If my parents end up in a care home I assumed they’d sell the house to pay for it. Who do people suppose is going to otherwise?
When I were a lad there was a hospital for gentlefolk across the road from that hole - closed by Labour and sold by the Tories for housing. Plenty of other local hospitals were dealt the same hand. They should have been kept open and eased the looming dementia crisis
Yes. Quite.
People who suppose otherwise see the family home as different from other assets. And bridle at the thought that non-homeowners have their care paid for.
Couldn’t people rent out their home when they go into care and use the income as a contribution to the care home rent?
Masks in theatres? Eh? We went to the West End the other weekend and almost nobody was wearing a mask in the theatre, and the theatre didn't even request it.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
Have to scoot now - that's enough yellow on yellow action. Though your yellow is tinged towards the orange and mine tinged towards the purple.
And Yusef in Hartlepool pays £14k on those numbers because, under the new system, £20k is protected, whilst the richer Yusef in Hastings pays £86k. It takes some pretty tangential thinking to conclude that this "slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners". It really doesn't, quite the reverse in fact.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
If my parents end up in a care home I assumed they’d sell the house to pay for it. Who do people suppose is going to otherwise?
When I were a lad there was a hospital for gentlefolk across the road from that hole - closed by Labour and sold by the Tories for housing. Plenty of other local hospitals were dealt the same hand. They should have been kept open and eased the looming dementia crisis
Yes. Quite.
People who suppose otherwise see the family home as different from other assets. And bridle at the thought that non-homeowners have their care paid for.
Couldn’t people rent out their home when they go into care and use the income as a contribution to the care home rent?
Not many homes are going to bring in enough cash. Also often won't be particularly rentable.
If my parents end up in a care home I assumed they’d sell the house to pay for it. Who do people suppose is going to otherwise?
When I were a lad there was a hospital for gentlefolk across the road from that hole - closed by Labour and sold by the Tories for housing. Plenty of other local hospitals were dealt the same hand. They should have been kept open and eased the looming dementia crisis
Yes. Quite.
People who suppose otherwise see the family home as different from other assets. And bridle at the thought that non-homeowners have their care paid for.
Couldn’t people rent out their home when they go into care and use the income as a contribution to the care home rent?
Yes. Some do. Go into care, agree a deferred payment plan with the council (which the latter since 2015 has had to offer) and rent house out producing an income. The income must come in to the old person's estate (i.e. can't be sneakily syphoned off to the beneficiaries).
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Austria is planning a system of fines I believe.
For UK it will mostly be hassle going on holiday.
It's more incentivisng (or disincentivising) through the tax system then, rather than forcing people.
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Masks in theatres? Eh? We went to the West End the other weekend and almost nobody was wearing a mask in the theatre, and the theatre didn't even request it.
Indeed, and there is no law or guidance to suggest wearing one is mandatory. My wife and I go to the cinema frequently and don't wear masks, no one does.
If my parents end up in a care home I assumed they’d sell the house to pay for it. Who do people suppose is going to otherwise?
When I were a lad there was a hospital for gentlefolk across the road from that hole - closed by Labour and sold by the Tories for housing. Plenty of other local hospitals were dealt the same hand. They should have been kept open and eased the looming dementia crisis
Because they were promised they wouldn't have to and voted accordingly.
When they read "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it." and believed it are you suggesting they were stupid to do so?
Which is literally Starmer's attack line - you can't believe the PM's promises.
Masks in theatres? Eh? We went to the West End the other weekend and almost nobody was wearing a mask in the theatre, and the theatre didn't even request it.
Didn't you see some sad git outside saying "but masks...but masks..."?
Masks in theatres? Eh? We went to the West End the other weekend and almost nobody was wearing a mask in the theatre, and the theatre didn't even request it.
We went to the theatre a few weeks ago but you had have to have proof of double vaccination or a negative Covid test to get in anyway, so no need for masks
The Labour Party is not a registered political party in Northern Ireland and does not currently contest elections.[2]
Well, I think the point is, that's a decision taken by Labour. They could contest elections if they wanted to. They could be pro-Union if they wanted to.
Personally, I don't see it as bad thing that they are neutral on the subject.
The whole argument arises from the lazy assumption that for anyone in Britain, the default patriotic only position is that NI (and indeed Scotland) ought to be part of the UK. Whether or not its inhabitants desire it. That simply doesn't follow.
No, there is a default assumption that a government of ANY country does not want to see part of the country break off to join another country. This is true of 99.3% of countries, Britain under a future Labour Party might be the only exception
I can see the strict logic in this Labour position, but boy the optics are bad, and it is an easy stick with which to batter them senseless - "they don't care if the UK breaks up" will be a statement of fact. Impossible to refute. Awful for a left-wing party already suspected of being non-patriotic if not treacherous
But hasn't that been the Labour Party approach for the best part of a century though: NI as part of the union so long as the majority desires it, but in parallel gently persuade them that a united Ireland is ultimately in everyone's best interest?
Yes, hence why I said "I can see the strict logic", but after the traumatic experience of Corbyn, when Labour got destroyed by the perception of anti-patriotism, pro-IRA, anti-British Marxist bullshit, they should now run a mile from anything that remotely suggests a repeat of this
They didn't have to make this statement, and they should not have done so. Far better to stay quiet. But if they do feel a need to take a position, it should have been something like "as a future UK government, we will always want the UK to stay together, for the benefit of all; however we recognise the GFA and we will not interfere with the choice made by the people of Northern Ireland, it is for them to decide"
That's basically saying the same thing but avoiding the dread word "neutral". As a government you can not and must not be "neutral" on the break up of the country.
Harry Cole is right. This will probably come back to bite them on the arse, very badly.
Just goes to show what a genius Boris is.
Lab has some namby-pamby sympathy for Irish Republicans: the Party is lambasted for it; the Conservative government puts a border in the Irish Sea, thereby setting in motion a path to Irish reunification: trebles all round.
There won't be a Border poll for decades (if ever). The gentlemen of violence, on both sides, will see to that
As soon as it looks like one might be imminent, there will be bombs, and everyone will go off the idea. Even (especially?) the Irish in the south
Were I an Irish Republican sympathiser I would be very happy with the current state of play in GB treating NI as a separate entity. Very happy indeed. And my AK can stay in its hide all the while.
Likewise, if I was a super intelligent unionist (which I am) I would realise that ultimately NI will be in a peachy position, unlike anywhere else - part of the UK Single Market, part of the EU Single Market, blessed with Free Movement in the EU but also part of the UK, the NHS, and so on.
Companies will move to Northern Ireland to take advantage of this, especially as Corporation Tax rises in the south, as it must
Indeed, it is already happening, you just didn't notice
Ardagh’s investment in Belfast factory seen as vote of confidence in region’s protocol"
"A total of 170 jobs are to be created in Northern Ireland by one of the world’s biggest packaging companies, the latest business seeking to exploit the region’s “best of both worlds” post-Brexit trading status.
Ardagh Metal Packaging on Friday announced plans to build a $200m beverage can plant near Belfast, from which drinks will be exported both to Britain and EU markets."
I hereby predict the Norns will want to keep their special status. Indeed I predicted all this about a year ago, and I am right
I remember a super intelligent unionist predicting Sturgeon would be toast, the SNP not the largest party at Holyrood and pretty much every twist and turn of UK & geo politics of the last 10 years being really bad for Scottish Indy. How blessed we are to have access to such genius.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
I'm arguing that when the pledge is "you won't need to sell your home" and the PM tells the commons today that "you won't need to sell your home" that northerners finding out that they DO need to sell their home will not be a vote winner. Especially when the same won't be true of people with more assets.
It's got nothing to do with Northerners! the same can be said of a poor person in Hastings vs a rich person in Hastings.
Whilst that is true, there are far more well off people with bigger assets in the south than in the north. Which is how it will play out on the doorstep - how the south always doing better off the back of the north is already playing out on the doorstep, hence the need for "levelling up".
That working class northerners will be paying record taxes including one explicitly to pay for something they are now not going to get will not be popular. No matter how many times some of you try and suggest that it will.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
You mean the average Epping Tory. The Tory voter in Hartlepool will beg to differ.
It’s more or less the basis of my thinking on the Con Maj bet - it’s handy did the opposition to be able to scrutinise the govt and expose weaknesses in mid term, but come GE time they have to sell their positive vision of the future with Sir Keir as the salesman. Labour’s Achilles heel is they always sound like they’re moaning, hence only Blair has been any good at winning elections.
Boris can say he got Brexit done whilst Sir Keir wanted to put us through another referendum, he got the vaccines done whist Sir Keir was trying to tie us to the EmA, and set us free when Sir Keir wanted to lock us down - three big things that will go down in history to boast about vs minor quibbles over policy from Labour that no one really notices
Hedgehogs vs Foxes I think
Spot on. People say the Govt is a shambles. Let's take a look at the big picture and not the weeds: Why would you vote for the Conservatives?
1. Society heading back to normal vs the rest of Europe, which is facing increasing chaos;
2. Furlough scheme implemented, which stopped mass unemployment;
3. Vaccine rollout success when the UK was being pelted with brickbats;
4. Brexit done and not the catastrophe predicted;
5. For most people, the economy is doing quite well.
If 6 was correct there would not have been Brexit or a Tory win to deliver Brexit. For so many people the economy is broken and has been for a long time.
Yes its going rather well for me and mine. But I'm very very privileged in that I have a soft job that pays very very well. Loads of people can barely keep the roof over their heads no matter how hard they work.
The Labour Party is not a registered political party in Northern Ireland and does not currently contest elections.[2]
Well, I think the point is, that's a decision taken by Labour. They could contest elections if they wanted to. They could be pro-Union if they wanted to.
Personally, I don't see it as bad thing that they are neutral on the subject.
The whole argument arises from the lazy assumption that for anyone in Britain, the default patriotic only position is that NI (and indeed Scotland) ought to be part of the UK. Whether or not its inhabitants desire it. That simply doesn't follow.
No, there is a default assumption that a government of ANY country does not want to see part of the country break off to join another country. This is true of 99.3% of countries, Britain under a future Labour Party might be the only exception
I can see the strict logic in this Labour position, but boy the optics are bad, and it is an easy stick with which to batter them senseless - "they don't care if the UK breaks up" will be a statement of fact. Impossible to refute. Awful for a left-wing party already suspected of being non-patriotic if not treacherous
But hasn't that been the Labour Party approach for the best part of a century though: NI as part of the union so long as the majority desires it, but in parallel gently persuade them that a united Ireland is ultimately in everyone's best interest?
Yes, hence why I said "I can see the strict logic", but after the traumatic experience of Corbyn, when Labour got destroyed by the perception of anti-patriotism, pro-IRA, anti-British Marxist bullshit, they should now run a mile from anything that remotely suggests a repeat of this
They didn't have to make this statement, and they should not have done so. Far better to stay quiet. But if they do feel a need to take a position, it should have been something like "as a future UK government, we will always want the UK to stay together, for the benefit of all; however we recognise the GFA and we will not interfere with the choice made by the people of Northern Ireland, it is for them to decide"
That's basically saying the same thing but avoiding the dread word "neutral". As a government you can not and must not be "neutral" on the break up of the country.
Harry Cole is right. This will probably come back to bite them on the arse, very badly.
Just goes to show what a genius Boris is.
Lab has some namby-pamby sympathy for Irish Republicans: the Party is lambasted for it; the Conservative government puts a border in the Irish Sea, thereby setting in motion a path to Irish reunification: trebles all round.
There won't be a Border poll for decades (if ever). The gentlemen of violence, on both sides, will see to that
As soon as it looks like one might be imminent, there will be bombs, and everyone will go off the idea. Even (especially?) the Irish in the south
Were I an Irish Republican sympathiser I would be very happy with the current state of play in GB treating NI as a separate entity. Very happy indeed. And my AK can stay in its hide all the while.
Likewise, if I was a super intelligent unionist (which I am) I would realise that ultimately NI will be in a peachy position, unlike anywhere else - part of the UK Single Market, part of the EU Single Market, blessed with Free Movement in the EU but also part of the UK, the NHS, and so on.
Companies will move to Northern Ireland to take advantage of this, especially as Corporation Tax rises in the south, as it must
Indeed, it is already happening, you just didn't notice
Ardagh’s investment in Belfast factory seen as vote of confidence in region’s protocol"
"A total of 170 jobs are to be created in Northern Ireland by one of the world’s biggest packaging companies, the latest business seeking to exploit the region’s “best of both worlds” post-Brexit trading status.
Ardagh Metal Packaging on Friday announced plans to build a $200m beverage can plant near Belfast, from which drinks will be exported both to Britain and EU markets."
I hereby predict the Norns will want to keep their special status. Indeed I predicted all this about a year ago, and I am right
I remember a super intelligent unionist predicting Sturgeon would be toast, the SNP not the largest party at Holyrood and pretty much every twist and turn of UK & geo politics of the last 10 years being really bad for Scottish Indy. How blessed we are to have access to such genius.
Leon and I correctly predicted the SNP would not get a majority in May, not sure you did however
If my parents end up in a care home I assumed they’d sell the house to pay for it. Who do people suppose is going to otherwise?
When I were a lad there was a hospital for gentlefolk across the road from that hole - closed by Labour and sold by the Tories for housing. Plenty of other local hospitals were dealt the same hand. They should have been kept open and eased the looming dementia crisis
Because they were promised they wouldn't have to and voted accordingly.
When they read "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it." and believed it are you suggesting they were stupid to do so?
Which is literally Starmer's attack line - you can't believe the PM's promises.
Who did they think was going to pay for them to live in a care home?! Seems crazy to me that people think their home is some kind of untouchable source of wealth, even when they need the money.
Anyone who backs IHT but gets the ump over paying for care with their equity must be crackers already
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
You mean the average Epping Tory. The Tory voter in Hartlepool will beg to differ.
The average Tory voter is a home owner in the South
It’s more or less the basis of my thinking on the Con Maj bet - it’s handy did the opposition to be able to scrutinise the govt and expose weaknesses in mid term, but come GE time they have to sell their positive vision of the future with Sir Keir as the salesman. Labour’s Achilles heel is they always sound like they’re moaning, hence only Blair has been any good at winning elections.
Boris can say he got Brexit done whilst Sir Keir wanted to put us through another referendum, he got the vaccines done whist Sir Keir was trying to tie us to the EmA, and set us free when Sir Keir wanted to lock us down - three big things that will go down in history to boast about vs minor quibbles over policy from Labour that no one really notices
Hedgehogs vs Foxes I think
Spot on. People say the Govt is a shambles. Let's take a look at the big picture and not the weeds: Why would you vote for the Conservatives?
1. Society heading back to normal vs the rest of Europe, which is facing increasing chaos;
2. Furlough scheme implemented, which stopped mass unemployment;
3. Vaccine rollout success when the UK was being pelted with brickbats;
4. Brexit done and not the catastrophe predicted;
5. For most people, the economy is doing quite well.
If 6 was correct there would not have been Brexit or a Tory win to deliver Brexit. For so many people the economy is broken and has been for a long time.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I sense some disinterest in your support for the North!
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Patients in State Hospitals are routinely given medication to which they have not consented. In the distant past I did some cases about it.
Indeed, I vividly recall one patient who came to visit me when I worked in Fife. He explained that he wanted to go to court to prevent the doctors from forcibly giving him medication which had seriously unpleasant side effects. "And what happened when you weren't on the medication?" I somewhat innocently asked. To which the answer was, "well, I murdered my mother. The TV told me to do it."
I recall that we came to the conclusion that even although the medication was unpleasant ,it was appropriate.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
This is the singular most politically stupid thing you have said since the last one. A significant number of Tory voters already see a lot of their money going to the tax man and very little of it coming in return to their area.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
You mean the average Epping Tory. The Tory voter in Hartlepool will beg to differ.
The average Tory voter is a home owner in the South
You mean the modal Tory voter. The median Tory voter is a part-share home owner somewhere like Banbury.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
It’s more or less the basis of my thinking on the Con Maj bet - it’s handy did the opposition to be able to scrutinise the govt and expose weaknesses in mid term, but come GE time they have to sell their positive vision of the future with Sir Keir as the salesman. Labour’s Achilles heel is they always sound like they’re moaning, hence only Blair has been any good at winning elections.
Boris can say he got Brexit done whilst Sir Keir wanted to put us through another referendum, he got the vaccines done whist Sir Keir was trying to tie us to the EmA, and set us free when Sir Keir wanted to lock us down - three big things that will go down in history to boast about vs minor quibbles over policy from Labour that no one really notices
Hedgehogs vs Foxes I think
Spot on. People say the Govt is a shambles. Let's take a look at the big picture and not the weeds: Why would you vote for the Conservatives?
1. Society heading back to normal vs the rest of Europe, which is facing increasing chaos;
2. Furlough scheme implemented, which stopped mass unemployment;
3. Vaccine rollout success when the UK was being pelted with brickbats;
4. Brexit done and not the catastrophe predicted;
5. For most people, the economy is doing quite well.
If 6 was correct there would not have been Brexit or a Tory win to deliver Brexit. For so many people the economy is broken and has been for a long time.
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
If my parents end up in a care home I assumed they’d sell the house to pay for it. Who do people suppose is going to otherwise?
When I were a lad there was a hospital for gentlefolk across the road from that hole - closed by Labour and sold by the Tories for housing. Plenty of other local hospitals were dealt the same hand. They should have been kept open and eased the looming dementia crisis
Because they were promised they wouldn't have to and voted accordingly.
When they read "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it." and believed it are you suggesting they were stupid to do so?
Which is literally Starmer's attack line - you can't believe the PM's promises.
Who did they think was going to pay for them to live in a care home?! Seems crazy to me that people think their home is some kind of untouchable source of wealth, even when they need the money.
Anyone who backs IHT but gets the ump over paying for care with their equity must be crackers already
But that was literally the government manifesto pledge. Complete with "I've got a plan to fix social care" which Boris teased us with for 2 years.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
I think that's great as it goes but can be dangerous as I know from the experience of a friend.
Some might say "it gets him off of here" - but not me - i'd never say that PT. Or even mention it.
It’s more or less the basis of my thinking on the Con Maj bet - it’s handy did the opposition to be able to scrutinise the govt and expose weaknesses in mid term, but come GE time they have to sell their positive vision of the future with Sir Keir as the salesman. Labour’s Achilles heel is they always sound like they’re moaning, hence only Blair has been any good at winning elections.
Boris can say he got Brexit done whilst Sir Keir wanted to put us through another referendum, he got the vaccines done whist Sir Keir was trying to tie us to the EmA, and set us free when Sir Keir wanted to lock us down - three big things that will go down in history to boast about vs minor quibbles over policy from Labour that no one really notices
Hedgehogs vs Foxes I think
Spot on. People say the Govt is a shambles. Let's take a look at the big picture and not the weeds: Why would you vote for the Conservatives?
1. Society heading back to normal vs the rest of Europe, which is facing increasing chaos;
2. Furlough scheme implemented, which stopped mass unemployment;
3. Vaccine rollout success when the UK was being pelted with brickbats;
4. Brexit done and not the catastrophe predicted;
5. For most people, the economy is doing quite well.
If 6 was correct there would not have been Brexit or a Tory win to deliver Brexit. For so many people the economy is broken and has been for a long time.
Yes its going rather well for me and mine. But I'm very very privileged in that I have a soft job that pays very very well. Loads of people can barely keep the roof over their heads no matter how hard they work.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
You mean the average Epping Tory. The Tory voter in Hartlepool will beg to differ.
The average Tory voter is a home owner in the South
Yep. Spot on. They'll always win out in any battle for funding or influence. Particularly as the super wealthy Tory donors who keep the troughs full are more likely to be from Irkutsk than Leigh.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
You mean the average Epping Tory. The Tory voter in Hartlepool will beg to differ.
The average Tory voter is a home owner in the South
A lot of home-owners in the South are absolutely flabbergasted by the antics and the incompetence and corruption of this so-called Conservative government. This is not how Conservatives used to be.
I think you need to do some catching up, young HY.
I’m increasingly of the view that the current care settlement is fairer than any of the proposed changes. It’s simply immoral to expect young assetless workers to pay extra taxes to fund the social care of people with assets, so they can pass on an inheritance.
The Labour Party is not a registered political party in Northern Ireland and does not currently contest elections.[2]
Well, I think the point is, that's a decision taken by Labour. They could contest elections if they wanted to. They could be pro-Union if they wanted to.
Personally, I don't see it as bad thing that they are neutral on the subject.
The whole argument arises from the lazy assumption that for anyone in Britain, the default patriotic only position is that NI (and indeed Scotland) ought to be part of the UK. Whether or not its inhabitants desire it. That simply doesn't follow.
No, there is a default assumption that a government of ANY country does not want to see part of the country break off to join another country. This is true of 99.3% of countries, Britain under a future Labour Party might be the only exception
I can see the strict logic in this Labour position, but boy the optics are bad, and it is an easy stick with which to batter them senseless - "they don't care if the UK breaks up" will be a statement of fact. Impossible to refute. Awful for a left-wing party already suspected of being non-patriotic if not treacherous
But hasn't that been the Labour Party approach for the best part of a century though: NI as part of the union so long as the majority desires it, but in parallel gently persuade them that a united Ireland is ultimately in everyone's best interest?
Yes, hence why I said "I can see the strict logic", but after the traumatic experience of Corbyn, when Labour got destroyed by the perception of anti-patriotism, pro-IRA, anti-British Marxist bullshit, they should now run a mile from anything that remotely suggests a repeat of this
They didn't have to make this statement, and they should not have done so. Far better to stay quiet. But if they do feel a need to take a position, it should have been something like "as a future UK government, we will always want the UK to stay together, for the benefit of all; however we recognise the GFA and we will not interfere with the choice made by the people of Northern Ireland, it is for them to decide"
That's basically saying the same thing but avoiding the dread word "neutral". As a government you can not and must not be "neutral" on the break up of the country.
Harry Cole is right. This will probably come back to bite them on the arse, very badly.
Just goes to show what a genius Boris is.
Lab has some namby-pamby sympathy for Irish Republicans: the Party is lambasted for it; the Conservative government puts a border in the Irish Sea, thereby setting in motion a path to Irish reunification: trebles all round.
There won't be a Border poll for decades (if ever). The gentlemen of violence, on both sides, will see to that
As soon as it looks like one might be imminent, there will be bombs, and everyone will go off the idea. Even (especially?) the Irish in the south
Were I an Irish Republican sympathiser I would be very happy with the current state of play in GB treating NI as a separate entity. Very happy indeed. And my AK can stay in its hide all the while.
Likewise, if I was a super intelligent unionist (which I am) I would realise that ultimately NI will be in a peachy position, unlike anywhere else - part of the UK Single Market, part of the EU Single Market, blessed with Free Movement in the EU but also part of the UK, the NHS, and so on.
Companies will move to Northern Ireland to take advantage of this, especially as Corporation Tax rises in the south, as it must
Indeed, it is already happening, you just didn't notice
Ardagh’s investment in Belfast factory seen as vote of confidence in region’s protocol"
"A total of 170 jobs are to be created in Northern Ireland by one of the world’s biggest packaging companies, the latest business seeking to exploit the region’s “best of both worlds” post-Brexit trading status.
Ardagh Metal Packaging on Friday announced plans to build a $200m beverage can plant near Belfast, from which drinks will be exported both to Britain and EU markets."
I hereby predict the Norns will want to keep their special status. Indeed I predicted all this about a year ago, and I am right
I remember a super intelligent unionist predicting Sturgeon would be toast, the SNP not the largest party at Holyrood and pretty much every twist and turn of UK & geo politics of the last 10 years being really bad for Scottish Indy. How blessed we are to have access to such genius.
Leon and I correctly predicted the SNP would not get a majority in May, not sure you did however
Did you? Insofar as I poke around much in the fatberg of repetitive poop you produce on the subject all I can remember is constant bleating about BJ not offering a referendum whatever the result.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Congratulations Philip.
By the way, you have got exactly the right attitude there. See it as capsuled entertainment, and treat it as such. You might even win.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
If my parents end up in a care home I assumed they’d sell the house to pay for it. Who do people suppose is going to otherwise?
When I were a lad there was a hospital for gentlefolk across the road from that hole - closed by Labour and sold by the Tories for housing. Plenty of other local hospitals were dealt the same hand. They should have been kept open and eased the looming dementia crisis
Because they were promised they wouldn't have to and voted accordingly.
When they read "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it." and believed it are you suggesting they were stupid to do so?
Which is literally Starmer's attack line - you can't believe the PM's promises.
Who did they think was going to pay for them to live in a care home?! Seems crazy to me that people think their home is some kind of untouchable source of wealth, even when they need the money.
Anyone who backs IHT but gets the ump over paying for care with their equity must be crackers already
And yet IHT gives heavy financial support to the notion that the family home is in some regard a sacred asset. So [edit] what people have come to ibelieve is not quite as illogical as you feel.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Only bet what you can afford to lose. It's so trite. But always true.
Anyone who wants others to mask up at theatres needs to be told to be told firmly and squarely to f**k off. Its not a legal requirement nor should it be.
I recently went to a packed Empire Theatre in Liverpool and I'd estimate less than 1% of the audience was wearing masks. We didn't bring a mask with us and had no intention of wearing one, nor did almost anyone else.
You don't go to the theatre to wear a f**king mask. Enough with mask theatre. If you're that afraid of Covid stay at home yourself don't inflict masks upon others.
Masks in theatres? Eh? We went to the West End the other weekend and almost nobody was wearing a mask in the theatre, and the theatre didn't even request it.
We went to the theatre a few weeks ago but you had have to have proof of double vaccination or a negative Covid test to get in anyway, so no need for masks
That's true actually – same at the one we visited. Fair point.
France to announce new Covid measures as infections surge France is to announce new Covid measures tomorrow as infections surge across the country.
Spokesman Gabriel Attal said today that the government wants to strengthen social distancing and speed up vaccinations and said they are doing all they can to save the Christmas holiday season.
They also plan to tighten regulations on using the country’s health pass.
Despite this, he said the situation is likely to worsen in the coming days. The incidence rate (infections per week per 100,000 people) is expected to rise above 200 this week
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
The obvious stage between advising vaccination and mandatory vaccination is paying people to have them. Much easier and harder to argue against than taxing or fining people for not having them. £100-200 for each jab, applied retrospectively, perhaps has to be spent in one of the covid impacted industries like hospitality or travel. Good for levelling up too.
I’m increasingly of the view that the current care settlement is fairer than any of the proposed changes. It’s simply immoral to expect young assetless workers to pay extra taxes to fund the social care of people with assets, so they can pass on an inheritance.
Except many, indeed probably most of those 'young assetless workers' will inherit from their parents and grandparents in due course too and have a vested interest therefore in not seeing all the family assets go to the taxman if they need social care
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
I didn't see Max's post as hubristic. It seems beyond question to me that – by a function of pure maths – that opening up in summer was the right thing to do, in terms of managing the virus. We might have another wave in future but that won't make this summer's decision incorrect.
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
Making the unvaccinated pay if they get Covid and need to go to hospital seems like a better plan. Not nice, pretty brutal, no one wants to do it, but it has an essential fairness. It should be tailored to income, of course
You took the risk and endangered others, why should the vaxxed pay AGAIN for your idiocy?
Or shame? Pictues of unvaxxed people everywhere? Be wary of this person or that?
These are all severe and unpleasant measures, but still not as bad or dangerous as mandatory jabs
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
These people have really completely lost the plot. People can choose to be idiots. I don't agree with their choice but that's the bloody point of living in a free country, they have the fucking choice to do it anyway.
As the great philosopher Simon Phoenix said: You can't take away peoples' right to be assholes.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Do you have an edge, or was it mainly luck/variance?
That is the crucial question to ask yourself. Many (most?) punters mistake the two after a big win or heavy loss. Be honest with yourself about whether or not you have an edge.
I don’t play poker so can’t advise further.
Against all my instincts, I started playing slots a few weeks ago and lost a fair chunk of change. I’m really pissed off with myself because I know slots don’t have an edge. Grr. Stupid me. Even if I had won, it would still have been stupid to play.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Well precisely. Many of us have been saying all summer and autumn long that its better to have infections now than to postpone them to the winter.
This virus is clearly very seasonal in the way it spreads, so if you don't let it spread in the summer you're going to have a big problem come winter when flu etc are spreading too.
Mask theatre etc during the summer is bloody stupid. It always was. Allowing the virus to be spreading at a flat rate has quite literally "flattened the sombrero" as someone famous once said and will leave us far better placed for the winter.
I’m increasingly of the view that the current care settlement is fairer than any of the proposed changes. It’s simply immoral to expect young assetless workers to pay extra taxes to fund the social care of people with assets, so they can pass on an inheritance.
Except many, indeed probably most of those 'young assetless workers' will inherit from their parents and grandparents in due course too and have a vested interest therefore in not seeing all the family assets go to the taxman if they need social care
Ha, I wish. Many dont have anything coming, I couldn't speak to most. But significant minority would still be, well, significant.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Yes, but we made the conscious CHOICE to open up early, knowing that this would cause deaths and disease throughout the summer, but we did this because we felt it was better than continuously suppressing the virus, only to have a hideous spike in autumn, forcing us into lockdown again
See Chris Whitty's comments in early summer. He explicitly said this was the government's plan. So far, it seems like a bloody good plan. That wasn't "luck"
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
Making the unvaccinated pay if they get Covid and need to go to hospital seems like a better plan. Not nice, pretty brutal, no one wants to do it, but it has an essential fairness. It should be tailored to income, of course
You took the risk and endangered others, why should the vaxxed pay AGAIN for your idiocy?
Or shame? Pictues of unvaxxed people everywhere? Be wary of this person or that?
These are all severe and unpleasant measures, but still not as bad or dangerous as mandatory jabs
Going via the tax system through income tax is relatively straightforward and would be a progressive levy on refuseniks. If some form of penalty is to be imposed, it should be financial – nothing more.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Do you have an edge, or was it mainly luck/variance?
That is the crucial question to ask yourself. Many (most?) punters mistake the two after a big win or heavy loss. Be honest with yourself about whether or not you have an edge.
I don’t play poker so can’t advise further.
Against all my instincts, I started playing slots a few weeks ago and lost a fair chunk of change. I’m really pissed off with myself because I know slots don’t have an edge. Grr. Stupid me. Even if I had won, it would still have been stupid to play.
It is close to impossible to have an edge in your first online poker tournament, but if you can win that, then you have a reasonable chance of being able to develop an edge if you put the hours in to both playing and learning.
Anyone who wants others to mask up at theatres needs to be told to be told firmly and squarely to f**k off. Its not a legal requirement nor should it be.
I recently went to a packed Empire Theatre in Liverpool and I'd estimate less than 1% of the audience was wearing masks. We didn't bring a mask with us and had no intention of wearing one, nor did almost anyone else.
You don't go to the theatre to wear a f**king mask. Enough with mask theatre. If you're that afraid of Covid stay at home yourself don't inflict masks upon others.
I assume that you support the rights of house management to refuse admission in such circumstances? Its like trying to get into certain nightclubs with trainers on - not going to happen. Their business, their rules.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
There's no hubris, Leon. The data is stacking up, the FT article broke it down pretty well too. A couple of weeks ago I remember saying on here the key difference for the UK will be the 7-9m infections among the unvaccinated cohort from the end of May to the beginning of November (by ONS data). I'm now even more convinced that is the case. There are just too few susceptible people left in the UK barring a completely immunity evading variant.
I’m increasingly of the view that the current care settlement is fairer than any of the proposed changes. It’s simply immoral to expect young assetless workers to pay extra taxes to fund the social care of people with assets, so they can pass on an inheritance.
Except many, indeed probably most of those 'young assetless workers' will inherit from their parents and grandparents in due course too and have a vested interest therefore in not seeing all the family assets go to the taxman if they need social care
Ha, I wish. Many dont have anything coming, I couldn't speak to most. But significant minority would still be, well, significant.
Given well over 2/3 of UK pensioners are home owners then a clear majority of UK adults will inherit from their grandparents or parents
Anyone who wants others to mask up at theatres needs to be told to be told firmly and squarely to f**k off. Its not a legal requirement nor should it be.
I recently went to a packed Empire Theatre in Liverpool and I'd estimate less than 1% of the audience was wearing masks. We didn't bring a mask with us and had no intention of wearing one, nor did almost anyone else.
You don't go to the theatre to wear a f**king mask. Enough with mask theatre. If you're that afraid of Covid stay at home yourself don't inflict masks upon others.
I assume that you support the rights of house management to refuse admission in such circumstances? Its like trying to get into certain nightclubs with trainers on - not going to happen. Their business, their rules.
If that's their policy, yes. Their house, their rules.
But if that's not their policy or they don't enforce it, then the law is what applies and the law doesn't mandate masks.
If I go into a venue that says "please wear a mask" then I won't. Polite request, but I'll politely reject it. If its a requirement, then I'd have to consider whether to still frequent it or take my business elsewhere.
France to announce new Covid measures as infections surge France is to announce new Covid measures tomorrow as infections surge across the country.
Spokesman Gabriel Attal said today that the government wants to strengthen social distancing and speed up vaccinations and said they are doing all they can to save the Christmas holiday season.
They also plan to tighten regulations on using the country’s health pass.
Despite this, he said the situation is likely to worsen in the coming days. The incidence rate (infections per week per 100,000 people) is expected to rise above 200 this week
AIUI from linguistics once a language gets that small it is in severe danger of extinction. It is on life support. Welsh is doing a lot better, but still needs sturdy defence
You're probably right about Dutch, and I was being hyperbolic. As you say it might become a 2nd domestic language, but English will be first in the public realm. It already is in many Dutch universities and businesses
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I hate to break it to you: but noise from high-speed railways is much less than from motorways. In fact, they can be quieter than conventional railway lines, even at higher speeds.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Well precisely. Many of us have been saying all summer and autumn long that its better to have infections now than to postpone them to the winter.
This virus is clearly very seasonal in the way it spreads, so if you don't let it spread in the summer you're going to have a big problem come winter when flu etc are spreading too.
Mask theatre etc during the summer is bloody stupid. It always was. Allowing the virus to be spreading at a flat rate has quite literally "flattened the sombrero" as someone famous once said and will leave us far better placed for the winter.
I think that this in reality has been our policy throughout. Its certainly been Chris Whitty's policy. Every now and again he was a bit blunt about it and its consequences in terms of cases and deaths and they would try to cover it in fudge but the policy has essentially not changed. Everyone is eventually going to get it. Some, especially those not vaccinated, are going to be seriously ill and a few will die (roughly 1-1.5%, initially, much less for the double vaxxed).
That's Covid. So much of the angst and anger about the timing of lockdowns, the nature and extent of NPIs, etc just ignores that reality. It is the delusion of causation.
Anyone who wants others to mask up at theatres needs to be told to be told firmly and squarely to f**k off. Its not a legal requirement nor should it be.
I recently went to a packed Empire Theatre in Liverpool and I'd estimate less than 1% of the audience was wearing masks. We didn't bring a mask with us and had no intention of wearing one, nor did almost anyone else.
You don't go to the theatre to wear a f**king mask. Enough with mask theatre. If you're that afraid of Covid stay at home yourself don't inflict masks upon others.
I assume that you support the rights of house management to refuse admission in such circumstances? Its like trying to get into certain nightclubs with trainers on - not going to happen. Their business, their rules.
If that's their policy, yes. Their house, their rules.
But if that's not their policy or they don't enforce it, then the law is what applies and the law doesn't mandate masks.
"Ticket-holders were emailed before the performance, saying: “Remember to wear a face covering at all times throughout the building unless you are exempt.”
The theatre has a message on its website saying it was asking all patrons to wear a mask in the theatre, including during the performance, to protect “all our staff, cast and other audience members from Covid”. Theatre goers were told to wear masks as they went in and there were signs up around the building requesting mask wearing.
A second witness sitting in a different part of the room said most people in the theatre were complying with the rules but the prime minister only slipped his mask back on at the end as the lights went up."
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
Making the unvaccinated pay if they get Covid and need to go to hospital seems like a better plan. Not nice, pretty brutal, no one wants to do it, but it has an essential fairness. It should be tailored to income, of course
You took the risk and endangered others, why should the vaxxed pay AGAIN for your idiocy?
Or shame? Pictues of unvaxxed people everywhere? Be wary of this person or that?
These are all severe and unpleasant measures, but still not as bad or dangerous as mandatory jabs
I think if you're going to charge the unvaccinated it should be via a fine/tax levied before they end up in hospital because in practice many people won't be able to pay thousands for a lengthy hospital stay, and so you won't gather the money.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I hate to break it to you: but noise from high-speed railways is much less than from motorways. In fact, they can be quieter than conventional railway lines, even at higher speeds.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
How? And don't say roads - because you gutted that spending as well.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
There's no hubris, Leon. The data is stacking up, the FT article broke it down pretty well too. A couple of weeks ago I remember saying on here the key difference for the UK will be the 7-9m infections among the unvaccinated cohort from the end of May to the beginning of November (by ONS data). I'm now even more convinced that is the case. There are just too few susceptible people left in the UK barring a completely immunity evading variant.
I'm not arguing with any of your data, just fearful of your slightly hubristic tone of voice. Cause Covid does have a horrible tendency to whack those who gloat or declare victory, even in the faintest way
The language of mandatory vaccination is really stupid. Reminds me of defund the police. I'm assuming that nowhere will actually be holding people down to forcibly vaccinate them, so in practice all it means is charging them a fine or tax.
People will still be free to refuse, just as people are free to smoke tobacco, but they have to pay extra tax to do so.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Thing is, being ahead on vaccinations in the early days saved lives, particularly as the most vulnerable were vaccinated first. It's great that many places have caught up now, but being slower to get to a similar level of vaccination meant that more people died.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Yes, but we made the conscious CHOICE to open up early, knowing that this would cause deaths and disease throughout the summer, but we did this because we felt it was better than continuously suppressing the virus, only to have a hideous spike in autumn, forcing us into lockdown again
See Chris Whitty's comments in early summer. He explicitly said this was the government's plan. So far, it seems like a bloody good plan. That wasn't "luck"
Oh I agree. Chris Whitty has been a superstar throughout this: clear, objective and clever. Even more remarkably he hasn't battered Jonathan Van Tam, at least not in public.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I hate to break it to you: but noise from high-speed railways is much less than from motorways. In fact, they can be quieter than conventional railway lines, even at higher speeds.
Is that also true of electric cars ?
Yes, it's the tyres that make the noise on motorways.
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
Making the unvaccinated pay if they get Covid and need to go to hospital seems like a better plan. Not nice, pretty brutal, no one wants to do it, but it has an essential fairness. It should be tailored to income, of course
You took the risk and endangered others, why should the vaxxed pay AGAIN for your idiocy?
Or shame? Pictues of unvaxxed people everywhere? Be wary of this person or that?
These are all severe and unpleasant measures, but still not as bad or dangerous as mandatory jabs
I think if you're going to charge the unvaccinated it should be via a fine/tax levied before they end up in hospital because in practice many people won't be able to pay thousands for a lengthy hospital stay, and so you won't gather the money.
Yes, that's probably more practical. It should be done alongside vaxports, of course
Hopefully none of this horror will be needed in the UK, ins'allah
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
There's no hubris, Leon. The data is stacking up, the FT article broke it down pretty well too. A couple of weeks ago I remember saying on here the key difference for the UK will be the 7-9m infections among the unvaccinated cohort from the end of May to the beginning of November (by ONS data). I'm now even more convinced that is the case. There are just too few susceptible people left in the UK barring a completely immunity evading variant.
I'm not arguing with any of your data, just fearful of your slightly hubristic tone of voice. Cause Covid does have a horrible tendency to whack those who gloat or declare victory, even in the faintest way
So far so good. Let's pray it continues
Covid is a virus, not a judgemental moral crusader that punishes the confident and rewards the meek.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I hate to break it to you: but noise from high-speed railways is much less than from motorways. In fact, they can be quieter than conventional railway lines, even at higher speeds.
Is that also true of electric cars ?
That's a really interesting question, and I don't know.
My *guess* would be that, for motorways, tyre noise is far greater than the contributions from engine or aero effects. But that's just a WAG.
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
The obvious stage between advising vaccination and mandatory vaccination is paying people to have them. Much easier and harder to argue against than taxing or fining people for not having them. £100-200 for each jab, applied retrospectively, perhaps has to be spent in one of the covid impacted industries like hospitality or travel. Good for levelling up too.
I think this would have been done better earlier. A £100 thank you for being vaccinated voucher that was valid in hospitality for the period 2-6 weeks after your second dose would have encouraged vaccinated people out of their homes just when hospitality was restarting.
Do it now in one go and it's simply more fuel for the inflationary conflagration.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Do you have an edge, or was it mainly luck/variance?
That is the crucial question to ask yourself. Many (most?) punters mistake the two after a big win or heavy loss. Be honest with yourself about whether or not you have an edge.
I don’t play poker so can’t advise further.
Against all my instincts, I started playing slots a few weeks ago and lost a fair chunk of change. I’m really pissed off with myself because I know slots don’t have an edge. Grr. Stupid me. Even if I had won, it would still have been stupid to play.
Pre-pandemic I'd been playing Texas Hold'em tournaments recreationally in a pub poker league for nearly a decade now, so I would like to think I'm a pretty decent recreational player - but then you'd expect most others playing for cash online are too and that's fairly new to me.
I'm a pretty decent player in the pub game and managed to place well in the league, winning tickets to play as one of the representatives of our pub in the league's semi-finals in the casino a few times but never got further than that. One of the regulars in a pub I used to play in is excellent and he taught me a lot playing against him, he's won tickets to Vegas a few times via the league we were in.
I don't know whether that classes as an 'edge' or not.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
There's no hubris, Leon. The data is stacking up, the FT article broke it down pretty well too. A couple of weeks ago I remember saying on here the key difference for the UK will be the 7-9m infections among the unvaccinated cohort from the end of May to the beginning of November (by ONS data). I'm now even more convinced that is the case. There are just too few susceptible people left in the UK barring a completely immunity evading variant.
I'm not arguing with any of your data, just fearful of your slightly hubristic tone of voice. Cause Covid does have a horrible tendency to whack those who gloat or declare victory, even in the faintest way
So far so good. Let's pray it continues
Yes, that's very much my view. As you have said, Covid has a habit of biting those who think they have it beat on the butt. And we're going into a period where people are going to be spending a lot of time in very close proximity to each other, drinking, socialising, etc.
Dutch government proposing stricter measures on Friday
Hmm. They already have an 8pm curfew for bars and restaurants, they also have WFH.
What more can they do?
ah, more details here. Total lockdown, including schools:
"Diederik Gommers, the head of the national association of intensive care units, last night urged the government to implement a tough lockdown. He said the country’s hospitals are just 10 days away from being so overloaded that intensive care doctors will have to make tough decisions about which patients get care, reports the Associated Press.
"The country last week recorded a 39% rise in infections. There are currently approximately 500 Covid patients in Dutch ICUs, which reportedly have a capacity of 1,066.
"He said the only way to ease pressure on ICUs is “to ensure that the admissions go down very fast. And the fastest way of reducing (admissions) is tough measures and I think that means a strict lockdown. And that includes schools because I think if you don’t close schools you don’t stop infections.”"
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I hate to break it to you: but noise from high-speed railways is much less than from motorways. In fact, they can be quieter than conventional railway lines, even at higher speeds.
Is that also true of electric cars ?
That's a really interesting question, and I don't know.
My *guess* would be that, for motorways, tyre noise is far greater than the contributions from engine or aero effects. But that's just a WAG.
I don't know either, but every road planning decision should now have electric as a default rather than ICE as that is the direction we are inexorably trending toward (No point putting fuel duty up or down particularly in the long run now)
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
How? And don't say roads - because you gutted that spending as well.
By improving rail and bus services already there, which most Northerners would use more than a high speed link to Birmingham and London
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I hate to break it to you: but noise from high-speed railways is much less than from motorways. In fact, they can be quieter than conventional railway lines, even at higher speeds.
Is that also true of electric cars ?
That's a really interesting question, and I don't know.
My *guess* would be that, for motorways, tyre noise is far greater than the contributions from engine or aero effects. But that's just a WAG.
I don't know either, but every road planning decision should now have electric as a default rather than ICE as that is the direction we are inexorably trending toward (No point putting fuel duty up or down particularly in the long run now)
I just found this:
"Noise of rolling tires driving on pavement is found to be the biggest contributor of highway noise and increases with higher vehicle speeds."
and
"Traffic operations noise is affected significantly by vehicle speeds, since sound energy roughly doubles for each increment of ten miles an hour in vehicle velocity; an exception to this rule occurs at very low speeds where braking and acceleration noise dominate over aerodynamic noise."
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
How? And don't say roads - because you gutted that spending as well.
By improving rail and bus services already there, which most Northerners would use more than a high speed link to Birmingham and London
Is that faster rail services or more frequent and more local rail services?
As for Buses who pays the ongoing costs for them? Remember buses aren't capital intensive, if Arriva / Go North identify a profitable route they can find the buses - the issue is that a lot of bus routes simply aren't economic.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Thing is, being ahead on vaccinations in the early days saved lives, particularly as the most vulnerable were vaccinated first. It's great that many places have caught up now, but being slower to get to a similar level of vaccination meant that more people died.
I don't dispute that but our slightly underdeclared policy of letting the virus rip meant that we had well above an average number of cases which also generated more deaths. Hopefully, we are now going into the reward part of that equation but our deaths per million figure is currently above all European countries except Italy, Poland, Latvia and Moldova. That will not be the case by the Spring.
Anyway, I'm just glad that however people want to treat the whys and wherefores of America that we don't have the same gun madness as they do.
You can't even argue that their possession of guns is the issue. Other countries have a lot of guns and manage to avoid the American problem.
What I find fascinating (in a grim way) is the response to mass shootings. When Hungerford happened, or Dunblane, the UK response is to try to reduce gun ownership/use. In the US, many people think the answer is more guns, so that active shooters can be taken out by any passing, armed, person.
See Canada too. A very relevant comparison. 20m firearms. Same response to mass shootings.
It's quite understandable that when gun ownership reaches a certain level so many people want to own guns for their own protection that the situation becomes irreversible.
We should just be thankful that in the UK we are not at that level.
My shotgun (which I use because it's a very good shotgun, not for historical reenactment reasons) was made in the 1880s. So banning guns now is hopeless, the existing ones don't obsolesce out of the system. you'd have to restrict ammunition to get anywhere.
The first job of every speechwriter — and giver — is to rise to the occasion. Boris Johnson failed on this basic requirement. At a time of profound economic uncertainty, what business leaders need to hear is a message of reassurance — not a sequence of rambling asides and silly noises.
Boris is at his best when some kind of external order is imposed upon him. As Mayor of London he was subject to the control of Downing Street. As a columnist, his talents shone most brightly when patient editors were on hand to polish his literary gems. But as Prime Minister, he’s been set free to follow his worst instincts.
Boris needs a Willie — and his critics in the party should insist that he gets one…. I’d look to Alok Sharma. The former Business Secretary is widely respected. His role as President of the COP26 conference has demonstrated his grasp of detail and his diplomatic finesse. He is trusted by his colleagues, including the Prime Minister, and has no obvious leadership ambitions. And now that COP26 is over, he’s in need of a new job.
"Countries should consider mandatory Covid vaccination, says WHO Europe
Countries should consider implementing mandatory Covid vaccination, the director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe said today.
Robb Butler said that although “mandatory vaccine can, but does not always, increase uptake”, he suggested countries should start thinking about the issue.
It comes after Germany’s tourism commissioner, Thomas Bareiss, said he expected vaccination to become mandatory in the country. Austria plans to make it compulsory from February."
(Guardian Live blog)
If this happens, anti-vaxxers will riot, and it will be much worse than anything hitherto. So many of them REALLY believe. I foresee violence, and deaths. Tragically
Question: How can you force someone to have a vaccination? At the very worst, you could throw them in jail (which would be farcical) – we are not going to have stormtroopers with needles entering people's homes!
Yes, a good question. I can't see any nation (apart from China) marching into kitchens and pinning people to the fridge, with a needle in the copper's hand
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
Indeed it is complete madness and would require a surveillance state on a whole new level to impose it via 'vaxgates' as you describe.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
The obvious stage between advising vaccination and mandatory vaccination is paying people to have them. Much easier and harder to argue against than taxing or fining people for not having them. £100-200 for each jab, applied retrospectively, perhaps has to be spent in one of the covid impacted industries like hospitality or travel. Good for levelling up too.
I think this would have been done better earlier. A £100 thank you for being vaccinated voucher that was valid in hospitality for the period 2-6 weeks after your second dose would have encouraged vaccinated people out of their homes just when hospitality was restarting.
Do it now in one go and it's simply more fuel for the inflationary conflagration.
I doubt it is necessary in the UK, but would work well in many EU countries that are trying to drive up vaxx rates.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Which company? I tried a few back in the day and the weirdest one was Betfair. The number of times you'd see three players in a single deal get pocket Qs, Ks, and As was astounding. It made me feel that there was an algorithm dealing people powerful hands to encourage looser play and so knocking people out faster. I can't prove anything of course, but it felt a bit deliberate.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
There's no hubris, Leon. The data is stacking up, the FT article broke it down pretty well too. A couple of weeks ago I remember saying on here the key difference for the UK will be the 7-9m infections among the unvaccinated cohort from the end of May to the beginning of November (by ONS data). I'm now even more convinced that is the case. There are just too few susceptible people left in the UK barring a completely immunity evading variant.
I'm not arguing with any of your data, just fearful of your slightly hubristic tone of voice. Cause Covid does have a horrible tendency to whack those who gloat or declare victory, even in the faintest way
So far so good. Let's pray it continues
Covid is a virus, not a judgemental moral crusader that punishes the confident and rewards the meek.
The Czech Republic on 1 July 2020:
"Coronavirus: Czechs hold 'farewell party' for pandemic
Thousands of guests sat at a 500 metre-long (1640ft) table on the Charles Bridge in Prague on Tuesday sharing food and drinks they had brought from home.
Guests were encouraged to share with their neighbours and there was no social distancing, something people in countries under lockdown will find hard to relate to."
"The Czech Republic reported its highest daily rise in new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, with cases surpassing 25,000 for the first time and putting further strain on hospitals.
The country of 10.7 million has the world's fourth-highest infection rate per capita, according to Our World in Data, as Europe is again an epicentre for the pandemic.
The Czech government, due to hand over power in the coming weeks after losing an October election, has put in place measures barring unvaccinated people from visiting restaurants, cinemas and other services such as hairdressers, aiming to boost vaccination figures that lag many in the European Union"
Dutch government proposing stricter measures on Friday
Hmm. They already have an 8pm curfew for bars and restaurants, they also have WFH.
What more can they do?
ah, more details here. Total lockdown, including schools:
"Diederik Gommers, the head of the national association of intensive care units, last night urged the government to implement a tough lockdown. He said the country’s hospitals are just 10 days away from being so overloaded that intensive care doctors will have to make tough decisions about which patients get care, reports the Associated Press.
"The country last week recorded a 39% rise in infections. There are currently approximately 500 Covid patients in Dutch ICUs, which reportedly have a capacity of 1,066.
"He said the only way to ease pressure on ICUs is “to ensure that the admissions go down very fast. And the fastest way of reducing (admissions) is tough measures and I think that means a strict lockdown. And that includes schools because I think if you don’t close schools you don’t stop infections.”"
Ouch
Yes, Netherlands has been added to the "full lockdown" list. That was 5 countries, Germany was the most recent addition.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
There's no hubris, Leon. The data is stacking up, the FT article broke it down pretty well too. A couple of weeks ago I remember saying on here the key difference for the UK will be the 7-9m infections among the unvaccinated cohort from the end of May to the beginning of November (by ONS data). I'm now even more convinced that is the case. There are just too few susceptible people left in the UK barring a completely immunity evading variant.
Does the immunity via infection last as long as via vaccination?
I've read conflicting reports on this. One source says that immunity via infection wanes in about six months, so the people infected in May will be increasingly susceptible again. Another source says that immunity via infection can be better because it's present in the airways, rather than just the bloodstreamwith the vaccine, and so can act to neutralise the virus immediately.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Those bot players are clever and let you win the first time?
France to announce new Covid measures as infections surge France is to announce new Covid measures tomorrow as infections surge across the country.
Spokesman Gabriel Attal said today that the government wants to strengthen social distancing and speed up vaccinations and said they are doing all they can to save the Christmas holiday season.
They also plan to tighten regulations on using the country’s health pass.
Despite this, he said the situation is likely to worsen in the coming days. The incidence rate (infections per week per 100,000 people) is expected to rise above 200 this week
AIUI from linguistics once a language gets that small it is in severe danger of extinction. It is on life support. Welsh is doing a lot better, but still needs sturdy defence
You're probably right about Dutch, and I was being hyperbolic. As you say it might become a 2nd domestic language, but English will be first in the public realm. It already is in many Dutch universities and businesses
I like to think if you're hyperbolic and I'm the opposite of that - hypobolic? - together we can reach the truth.
Completely off topic but I've just started playing online poker as a hobby - I used to play each week in a pub tournament for a few years before the pandemic but I haven't played since before the pandemic began until recently. I like tournaments where you get potentially a couple of hours play from a small buy-in and are capped at losing your entry fee and that's that . . . the way I've always viewed it is I'd pay a comparable fee to go eg bowling or to a movie etc so I'm paying for the entertainment with that amount and any small amount won back is a bonus.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Which company? I tried a few back in the day and the weirdest one was Betfair. The number of times you'd see three players in a single deal get pocket Qs, Ks, and As was astounding. It made me feel that there was an algorithm dealing people powerful hands to encourage looser play and so knocking people out faster. I can't prove anything of course, but it felt a bit deliberate.
Interesting chart from the John Burn-Murdoch thread:
Despite UK having lower vax coverage than e.g Belgium & France, the difference in share of people previously infected is larger (UK 30%, FRA 15%), meaning that going into this winter, the UK had fewer people still exposed to the virus, less scope for a wave of hospitalisations.
Yes, those 9m infections since the end of May have made a huge difference to our overall picture. Having a summer/autumn exit wave is why we're very much on the endemic side of this
Needless Suffering
Britain offers a warning of what happens when a country ignores Covid.
Paywalled sadly. Is the article as hyperbolic and hysterical as the headline?
It is depressingly poor and incurious. American journalism is in a right old state. British hacks used to admire the American press for its numerous fact-checkers and prickly adherence to the truth, even if it was stodgy and stiff compared to British journalism
What a precipitous decline we have seen. This denial of the facts started with the right, I suspect- shock jocks and Fox News - but it has now infested the left as badly if not worse, via Wokery and Trump, and it is now everywhere. This is just one example. The NYT doesn't like Brexit Britain, so anything it does must be bad, including its handling of Covid. The agenda is prioritised over the truth, there isn't really any attempt to seek the truth.
It means Americans are now shockingly misinformed across the political spectrum at probably the worst time for that to happen
Even as a polemic that article is palpably unconvinced by its own invective.
It concludes with this: "Still, it is worth putting Britain’s troubles in perspective. The country’s high vaccination rate means that only a tiny share of recent cases have led to severe illness, and the death rate this fall has been a fraction of what it was last winter. “This virus is going to be with us for years, if not the rest of our lives,” Willem van Schaik, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, told us. “We’ve definitely left the worst behind us.”
Anyone who toiled the bottom of the piece would wonder whether the subeditor had done likewise.
It's more that they really tried very hard to push the whole "plague island" agenda along with the rest of the global liberal left who see the UK as some kind of outcast that left heaven. Now it seems as though all of our decisions in 2021 have been correct, the vaccine programme, the reopening schedule, the full reopening and dumping almost all of the NPIs, allowing for kids to be infected in September/October and the booster shot timing/availability. These decisions were all basically the right course of action. In the world of the liberal left anything the UK does is wrong and you can still sense this attitude now with loads of European countries ratcheting up their NPIs without admitting that, yes, maybe the UK got it right and they got it wrong on reopening and "running hot" in the summer/autumn.
Very few voices in Europe (and liberal America) are doing their retrospective and coming to the correct conclusion that they were wrong to keep hold of NPIs in the summer and reduce the spread. As I said last week, it almost feels as thought they will repeat this exercise in March/April when it's time to reduce NPIs, they simply don't seem to have it within them to admit we did it right and will hold onto idiotic vaccine passports, masks, social distancing and keep late night socialising closed.
You know we vote differently, but there's probably some truth in that, to be fair.
I generally agree with Max but I fear he is perhaps being a little hubristic, and as the 2nd Covid Law of Hubris says that any country that boasts of its Covid handling then gets horribly walloped, this makes me quite nervous
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
Fundamentally, what we have got "right" in this country is being really crap at preventing the spread of Covid. We did really well in the early days of vaccination but everyone else in Europe caught up some time ago. We are doing well in terms of boosters but not uniquely so. If we do better this winter it will be because we have been having something like 40-50K recorded cases of Covid a day throughout the entire summer and certainly since we removed the NPIs. We have millions more people who are protected by having had it already. Countries that have done "better" are getting hammered now.
Thing is, being ahead on vaccinations in the early days saved lives, particularly as the most vulnerable were vaccinated first. It's great that many places have caught up now, but being slower to get to a similar level of vaccination meant that more people died.
I don't dispute that but our slightly underdeclared policy of letting the virus rip meant that we had well above an average number of cases which also generated more deaths. Hopefully, we are now going into the reward part of that equation but our deaths per million figure is currently above all European countries except Italy, Poland, Latvia and Moldova. That will not be the case by the Spring.
What?
European countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary - and several others - are way ahead of us in deaths per million
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
It has been the case that the home is only sold on death to pay care costs
Actually, I think under present system that is up to the local council in question. They have to agree to defer until death.
I do not know of anyone having to sell their home while they are alive
Of course it may be the home is sold as they do not live in it, but I would ask if anybody has any experience of a home owner having to sell to pay their care costs while they are alive
The PM didn’t say anything about qualifying his statement because the house isn’t sold to pay for care until after death.
Nor did the Tory manifesto qualify its promise in that way.
Indeed, didn’t the whole issue arise because Mrs May proposed to use the proceeds of people’s homes, sold after death? Hence the ‘death tax’?
People in that position are more worried about their inheritance than having somewhere to live - their being in care generally being a one way street.
The literal wording from the manifesto is "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " If that isn't about the inheritance left to pass on to their kids then what is it?
The whole reason for the reform is to stop someone's entire assets being swallowed up by care costs so that there is nothing left to inherit. And the PM stood up and repeatedly said that nobody would have to sell their home because the home is not counted as an asset. This is simply wrong. He either doesn't know his own policy or he is lying about it.
Question - how many of the red wallers are going to accept your attempts at sophistry and go "fair enough, I'm being taxed heavily so that I don't lose my home, but I'm going to lose it anyway whilst the well off dont. yes of course the Tories still have my vote".
Northerners are not stupid.
The PM said "nobody would have to sell their home" which is true. They have the option of selling it or not selling it with payments due being paid after death.
In addition there are situations where the main home is exempt anyway: at home care, spouse still living in the house, other relative over 60 living in house, any relative of any age still living in the house etc etc.
If you need to pay £86k and of your £100k assets almost all of it is your home, where exactly are you to get the money other than from the sale of the home?
Yes we know its payable after death - its the dementia death tax which removes inheritance. So why did he said "you don't need to sell your home" when you do? And if you definitely don't need to, why didn't the Solicitor General firmly put Jo Coburn back in her box on the telly just now?
When you go into a care home you do not need to sell your home. Obviously there is accountability after death but what do you expect? That taxpayers cover everything when wealth in property can be used to cover some of the cost? You are misrepresenting things for party political reasons. As Starmer did earlier. And as the media did re: May's plans.
Social Care is important. We must stick to the facts. Below is a worked example from the published proposals which is not too dissimilar from yours.
"Yusuf is in his late 70s. He has lived on his own since his wife died from cancer ten years ago. When she died, he downsized from their family home in Hastings to a smaller property worth £180,000. As a result, he has £70,000 in savings.
Yusuf develops dementia, can no longer cope at home and needs to move into residential care. His underlying health is good and he ultimately spends eight years living at the residential home. Yusuf's care home costs £700 per week. Under the current system, Yusuf would spend about £293,000 on his care from his assets and his income, and as a result only have £72,000 left in assets.
Under the new system, Yusuf hits the £86,000 cap after three years and four months. He no longer needs to contribute for his personal care from either his assets or his income. Beyond this, he will only have to contribute towards daily living costs. He is now left with £173,000, almost 70 per cent of his original assets.
Over his whole care journey, Yusuf spends £123,000 less than under the current system."
Its very very simple. EVen for PB Peppa parrots.
The issue is inheritance. If you have to sell your home to pay for care - whether before or after your death - it does not pass to your children. Fear of this death tax has driven all kinds of policies and pledges. Including in this case the "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it. " pledge repeated by Peppa today.
This simply is not true with the new bill. And you've given the exact example that northern red wall Tories will be wapped round the head with. Reduce Yusuf's assets to £120k of which almost all is the house, and there will be no other way to pay the £86k retrospectively other than sell the house to pay for care.
Yusef in Hasting's estate is £173k. Yusuf in Hartlepool's estate is £34k. It slams working class northerners in a way that it doesn't southerners.
You mentioned the facts. Why doesn't the PM know them?
The system is the same whether you live in Hastings or Hartlepool.
Some people have more valuable houses/estates than others. This is the case now and has nothing to do with it.
You seem to be arguing that the system should be different in Hastings and Hartlepool.
It is fair to point out that this is a transfer of wealth from Hartlepool to Hastings (or more so Brighton/Guildford/London etc) as the money raised via NI will be much closer between the two, than the money saved by those needing care. It is the opposite of levelling up.
The average Tory voter could not care less about levelling up if they have to pay for it and it means more of their assets going to the tax man.
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
I thought the transport infrastructure for the North, or at least North East, was cancelled last week?
You can improve transport infrastucture in the North without destroying homes in rural shires and massive noise pollution via HS2
I hate to break it to you: but noise from high-speed railways is much less than from motorways. In fact, they can be quieter than conventional railway lines, even at higher speeds.
Is that also true of electric cars ?
That's a really interesting question, and I don't know.
My *guess* would be that, for motorways, tyre noise is far greater than the contributions from engine or aero effects. But that's just a WAG.
I don't know either, but every road planning decision should now have electric as a default rather than ICE as that is the direction we are inexorably trending toward (No point putting fuel duty up or down particularly in the long run now)
I just found this:
"Noise of rolling tires driving on pavement is found to be the biggest contributor of highway noise and increases with higher vehicle speeds."
and
"Traffic operations noise is affected significantly by vehicle speeds, since sound energy roughly doubles for each increment of ten miles an hour in vehicle velocity; an exception to this rule occurs at very low speeds where braking and acceleration noise dominate over aerodynamic noise."
Yes - this is why there are 50 and 60 limits on some urban motorway sections (for noise mitigation).
There's a large area of open space here in the Flatlands a long way from anywhere but even in the middle of it the distant road noise from the M18 is very audible.
They use sound baffles on a lot of highways in the Netherlands. Not sure why we don't do so here.
France to announce new Covid measures as infections surge France is to announce new Covid measures tomorrow as infections surge across the country.
Spokesman Gabriel Attal said today that the government wants to strengthen social distancing and speed up vaccinations and said they are doing all they can to save the Christmas holiday season.
They also plan to tighten regulations on using the country’s health pass.
Despite this, he said the situation is likely to worsen in the coming days. The incidence rate (infections per week per 100,000 people) is expected to rise above 200 this week
AIUI from linguistics once a language gets that small it is in severe danger of extinction. It is on life support. Welsh is doing a lot better, but still needs sturdy defence
You're probably right about Dutch, and I was being hyperbolic. As you say it might become a 2nd domestic language, but English will be first in the public realm. It already is in many Dutch universities and businesses
I like to think if you're hyperbolic and I'm the opposite of that - hypobolic? - together we can reach the truth.
Litotic?
Anyway now I must go and take a daughter to see a sixth form, Life goes on, thank God
Comments
Levelling up via better infrastructure for the North is fine, levelling up at the expense of the Tory shires is not
However you could do it pretty effectively by making entry to ANYWHERE dependant on a vaxport. Even essential shops, all schools, all parks, every single public space, and so on. How many people would be able to avoid doing any of these things? Very few
That said, it is seems a drastic and extremely dangerous policy. There will be violent resistance, likesay
When they read "nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it." and believed it are you suggesting they were stupid to do so?
Which is literally Starmer's attack line - you can't believe the PM's promises.
That was @Chris.
It never has before.
That working class northerners will be paying record taxes including one explicitly to pay for something they are now not going to get will not be popular. No matter how many times some of you try and suggest that it will.
Yes its going rather well for me and mine. But I'm very very privileged in that I have a soft job that pays very very well. Loads of people can barely keep the roof over their heads no matter how hard they work.
Anyone who backs IHT but gets the ump over paying for care with their equity must be crackers already
Indeed, I vividly recall one patient who came to visit me when I worked in Fife. He explained that he wanted to go to court to prevent the doctors from forcibly giving him medication which had seriously unpleasant side effects. "And what happened when you weren't on the medication?" I somewhat innocently asked. To which the answer was, "well, I murdered my mother. The TV told me to do it."
I recall that we came to the conclusion that even although the medication was unpleasant ,it was appropriate.
I had a morning off this morning so I thought I'd give it a go and bought a $4.40 satellite ticket to a $33 buy-in tournament. Managed to win a seat to the main event from the satellite. Even getting 6th (the lowest prize) would be my biggest ever poker win and I certainly wasn't expecting that, but I actually managed to win the whole tournament. First place prize $432.20 from a $33 ticket I'd won for a $4.40 buy-in.
Over the moon with that, but I wanted to mention it here not to show off but because the one thing I don't want is to get intoxicated from that victory and develop a problem habit; so I thought I'd mention it to a group of people here many of whom probably gamble overall more than I do. I'm happy but want to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
You could instead levy a 'vaccination tax' on all taxpayers. A 'vaccination tax relief' that was equal to the initial tax would be conferred on those citizens who proved vax status to HMRC within, say, 60 days. But that's not quite the same as actually mandating vaccination.
Some might say "it gets him off of here" - but not me - i'd never say that PT. Or even mention it.
Particularly as the super wealthy Tory donors who keep the troughs full are more likely to be from Irkutsk than Leigh.
I think you need to do some catching up, young HY.
By the way, you have got exactly the right attitude there. See it as capsuled entertainment, and treat it as such. You might even win.
Of course, I also hope he is right.
He is certainly correct that there is psychological resistance in some liberal anti-Brexit circles to the idea the UK might get anything right, especially so if it gets something uniquely right. That is like heresy. It's like Trump being right about lab leak - which he was, but because he was Trump it literally became impossible to repeat the theory on social media and for a year we were forbidden from discussing an obviously plausible scenario. In supposedly free countries. Astounding
I recently went to a packed Empire Theatre in Liverpool and I'd estimate less than 1% of the audience was wearing masks. We didn't bring a mask with us and had no intention of wearing one, nor did almost anyone else.
You don't go to the theatre to wear a f**king mask. Enough with mask theatre. If you're that afraid of Covid stay at home yourself don't inflict masks upon others.
That's true actually – same at the one we visited. Fair point.
I suppose a different point would not be it dying out but if it ever would on practical terms not be the first language for many?
You took the risk and endangered others, why should the vaxxed pay AGAIN for your idiocy?
Or shame? Pictues of unvaxxed people everywhere? Be wary of this person or that?
These are all severe and unpleasant measures, but still not as bad or dangerous as mandatory jabs
Though aren't some vaccines mandatory already?
That is the crucial question to ask yourself. Many (most?) punters mistake the two after a big win or heavy loss. Be honest with yourself about whether or not you have an edge.
I don’t play poker so can’t advise further.
Against all my instincts, I started playing slots a few weeks ago and lost a fair chunk of change. I’m really pissed off with myself because I know slots don’t have an edge. Grr. Stupid me. Even if I had won, it would still have been stupid to play.
This virus is clearly very seasonal in the way it spreads, so if you don't let it spread in the summer you're going to have a big problem come winter when flu etc are spreading too.
Mask theatre etc during the summer is bloody stupid. It always was. Allowing the virus to be spreading at a flat rate has quite literally "flattened the sombrero" as someone famous once said and will leave us far better placed for the winter.
See Chris Whitty's comments in early summer. He explicitly said this was the government's plan. So far, it seems like a bloody good plan. That wasn't "luck"
https://twitter.com/the_chrisshaw/status/1463386853508268034?s=21
But if that's not their policy or they don't enforce it, then the law is what applies and the law doesn't mandate masks.
If I go into a venue that says "please wear a mask" then I won't. Polite request, but I'll politely reject it. If its a requirement, then I'd have to consider whether to still frequent it or take my business elsewhere.
At the last proper count there were 20,000 speakers in 2016, down from 23,000 in 2011
These are people who speak it daily as a normal mother tongue (not the 1.7m irish who claim to speak because of a bit of Gaelic schooling)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language
AIUI from linguistics once a language gets that small it is in severe danger of extinction. It is on life support. Welsh is doing a lot better, but still needs sturdy defence
You're probably right about Dutch, and I was being hyperbolic. As you say it might become a 2nd domestic language, but English will be first in the public realm. It already is in many Dutch universities and businesses
That's Covid. So much of the angst and anger about the timing of lockdowns, the nature and extent of NPIs, etc just ignores that reality. It is the delusion of causation.
"Ticket-holders were emailed before the performance, saying: “Remember to wear a face covering at all times throughout the building unless you are exempt.”
The theatre has a message on its website saying it was asking all patrons to wear a mask in the theatre, including during the performance, to protect “all our staff, cast and other audience members from Covid”. Theatre goers were told to wear masks as they went in and there were signs up around the building requesting mask wearing.
A second witness sitting in a different part of the room said most people in the theatre were complying with the rules but the prime minister only slipped his mask back on at the end as the lights went up."
So far so good. Let's pray it continues
People will still be free to refuse, just as people are free to smoke tobacco, but they have to pay extra tax to do so.
Hopefully none of this horror will be needed in the UK, ins'allah
My *guess* would be that, for motorways, tyre noise is far greater than the contributions from engine or aero effects. But that's just a WAG.
Do it now in one go and it's simply more fuel for the inflationary conflagration.
I'm a pretty decent player in the pub game and managed to place well in the league, winning tickets to play as one of the representatives of our pub in the league's semi-finals in the casino a few times but never got further than that. One of the regulars in a pub I used to play in is excellent and he taught me a lot playing against him, he's won tickets to Vegas a few times via the league we were in.
I don't know whether that classes as an 'edge' or not.
Hmm. They already have an 8pm curfew for bars and restaurants, they also have WFH.
What more can they do?
ah, more details here. Total lockdown, including schools:
"Diederik Gommers, the head of the national association of intensive care units, last night urged the government to implement a tough lockdown. He said the country’s hospitals are just 10 days away from being so overloaded that intensive care doctors will have to make tough decisions about which patients get care, reports the Associated Press.
"The country last week recorded a 39% rise in infections. There are currently approximately 500 Covid patients in Dutch ICUs, which reportedly have a capacity of 1,066.
"He said the only way to ease pressure on ICUs is “to ensure that the admissions go down very fast. And the fastest way of reducing (admissions) is tough measures and I think that means a strict lockdown. And that includes schools because I think if you don’t close schools you don’t stop infections.”"
Ouch
"Noise of rolling tires driving on pavement is found to be the biggest contributor of highway noise and increases with higher vehicle speeds."
and
"Traffic operations noise is affected significantly by vehicle speeds, since sound energy roughly doubles for each increment of ten miles an hour in vehicle velocity; an exception to this rule occurs at very low speeds where braking and acceleration noise dominate over aerodynamic noise."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise
Edit: and I agree planning decisions should concentrate on EV over IC vehicles. On this point, the government announced this the other day:
https://electrek.co/2021/11/22/england-will-be-first-country-to-require-new-homes-to-include-ev-chargers/
As for Buses who pays the ongoing costs for them? Remember buses aren't capital intensive, if Arriva / Go North identify a profitable route they can find the buses - the issue is that a lot of bus routes simply aren't economic.
I think I'm on Sharma for next leader at 110-1. For £3.
"Coronavirus: Czechs hold 'farewell party' for pandemic
Thousands of guests sat at a 500 metre-long (1640ft) table on the Charles Bridge in Prague on Tuesday sharing food and drinks they had brought from home.
Guests were encouraged to share with their neighbours and there was no social distancing, something people in countries under lockdown will find hard to relate to."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53244688
The Czech Republic today, 24 November, 2021:
"The Czech Republic reported its highest daily rise in new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, with cases surpassing 25,000 for the first time and putting further strain on hospitals.
The country of 10.7 million has the world's fourth-highest infection rate per capita, according to Our World in Data, as Europe is again an epicentre for the pandemic.
The Czech government, due to hand over power in the coming weeks after losing an October election, has put in place measures barring unvaccinated people from visiting restaurants, cinemas and other services such as hairdressers, aiming to boost vaccination figures that lag many in the European Union"
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2021/1124/1262808-world-coronavirus/
Lesson? Never exult about your Covid victory. And NEVER hold a bloody party to celebrate it
I've read conflicting reports on this. One source says that immunity via infection wanes in about six months, so the people infected in May will be increasingly susceptible again. Another source says that immunity via infection can be better because it's present in the airways, rather than just the bloodstreamwith the vaccine, and so can act to neutralise the virus immediately.
You aren't Victoria Coren, and I claim my $4.40.
European countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary - and several others - are way ahead of us in deaths per million
There's a large area of open space here in the Flatlands a long way from anywhere but even in the middle of it the distant road noise from the M18 is very audible.
They use sound baffles on a lot of highways in the Netherlands. Not sure why we don't do so here.
Anyway now I must go and take a daughter to see a sixth form, Life goes on, thank God