I wouldn't be too hard on SAGE. The quote I've seen simply says 'if the government wants to keep admissions below 3000 a day.' So if that's the government's priority they would need more restrictions. But advisers advise and ministers decide. Does Johnson see it as imperative that we keep admissions below 3000 a day? The highest single day last year was just under 4000. It is up for him to decide.
If I were to criticise SAGE it would be over not considering alternatives to limiting hospital demand. Specific advice to those likely at risk/very vulnerable/unvaccinated to perhaps limit their likelihood of getting infected.
Dr Jennings [chief medical officer at St George's Hospital in Tooting] says it's too early to say whether Omicron is going to make people more or less ill, but what is certain is that it's much more transmissible. "So the wave of Covid that hits the NHS is steeper and faster than it would have been if Omicron had not come along. I think we're preparing for something different to what we saw last year, but something that's really quite challenging," he says.
One major difference with last year is that the vaccine is having an effect, and reducing the number of Covid patients who are being hospitalised or dying.
But not everyone is vaccinated.
"The people who are getting very ill with Covid are quite often people who have not, for whatever reason, had the vaccine," says Dr Jennings.
He says it's a pattern that is repeated across the country. "More than three-quarters of our patients who need life-saving treatments in intensive care have not been vaccinated. And we have had deaths in intensive care - deaths that might have been avoided if they'd had the vaccine. It's a very sad thing to see."
The hospital has increased the number of beds for Covid patients - the 30-bed Covid ward, which briefly closed earlier in the year, is full again, and another is being prepared.
Seems almost inevitable that Raab will lose a la Chris Patten in his existing seat even if the Tories hang on nationally but I'm guessing he won't chicken run unless the Tories are both absolutely certain to lose nationally and he has concrete leadership ambitions.
Great post. I had forgotten about the chicken run! The edifying sight of the Chairman of the Conservative Party telling all and sundry that of course the party was in great shape to fight and win the election. As he himself did the chicken run to a safer seat as his current one was going to go Labour...
In other news, all Premier League fixtures for today are now off, except (so far) Leeds v Arsenal. And I was under the impression that football was still applying at least some additional Covid mitigations?
If so, there seems little hope for the rest of us dodging it for very much longer. We may have been laughing at the notion that there were already a million Covid infections per day when Javid appeared to imply it a few days ago, but a million a day by the end of the month doesn't sound so implausible.
Much truth in this. Two comments. Matthew Goodwin is a little more thoughtful than described here.
The big thing he misses is competence. With Post-Brexit + pandemic to sort the government has to exude competence. Stuff is bound to happen, but the number of unnecessary errors points to a significant intellectual and moral gap.
On Brexit, this is a special case. Given the politics of the UK as of 2000-now and continuing, no satisfactory EU/UK settlement is likely. getting out of a 40 year alliance will always take years. Parliament, with a Remain majority failed to agree a sensible compromise timetable (eg Norway for Now) leaving no choice between a fairly hard Brexit and rejoin. Neither can work.
It may mean the Tories are replaced by another lot next time, but the problem of there being no acceptable solution (including status quo and status quo ante) will remain.
If the Lab/rainbow alliance can exude competence and moderation they will win.
I think that if Labour offered the EU a customs union (thereby eliminating most of the Northern Ireland issues) and general sensible cooperation on issues of joint concern there would be a warm response from the EU, and only a smallish minority of British voters would be really upset.
So all of this over a possible 3k hospitalisations per day under the same model that got the 7k per day wrong last time out?
The hundred Tory politicians need to hold firm and tell Boris and to get fucked. No more lockdowns, no more restrictions, no more tyranny of unelected experts.
Unelected experts > Elected morons. You're seriously more happy with the our fate in the hands of the geniuses who make plugging Peppa Pig part of government policy?
Any day of the week, I can vote out the Peppa pig crew if I disagree with them. I have no way of voting out the expert class. Your faith in them is disturbing, it's sad that so many British people are so comfortable with living in a technocratic country where they have zero influence on the big decisions of the day.
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, there is a basic issue of competence. Doctors, scientists, medics are capable of diagnosing if that lump on your bollock is cancerous or not. A gob on legs Tory MP ideologically focused on getting you and your cancerous testes back to work is not.
So whilst you want want to listen to the person saying "its fine, back to work" the problem is that they don't have the first fucking clue what they are saying. Which is why the couple of MPs who have said "we've had enough of these unelected Doctors, listen to us elected people and our Prime Minister" are being so roundly laughed at.
On an individual basis, sure. On a national scale some things, actually a lot of things, are more important than unvaccinated people dying of COVID. This seems to be the overriding sentiment among the expert class, we must defeat death at any cost, yet how can we have a functioning economy if half the nation is unemployed and the government has had to call in the IMF because we can't get our gilts sold?
These are considerations that the experts don't have to make, yet they have been handed decision making power that have non-health consequences. The 100 Tory MPs have taken that power off them and now the experts are trying to wrestle it back into their control with doom predictions like 5000 dead per day, it's laughable.
For the first time the expert class is powerless to impose their will on the public, the PM has serious political considerations in just waving through their recommendations as he normally would.
So essentially, the advisors have realised there's no way restrictions will be agreed before Christmas, so are now pushing for them to start as a 'temporary' measure right after, rather than waiting until the New Year.
As soon as restrictions are implemented, it will be due to them that hospitals aren't burning to the ground, so to be safe we should keep them until say March. And loosen in phases.
So all of this over a possible 3k hospitalisations per day under the same model that got the 7k per day wrong last time out?
The hundred Tory politicians need to hold firm and tell Boris and to get fucked. No more lockdowns, no more restrictions, no more tyranny of unelected experts.
Unelected experts > Elected morons. You're seriously more happy with the our fate in the hands of the geniuses who make plugging Peppa Pig part of government policy?
Any day of the week, I can vote out the Peppa pig crew if I disagree with them. I have no way of voting out the expert class. Your faith in them is disturbing, it's sad that so many British people are so comfortable with living in a technocratic country where they have zero influence on the big decisions of the day.
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, there is a basic issue of competence. Doctors, scientists, medics are capable of diagnosing if that lump on your bollock is cancerous or not. A gob on legs Tory MP ideologically focused on getting you and your cancerous testes back to work is not.
So whilst you want want to listen to the person saying "its fine, back to work" the problem is that they don't have the first fucking clue what they are saying. Which is why the couple of MPs who have said "we've had enough of these unelected Doctors, listen to us elected people and our Prime Minister" are being so roundly laughed at.
I'm not really sure that analogy works. The decisions being made by experts are shaping the society we are living in and affecting individual liberties in ways unimaginable a few years ago. This isn't a narrow technical medical diagnosis. There has to be democratic oversight of the decisions being made. I don't like the political class we have either, but we're stuck with them for now.
I note the Saj's 200,000 figure was now err "miscalculated" but he read it as a present figure not some projection. Absolubtely bizarre And the doubling time was wrong but looking through it seemsapproximately correct to me, the number was just simply wrong
Its main thrust appears to be "Boris promised all things to all men. Boris has not delivered all things to all men. This is why he is now unpopular. To fix this, Boris must deliver all things to all men."
If you get to be a professor by spouting opinions like that, hand me a mortarboard sized for a five-year old because Capitano Junior could have told me that.
The problem isn't that Boris has personally failed to deliver his promises, the problem is that they were always undeliverable. Much was made (principally by Classic Dom) of "Bringing the winning tactics of Vote Leave into the heart of Government", which is exactly what Boris did: win by promising the impossible, then find yourself in trouble when you have to actually implement it. Hence the never-ending shitstorm over Northern Ireland and the slowly dawning realisation over fishing and agriculture.
Goodwin asserts that Boris is being punished for "failing to get his arms around illegal migration". Maybe Boris shouldn't have promised that, then, because no-one is going to be able to get their arms around illegal migration. The Middle East is awash in AK-47s and fundamentalists (thanks Tony!). No kidding that some of the displaced people are trying to get here.
I have a little more sympathy on levelling up, where a serious strategy implemented from the first day after GE 2019 might have started to show a few little rewards by 2023. Maybe. But that didn't happen, and it's too late now. You can't deliver serious capital projects in the time left to this parliament. If (to take a random example) DfT had not wasted time by requiring several rounds of bidding in order to get to a feasibility study to reopen a railway, but simply thrown £200m at reopening Leicester-Burton, then maybe Boris would have seen some eventual rewards.
But Goodwin really doesn't grasp any of this. He concludes "the only way forward for him now is to start ditching advisors and doubling down on where he began". Right. Boris is going to win the next election by ditching advisors and relying on his force of personality to magically deliver projects on the ground. Good luck, as they say, with that.
Great post but let me say what I think Goodwin really means. His view is Johnson can win again by making the next election about identity & values. The idea is we can be driven into 2 camps as in the USA with the Tories as the GOP. Unlike the USA our progressive vote is not owned by one party, therefore under FPTP a Tory Party creating that binary - Prog v Trad - and consolidating the Trad side will be favourites for a majority. It's also his view they don't have to create the divide from scratch because the Brexit wars have done the donkey work. For Prog v Trad read Remain v Leave. He thinks these are now established as the dominant political identities, stronger by far than Left v Centre v Right or party affiliations. So what Johnson needs to do is build on this. Following Get Brexit Done the message should be vote Tory to protect the values that (iho) drove Brexit in the first place - or to be more accurate the values shared by most of those who voted Leave in 16 and for GBD in 19.
I hope this emergency Cabinet meeting is concentrating on saving hospitality from extinction, rather than just looking yet again at models.
Oyster Reach Beefeater Ipswich @Restaurant_mgr · 32m Replying to @EssexPR Over 300 #cancellations and counting this weekend alone, dread answering the phone now
Sunak seems to have put a stop to the support that is needed.
> If an employee goes off sick on or after 10 December 2021, up to and including 26 January 2022, you cannot ask them for proof of sickness until they have been off for 28 days or more.
Which I thought was mildly interesting in terms of what the government are expecting to be going on. Anyway, 'Hello' once again.
Hello
I wonder what the cosmic significance of January 26th is?
> If an employee goes off sick on or after 10 December 2021, up to and including 26 January 2022, you cannot ask them for proof of sickness until they have been off for 28 days or more.
Which I thought was mildly interesting in terms of what the government are expecting to be going on. Anyway, 'Hello' once again.
Hello
I wonder what the cosmic significance of January 26th is?
It's when the Plan B measures expire, that was a concession made to the Tory party to limit the rebellion.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
I hope this emergency Cabinet meeting is concentrating on saving hospitality from extinction, rather than just looking yet again at models.
Oyster Reach Beefeater Ipswich @Restaurant_mgr · 32m Replying to @EssexPR Over 300 #cancellations and counting this weekend alone, dread answering the phone now
Sunak seems to have put a stop to the support that is needed.
I wouldn't be surprised if Rishi has said no money for lockdown, we know he's never been in favour of them. So if the PM wants to push the lockdown option it wouldn't have any support schemes like last time, making it even less likely to pass through parliament. And Rishi is unsackable, especially by the PM who is very weak.
So essentially, the advisors have realised there's no way restrictions will be agreed before Christmas, so are now pushing for them to start as a 'temporary' measure right after, rather than waiting until the New Year.
As soon as restrictions are implemented, it will be due to them that hospitals aren't burning to the ground, so to be safe we should keep them until say March. And loosen in phases.
Feels like Groundhog Day.
Except Groundhog Day was funny. We've got clowns in charge, but no-one is laughing any more...
So essentially, the advisors have realised there's no way restrictions will be agreed before Christmas, so are now pushing for them to start as a 'temporary' measure right after, rather than waiting until the New Year.
As soon as restrictions are implemented, it will be due to them that hospitals aren't burning to the ground, so to be safe we should keep them until say March. And loosen in phases.
Feels like Groundhog Day.
There's a political calculation in there this time, Boris is done as PM if he pushes the lockdown, the Tory party won't wear it and that 100 MP rebellion becomes a 200 MP rebellion.
I hope this emergency Cabinet meeting is concentrating on saving hospitality from extinction, rather than just looking yet again at models.
Oyster Reach Beefeater Ipswich @Restaurant_mgr · 32m Replying to @EssexPR Over 300 #cancellations and counting this weekend alone, dread answering the phone now
Sunak seems to have put a stop to the support that is needed.
It's why that Times report about the circuit breaker sounds so plausible. Hospitality closed indoors and limited to the rule of six outdoors, and at the coldest, most miserable time of the year. It's going as close to actually shutting the industry down as possible, thereby reducing its contribution to transmission to almost nothing, without actually ordering businesses to close.
The HYUFD defence ("there is no lockdown") then remains technically correct, and Government ministers can continue to insist that the few remaining support measures in place, such as the temporary VAT reduction, are somehow sufficient to compensate for the many blows that they have rained down upon the already tottering sector.
It looks suspiciously as if the Government has tired of doling out cash, and the traditional instinct to allow Schumpeterian creative destruction to take its course is reasserting itself. But talks between Treasury and business representatives are allegedly in progress, so I remain to be corrected by the course of events.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Know where you're coming from mate. I was toying with the idea of having a break form reading this site over the holidays, but it feels more important than ever to stay informed at the moment.
And yes, as I mentioned earlier, going forward I will treat any measures as purely optional and live with the consequences.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Sorry to hear this. I wish I could mentally telegraph to you my confidence that there won't be a Lockdown (or anything close) for Omicron. What I do think is coming is a tough time for the NHS. Both for those who work in it and those who need to use it.
Beyond "get Brexit done", as I have remarked on before, the Tories seem completely out of ideas.
Housing, where is the big plan?
Cost of living, where is the big plan?
Climate change, where is the big plan?
Transport, where is the big plan?
They have this massive majority and yet I can't see a single thing they've actually used it for.
Hmm. Forgive my slight disagreement here, Horse.
Are you sure you just haven't been looking?
I think we can forgive any absence of "Big Plans" for the last 2 years of pandemic. Personally I associate demands for "big plans" with the inevitable failure of much of socialist inspired government.
In the areas you highlight:
>Housing, where is the big plan?
Generally the record on housebuilding, and on creating a more stable housing market, has been noticeably successful compared to the runaway noughties. I see that the most recent newbuild figures are around 250k dwellings.
Where they have failed, and yes they have, has been through Govt being scared properly to puncture demand side driven house-price growth we have seen in the last year, and choosing to subsidise new housing, repeatedly, rather than take on traditional housing price tax breaks. And to drive environmental improvement in the owner occupied sector in the same way they have done in the PRS, following the lead of Davey in the PRS starting in about 2013. Senior Tories have been cowards in that respect.
>Cost of living, where is the big plan?
Do we need one? We have had increasing inflation for a few months, and we need pandemic subsidies to work through before we even get the foggiest idea where we actually are. It is a standard feature everywhere at present. I think the market will mainly fix this one, and interest rates just went up here before most other places. BOE on the ball as usual.
>Climate change, where is the big plan?
Have you missed the last 5 carbon multiyear budgets, incorporated in UK law since 2008, and the small fact that we are the best part of a decade ahead of EU countries in emissions reductions?
An area of significant achievement, though Boris has cocked up parts of this under Transport recently with his decisions on HS2 NE.
>Transport, where is the big plan?
I don't agree with all of it, but how does one miss this?
> If an employee goes off sick on or after 10 December 2021, up to and including 26 January 2022, you cannot ask them for proof of sickness until they have been off for 28 days or more.
Which I thought was mildly interesting in terms of what the government are expecting to be going on. Anyway, 'Hello' once again.
The same with benefits. It is being promoted as "to help the vaccine rollout" so is targeted at keeping people out of GP surgeries.
Why is that so implausible? Plenty of evidence that AZ isn't much use against Omicron. The figure means that your chances of not dying from COVID are only 30% lower if you have 2 xAZ. But that is 30% lower than your background risk of death which is very small for most.
Also that 30% is for people who had their 2nd does 6 months + ago and haven't been boosted yet
• Scientists (literally) make up scary numbers & call for restrictions. • Media lobby & agitate for restrictions. • Govt claims to believe made-up numbers & implements measures which have never been effective before & for which they present no evidence.
... • Measures have no impact. • Implement stricter measures. • Move to an unnecessary full lockdown which causes economic, social & emotional costs many times any possible benefit.
Again and again and again.
Are we dealing with clueless clowns or seriously bad faith actors?
Good afternoon everyone. We are dealing with seriously bad faith actors advising clueless clowns.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Sorry to hear this. I wish I could mentally telegraph to you my confidence that there won't be a Lockdown (or anything close) for Omicron. What I do think is coming is a tough time for the NHS. Both for those who work in it and those who need to use it.
Thanks, I agree that on balance there won't be a lockdown, but even a decent chance of one ruins things. As it is, even "just" imposing social distancing has a big impact on me since my biggest hobby and stress-outlet is martial arts.
Probably doesn't help that I'm in self-imposed semi-lockdown at the moment to make sure I can see my parents for Christmas and working on a Saturday, which is reminding me of how unpleasant it all was.
I just broke my lurking to say me and my partner are E&W inhabitants and long time con voters. We cheered at 4am in 2019 December when Raab beat off a big Lib Dem challenge to hold on.
We are now both Reform supporters, and I donate to Reform significantly.
So all of this over a possible 3k hospitalisations per day under the same model that got the 7k per day wrong last time out?
The hundred Tory politicians need to hold firm and tell Boris and to get fucked. No more lockdowns, no more restrictions, no more tyranny of unelected experts.
Unelected experts > Elected morons. You're seriously more happy with the our fate in the hands of the geniuses who make plugging Peppa Pig part of government policy?
Any day of the week, I can vote out the Peppa pig crew if I disagree with them. I have no way of voting out the expert class. Your faith in them is disturbing, it's sad that so many British people are so comfortable with living in a technocratic country where they have zero influence on the big decisions of the day.
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, there is a basic issue of competence. Doctors, scientists, medics are capable of diagnosing if that lump on your bollock is cancerous or not. A gob on legs Tory MP ideologically focused on getting you and your cancerous testes back to work is not.
So whilst you want want to listen to the person saying "its fine, back to work" the problem is that they don't have the first fucking clue what they are saying. Which is why the couple of MPs who have said "we've had enough of these unelected Doctors, listen to us elected people and our Prime Minister" are being so roundly laughed at.
It's similar to a war I guess. The commanders in the field know their job better than the politicians do - But the politicians still have to prioritise, take ultimate responsibility for decisions, and can't simply outsource their decisions to the commanders.
The sad thing is nobody with any public standing calls them out. Its always the fringe loons who get the call to criticize them in the media, but they will then claim their model is that 0.000001 CFR and everybody has had it 27 times already.
There is never any careful dissection of the model and also past performance.
Much truth in this. Two comments. Matthew Goodwin is a little more thoughtful than described here.
The big thing he misses is competence. With Post-Brexit + pandemic to sort the government has to exude competence. Stuff is bound to happen, but the number of unnecessary errors points to a significant intellectual and moral gap.
On Brexit, this is a special case. Given the politics of the UK as of 2000-now and continuing, no satisfactory EU/UK settlement is likely. getting out of a 40 year alliance will always take years. Parliament, with a Remain majority failed to agree a sensible compromise timetable (eg Norway for Now) leaving no choice between a fairly hard Brexit and rejoin. Neither can work.
It may mean the Tories are replaced by another lot next time, but the problem of there being no acceptable solution (including status quo and status quo ante) will remain.
If the Lab/rainbow alliance can exude competence and moderation they will win.
I think that if Labour offered the EU a customs union (thereby eliminating most of the Northern Ireland issues) and general sensible cooperation on issues of joint concern there would be a warm response from the EU, and only a smallish minority of British voters would be really upset.
That’s been the obvious compromise and common sense approach since Mrs May took office, and her term would have gone very differently had she spent her honeymoon capital on telling her nutters some home truths and steering the country in that direction. Sooner or later we’ll get a government that recognises that Norway or Switzerland offer more realistic examples than Singapore.
South African beds occupied figure dropped by 10 today, having risen by 300 for the prior 3 days.
Perhaps reasonable to have a very short lag between case peak and hospital peak, as so much of their case ascertainment is done at point of hospital admission.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Sorry to hear this. I wish I could mentally telegraph to you my confidence that there won't be a Lockdown (or anything close) for Omicron. What I do think is coming is a tough time for the NHS. Both for those who work in it and those who need to use it.
Thanks, I agree that on balance there won't be a lockdown, but even a decent chance of one ruins things. As it is, even "just" imposing social distancing has a big impact on me since my biggest hobby and stress-outlet is martial arts.
Probably doesn't help that I'm in self-imposed semi-lockdown at the moment to make sure I can see my parents for Christmas and working on a Saturday, which is reminding me of how unpleasant it all was.
I think there'll be a lot of people around who are now looking to fall over the finishing line to Christmas, but won't bother being half so careful about avoiding Covid once all those family visits are out of the way.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Know where you're coming from mate. I was toying with the idea of having a break form reading this site over the holidays, but it feels more important than ever to stay informed at the moment.
And yes, as I mentioned earlier, going forward I will treat any measures as purely optional and live with the consequences.
This site is great for info and analysis on Covid but it's not great on predicting the political decisions. The general vibe throughout the pandemic has been to overstate the chances of big restrictions coming in. The probable is deemed certain, the possible is deemed probable, and the 'no way' is deemed possible. It's happening again now.
Hello everyone. I bring you my updated SA predictions (MY WORD IS LAW)
Week 50 Admission: 8800 (+22%) (This is down from my prediction of 9000 yesterday) Week 50 Deaths: 400 (+80%) (No change to my prediction)
Current Ventilator Percentage: 2.6% Current Oxygenated Percentage: 14.4%
Gauteng Admission still on target to be lower this week than last.
What approach are you using to model this tricky data that has lots of back filling e.g are you using a GP? What are your predicted ranges for each of the metrics?
So all of this over a possible 3k hospitalisations per day under the same model that got the 7k per day wrong last time out?
The hundred Tory politicians need to hold firm and tell Boris and to get fucked. No more lockdowns, no more restrictions, no more tyranny of unelected experts.
Unelected experts > Elected morons. You're seriously more happy with the our fate in the hands of the geniuses who make plugging Peppa Pig part of government policy?
Any day of the week, I can vote out the Peppa pig crew if I disagree with them. I have no way of voting out the expert class. Your faith in them is disturbing, it's sad that so many British people are so comfortable with living in a technocratic country where they have zero influence on the big decisions of the day.
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, there is a basic issue of competence. Doctors, scientists, medics are capable of diagnosing if that lump on your bollock is cancerous or not. A gob on legs Tory MP ideologically focused on getting you and your cancerous testes back to work is not.
So whilst you want want to listen to the person saying "its fine, back to work" the problem is that they don't have the first fucking clue what they are saying. Which is why the couple of MPs who have said "we've had enough of these unelected Doctors, listen to us elected people and our Prime Minister" are being so roundly laughed at.
It's similar to a war I guess. The commanders in the field know their job better than the politicians do - But the politicians still have to prioritise, take ultimate responsibility for decisions, and can't simply outsource their decisions to the commanders.
“You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together—what do you get? The sum of their fears.”
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Sorry to hear this. I wish I could mentally telegraph to you my confidence that there won't be a Lockdown (or anything close) for Omicron. What I do think is coming is a tough time for the NHS. Both for those who work in it and those who need to use it.
Thanks, I agree that on balance there won't be a lockdown, but even a decent chance of one ruins things. As it is, even "just" imposing social distancing has a big impact on me since my biggest hobby and stress-outlet is martial arts.
Probably doesn't help that I'm in self-imposed semi-lockdown at the moment to make sure I can see my parents for Christmas and working on a Saturday, which is reminding me of how unpleasant it all was.
I think there'll be a lot of people around who are now looking to fall over the finishing line to Christmas, but won't bother being half so careful about avoiding Covid once all those family visits are out of the way.
Oh definitely. I have a return to the office, trip to a wine bar and a murder mystery night planned for the days between Christmas and New Year and flying off to Austria for a BJJ camp on the 1st.
A spectacularly ungracious tweet from North Shropshire CLP illustrates the cultural mountain that much of grassroots Labour still needs to climb, if the party wants to be in power.
It’s the kind of tweet you would never see from a Lib Dem constituency association (the worst they manage are cocky yah-boo gloats), nor indeed even the most knuckle-dragging Tory one. It contains within it several of the features that characterise the toxic far left:
1. Entitlement: Labour owns all anti Tory votes so how dare another party pick them up 2. Distaste for actual voters, especially floating ones: never mind that 60% of people on NS previously voted Tory. We don’t want them. Just our own core vote. 3. Tribalism above electoral strategy: I think they would honestly have preferred a Tory hold if it meant Labour coming second 4. Sanctimony and exclusivity: only we are pure, the rest are just Tory scum 5. Petulance and bad grace: the default emotion seems for these people seems to be anger.
The comments below the tweet are universally scathing, many from Labour supporters, but I expect the author considers that he or she did nothing wrong. This is what Starmer still evidently has to deal with in some CLPs.
Your extensive post is an utter work of fiction compared to the few words actually posted, namely "Thank you @btwodo for a great campaign that didn't get the reward it so deserved - onwards and upwards when people realize the #FibDems are just yellow Tories.."
There's nothing wrong with congratulating a hard working candidate and stating that he deserved better.
And it's perfectly reasonable for Labour to continue to remind people that 5 years of very recent Conservative austerity was facilitated by the Lib Dems. When I read Telegraph commentators and the likes of John Redwood this week bemoaning the looser fiscal policies of Johnson compared to the hard line gruel that Osborne and Cameron served up, it only confirms that the 2010 to 2015 years really were true blue ones.
Lib Dem hopes at the next GE will be focused entirely on picking up mainly Conservative votes in Conservative held seats. The reminder of their recent past probably helped the Lib Dems in N Shropshire and will help them in similar seats elsewhere.
"Yellow Tories" just puts every other party into either Labour or Tory boxes. Which isn't reality.
What made me chuckle though was "FibDems". Labour put out at least one leaflet saying they were the challenger. And a set of numbers claiming to be on 30%...
Labour can't win a majority without Scotland. The sooner they wake up to this reality and start working with allies the better.
Compete in the seats you can win. NS was not such a seat. Let others compete where they can defeat the Tory. That is the war - Tories and not Tories. "Yellow Tory" is fighting the last war and will bring defeat to pudding-headed Labour activists who think that way
Very clearly "Yellow Tories" didn't refer to every other party. Just the Lib Dems.
The Lib Dems have a well deserved reputation established over decades for a complete and utter lack of veracity when fighting by elections or seats they've targeted. All parties do it, but the Lib Dems have taken it to previously unheard of levels. Having chosen that path, at least have the good grace not to object when you're reminded of it.
By objecting to the reminder in that tweet, you're also implicitly defending Clegg's behaviour in giving us 5 years of hard line Conservative government from 2010, when a decade ago you were in the same camp as I. Yet you claim it's the Labour Party not you that changed when trying to justify your change of political allegiance.
In a General Election, Labour will compete in seats it can win and I am sure give the LDs a free hand in many others. But in by-elections in between, in a parliament where the Conservatives can never lose their majority, you should recognise that the situation is more complex.
Labour had I think two aims in the by-election: 1. For the Conservatives to suffer a crushing defeat to the Lib Dems that would foster further turmoil in the Conservative Party. 2. To achieve 1 while retaining enough of the Labour vote in a tactical squeeze so that the result wasn't portrayed nationally as reversing the recent revival in Labour's fortunes under Starmer. Both were just achieved, and the result justifies Labour's decision to campaign as it did.
The far left entryists, by contrast, clearly wanted a result that could be portrayed as a disaster to Starmer and could be used to try and revive their flagging fortunes within the party. Their argument rings hollow, given that Labour still held on to nearly 10% of the vote. But had Labour collapsed to the 1.6% seen in Chesham and Amersham, the outcome that both you and the far left appear to have wanted, Starmer's position both in the country and in the party would have been weakened.
Much truth in this. Two comments. Matthew Goodwin is a little more thoughtful than described here.
The big thing he misses is competence. With Post-Brexit + pandemic to sort the government has to exude competence. Stuff is bound to happen, but the number of unnecessary errors points to a significant intellectual and moral gap.
On Brexit, this is a special case. Given the politics of the UK as of 2000-now and continuing, no satisfactory EU/UK settlement is likely. getting out of a 40 year alliance will always take years. Parliament, with a Remain majority failed to agree a sensible compromise timetable (eg Norway for Now) leaving no choice between a fairly hard Brexit and rejoin. Neither can work.
It may mean the Tories are replaced by another lot next time, but the problem of there being no acceptable solution (including status quo and status quo ante) will remain.
If the Lab/rainbow alliance can exude competence and moderation they will win.
I think that if Labour offered the EU a customs union (thereby eliminating most of the Northern Ireland issues) and general sensible cooperation on issues of joint concern there would be a warm response from the EU, and only a smallish minority of British voters would be really upset.
That’s been the obvious compromise and common sense approach since Mrs May took office, and her term would have gone very differently had she spent her honeymoon capital on telling her nutters some home truths and steering the country in that direction. Sooner or later we’ll get a government that recognises that Norway or Switzerland offer more realistic examples than Singapore.
So Labour would make us a rule taker from the EU with no input. And open up the flood gates on immigration too?
Much truth in this. Two comments. Matthew Goodwin is a little more thoughtful than described here.
The big thing he misses is competence. With Post-Brexit + pandemic to sort the government has to exude competence. Stuff is bound to happen, but the number of unnecessary errors points to a significant intellectual and moral gap.
On Brexit, this is a special case. Given the politics of the UK as of 2000-now and continuing, no satisfactory EU/UK settlement is likely. getting out of a 40 year alliance will always take years. Parliament, with a Remain majority failed to agree a sensible compromise timetable (eg Norway for Now) leaving no choice between a fairly hard Brexit and rejoin. Neither can work.
It may mean the Tories are replaced by another lot next time, but the problem of there being no acceptable solution (including status quo and status quo ante) will remain.
If the Lab/rainbow alliance can exude competence and moderation they will win.
I think that if Labour offered the EU a customs union (thereby eliminating most of the Northern Ireland issues) and general sensible cooperation on issues of joint concern there would be a warm response from the EU, and only a smallish minority of British voters would be really upset.
That’s been the obvious compromise and common sense approach since Mrs May took office, and her term would have gone very differently had she spent her honeymoon capital on telling her nutters some home truths and steering the country in that direction. Sooner or later we’ll get a government that recognises that Norway or Switzerland offer more realistic examples than Singapore.
So Labour would make us a rule taker from the EU with no input. And open up the flood gates on immigration too?
Feels like the centrepiece of a Tory campaign.
The Tories should also just announce to the public/EU that they will leave any Customs Union next time they are in power.
Many reasons behind football's current Covid outbreak. Vax issues in some dressing-rooms, general Omicron spike etc. One club also believes timing of outbreak is related to players’ Christmas parties. Not as prevalent or wild as in the past but some still taking place.
Hello everyone. I bring you my updated SA predictions (MY WORD IS LAW)
Week 50 Admission: 8800 (+22%) (This is down from my prediction of 9000 yesterday) Week 50 Deaths: 400 (+80%) (No change to my prediction)
Current Ventilator Percentage: 2.6% Current Oxygenated Percentage: 14.4%
Gauteng Admission still on target to be lower this week than last.
What approach are you using to model this tricky data that has lots of back filling e.g are you using a GP? What are your predicted ranges for each of the metrics?
A braindead simple approach that is "good enough" but has statistical flaws that mean i cant give you non-bullshit error bars.
For week 46-49 takenthe reported figure for admissions from momday at thevstart of the week to the following Wednesday. Assume Wednesday is Complete (it's not, there will still be a fair amoibt of backfilling but not enough to worry about.
Then simply work out what percentage of the complete figure each proceeding day is and take the average percentage to estimate based on the current figure for week 50.
As i am taking averages of ratios every statatician is staring daggers at me but it is good enough for an approx central estimation.
Many reasons behind football's current Covid outbreak. Vax issues in some dressing-rooms, general Omicron spike etc. One club also believes timing of outbreak is related to players’ Christmas parties. Not as prevalent or wild as in the past but some still taking place.
If the football authorities showed any leadership and intelligence, they would long ago have decreed that being fully vaxxed was a condition for being able to play.
• Scientists (literally) make up scary numbers & call for restrictions. • Media lobby & agitate for restrictions. • Govt claims to believe made-up numbers & implements measures which have never been effective before & for which they present no evidence.
... • Measures have no impact. • Implement stricter measures. • Move to an unnecessary full lockdown which causes economic, social & emotional costs many times any possible benefit.
Again and again and again.
Are we dealing with clueless clowns or seriously bad faith actors?
Good afternoon everyone. We are dealing with seriously bad faith actors advising clueless clowns.
The idea that lockdowns have no impact is so obviously wrong that anyone claiming that immediately identifies themselves as not worth listening to.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Sorry to hear this. I wish I could mentally telegraph to you my confidence that there won't be a Lockdown (or anything close) for Omicron. What I do think is coming is a tough time for the NHS. Both for those who work in it and those who need to use it.
Thanks, I agree that on balance there won't be a lockdown, but even a decent chance of one ruins things. As it is, even "just" imposing social distancing has a big impact on me since my biggest hobby and stress-outlet is martial arts.
Probably doesn't help that I'm in self-imposed semi-lockdown at the moment to make sure I can see my parents for Christmas and working on a Saturday, which is reminding me of how unpleasant it all was.
I think there'll be a lot of people around who are now looking to fall over the finishing line to Christmas, but won't bother being half so careful about avoiding Covid once all those family visits are out of the way.
Spot on. So many people are desperate to enjoy a ‘normal’ family Christmas this year, that they are self-isolating in the run-up, to the detriment of retail and hospitality businesses. Once the family Christmas is out of the way I reckon we’ll all be up for a riotous celebration of New Year. The clown has no political capital to stand in our way.
Much truth in this. Two comments. Matthew Goodwin is a little more thoughtful than described here.
The big thing he misses is competence. With Post-Brexit + pandemic to sort the government has to exude competence. Stuff is bound to happen, but the number of unnecessary errors points to a significant intellectual and moral gap.
On Brexit, this is a special case. Given the politics of the UK as of 2000-now and continuing, no satisfactory EU/UK settlement is likely. getting out of a 40 year alliance will always take years. Parliament, with a Remain majority failed to agree a sensible compromise timetable (eg Norway for Now) leaving no choice between a fairly hard Brexit and rejoin. Neither can work.
It may mean the Tories are replaced by another lot next time, but the problem of there being no acceptable solution (including status quo and status quo ante) will remain.
If the Lab/rainbow alliance can exude competence and moderation they will win.
I think that if Labour offered the EU a customs union (thereby eliminating most of the Northern Ireland issues) and general sensible cooperation on issues of joint concern there would be a warm response from the EU, and only a smallish minority of British voters would be really upset.
That’s been the obvious compromise and common sense approach since Mrs May took office, and her term would have gone very differently had she spent her honeymoon capital on telling her nutters some home truths and steering the country in that direction. Sooner or later we’ll get a government that recognises that Norway or Switzerland offer more realistic examples than Singapore.
Has not the EuCo now essentially binned the Swiss model of single-market access?
Hello everyone. I bring you my updated SA predictions (MY WORD IS LAW)
Week 50 Admission: 8800 (+22%) (This is down from my prediction of 9000 yesterday) Week 50 Deaths: 400 (+80%) (No change to my prediction)
Current Ventilator Percentage: 2.6% Current Oxygenated Percentage: 14.4%
Gauteng Admission still on target to be lower this week than last.
Thanks Alister, this is really encouraging.
Just so I get this right and don't misquote, are you saying that Hospitalisation in Gautang, is now fulling?
I understand, possibly form your updates, that cases are now fulling in Gautand for about 5 days, so its logical for Hospitalisation to also fall, soon after that. but if I'm going to use that to rub in the faces of anybody who is calling for a lockdown, then I what to be sure.
Many reasons behind football's current Covid outbreak. Vax issues in some dressing-rooms, general Omicron spike etc. One club also believes timing of outbreak is related to players’ Christmas parties. Not as prevalent or wild as in the past but some still taking place.
If the football authorities showed any leadership and intelligence, they would long ago have decreed that being fully vaxxed was a condition for being able to play.
American sports have got it up over 90% with things along those lines, and their proportion of players from backgrounds traditionally vaccine hesitate is much higher.
Hello everyone. I bring you my updated SA predictions (MY WORD IS LAW)
Week 50 Admission: 8800 (+22%) (This is down from my prediction of 9000 yesterday) Week 50 Deaths: 400 (+80%) (No change to my prediction)
Current Ventilator Percentage: 2.6% Current Oxygenated Percentage: 14.4%
Gauteng Admission still on target to be lower this week than last.
Thanks Alister, this is really encouraging.
Just so I get this right and don't misquote, are you saying that Hospitalisation in Gautang, is now fulling?
I understand, possibly form your updates, that cases are now fulling in Gautand for about 5 days, so its logical for Hospitalisation to also fall, soon after that. but if I'm going to use that to rub in the faces of anybody who is calling for a lockdown, then I what to be sure.
I don't give a separate Gauteng prediction but i think admissions will be at worst flat this week compared to last.
Yes, fine form. Having a quiet weekend at home. I am on call the holiday week so trying to keep bug free until the new year.
Short straw, eh. Have you no Hindu, Jewish, or Moslem colleagues who would cover for The Day itself? At one time I worked with a (fairly) devout Jewish pharmacist who would always cover for Christian (or nominally Christian) colleagues at major Christian holidays provided that they would cover for him on major Jewish ones. And if he wasn't needed he'd go off and find somewhere else that needed cover.
No, it was part of our leave negotiations so some colleagues could visit family overseas that they couldn't get to last Christmas. In return I got the pick of summer leave. I am not working on Christmas day nor the 26th, just the week after.
Why is that so implausible? Plenty of evidence that AZ isn't much use against Omicron. The figure means that your chances of not dying from COVID are only 30% lower if you have 2 xAZ. But that is 30% lower than your background risk of death which is very small for most.
Also that 30% is for people who had their 2nd does 6 months + ago and haven't been boosted yet
So the actuals landed in line with SAGE"s optimistic scenario - which is a good result. In any case modelling the spread of Omicron with its reduction on VE is fairly different problem.
Well all the talk of new restrictions is impacting my mental health, eye twitch returning etc. Joy. I really need to stop reading this site, twitter, the news etc. But it's very hard not to because I want to know what's going on with the hammer hanging over my head. The only ray of light in this mess as far as I'm concerned is that I no longer feel morally obliged to follow any restrictions that are put in place, unlike in the past.
Sorry to hear this. I wish I could mentally telegraph to you my confidence that there won't be a Lockdown (or anything close) for Omicron. What I do think is coming is a tough time for the NHS. Both for those who work in it and those who need to use it.
Thanks, I agree that on balance there won't be a lockdown, but even a decent chance of one ruins things. As it is, even "just" imposing social distancing has a big impact on me since my biggest hobby and stress-outlet is martial arts.
Probably doesn't help that I'm in self-imposed semi-lockdown at the moment to make sure I can see my parents for Christmas and working on a Saturday, which is reminding me of how unpleasant it all was.
I think there'll be a lot of people around who are now looking to fall over the finishing line to Christmas, but won't bother being half so careful about avoiding Covid once all those family visits are out of the way.
Spot on. So many people are desperate to enjoy a ‘normal’ family Christmas this year, that they are self-isolating in the run-up, to the detriment of retail and hospitality businesses. Once the family Christmas is out of the way I reckon we’ll all be up for a riotous celebration of New Year. The clown has no political capital to stand in our way.
Government can, of course, bring businesses (which are sitting ducks for restrictions) to heel in a way it can't do with private households, which are self-evidently far too numerous to have their compliance policed effectively. Hence the fact that Drakeford can contemplate shuttering nightclubs and resurrecting the rule of six for hospitality businesses.
There's no reason why Johnson can't also force more restrictions upon businesses, but the harsher they become the more rebellious his party will get, the more he'll have to lean on Labour support, and the weaker and more precarious his grip on power will become. So we can at least have the satisfaction of watching his ministry crumble.
Much truth in this. Two comments. Matthew Goodwin is a little more thoughtful than described here.
The big thing he misses is competence. With Post-Brexit + pandemic to sort the government has to exude competence. Stuff is bound to happen, but the number of unnecessary errors points to a significant intellectual and moral gap.
On Brexit, this is a special case. Given the politics of the UK as of 2000-now and continuing, no satisfactory EU/UK settlement is likely. getting out of a 40 year alliance will always take years. Parliament, with a Remain majority failed to agree a sensible compromise timetable (eg Norway for Now) leaving no choice between a fairly hard Brexit and rejoin. Neither can work.
It may mean the Tories are replaced by another lot next time, but the problem of there being no acceptable solution (including status quo and status quo ante) will remain.
If the Lab/rainbow alliance can exude competence and moderation they will win.
I think that if Labour offered the EU a customs union (thereby eliminating most of the Northern Ireland issues) and general sensible cooperation on issues of joint concern there would be a warm response from the EU, and only a smallish minority of British voters would be really upset.
That’s been the obvious compromise and common sense approach since Mrs May took office, and her term would have gone very differently had she spent her honeymoon capital on telling her nutters some home truths and steering the country in that direction. Sooner or later we’ll get a government that recognises that Norway or Switzerland offer more realistic examples than Singapore.
A sad thing / true thing is Labour can offer whatever on the EU bar Free Movement. Ditto Mrs May back then for that matter. There were tons of reasons for the Leave vote but FM was the biggest. May would have been toast if she'd tried to retain it in any Brexit deal and Labour must steer clear of it to have a chance in GE24. Seems little doubt that SKS realizes this.
I hope this emergency Cabinet meeting is concentrating on saving hospitality from extinction, rather than just looking yet again at models.
Oyster Reach Beefeater Ipswich @Restaurant_mgr · 32m Replying to @EssexPR Over 300 #cancellations and counting this weekend alone, dread answering the phone now
Sunak seems to have put a stop to the support that is needed.
Why is that so implausible? Plenty of evidence that AZ isn't much use against Omicron. The figure means that your chances of not dying from COVID are only 30% lower if you have 2 xAZ. But that is 30% lower than your background risk of death which is very small for most.
Also that 30% is for people who had their 2nd does 6 months + ago and haven't been boosted yet
Regarding the conversation about Sunak in the previous thread, I think being independently wealthy is a plus - it makes the candidate less susceptible to grifting opportunities. Thatcher was wealthy through her spouse.
Trying to keep as safe as possible for family Christmas, whilst still trying to support local independent businesses, especially the ones like our local pub, that have always been very covid aware. Are others also trying to balance these two conflicting aims?
Goodwin asserts that Boris is being punished for "failing to get his arms around illegal migration". Maybe Boris shouldn't have promised that, then, because no-one is going to be able to get their arms around illegal migration. The Middle East is awash in AK-47s and fundamentalists (thanks Tony!). No kidding that some of the displaced people are trying to get here.
Politicians abandoning responsibility for preventing illegal entry by people from extremist hotpots seems like a good way to get the electorate to keep moving right until they find a party that will take responsibility.
Yes, fine form. Having a quiet weekend at home. I am on call the holiday week so trying to keep bug free until the new year.
Short straw, eh. Have you no Hindu, Jewish, or Moslem colleagues who would cover for The Day itself? At one time I worked with a (fairly) devout Jewish pharmacist who would always cover for Christian (or nominally Christian) colleagues at major Christian holidays provided that they would cover for him on major Jewish ones. And if he wasn't needed he'd go off and find somewhere else that needed cover.
No, it was part of our leave negotiations so some colleagues could visit family overseas that they couldn't get to last Christmas. In return I got the pick of summer leave. I am not working on Christmas day nor the 26th, just the week after.
I don't particularly mind.
My brother worked in a job where he could regularly be on call. After he got married, and before he had kids, he worked Christmas for three years in a row, so the company would allow him some Christmases off when his young 'un's was born.
Big super spreader event going on in London today with 1000s protesting vaccine passports......
I would much rather that such anti-vaxxers weren't at the football match that I still intend to go to tomorrow. I go with some trepidation still and will take a voluntary LFT beforehand having already had the booster, armed with a vaccine passport. If anti-vaxxers were able to go without at least taking a LFT, then that would definitely force me to stay away.
Vaccine passports affect only the few doing the wrong thing and are helping stave off another lockdown that would extend to everyone who has done the right thing. It's just a shame that they are still so limited in scope.
Does anyone know if they send out results on Sundays?
It will be collected today but unsure if I can get the result tomorrow or not
Dunno. But it's an automated text. So no reason they shouldn't. We got ours at between 8 and 11 pm. Incidentally. No news is good news. Positives came hours before the negatives.
Big super spreader event going on in London today with 1000s protesting vaccine passports......
I would much rather that such anti-vaxxers weren't at the football match that I still intend to go to tomorrow. I go with some trepidation still and will take a voluntary LFT beforehand having already had the booster, armed with a vaccine passport. If anti-vaxxers were able to go without at least taking a LFT, then that would definitely force me to stay away.
Vaccine passports affect only the few doing the wrong thing and are helping stave off another lockdown that would extend to everyone who has done the right thing. It's just a shame that they are still so limited in scope.
Much truth in this. Two comments. Matthew Goodwin is a little more thoughtful than described here.
The big thing he misses is competence. With Post-Brexit + pandemic to sort the government has to exude competence. Stuff is bound to happen, but the number of unnecessary errors points to a significant intellectual and moral gap.
On Brexit, this is a special case. Given the politics of the UK as of 2000-now and continuing, no satisfactory EU/UK settlement is likely. getting out of a 40 year alliance will always take years. Parliament, with a Remain majority failed to agree a sensible compromise timetable (eg Norway for Now) leaving no choice between a fairly hard Brexit and rejoin. Neither can work.
It may mean the Tories are replaced by another lot next time, but the problem of there being no acceptable solution (including status quo and status quo ante) will remain.
If the Lab/rainbow alliance can exude competence and moderation they will win.
I think that if Labour offered the EU a customs union (thereby eliminating most of the Northern Ireland issues) and general sensible cooperation on issues of joint concern there would be a warm response from the EU, and only a smallish minority of British voters would be really upset.
That’s been the obvious compromise and common sense approach since Mrs May took office, and her term would have gone very differently had she spent her honeymoon capital on telling her nutters some home truths and steering the country in that direction. Sooner or later we’ll get a government that recognises that Norway or Switzerland offer more realistic examples than Singapore.
A sad thing / true thing is Labour can offer whatever on the EU bar Free Movement. Ditto Mrs May back then for that matter. There were tons of reasons for the Leave vote but FM was the biggest. May would have been toast if she'd tried to retain it in any Brexit deal and Labour must steer clear of it to have a chance in GE24. Seems little doubt that SKS realizes this.
The polling on Brexit shows the most important things were (1) wanting laws to be made in the UK and (2) immigration. In that order. Starmer will lose any gains if he does either or looks like he is going to do either.
Should the people who treat the NHS as a religion, and are happy to lock down the country to keep it safe, be prepared to pay a tithe to support it?
It's not the case of treating the NHS as a religion. It's a case of the fact that I might need the NHS at any time, and I'd quite like the wards not to be so filled with Covid patients that I cannot be treated.
Now, the real people who should pay a tithe are the anti-vaxxers ...
Looks like just over a million jabs a day is probably going to be max.
They won't make target / aspiration, but will get a hell of a lot done.
It was a stupid target
It really isn't. Stretch targets are fine.
I think as much an issue as capacity, is demand e.g. you can't have your booster if you had covid within 30 days. Well lots of people are currently getting it.
Should the people who treat the NHS as a religion, and are happy to lock down the country to keep it safe, be prepared to pay a tithe to support it?
It's not the case of treating the NHS as a religion. It's a case of the fact that I might need the NHS at any time, and I'd quite like the wards not to be so filled with Covid patients that I cannot be treated.
Now, the real people who should pay a tithe are the anti-vaxxers ...
Don't be silly Josias. Massive rises in mortality rates due to doctors not being able to get to all their patients aren't as important as PBers being able to go to wine bars in January.
Looks like just over a million jabs a day is probably going to be max.
They won't make target / aspiration, but will get a hell of a lot done.
It was a stupid target
The purpose of a target is to push yourself towards it.
If things had been left to the NHS we would still be down at 200k per day.
It is the Tories' fault we're in the booster hole, they spent all Summer doing sod all
If they'd done boosters in the summer, there's a good chance that some people may now be suffering waning immunity from the boosters ...
(This depends on the long-term immunity from boosters, which AFAIAA we don't know yet).
But yes, the government were tardy IMO. But it is more excusable than the decision not to vaccinate secondary school children, considering few considered something like Omicron a likely threat. You really wanted maximum immunity for those most at threat over winter, and that would mean vaccinating from mid/late Autumn onwards.
Comments
If I were to criticise SAGE it would be over not considering alternatives to limiting hospital demand. Specific advice to those likely at risk/very vulnerable/unvaccinated to perhaps limit their likelihood of getting infected.
If so, there seems little hope for the rest of us dodging it for very much longer. We may have been laughing at the notion that there were already a million Covid infections per day when Javid appeared to imply it a few days ago, but a million a day by the end of the month doesn't sound so implausible.
These are considerations that the experts don't have to make, yet they have been handed decision making power that have non-health consequences. The 100 Tory MPs have taken that power off them and now the experts are trying to wrestle it back into their control with doom predictions like 5000 dead per day, it's laughable.
For the first time the expert class is powerless to impose their will on the public, the PM has serious political considerations in just waving through their recommendations as he normally would.
As soon as restrictions are implemented, it will be due to them that hospitals aren't burning to the ground, so to be safe we should keep them until say March. And loosen in phases.
Feels like Groundhog Day.
And the doubling time was wrong but looking through it seemsapproximately correct to me, the number was just simply wrong
I wonder what the cosmic significance of January 26th is?
The HYUFD defence ("there is no lockdown") then remains technically correct, and Government ministers can continue to insist that the few remaining support measures in place, such as the temporary VAT reduction, are somehow sufficient to compensate for the many blows that they have rained down upon the already tottering sector.
It looks suspiciously as if the Government has tired of doling out cash, and the traditional instinct to allow Schumpeterian creative destruction to take its course is reasserting itself. But talks between Treasury and business representatives are allegedly in progress, so I remain to be corrected by the course of events.
And yes, as I mentioned earlier, going forward I will treat any measures as purely optional and live with the consequences.
Are you sure you just haven't been looking?
I think we can forgive any absence of "Big Plans" for the last 2 years of pandemic. Personally I associate demands for "big plans" with the inevitable failure of much of socialist inspired government.
In the areas you highlight:
>Housing, where is the big plan?
Generally the record on housebuilding, and on creating a more stable housing market, has been noticeably successful compared to the runaway noughties. I see that the most recent newbuild figures are around 250k dwellings.
Where they have failed, and yes they have, has been through Govt being scared properly to puncture demand side driven house-price growth we have seen in the last year, and choosing to subsidise new housing, repeatedly, rather than take on traditional housing price tax breaks. And to drive environmental improvement in the owner occupied sector in the same way they have done in the PRS, following the lead of Davey in the PRS starting in about 2013. Senior Tories have been cowards in that respect.
>Cost of living, where is the big plan?
Do we need one? We have had increasing inflation for a few months, and we need pandemic subsidies to work through before we even get the foggiest idea where we actually are. It is a standard feature everywhere at present. I think the market will mainly fix this one, and interest rates just went up here before most other places. BOE on the ball as usual.
>Climate change, where is the big plan?
Have you missed the last 5 carbon multiyear budgets, incorporated in UK law since 2008, and the small fact that we are the best part of a decade ahead of EU countries in emissions reductions?
An area of significant achievement, though Boris has cocked up parts of this under Transport recently with his decisions on HS2 NE.
>Transport, where is the big plan?
I don't agree with all of it, but how does one miss this?
https://data.spectator.co.uk/category/sage-scenarios
We are dealing with seriously bad faith actors advising clueless clowns.
Probably doesn't help that I'm in self-imposed semi-lockdown at the moment to make sure I can see my parents for Christmas and working on a Saturday, which is reminding me of how unpleasant it all was.
The sad thing is nobody with any public standing calls them out. Its always the fringe loons who get the call to criticize them in the media, but they will then claim their model is that 0.000001 CFR and everybody has had it 27 times already.
There is never any careful dissection of the model and also past performance.
A bracing afternoon all round.
Time for lunch.
Week 50 Admission: 8800 (+22%) (This is down from my prediction of 9000 yesterday)
Week 50 Deaths: 400 (+80%) (No change to my prediction)
Current Ventilator Percentage: 2.6%
Current Oxygenated Percentage: 14.4%
Gauteng Admission still on target to be lower this week than last.
Perhaps reasonable to have a very short lag between case peak and hospital peak, as so much of their case ascertainment is done at point of hospital admission.
https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-134/churchill-on-war/
The Lib Dems have a well deserved reputation established over decades for a complete and utter lack of veracity when fighting by elections or seats they've targeted. All parties do it, but the Lib Dems have taken it to previously unheard of levels. Having chosen that path, at least have the good grace not to object when you're reminded of it.
By objecting to the reminder in that tweet, you're also implicitly defending Clegg's behaviour in giving us 5 years of hard line Conservative government from 2010, when a decade ago you were in the same camp as I. Yet you claim it's the Labour Party not you that changed when trying to justify your change of political allegiance.
In a General Election, Labour will compete in seats it can win and I am sure give the LDs a free hand in many others. But in by-elections in between, in a parliament where the Conservatives can never lose their majority, you should recognise that the situation is more complex.
Labour had I think two aims in the by-election: 1. For the Conservatives to suffer a crushing defeat to the Lib Dems that would foster further turmoil in the Conservative Party. 2. To achieve 1 while retaining enough of the Labour vote in a tactical squeeze so that the result wasn't portrayed nationally as reversing the recent revival in Labour's fortunes under Starmer. Both were just achieved, and the result justifies Labour's decision to campaign as it did.
The far left entryists, by contrast, clearly wanted a result that could be portrayed as a disaster to Starmer and could be used to try and revive their flagging fortunes within the party. Their argument rings hollow, given that Labour still held on to nearly 10% of the vote. But had Labour collapsed to the 1.6% seen in Chesham and Amersham, the outcome that both you and the far left appear to have wanted, Starmer's position both in the country and in the party would have been weakened.
Feels like the centrepiece of a Tory campaign.
https://twitter.com/henrywinter/status/1472175992441561095?t=h5FldPdM--D0YrC5ZWZ8jQ&s=19
For week 46-49 takenthe reported figure for admissions from momday at thevstart of the week to the following Wednesday. Assume Wednesday is Complete (it's not, there will still be a fair amoibt of backfilling but not enough to worry about.
Then simply work out what percentage of the complete figure each proceeding day is and take the average percentage to estimate based on the current figure for week 50.
As i am taking averages of ratios every statatician is staring daggers at me but it is good enough for an approx central estimation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66M8NwkRmew
Just so I get this right and don't misquote, are you saying that Hospitalisation in Gautang, is now fulling?
I understand, possibly form your updates, that cases are now fulling in Gautand for about 5 days, so its logical for Hospitalisation to also fall, soon after that. but if I'm going to use that to rub in the faces of anybody who is calling for a lockdown, then I what to be sure.
England 740,775
Scotland 59,782
NI 17,068
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1472205446878478337?s=20
I don't particularly mind.
There's no reason why Johnson can't also force more restrictions upon businesses, but the harsher they become the more rebellious his party will get, the more he'll have to lean on Labour support, and the weaker and more precarious his grip on power will become. So we can at least have the satisfaction of watching his ministry crumble.
but the full UK breakdown is here:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations
It will be collected today but unsure if I can get the result tomorrow or not
Even Tories are jumping onto how stupid this woman is
Now he's a contractor it's irrelevant.
They won't make target / aspiration, but will get a hell of a lot done.
Vaccine passports affect only the few doing the wrong thing and are helping stave off another lockdown that would extend to everyone who has done the right thing. It's just a shame that they are still so limited in scope.
Incidentally. No news is good news. Positives came hours before the negatives.
In some ways, having Covid now would stand you in good stead. Not ideal of course with the time of year.
Now, the real people who should pay a tithe are the anti-vaxxers ...
It has suddenly become Xmas during my confinement.
What is wrong with people, seriously
If things had been left to the NHS we would still be down at 200k per day.
I think as much an issue as capacity, is demand e.g. you can't have your booster if you had covid within 30 days. Well lots of people are currently getting it.
Should we have done kids during the summer holidays. Yes. But JCVI recommendations said no.
Should we have done oldies slightly earlier and faster, and a wider group of oldies. Yes. But JCVI rules recommendations said no.
You partisanship some times is way OTT.
(This depends on the long-term immunity from boosters, which AFAIAA we don't know yet).
But yes, the government were tardy IMO. But it is more excusable than the decision not to vaccinate secondary school children, considering few considered something like Omicron a likely threat. You really wanted maximum immunity for those most at threat over winter, and that would mean vaccinating from mid/late Autumn onwards.
Those reported tomorrow should be significantly higher if the pattern holds.
I wonder if it is because "Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner"? Covidiots are just too common?
https://darwinawards.com/
https://darwinawards.com/rules/
PS. Also: winners, in complete contrast to Nobel laureates, must be dead. (Or, presumably, castrated etc.)