We'll have to drive to all the options and we live in the town (technically - towards the end of a long road heading out of town). There are two we could get to by bike if there was a decent path, but both are 60mph limit roads with no cycle lane, blind bends and occasional idiot drivers. Oddly, we do have a secondary school within easy walking distance; the distribution of primary schools is just a bit odd, I guess.
My local primary are also addicted to the fiction that cases are going up.
Have to disagree with DJL though - forcing everyone to attend their local primary school is a recipe for coasting schools; schools doing what they want, rather than what their customers want. We're not great at providing a good customer service to parents, but this would be a backward step.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
When we moved in to our present house (before children!) a few people asked us about schools. We had the same view as you - largely irrelevant as a good school now could be a terrible one in - as it turned out - seven years and vice versa. There was one we were keen to avoid, as mentioned, but that was due to the area, which is something a school struggles to do much about (and also, although close-ish to us in a straight line, a real pig to get to).
We tend to think that a school needs to be 'good enough'. Decent teachers who are committed; decent discipline, not too many disruptive kids making it hard for everyone else. Beyond that, in the state sector at least, I think it mostly comes down to the child and the parents.
Agree. I went to the nearest primary school (VERY long time ago) and still occasionally come into contact with people who were there around the same time. Went to a selective secondary school out of my area and am only in occasional contact with one of my classmates. Both sons went to a non-selective secondary school close to our then home and are still in contact with some of those with whom they were at school over 30 years ago.
Very surprised to have just been given a date for some non-urgent elective surgery.
It comes 18 months after a bad fall, but the injury has had no real impact on my life since then - the surgery is to reduce the chance of having to be rescued again.
Buy a block of basic student like flats. Offer that to MPs to use whilst they're in London. Stick a canteen at the bottom. Job done.
I know you’re being facetious, but I would actually do something like this
But make them big, luxury flats owned by the state in a nice part of Westminster. So the state ultimately gets the capital value of the investment - but the MPs get free accommodation in a very agreeable part of town
It would be a decent perk of the job. All MPs would be equal. No one would be forced to live there but if they decide not to, they won’t get any expenses for somewhere else
Simple.
There was a block of flats at the bottom of Waterloo bridge (Stamford street?) they looked at and passed on. Imperial turned it into student accommodation.
Your proposal seems reasonable. I’d make them 2 bedroom flats (no need to be mean). If MPs want to bring their families to London they can rent a hotel like everyone else.
Yes, no need to scrimp. The taxpayer will benefit as the state will get the capital gain from the property. Spacious 2 bed flats.
Takes away all the hassle of renting in London. You can move in immediately. Day one of Parliament. Don’t like it, fine, don’t live there but you won’t get money for anywhere else
A nice little perk of the job, but impossible to abuse the system. Sorted
Don’t MEPs have something like this? Official apartments owned by the EU? Or maybe they just sleep in their offices. They are known for their selflessness
No.
They just get ~10k Euro per month in their Daily Allowance, which covers accommodation and related costs.
Paid tax-free into their personal bank account, and from which they pay their staff and expenses.
None of this having to actually account for the spending stuff.
When the UK MPs expense scandal happened, the European Parliament reacted quickly, decisively and nearly unanimously.
They made their expenses a specially protected secret, with severe penalties for leaking them.
Yes. There was an investigation for German TV which showed dozens of MEPs turning up on Friday morning at the singing-in office (to qualify for teh daily 300 Euro or whatever allowance) with their suitcases ready to go straight to their travel arrangements.
What do they have to sing? Beethoven's ninth? And why singing? Wouldn't tap dancing do? This raises more questions than it answers.
They’re no longer allowed to just clock in and leave, which they used to do, so the ‘communal team-building activity’ is the minimum that satisfies the requirement that they actually do something between clocking-in and leaving.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
There seems to be a running theme on this thread where certain people are confusing expenses and pay.
Expenses are provided as needed to enable you to do your work in a business. That's why they're expenses and not pay.
If you live and work in Derbyshire, say, and own a flat in London, are you required to stay there when travelling on business? Or can you stay in a hotel like your colleagues?
Can you stay in the flat overnight at immediate notice ? If so, no you can't expense the hotel.
Cox can’t - he has a tenant
If Cox has a flat in London he shouldn't be claiming accommodation expenses from taxpayers. End of story. If he chooses to rent that flat out then he can use the rental income to pay for his own accommodation. A man earning £millions and he expects taxpayers on the minimum wage to pay for his accommodation in a city where he owns a flat? Unbelievable greed, and shocked to see anyone defending it on here. He's got to go.
I wonder how many legal actions such a stance would generate?
"We sacked you because we assumed..."
It's a nice fantasy, but how would you enforce it practically?
Would you sack Chris Bryant for doing the same thing between 2012 and 2017?
In my opinion, anyone who claims for London living expenses while owning a property in London that they could be living in should go. Perhaps an exemption if they are renting in their constituency (ie the London property is their only property). There are too many landlord MPs anyway.
So you are saying that no MP can make an investment in the Londom property market?
In effect, yes. Of course they can live in the flat, or rent it out but not claim for living somewhere else, at the expense of a lower effective return on their investment (🎻). I would rather have MPs whose first and only concern about the "London property market" was helping normal people find somewhere affordable to live, not maximising the value of their own property portfolio. I am utterly sick of this bloated rentier class who look on the rest of their fellow citizens as instruments for their own enrichment. What MPs have been getting up to is only the tip of this particular iceberg, but they are the ones who make the rules so the first step is to get their snouts out of the trough. In fact, let's stop talking about the "London property market" altogether and start talking about London's housing crisis.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
A poor Ofsted report can be the catalyst for significant change. No school sits there when faced with a poor Ofsted report and thinks so what. The direction of travel is what is important, the calibre of the management and what they are doing now.
I'd take OFSTED reports with a pinch of salt, especially if not recent. (And I say this as an ex-governor). My daughters moved from a school that was 'Requires Improvement' to one that was 'Outstanding'. Both maintained the one they had left was the better school overall, and with better teaching. The school they moved to didn't feel two grades better, but there were some problems overall with their old school that would have seriously disrupted the GCSEs of the younger one (a lot of staff left). Their old school was much better at the pastoral side, and taught around the curriculum a lot so children could learn to love their favourite subjects, and learning for its own sake. None of that counted for anything with the OFSTED inspection of course. The new school taught exactly the curriculum and how to pass exams, and nothing else.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
You're not advocating for "please wear a mask". Anyone who wants to can say "please wear a mask" and I can turn around and say "no thank you" and that's all very polite.
You're advocating for masks to be mandated by law. That is an imposition.
I also challenge your notion that "we want to reduce the spread of Covid". I don't. Covid will spread, its an endemic part of nature now. Besides people who know they're contagious not deliberately spreading it, we shouldn't be doing anything at all to reduce its spread.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
When we moved in to our present house (before children!) a few people asked us about schools. We had the same view as you - largely irrelevant as a good school now could be a terrible one in - as it turned out - seven years and vice versa. There was one we were keen to avoid, as mentioned, but that was due to the area, which is something a school struggles to do much about (and also, although close-ish to us in a straight line, a real pig to get to).
We tend to think that a school needs to be 'good enough'. Decent teachers who are committed; decent discipline, not too many disruptive kids making it hard for everyone else. Beyond that, in the state sector at least, I think it mostly comes down to the child and the parents.
Your final paragraph is all we need for our schools. Have performance standards which they can be benchmarked against. That way when a school is falling beneath they can have these failings highlighted and can then focus attention and resources onto improvement.
The problem we have is that so often the failing schools get starved of resources. Instead of seeking to improve them we accept poor education for the poor and instead throw money at the schools doing well. I am not saying don't invest in good schools, but some money has to be found for the struggling ones.
Let people choose schools and other services. When there is significant less disparity between one school and the next the drive to send your kids on lengthy bus rides to have no friends within close reach will drop away. OK I send my son on the bus to a school 9 miles away but (a) that's the closest school and (b) its quite literally on the same road he lives on.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
A poor Ofsted report can be the catalyst for significant change. No school sits there when faced with a poor Ofsted report and thinks so what. The direction of travel is what is important, the calibre of the management and what they are doing now.
I'd take OFSTED reports with a pinch of salt, especially if not recent. (And I say this as an ex-governor). My daughters moved from a school that was 'Requires Improvement' to one that was 'Outstanding'. Both maintained the one they had left was the better school overall, and with better teaching. The school they moved to didn't feel two grades better, but there were some problems overall with their old school that would have seriously disrupted the GCSEs of the younger one (a lot of staff left). Their old school was much better at the pastoral side, and taught around the curriculum a lot so children could learn to love their favourite subjects, and learning for its own sake. None of that counted for anything with the OFSTED inspection of course. The new school taught exactly the curriculum and how to pass exams, and nothing else.
How to pass exams leads to a better OFSTED report if that blinkered teaching increases grades by anything at all.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
We'll have to drive to all the options and we live in the town (technically - towards the end of a long road heading out of town). There are two we could get to by bike if there was a decent path, but both are 60mph limit roads with no cycle lane, blind bends and occasional idiot drivers. Oddly, we do have a secondary school within easy walking distance; the distribution of primary schools is just a bit odd, I guess.
My local primary are also addicted to the fiction that cases are going up.
Have to disagree with DJL though - forcing everyone to attend their local primary school is a recipe for coasting schools; schools doing what they want, rather than what their customers want. We're not great at providing a good customer service to parents, but this would be a backward step.
As others have commented, it is begging the question to assume parents can reliably judge school quality, and also that quality is a static measure. But even if we do grant that parents can tell, giving them choice does not change the net situation: there will still be the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils. All we've added is a lot of cross-town driving. But to address your concern about coasting, concerned parents would apply pressure to the school directly rather than by opting out.
Still absolutely baffled by the seemingly large constituency of people who would mandate masks but not vaxports. A deeply irrational and inconsistent position on the venn diagram, that is nevertheless populated by many.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Selebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
This reversal of fortunes has been common over the past few years in my experience. We chose the local first school because it was close, very good and we qualified for a free school bus. Even though it fed into the worst of the two potential High Schools. By the time they reached Secondary the situation had been entirely reversed. Brand new buildings and much better OFSTED and results. The previous "good" school is falling to bits now and has poor discipline problems. So you never can tell.
What's striking, comparing the UK to other countries around the world, is how much of a laggard Britain seems to be.
The US economy is now already bigger than it was before the pandemic struck.
France is close to regaining its pre-crisis levels.
Indeed, of the major European countries only Spain remains further from its pre-pandemic GDP than the UK.
The problem for the chancellor is not only does this raise questions about whether Britain's economic measures could have been stronger in helping people get back into work, it all comes ahead of a difficult winter for the economy.
Prices are rising, energy costs are at historic levels and real earnings - wages adjusted for inflation - are stagnating.
In other words, any prospect that strong economic growth could turn into the much-vaunted "feelgood factor" seems to look dim at present.
I suspect the hope was that by lagging behind the rest of the world, Britain would enjoy a larger bounce conveniently timed for the election, though the revised figures suggest even that might be pushing it.
Could be a problem for Sunak
“ONS say that adds up to annualised GDP growth of 5.1%. That's well down from the OBR's revision up to 6.5% for this year at the Budget only two weeks ago. That means less tax takings for Rishi Sunak, so either spending cuts on his plans... or more tax rises (2)”
However post-pandemic growth is going to be super volatile. Could go either way, yet
Q4 looks pretty strong this year and last year we were in lockdown.
Yes, if we stay unlocked down we might see a decent surge. Especially in comparison to parts of Europe. 50,000 cases in Germany yesterday, they will have to bring in strict vaxports nationwide, at the very least.
I read a report that one reason the government has resisted vaxports is the big hit to to the economy they impose. Even a rather mild vaxport scheme would cost the UK £18bn in a few months
Belgium today has the UK equivalent of 90k new cases:
The decision there to reimpose restrictions in July looks increasingly dubious.
It's not really clear whether that's true. When they brought back some restrictions in July they had 7 million fully vaccinated, whereas now nearly 12 million. Buying time to get a much higher percentage vaccinated isn't totally unreasonable. Indeed many people described the situation over the summer as a "race" between the vaccines and the delta variant - which could have been kind of won except for people deciding not to get vaccinated.
The problem is in places where the number of vaccine refusers is still way more than enough to overwhelm the health system. We are in effect having restrictions imposed on us by the sadly misinformed choices of a large minority, which is also starting to create a lot of anger among the vaccinated.
Expect much stricter 2g rules in Germany very soon, the current 3g rules have barely been enforced at all up to now. And then noisy protests from the so-called Querdenker types.
The other problem is that even if you get 95% of the eligible population vaccinated, that leaves alot of people vulnerable to the virus.
Exit waves are inevitable.
The problem on top of that is that Delta seems to make most precautions much less effective. My guesstimate is that a full lockdown would slow a Delta surge down, but not stop it, unless you had a very high level of vaccination. As well....
Indeed, but the calculation of when to have an "exit wave" - meaning the wave you get when you lift all restrictions - is going to be affected by how vaccinations are going. Some continental countries have managed to vaccinate quite a lot of people since the summer, so in that sense it's been worth postponing people's exposure. Germany isn't really one of those countries (the only significant numbers getting vaccinated in recent months are 12 - 17 year olds). The federal government has shown remarkably little leadership since the pandemic began. To be fair Germany started off (ie a year ago) with lower numbers willing to get vaccinated than most Western European countries with the exception of France. But even France has ended up with a significantly higher percentage vaccinated.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
A poor Ofsted report can be the catalyst for significant change. No school sits there when faced with a poor Ofsted report and thinks so what. The direction of travel is what is important, the calibre of the management and what they are doing now.
I'd take OFSTED reports with a pinch of salt, especially if not recent. (And I say this as an ex-governor). My daughters moved from a school that was 'Requires Improvement' to one that was 'Outstanding'. Both maintained the one they had left was the better school overall, and with better teaching. The school they moved to didn't feel two grades better, but there were some problems overall with their old school that would have seriously disrupted the GCSEs of the younger one (a lot of staff left). Their old school was much better at the pastoral side, and taught around the curriculum a lot so children could learn to love their favourite subjects, and learning for its own sake. None of that counted for anything with the OFSTED inspection of course. The new school taught exactly the curriculum and how to pass exams, and nothing else.
How to pass exams leads to a better OFSTED report if that blinkered teaching increases grades by anything at all.
Exactly but a good "education" it does not make. Both my girls hated their 2-3 years at the school.
I think the current regime is starting to take a wider view again, but I'm out of the loop now.
Still absolutely baffled by the seemingly large constituency of people who would mandate masks but not vaxports. A deeply irrational and inconsistent position on the venn diagram, that is nevertheless populated by many.
What’s irrational about it?
There’s little cost to asking people to wear masks on, for example, public transport and other densely-packed places.
There’s a huge cost to businesses, and a loss of privacy for the vaccinated, to ask everyone for documentation whenever they enter certain spaces. Any restriction based on vaccination status, has to be implemented such that it doesn’t affect the vaccinated nor private businesses. Filtering NHS admissions by vaccine status, for example, would be fine.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
We'll have to drive to all the options and we live in the town (technically - towards the end of a long road heading out of town). There are two we could get to by bike if there was a decent path, but both are 60mph limit roads with no cycle lane, blind bends and occasional idiot drivers. Oddly, we do have a secondary school within easy walking distance; the distribution of primary schools is just a bit odd, I guess.
My local primary are also addicted to the fiction that cases are going up.
Have to disagree with DJL though - forcing everyone to attend their local primary school is a recipe for coasting schools; schools doing what they want, rather than what their customers want. We're not great at providing a good customer service to parents, but this would be a backward step.
As others have commented, it is begging the question to assume parents can reliably judge school quality, and also that quality is a static measure. But even if we do grant that parents can tell, giving them choice does not change the net situation: there will still be the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils. All we've added is a lot of cross-town driving. But to address your concern about coasting, concerned parents would apply pressure to the school directly rather than by opting out.
Concerned parents would simply move house, especially as under a ‘no choice of schools’ scenario like the one above, schools would be even less likely than they are now to respond to parental pressure.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Do we really want to reduce the spread of Covid?
Obviously I'm not advocating that people go around licking everyone else's faces in an effort to spread it more, but is avoiding the spread of Covid a primary concern?
One problem with masks is the messaging. The message they propagate is that it is a priority to reduce the spread of Covid. And the problem with that message is that the surest way to reduce the spread of Covid is to stay at home and not see anyone, and as you say that isn't necessary. The insistence on wearing masks by force of law scares some people into staying at home.
So the priority now is to restore people's confidence that it is now safe for them to leave their home and to see other people again. That is more important than reducing the spread of Covid. And that's why masks should go.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
I know its hard but I would have challenged them on the cases.
Rather strange set of local by-elections today. The simplest is Denbighshire which should be a PC hold. In Cardiff there is an Ind defence which will probably be a Labour gain. In Lancaster there is an Econ-Soc elected as Lab defence. In Melton there is an Opposition elected as Con defence. Finally there is a Green defence in Thanet. Try looking for trends in that lot.
I'm rarely shocked, but I am by that. A Green defence in Thanet? That seems about as likely as a UKIP defence in Brighton. Must be a bourgeois bit of Margate or something, I guess.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
I can believe what you say. Someone local to me got given their fourth choice secondary school for their child and I can believe that the school in question is the one no one really wants to go to. I think @isam's suggestion of turning the unpopular schools into grammar schools is a clever one.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
Sadly, I suspect the only way to do it is to have a world in which we have more places than children.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
A poor Ofsted report can be the catalyst for significant change. No school sits there when faced with a poor Ofsted report and thinks so what. The direction of travel is what is important, the calibre of the management and what they are doing now.
Yes. Conversely, schools with outstanding Ofsted grades sometimes rest on their laurels, become complacent, and decline quite rapidly.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
I can believe what you say. Someone local to me got given their fourth choice secondary school for their child and I can believe that the school in question is the one no one really wants to go to. I think @isam's suggestion of turning the unpopular schools into grammar schools is a clever one.
Yes utterly genius. Change a system with one school nobody wants to go to into one where there's only one school that anybody wants to go to. Problem fixed!
OFSTED reports are, of course, not objective. They are a subjective view of a small group of people based on their own particularly interests, hobby horses, biases and philosophy. They are also based on a tiny snapshot of time. All underpinned by the particular ideology of whomever is directing them from Whitehall at any moment. What's more, the difference between good and outstanding can be marginal to say the least. Parents really need to read the full reports to come to any conclusions. And few have the time, let alone the critical analysis skills.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
Sadly, I suspect the only way to do it is to have a world in which we have more places than children.
Yes. In an ideal world, schools need to be able to both expand and fail.
The problems come with hard capacity issues such as classroom availability and specialised facilities such as science labs.
Failing schools should be closed and reopened with a new management team. It requires a little more slack in the system than we have at present.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
Sadly, I suspect the only way to do it is to have a world in which we have more places than children.
Since councils are obliged to educate everyone, there shouldn't be a shortfall of places overall (there are temporary fixes councils can apply if they end up in such a predicament).
Really it's not an education question - imagine you have five options with twenty 'spaces' each, and a hundred people have each ranked the five options in order of preference. With some other criteria to allow you to resolve situations where thirty people put one option first.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Do we really want to reduce the spread of Covid?
Obviously I'm not advocating that people go around licking everyone else's faces in an effort to spread it more, but is avoiding the spread of Covid a primary concern?
One problem with masks is the messaging. The message they propagate is that it is a priority to reduce the spread of Covid. And the problem with that message is that the surest way to reduce the spread of Covid is to stay at home and not see anyone, and as you say that isn't necessary. The insistence on wearing masks by force of law scares some people into staying at home.
So the priority now is to restore people's confidence that it is now safe for them to leave their home and to see other people again. That is more important than reducing the spread of Covid. And that's why masks should go.
Its an interesting debate - "do we want to reduce the spread". Apparently the government does based on what the scientists and medics are telling them - its just that they aren't very good at doing it.
I could cope with the UK government having a "let it spread" policy if it was clear and rational with the same evidence to support as we've had as their cover. The problem is that it isn't policy at least officially.
As I've said before now that we're all jabbed I'm less worried about Covid itself, its long Covid that seems to be a bit of a lottery. I know quite a number of people who have had the long term effects far more debilitating than the actual virus itself.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
If the German figures continue to rise as suggested, particularly in the western and southern states, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that mask wearing is now a waste of time.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Do we really want to reduce the spread of Covid?
Obviously I'm not advocating that people go around licking everyone else's faces in an effort to spread it more, but is avoiding the spread of Covid a primary concern?
One problem with masks is the messaging. The message they propagate is that it is a priority to reduce the spread of Covid. And the problem with that message is that the surest way to reduce the spread of Covid is to stay at home and not see anyone, and as you say that isn't necessary. The insistence on wearing masks by force of law scares some people into staying at home.
So the priority now is to restore people's confidence that it is now safe for them to leave their home and to see other people again. That is more important than reducing the spread of Covid. And that's why masks should go.
That's one reason that masks should go, certainly. Others include: -Masks work in some circumstances. But in most circumstances where their advocates want them, the mask dance is entirely performative. -Even where masks do work, their impact us in most circumstances fairly modest. -As a general principle, the state should not be telling its citizens what to wear, or to cover their faces. This isn't Iran. -Wearing masks is not cost free. If masks are required to do an activity, fewer people will choose to do that activity. There will be an economic cost. -A world in which people wear masks in public is not a terribly pleasant or positive place to be. We lose a lot of our ability to communicate non-verbally. Those of us with poor facial recognition skills lose a lot of our ability to recognise people we know (seriously). We reduce levels of trust. We assist petty criminality. -It's massively disproportionate to the scale of the problem.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
The report cites one or two cases of unacceptable waits for ambulance service, and I don’t deny that the NHS is very strained and wrestling with a massive backlog.
However, I’m totally unconvinced that new (or the resumption of old) NPIs would make any difference on NHS pressures.
I don’t think we’ve handled the overall pandemic very well, specifically the failure to lock down quickly enough on three separate occasions in 2019/20.
But I still believe that the decision in July was the right one, indeed about the only good thing this wretched government has done.
Outsourcing vaccine procurement deserves credit too
I've been pondering how one distinguishes legitimate outside work done by MPs, and outside work that is, at best, dubious, and have come up with a solution.
Any MP that claims in the Register that their role is "providing strategic advice" to a profit-making concern is, in all likelihood, raking in money in exchange for influence on government decision-making, and is therefore corrupt. Easy.
I provided such a test yesterday. If the services the MP provides are ones unrelated to being an MP and for which someone would pay anyway, that's fine.
Good lad. Yes I know he is not short of a bob or two. But they respect that in Yarkshire. We need a northern PM instead of these southern wusses.
Honestly, Sunak is as far from these effete self-aggrandising idiots in most of the rest of the cabinet as you can get.
He doesn't need to do corruption. He already has all the cash
There's his hedge fund days though. The word is, not clean.
I have some rather more precise information about what those hedge funds were doing. It is quite a story.
That test would be a swamp of grey areas. What aspects of commercial life are untouched by government regulation? Every time the government does anything, or, crucially, decides NOT to do anything, someone wins and someone else loses. Your test is freighted with a conservative bias, because it's easier to deny a conflict of interest when MPs are changing nothing, doing nothing, talking about nothing.
I know. It is not an easy area because there are always edge cases. It was a suggestion. It is easier to accept an MP who is also a doctor working as a doctor one day a week because he or she is paid for their medical skills than because they are an MP. Being an MP is irrelevant to the payment.
Whereas in something like the IDS case, it is hard to see that he would be paid by the company were he not an MP.
So maybe some sort of "were it not" test is needed. But the real issue then is who judges and enforces that? If the party leaders won't or grant all sorts of exceptions and the voters aren't sufficiently bothered to let it affect their votes we're back where we started: relying on the "let's trust that they're all good chaps" and a bit stuffed if it turns out that some/many of them aren't.
OFSTED reports are, of course, not objective. They are a subjective view of a small group of people based on their own particularly interests, hobby horses, biases and philosophy. They are also based on a tiny snapshot of time. All underpinned by the particular ideology of whomever is directing them from Whitehall at any moment. What's more, the difference between good and outstanding can be marginal to say the least. Parents really need to read the full reports to come to any conclusions. And few have the time, let alone the critical analysis skills.
If the first bit of what you write is correct, then your penultimate sentence makes no sense - why bother reading them if they're just subjective/biased snapshots? For the record, Ofsted reports are very short these days - a maximum of 10 minutes reading.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
Esther Webber @estwebber · 1h After the Times/Tel story of MPs getting drunk on a visit, a parliamentary source queries whether the govt really wants to open the can of worms which is MPs' behaviour on foreign trips
===
As I highlighted yesterday, if the papers move on to the drunken behaviour of MPs we are in for a fine old few days.
That would be incredibly funny, one assumes that there’s at least one drunken story on hundreds of MPs.
Remember back to 2013, and Eric Joyce being arrested in a Commons bar, that started a chain of events that led to a lot of the Labour party’s subsequent problems.
Surely, one would expect MPs to be inebriated on foreign excursions. The Yes Minister trip to Qumran was more of a documentary than a comedy.
I think the problem with this incident is that it was a specific flight to Gibraltar for remembrance day, and the mps were representing Parliament at the service
I'm sure it's not unusual for members of Parliament to turn up drunk to such occasions.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Do we really want to reduce the spread of Covid?
Obviously I'm not advocating that people go around licking everyone else's faces in an effort to spread it more, but is avoiding the spread of Covid a primary concern?
One problem with masks is the messaging. The message they propagate is that it is a priority to reduce the spread of Covid. And the problem with that message is that the surest way to reduce the spread of Covid is to stay at home and not see anyone, and as you say that isn't necessary. The insistence on wearing masks by force of law scares some people into staying at home.
So the priority now is to restore people's confidence that it is now safe for them to leave their home and to see other people again. That is more important than reducing the spread of Covid. And that's why masks should go.
That's one reason that masks should go, certainly. Others include: -Masks work in some circumstances. But in most circumstances where their advocates want them, the mask dance is entirely performative. -Even where masks do work, their impact us in most circumstances fairly modest. -As a general principle, the state should not be telling its citizens what to wear, or to cover their faces. This isn't Iran. -Wearing masks is not cost free. If masks are required to do an activity, fewer people will choose to do that activity. There will be an economic cost. -A world in which people wear masks in public is not a terribly pleasant or positive place to be. We lose a lot of our ability to communicate non-verbally. Those of us with poor facial recognition skills lose a lot of our ability to recognise people we know (seriously). We reduce levels of trust. We assist petty criminality. -It's massively disproportionate to the scale of the problem.
Pick you up on point 4. It may be true. But equally not wearing masks is not cost free. There are plenty of folk withholding economic activity because they don't feel safe. You may think they are illogical, but the cost isn't only one way. See the Wetherspoon's results from yesterday.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
We'll have to drive to all the options and we live in the town (technically - towards the end of a long road heading out of town). There are two we could get to by bike if there was a decent path, but both are 60mph limit roads with no cycle lane, blind bends and occasional idiot drivers. Oddly, we do have a secondary school within easy walking distance; the distribution of primary schools is just a bit odd, I guess.
My local primary are also addicted to the fiction that cases are going up.
Have to disagree with DJL though - forcing everyone to attend their local primary school is a recipe for coasting schools; schools doing what they want, rather than what their customers want. We're not great at providing a good customer service to parents, but this would be a backward step.
As others have commented, it is begging the question to assume parents can reliably judge school quality, and also that quality is a static measure. But even if we do grant that parents can tell, giving them choice does not change the net situation: there will still be the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils. All we've added is a lot of cross-town driving. But to address your concern about coasting, concerned parents would apply pressure to the school directly rather than by opting out.
Concerned parents would simply move house, especially as under a ‘no choice of schools’ scenario like the one above, schools would be even less likely than they are now to respond to parental pressure.
First, credit to DJL for using the phrase 'begging the question' correctly (I think - my grasp on this isn't actually much more than knowing it doesn't mean the same as 'raising the question'). And for a well argued point. I think we do need to bear the cost of more places than children. But I agree with Northstar - the sample of my own acquaintances isn't necessarily representative, but I don't know any parent for whom the quality of the school your child would get assigned to wasn't a major factor in the choice of where to live.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
Sadly, I suspect the only way to do it is to have a world in which we have more places than children.
Yes. In an ideal world, schools need to be able to both expand and fail.
The problems come with hard capacity issues such as classroom availability and specialised facilities such as science labs.
Failing schools should be closed and reopened with a new management team. It requires a little more slack in the system than we have at present.
Why would they need to be closed? You can replace the SLT during the summer holidays. Having the school sitting empty for a year or two isn't going to help it to improve.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Do we really want to reduce the spread of Covid?
Obviously I'm not advocating that people go around licking everyone else's faces in an effort to spread it more, but is avoiding the spread of Covid a primary concern?
One problem with masks is the messaging. The message they propagate is that it is a priority to reduce the spread of Covid. And the problem with that message is that the surest way to reduce the spread of Covid is to stay at home and not see anyone, and as you say that isn't necessary. The insistence on wearing masks by force of law scares some people into staying at home.
So the priority now is to restore people's confidence that it is now safe for them to leave their home and to see other people again. That is more important than reducing the spread of Covid. And that's why masks should go.
Its an interesting debate - "do we want to reduce the spread". Apparently the government does based on what the scientists and medics are telling them - its just that they aren't very good at doing it.
I could cope with the UK government having a "let it spread" policy if it was clear and rational with the same evidence to support as we've had as their cover. The problem is that it isn't policy at least officially.
As I've said before now that we're all jabbed I'm less worried about Covid itself, its long Covid that seems to be a bit of a lottery. I know quite a number of people who have had the long term effects far more debilitating than the actual virus itself.
I disagree that government policy is to reduce the spread of Covid. I think that government policy is to have the minimal level of restrictions that are required to prevent a collapse of the NHS.
At the moment, that doesn't require any restrictions.
I'm not sure what the policy is here in Scotland, except to be different to England. If it's to reduce the spread of Covid they aren't being notably successful.
I suspect it will be true of all Corbynite labour candidates that were parachuted into seats.
And I'm sure that Ms Sultana's habit of speaking out against the party leadership and causing controversy, such as when she was pictured with anti-police banners at a rally recently, really hasn't helped.
OFSTED reports are, of course, not objective. They are a subjective view of a small group of people based on their own particularly interests, hobby horses, biases and philosophy. They are also based on a tiny snapshot of time. All underpinned by the particular ideology of whomever is directing them from Whitehall at any moment. What's more, the difference between good and outstanding can be marginal to say the least. Parents really need to read the full reports to come to any conclusions. And few have the time, let alone the critical analysis skills.
If the first bit of what you write is correct, then your penultimate sentence makes no sense - why bother reading them if they're just subjective/biased snapshots? For the record, Ofsted reports are very short these days - a maximum of 10 minutes reading.
Fair point. But even 6 x 10 mins reading, analysis, decision is pretty daunting for many. So they go off the headline result.
Buy a block of basic student like flats. Offer that to MPs to use whilst they're in London. Stick a canteen at the bottom. Job done.
I know you’re being facetious, but I would actually do something like this
But make them big, luxury flats owned by the state in a nice part of Westminster. So the state ultimately gets the capital value of the investment - but the MPs get free accommodation in a very agreeable part of town
It would be a decent perk of the job. All MPs would be equal. No one would be forced to live there but if they decide not to, they won’t get any expenses for somewhere else
Simple.
There was a block of flats at the bottom of Waterloo bridge (Stamford street?) they looked at and passed on. Imperial turned it into student accommodation.
Your proposal seems reasonable. I’d make them 2 bedroom flats (no need to be mean). If MPs want to bring their families to London they can rent a hotel like everyone else.
Yes, no need to scrimp. The taxpayer will benefit as the state will get the capital gain from the property. Spacious 2 bed flats.
Takes away all the hassle of renting in London. You can move in immediately. Day one of Parliament. Don’t like it, fine, don’t live there but you won’t get money for anywhere else
A nice little perk of the job, but impossible to abuse the system. Sorted
Don’t MEPs have something like this? Official apartments owned by the EU? Or maybe they just sleep in their offices. They are known for their selflessness
No.
They just get ~10k Euro per month in their Daily Allowance, which covers accommodation and related costs.
Paid tax-free into their personal bank account, and from which they pay their staff and expenses.
None of this having to actually account for the spending stuff.
When the UK MPs expense scandal happened, the European Parliament reacted quickly, decisively and nearly unanimously.
They made their expenses a specially protected secret, with severe penalties for leaking them.
Yes. There was an investigation for German TV which showed dozens of MEPs turning up on Friday morning at the singing-in office (to qualify for teh daily 300 Euro or whatever allowance) with their suitcases ready to go straight to their travel arrangements.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
You can support the experts all you like.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
Well technically we don't need to treat you today so please leave and book another appointment.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
So Boris is setting a positive example for people?
Like Gorbachev, he was an unusual cases of someone who grew up in an unsustainable system, would have liked to see it continue with modifications, but ultimately agreed to wind it up rather than unleash force to try to keep it going. We owe a lot to people like that.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
I think we are seeing a great example / test of the principle that if you tell people something enough times over a significantly long period of time they will believe it regardless of the reality.
Just been to see a primary school for our eldest. Masks required (we and the person showing us round the only people wearing them, not the teachers or kids, at least). The person showing us round mentioned that cases were going up - I let that slide. Then proceeded to go through a big list of things that the school isn't doing at the moment with the kids due to Covid - it is bringing back bubbles, no assemblies, limited indoor play/PE, classes no allowed to mix. Fair to say it won't be top of our list!
You have a choice ?
I have just looked on the postcode checker (For potential future reference), and there's a grand total of 1 primary in my catchment area
We could save a lot of carbon footprint by eliminating parental choice and sending kids to their nearest school rather than driving them across town. The net result is the same number of schools teaching the same number of pupils.
And increasing selection by house price.
Had quite an argument with one of my children over the education of his children. Why, Mrs C & I wanted to know, wasn't he sending them to the school at the bottom of the road. Poor Ofsted report was his answer. So he and his wife had to drive about 5 miles to the one with the 'good Ofsted'. By the time the grandchildren left the situation was reversed.
That was quite a few years ago now. All the grandchildren's friends live some distance away.
Don't get me wrong, I convinced my sister to send her kids to the school literally across the road from her house. Her eldest had been at nursery at a school a mile away and she wasn't sure it was a good idea to split her from her friends. But I told her that she would be fine and she has been. Most primary/junior schools are much of a muchness (though, Salebian's experience is interesting, and it would certainly put me off).
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
An observation I made back in my borough council days was that the way places are allocated using the parental preference system isn't very sophisticated (a subject sure to interest any electoral aficionado for whom PB is your asylum). As far as I can see it simply allocated based on first choice and other relevant criteria until each school was full, then those that hadn't made their first choice got sent to whichever schools still had places, pretty much regardless of preference or geography. Hence we had a minority of parents extremely unhappy at getting a place at one of their very low preference schools and/or that was miles from home.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
Sadly, I suspect the only way to do it is to have a world in which we have more places than children.
Yes. In an ideal world, schools need to be able to both expand and fail.
The problems come with hard capacity issues such as classroom availability and specialised facilities such as science labs.
Failing schools should be closed and reopened with a new management team. It requires a little more slack in the system than we have at present.
Why would they need to be closed? You can replace the SLT during the summer holidays. Having the school sitting empty for a year or two isn't going to help it to improve.
Yes, you’d be able to do it over the summer in most cases.
Well, off topic but since it is the 11th day of the 11th month I hope I will be forgiven.
Ireland has put together an archive of its war dead. My great-uncle, a doctor, was one of those. I have his medical certificate from the University of Cambridge and his war diary.
He specialised in public health. He was called to an incident and did not have the right saddle for his horse. He fell and the saddle caused a wound which became infected which caused his death.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Plenty of Brits have that mindset. Lock down everything, masks at all times, just a few more decades and it will be over.
We must be glad that the government, for all its many faults, has shown some bravery here
There is hope, for the extremists, however. The anti virals. If they are as good as promised, and they make Covid ten times LESS deadly than flu, then that will be a game changer. Even the most wary should come out of their shells
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
So Boris is setting a positive example for people?
Long since time to drop masks. 👍
outside of a medical setting I would agree with you. Inside a medical setting keeping masks on to reduce the chance of infection should be occurring later due to the fact people there are more likely to be ill with other issues.
And Covid + existing illnesses is going to way worse than covid if you have nothing else wrong with you.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I see there's a tweet up from an NHS hospital doctor: Another patient refusing to wear a mask in our waiting room. This time they got aggressive and it nearly became a physical altercation with one of our receptionists. “Boris doesn’t wear a mask so why should I?” He said
This may have happened. But social media does have form in reporting anecdata which a) suspiciously well fits the reporters own views on the world and b) actually turns out to be a figment of the reporter's imagination.
‘Four Measures That Are Helping Germany Beat COVID
And why we’re failing to do the same things in America’
‘ I have, since returning to Germany about a month ago, been struck by how much more rational, efficient, and pragmatic the country’s handling of the late stages of the coronavirus pandemic has been. While the American response to COVID-19 has barely gone beyond the measures that were first adopted in the spring of 2020, Germany has phased in a series of additional policies over the past 18 months. None of them adds serious disruptions to daily life, and yet they collectively put the country in a much better position to contain the virus.’
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
You can support the experts all you like.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
And thats fine, but again you do understand that your views aren't exactly in line with the majority on this one? I'm not saying you can't have those views, just that you aren't going to find a lot of people with such a black and white perspective on the value of other people's lives vs your personal liberty.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Plenty of Brits have that mindset. Lock down everything, masks at all times, just a few more decades and it will be over.
We must be glad that the government, for all its many faults, has shown some bravery here
There is hope, for the extremists, however. The anti virals. If they are as good as promised, and they make Covid ten times LESS deadly than flu, then that will be a game changer. Even the most wary should come out of their shells
Yes. Those of us a little more cautious know that we aren't likely to completely oust Covid. But we can kill it as a threat as they have with HIV. Lets hope the antivirals kick its arse.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Italy has more problems than even this. They have stopped wanting children, many Italians with a bit of enterprise want to live somewhere else or already do - many adorning the UK with their talents, and they don't want to make up the missing numbers with enterprising people from elsewhere, unlike the UK where 29% of births are to foreign born mothers (what a racist bunch we must be BTW).
This is the stuff on tragedy and nightmares for the world's most amazing culture.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
You can support the experts all you like.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
And thats fine, but again you do understand that your views aren't exactly in line with the majority on this one? I'm not saying you can't have those views, just that you aren't going to find a lot of people with such a black and white perspective on the value of other people's lives vs your personal liberty.
Even those with unpopular views should still articulate them and argue for them if they hold them, that's the only way to get change.
Besides, I think my views are probably more in line with most people than you realise, even if others aren't willing to be as frank, honest and articulate them.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of people are choosing not to wear masks when its a case of personal choice should help demonstrate that.
A source close to the AFPS trip has labelled Ben Wallace's comments 'political game playing' and told me two Conservative MPs were out on the lash in Gibraltar until the early hours and then "turned up hungover to official events".
There are now at least three quite distinct issues, and if they can be made a collective one by confusion could touch all parties a lot. So the strategy is important.
1) There is cash for political influence - anything between brown envelopes and the subtleties of the old boy network
2) There is second jobs - anything from Labour chappies doing a shift at boilermaking to QCs in agreeable bits of the old empire.
3) There is the general expenses/property on the tax payer/owning rental property and renting another at our expense/claims for £1 for milk.
The other parties will want to keep it to (1) if they can. The government will want either the whole thing to go away or 'conflate' (word of the week) all three so that all parties are equally seen as sub optimal.
IMHO a QC making millions in whatever lawful way is only a matter for his local party and his electors.
But the same person claiming a few quid for a doughnut, or doing something that looks like (lawfully) maximising property income via the expenses system may well find that it is those things that people find less acceptable. And I suspect this will be a cross party problem.
Good points but I think the days when Labour MPs knew how to make boilers ended about 25 years ago. Dennis Skinner was the last of the breed of genuine working class Labour MPs who had been in the mines or the factories and he lost his seat in 2019.
Now you might be able to find Labour MPs who can lecture in Marxist gender studies or advise on human rights or trade union law, I doubt you can find many who could change a lightbulb let alone do a shift at boilermaking
Funny and not entirely unfair. I can change a lightbulb, but that's about as far as it goes...
It's changed even in the time since you left, no doubt.
A source close to the AFPS trip has labelled Ben Wallace's comments 'political game playing' and told me two Conservative MPs were out on the lash in Gibraltar until the early hours and then "turned up hungover to official events".
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
You can support the experts all you like.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
And thats fine, but again you do understand that your views aren't exactly in line with the majority on this one? I'm not saying you can't have those views, just that you aren't going to find a lot of people with such a black and white perspective on the value of other people's lives vs your personal liberty.
Even those with unpopular views should still articulate them and argue for them if they hold them, that's the only way to get change.
Besides, I think my views are probably more in line with most people than you realise, even if others aren't willing to be as frank, honest and articulate them.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of people are choosing not to wear masks when its a case of personal choice should help demonstrate that.
Sure, you have the right to express yourself! But I am not talking about your attitude to masks, more to "fuck the NHS" and "people die, so what" etc etc
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
A source close to the AFPS trip has labelled Ben Wallace's comments 'political game playing' and told me two Conservative MPs were out on the lash in Gibraltar until the early hours and then "turned up hungover to official events".
Big G will be distraught at such disrespect shown to the glorious dead.
I'm absolutely surprised he hasn't already posted it.
Plus yesterday he was on about not prejudging people before the allegations have been proven and today he has found the SNP and Lab MPs guilty in the court of Big G.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Some real chutzpah here from the Home Secretary blaming “last minute legal claims” - in the cases I was involved in removals were cancelled due to a Covid outbreak at Colnbrook on prompted by the Home Office not following its own Covid safety policy
I suspect it will be true of all Corbynite labour candidates that were parachuted into seats.
And I'm sure that Ms Sultana's habit of speaking out against the party leadership and causing controversy, such as when she was pictured with anti-police banners at a rally recently, really hasn't helped.
My guess is that politics is just an excuse and the offence was being parachuted in, thus frustrating the locals who wanted their candidate (or themselves) to be selected. Round here, one of the local Labour MPs is similarly said to be under threat after a 2019 "stitch-up" yet is tame enough to be on Starmer's front bench.
In summary Boris and his team were briefed about masks, decided to ignore the hospital management and put them in the impossible situation of how do you manage a PM in clear breach of his own guidance putting staff and patients in danger?
We have also forgotten already that just a few days earlier he was “at it” at COP, sitting next to Attenborough.
He’s got form in not giving a shit about anyone but himself.
As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
Standing out as being arrogant, narcissistic and self-centred *at Eton* should have been a tell, for sure.
Most etonians are none of those
While outsiders sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, I'm not sure if Etonians are the best judge of how Etonians may come across.
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
What really annoys me are people who are having excitingly busy social lives, making up for lost time, then coming onto social media and fear-mongering about how reckless Johnson is for not mandating masks, and that fear-mongering making other people feel too scared to go out and socialise at all.
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
You can support the experts all you like.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
And thats fine, but again you do understand that your views aren't exactly in line with the majority on this one? I'm not saying you can't have those views, just that you aren't going to find a lot of people with such a black and white perspective on the value of other people's lives vs your personal liberty.
Even those with unpopular views should still articulate them and argue for them if they hold them, that's the only way to get change.
Besides, I think my views are probably more in line with most people than you realise, even if others aren't willing to be as frank, honest and articulate them.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of people are choosing not to wear masks when its a case of personal choice should help demonstrate that.
Sure, you have the right to express yourself! But I am not talking about your attitude to masks, more to "fuck the NHS" and "people die, so what" etc etc
I never said fuck the NHS though, those were your words.
I said we've sacrificed years to save the NHS, given it billions, rolled out vaccines etc - eventually a point has to come where enough is enough.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Italy has more problems than even this. They have stopped wanting children, many Italians with a bit of enterprise want to live somewhere else or already do - many adorning the UK with their talents, and they don't want to make up the missing numbers with enterprising people from elsewhere, unlike the UK where 29% of births are to foreign born mothers (what a racist bunch we must be BTW).
This is the stuff on tragedy and nightmares for the world's most amazing culture.
Hang on. Hasn't Italy had emigration and low birth rates for over a century? Mussolini certainly had a campaign on the latter.
Some real chutzpah here from the Home Secretary blaming “last minute legal claims” - in the cases I was involved in removals were cancelled due to a Covid outbreak at Colnbrook on prompted by the Home Office not following its own Covid safety policy
Some real chutzpah here from the Home Secretary blaming “last minute legal claims” - in the cases I was involved in removals were cancelled due to a Covid outbreak at Colnbrook on prompted by the Home Office not following its own Covid safety policy
Some real chutzpah here from the Home Secretary blaming “last minute legal claims” - in the cases I was involved in removals were cancelled due to a Covid outbreak at Colnbrook on prompted by the Home Office not following its own Covid safety policy
As far as I can tell there are two measures, with different methodologies.
On a quarterly basis, U.K. is the clear laggard of the G7; on a monthly basis there’s not much separating us from France and Germany.
The figures are construed as disappointing, however, and the pound has fallen on the news.
Analysts seem divided on whether we should expect a great Q4 or a sluggish one.
It's to do with where the quarterly measure starts I think. The monthly measure compares to Feb 2020 and the quarterly one compares to December 2019.
On Q4, the data is coming in pretty hot, the October indices were much stronger than expected and the real time data for November is a continuation of that with some sings of a pick up in activity. One of the key drivers has been the government standing firm on plan b and lockdown measures. Businesses seem more confident investing this month than they did in September.
The big question mark is still the whole plan b saga, the government needs to stand really firm on it and tell the forever lockdowners to get fucked.
And when the main advocate of Plan B remains Whitty / Taylor et al looking at pants-shitting NHS data? We don't need it now. We might do in a few weeks unless we see a sustained drop on all metrics.
Nobody sane wants more lockdown or masks. But the people saying that we should ignore the scientists and the NHS managers with their real world data because their personal clicky research / ideology disagrees can, how did you put it, "get fucked".
Seriously though, what pants-shitting NHS data?
Are we supposed to squash the sombrero for ever?
I don't think we are there yet, but they already have some hospitals beyond overflowing. Remember that Covid and cuts have utterly shagged the system so that everything is backlogged.
The way they set it out was that if we had another surge the NHS would be swamped. Whilst we have seen some encouraging data in the last week it needs to be sustained. If we swing back the other way (and the daily count already has) then we could be in trouble.
That is all they are planning for. Its their jobs. Not sure why planning by NHS managers based on science and live data to avoid massive problems warrants the "get fucked" approach from pray the pox away types. We all want it to be over. Its certainly better than it was. But clearly not over.
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
1. The pox is humour. The pox. The lurgy. The global pandemic. Lets be British and make light of seriously bad things. Its what we do. 2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask. 3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
Nope. Wrong, yet again.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
Read what I posted. "the police pinning you down to inject you OR a "your papers please" society". Vaxports are not forced injections which is why I gave an either / or example of both forced vaccinations and vaxports.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
I'm OK with the current situation where nobody is telling us we have to wear a mask.
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
I am not calling for a change though - I am supporting the experts (which isn't you or me) over the keyboard warriors that we *might* need a change. You aren't the man in the street on this subject so you will never agree with the majority.
You can support the experts all you like.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
And thats fine, but again you do understand that your views aren't exactly in line with the majority on this one? I'm not saying you can't have those views, just that you aren't going to find a lot of people with such a black and white perspective on the value of other people's lives vs your personal liberty.
Even those with unpopular views should still articulate them and argue for them if they hold them, that's the only way to get change.
Besides, I think my views are probably more in line with most people than you realise, even if others aren't willing to be as frank, honest and articulate them.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of people are choosing not to wear masks when its a case of personal choice should help demonstrate that.
Sure, you have the right to express yourself! But I am not talking about your attitude to masks, more to "fuck the NHS" and "people die, so what" etc etc
I never said fuck the NHS though, those were your words.
I said we've sacrificed years to save the NHS, given it billions, rolled out vaccines etc - eventually a point has to come where enough is enough.
Your exact line was "No, anyone who wants to send us back into lockdown restrictions needs to get fucked."
As one of the leading advocates for plan B - what you were reacting to - is the CEO of the NHS Confederation then I assume he - and therefore the NHS - are on your "get fucked" list.
Had a nice chat for, err, brunch I guess with one of my colleagues. She's Italian from Italy and she's booking her flight back to Italy for Xmas so the subject of how shit it is in Italy came up. More than anything else she's worried that this new "restraint" will become part of the national character and people are forgetting how to have fun and live freely. Everywhere she went last time she had to show her COVID pass, the bars are still socially distanced, the clubs are still closed or have turned into food venues, going to the cinema/theatre/opera means donning a mask for 3h at a time.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
Confucius: Keep the people scared and they will be easy to rule.
A source close to the AFPS trip has labelled Ben Wallace's comments 'political game playing' and told me two Conservative MPs were out on the lash in Gibraltar until the early hours and then "turned up hungover to official events".
Big G will be distraught at such disrespect shown to the glorious dead.
At the throwing up of the lager we will remember them.
No trip to Gibraltar is complete without a visit to the Horsehoe. I just checked TripAdvisor to see if it retains its unique charm. Some food twat was complaining about pubes in his dinner so the answer is yes.
The Cumbrian papers are writing about the additional earnings of Cumbrian MPs. No nasties have emerged and my MP, Trudi Harrison, has no earnings beyond her salary.
A source close to the AFPS trip has labelled Ben Wallace's comments 'political game playing' and told me two Conservative MPs were out on the lash in Gibraltar until the early hours and then "turned up hungover to official events".
Big G will be distraught at such disrespect shown to the glorious dead.
At the throwing up of the lager we will remember them.
No trip to Gibraltar is complete without a visit to the Horsehoe. I just checked TripAdvisor to see if it retains its unique charm. Some food twat was complaining about pubes in his dinner so the answer is yes.
It was closed all weekend when I was there, and I admit I wasn't tempted Monday lunchtime
Comments
I noted you liked Morris' post about antivax passports – and I would agree. They are deeply illiberal.
Yet you would mandate mask-wearing. That's irrational. If you were to mandate anything, surely you would mandate vaccinations, as that would affect far fewer people and have a much smaller imposition on their lives, yet have a far greater impact on limiting the virus.
How do you explain this irrational position?
P.S. A reminder that referring to covid-19 as 'the pox' makes you look childish.
We tend to think that a school needs to be 'good enough'. Decent teachers who are committed; decent discipline, not too many disruptive kids making it hard for everyone else. Beyond that, in the state sector at least, I think it mostly comes down to the child and the parents.
Have to disagree with DJL though - forcing everyone to attend their local primary school is a recipe for coasting schools; schools doing what they want, rather than what their customers want. We're not great at providing a good customer service to parents, but this would be a backward step.
Both sons went to a non-selective secondary school close to our then home and are still in contact with some of those with whom they were at school over 30 years ago.
It comes 18 months after a bad fall, but the injury has had no real impact on my life since then - the surgery is to reduce the chance of having to be rescued again.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/emergency-services-converge-arthurs-seat-18398879.amp
Is this the NHS ploughing through the waiting list at pace? Impressed.
2. A state-ordered medical procedure is not less of an imposition than please wear a mask.
3. Masks reduce the spread of Covid. We want to reduce the spread of Covid, so it is entirely rational. There are other things we could do which would also reduce the spread but those are either egregiously illiberal and frankly dangerous (the police pinning you down to inject you or a "your papers please" society), or they are over the top for the case numbers we now have (a full lockdown). Masks are the balance that most other societies have made.
What I do find odd is how certain people in England keep saying how much of a massive imposition masks are, that they are akin to lockdown. When you live in a nation where we still use masks and are not remotely locked down it is obvious how much of an "irrational position" that you and various other posters take.
I would rather have MPs whose first and only concern about the "London property market" was helping normal people find somewhere affordable to live, not maximising the value of their own property portfolio. I am utterly sick of this bloated rentier class who look on the rest of their fellow citizens as instruments for their own enrichment. What MPs have been getting up to is only the tip of this particular iceberg, but they are the ones who make the rules so the first step is to get their snouts out of the trough. In fact, let's stop talking about the "London property market" altogether and start talking about London's housing crisis.
You're advocating for masks to be mandated by law. That is an imposition.
I also challenge your notion that "we want to reduce the spread of Covid". I don't. Covid will spread, its an endemic part of nature now. Besides people who know they're contagious not deliberately spreading it, we shouldn't be doing anything at all to reduce its spread.
Vaxports are not 'state-ordered medical procedures' are they? You can still refuse the jab, you simply won't be able to enter pubs and the like. Your choice.
Sure, I oppose vaxports, just as I oppose mask mandates in a post-vaccine era. I'm a liberal and both measures are illiberal in the extreme.
Your position, however, is both deeply inconsistent and highly irrational.
How do you explain it?
The problem we have is that so often the failing schools get starved of resources. Instead of seeking to improve them we accept poor education for the poor and instead throw money at the schools doing well. I am not saying don't invest in good schools, but some money has to be found for the struggling ones.
Let people choose schools and other services. When there is significant less disparity between one school and the next the drive to send your kids on lengthy bus rides to have no friends within close reach will drop away. OK I send my son on the bus to a school 9 miles away but (a) that's the closest school and (b) its quite literally on the same road he lives on.
https://unherd.com/2021/11/what-the-poppy-really-means/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=538aba52e2&mc_eid=836634e34b
But I think it's a much bigger issue when it comes to secondary schools. My sister is saying that over her dead body will her kids go to the secondary that we went to (and it's a 10 minute walk away). I'm much less inclined to argue in favour of convenience when the kids get to that age.
By the time they reached Secondary the situation had been entirely reversed. Brand new buildings and much better OFSTED and results. The previous "good" school is falling to bits now and has poor discipline problems.
So you never can tell.
I think the current regime is starting to take a wider view again, but I'm out of the loop now.
There’s little cost to asking people to wear masks on, for example, public transport and other densely-packed places.
There’s a huge cost to businesses, and a loss of privacy for the vaccinated, to ask everyone for documentation whenever they enter certain spaces. Any restriction based on vaccination status, has to be implemented such that it doesn’t affect the vaccinated nor private businesses. Filtering NHS admissions by vaccine status, for example, would be fine.
Obviously I'm not advocating that people go around licking everyone else's faces in an effort to spread it more, but is avoiding the spread of Covid a primary concern?
One problem with masks is the messaging. The message they propagate is that it is a priority to reduce the spread of Covid. And the problem with that message is that the surest way to reduce the spread of Covid is to stay at home and not see anyone, and as you say that isn't necessary. The insistence on wearing masks by force of law scares some people into staying at home.
So the priority now is to restore people's confidence that it is now safe for them to leave their home and to see other people again. That is more important than reducing the spread of Covid. And that's why masks should go.
I was never close enough to it to be able to delve into the matter and offer a more sophisticated solution (and it may well be governed by national rules, anyhow - education was never my field in local government), but I always felt that it should have been possible to reduce the number of extremely unhappy 'losers' from the system by allocating people to the less popular schools who had at least made one their second choice (perhaps because it was near their home if not seen as the 'best' school), who would be a lot less unhappy than filling it up with pupils who really didn't want to go there.
They are also based on a tiny snapshot of time.
All underpinned by the particular ideology of whomever is directing them from Whitehall at any moment.
What's more, the difference between good and outstanding can be marginal to say the least.
Parents really need to read the full reports to come to any conclusions. And few have the time, let alone the critical analysis skills.
You keep asking "how do I explain". Perhaps it is your comprehension that is the issue. As nobody is telling you to wear a mask and you are endlessly commenting on them and people are telling us to wear them and we just get on with this supposed massive imposition, it does feel like it is just you.
The problems come with hard capacity issues such as classroom availability and specialised facilities such as science labs.
Failing schools should be closed and reopened with a new management team. It requires a little more slack in the system than we have at present.
Really it's not an education question - imagine you have five options with twenty 'spaces' each, and a hundred people have each ranked the five options in order of preference. With some other criteria to allow you to resolve situations where thirty people put one option first.
How are you to do the allocation?
You are the one calling for a change and the foolish notion that we should have a mask mandate.
'I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception. one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.'
I could cope with the UK government having a "let it spread" policy if it was clear and rational with the same evidence to support as we've had as their cover. The problem is that it isn't policy at least officially.
As I've said before now that we're all jabbed I'm less worried about Covid itself, its long Covid that seems to be a bit of a lottery. I know quite a number of people who have had the long term effects far more debilitating than the actual virus itself.
-Masks work in some circumstances. But in most circumstances where their advocates want them, the mask dance is entirely performative.
-Even where masks do work, their impact us in most circumstances fairly modest.
-As a general principle, the state should not be telling its citizens what to wear, or to cover their faces. This isn't Iran.
-Wearing masks is not cost free. If masks are required to do an activity, fewer people will choose to do that activity. There will be an economic cost.
-A world in which people wear masks in public is not a terribly pleasant or positive place to be. We lose a lot of our ability to communicate non-verbally. Those of us with poor facial recognition skills lose a lot of our ability to recognise people we know (seriously). We reduce levels of trust. We assist petty criminality.
-It's massively disproportionate to the scale of the problem.
Whereas in something like the IDS case, it is hard to see that he would be paid by the company were he not an MP.
So maybe some sort of "were it not" test is needed. But the real issue then is who judges and enforces that? If the party leaders won't or grant all sorts of exceptions and the voters aren't sufficiently bothered to let it affect their votes we're back where we started: relying on the "let's trust that they're all good chaps" and a bit stuffed if it turns out that some/many of them aren't.
You may think they are illogical, but the cost isn't only one way. See the Wetherspoon's results from yesterday.
What's got her really upset is that the people have meekly surrendered to that lifestyle and they also can't seem to understand that the UK is basically completely out of this. Her family back home have been fed a diet of how awful everything in the UK is, people dying in the streets, society near collapse under the weight of COVID. When she tries to correct them they don't believe her and steadfastly stick to the idea that vaccine passes, social distancing and masks are the only way to beat COVID. She said it's almost like talking to anti-vaxxers about the virtues of the vaccine, they're so irrational about it that it becomes pointless.
At the moment, that doesn't require any restrictions.
I'm not sure what the policy is here in Scotland, except to be different to England. If it's to reduce the spread of Covid they aren't being notably successful.
And I'm sure that Ms Sultana's habit of speaking out against the party leadership and causing controversy, such as when she was pictured with anti-police banners at a rally recently, really hasn't helped.
But even 6 x 10 mins reading, analysis, decision is pretty daunting for many.
So they go off the headline result.
I'm saying the experts need to get back in their box and worry about their own activities, not ours.
Medical "experts" will of course want restrictions, that's not a good enough reason to have one.
Long since time to drop masks. 👍
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/31/nelson-mandela-de-klerk-apartheid
Like Gorbachev, he was an unusual cases of someone who grew up in an unsustainable system, would have liked to see it continue with modifications, but ultimately agreed to wind it up rather than unleash force to try to keep it going. We owe a lot to people like that.
Ireland has put together an archive of its war dead. My great-uncle, a doctor, was one of those. I have his medical certificate from the University of Cambridge and his war diary.
He specialised in public health. He was called to an incident and did not have the right saddle for his horse. He fell and the saddle caused a wound which became infected which caused his death.
This is the entry.
I found it quite moving.
What a waste, though.
PS This is the link to the archive for anyone with Irish relatives - https://irelandsgreatwardead.ie/the-archive/
We must be glad that the government, for all its many faults, has shown some bravery here
There is hope, for the extremists, however. The anti virals. If they are as good as promised, and they make Covid ten times LESS deadly than flu, then that will be a game changer. Even the most wary should come out of their shells
It turned out that this meant evacuating our civilisation of, well, everything
is heavy on rhetoric and short on nuance.
It is not true.
And Covid + existing illnesses is going to way worse than covid if you have nothing else wrong with you.
From just two weeks ago
‘Four Measures That Are Helping Germany Beat COVID
And why we’re failing to do the same things in America’
‘ I have, since returning to Germany about a month ago, been struck by how much more rational, efficient, and pragmatic the country’s handling of the late stages of the coronavirus pandemic has been. While the American response to COVID-19 has barely gone beyond the measures that were first adopted in the spring of 2020, Germany has phased in a series of additional policies over the past 18 months. None of them adds serious disruptions to daily life, and yet they collectively put the country in a much better position to contain the virus.’
*bleak laughter*
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/four-measures-are-helping-germany-beat-covid-19/620466/
This is the stuff on tragedy and nightmares for the world's most amazing culture.
Besides, I think my views are probably more in line with most people than you realise, even if others aren't willing to be as frank, honest and articulate them.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of people are choosing not to wear masks when its a case of personal choice should help demonstrate that.
A source close to the AFPS trip has labelled Ben Wallace's comments 'political game playing' and told me two Conservative MPs were out on the lash in Gibraltar until the early hours and then "turned up hungover to official events".
https://twitter.com/AlexofBrown/status/1458779130313461766
Plus yesterday he was on about not prejudging people before the allegations have been proven and today he has found the SNP and Lab MPs guilty in the court of Big G.
Some real chutzpah here from the Home Secretary blaming “last minute legal claims” - in the cases I was involved in removals were cancelled due to a Covid outbreak at Colnbrook on prompted by the Home Office not following its own Covid safety policy
https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1458773223819165697
Most won't be, but are they still a greater proportion than the average?
Yesterday was 14 years since I first met my wife (outside a McDonald's in Brixton, naturally). Two years ago we were able to go out to celebrate. Last year, obviously, we celebrated at home. This year, we're fully vaccinated, but my wife still feels it's too risky to go out.
How can you argue against irrational fear when all the people she might trust a bit are telling her that the people she doesn't trust at all are being reckless and dangerous?
I'm becoming quite frustrated, so it's clearly time to step away for a bit.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10178705/Horny-Britons-cost-NHS-350-000-year-shoving-foreign-objects-rectums.html
I said we've sacrificed years to save the NHS, given it billions, rolled out vaccines etc - eventually a point has to come where enough is enough.
Mussolini certainly had a campaign on the latter.
The whole government and Parliament had broken down with everyone following their own agenda, it seems strange to worry about just Patel doing that.
As one of the leading advocates for plan B - what you were reacting to - is the CEO of the NHS Confederation then I assume he - and therefore the NHS - are on your "get fucked" list.
No trip to Gibraltar is complete without a visit to the Horsehoe. I just checked TripAdvisor to see if it retains its unique charm. Some food twat was complaining about pubes in his dinner so the answer is yes.