On the criticism (much of it ill-informed) of the Sage figures and models: I think many people are forgetting the time factor. Even just a few days ago we knew a lot less about how the Omicron waves in various places are unfolding, and on the severity of it, than we do now. Criticising them for being 'wrong' (i.e. for modelling based on very uncertain assumptions) then, on the basis of extra information we have now, is silly.
It's looking, as at today, as though (for reasons which still aren't fully understood), Omicron is less of a problem than appeared to be likely when the only real information we had was its super-fast spread in the early stages. That's good news, at least for countries like the UK which are well-advanced in delivering booster jabs, but it doesn't mean the Sage boffins were idiots, let alone that that had a malign agenda and were plotting to get us locked down just for fun. That's a conspiracy theory as bonkers as some of the anti-vax garbage.
It's not a conspiracy theory. The SAGE guy confirmed to Nelson that positive scenarios that used valid data inputs were deliberately excluded from the reporting because what they were saying didn't suit the agenda. Only negative scenarios were getting reported.
Not reporting scenarios because the inputs aren't relevant is reasonable. If you have no reason to believe those inputs, then you wouldn't have done the analysis.
But if you get a reasonable set of inputs, that then presents a reasonable scenario, that should be included within the science for consideration. Not to the exclusion of all other scenarios, but it should be there.
As per my comments yesterday, "the SAGE guy" misunderstood the syntax of Nelson's question on Twitter, and confirmed nothing of the sort. You (and Nelson) are misunderstanding the use of the term "scenario" in the context of a stochastic model.
No we're not. I understand full well the use of the term scenario, and so does Nelson.
The question isn't about which scenarios were ran, but why scenarios with certain outputs that didn't suit the agenda of locking down weren't included within "the science".
The whole range of scenarios should be included, not just the doomcasting ones.
How on earth can you possibly know that without having seen the model? It's simply ridiculous to believe that a member of SAGE said, on Twitter, that they don't model optimistic scenarios because it doesn't support the narrative. It has to be a misunderstanding, and based on long professional experience, I can see how it probably occurred. Nelson is using "scenario" to mean an output, Medley was (probably) interpreting it within the context of the actual model to mean a version of the model with a particular set of inputs.
No, there's no difference in understanding of scenario. They're explicitly discussing which ones were selected for inclusion after the fact for the evidence.
Medley is determining that scenarios that don't show crisis "doesn't inform anything" so shouldn't be shown to the decision makers, but that's wrong. Decision makers do need to know the full range of scenarios, not just those that Medley determines "inform" what needs to be informed.
Please focus very carefully on this next sentence. It is impossible for you to assert that two people have not misunderstood each other, without carefully questioning what each of them meant by the terms they used. You have definitely not done this, so you cannot know that they are using the word "scenario" to mean the same thing.
No but you can then look at the modelling they have actually presented and therefore come to the conclusion that Nelson is correct in his assertion. Moreover, in that exchange Nelson was very careful in his last comment to set out explicitly the conclusion he drew from Medley's replies and Medley did not use that opportunity to correct any perceived misunderstanding.
Medley might have taken the view it was best to end it because Nelson was not going to get it and Twitter wasn't the medium to have the rather tortuous conversation that would be required. We see this happen on PB sometimes.
Anyway, my wife and I now have two negative test days in a row. We want to go and visit my sister and brother-in-law who have both also just had two negative test days in a row, what's the consensus on that? Should we go or not? Considering they've all just had COVID as well and we'll be going by car.
That sounds like a situation where it is reasonable to go. You've demonstrated with tracking the reduction in viral load over previous days of positive LFTs that you can take a sample accurately, so I think you can be reasonably confident that you're not infectious.
If we had the death penalty as some want, we'd have killed him
There was an MP who complained bitterly about the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six not being executed as it meant there was lots of effort wasted on trying to get them freed.
This was of course before they were found to have been innocent...
If that MP is still alive, we should execute him
I've tracked down the reference. It wasn't an MP. It was a lot worse. It was Lord Denning, a judge who had thrown out a previous appeal, commenting on the appeal of the Birmingham Six in 1991.
"We shouldn't have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they'd been hanged. They'd have been forgotten, and the whole community would be satisfied... It is better that some innocent men remain in jail than that the integrity of the English judicial system be impugned." Incredible words from the man who Thatcher (obvs) called "probably the greatest English judge of modern times."
Anyway, my wife and I now have two negative test days in a row. We want to go and visit my sister and brother-in-law who have both also just had two negative test days in a row, what's the consensus on that? Should we go or not? Considering they've all just had COVID as well and we'll be going by car.
I would do it. We cannot continue to live in fear of either the virus or the state forever.
But then I suppose it is fairly obvious I would say that
So would I. We plan on having several (small) and one large household together on Christmas,as Day and we are LFTesting every two days. It'll be a windy Christmas Day lunch though as all windows will be open.
The thing I hate about this country is that’s it’s run in exactly the same way as the Oxford Union. Forget Eton, or even Oxford University as a whole, abolish the Oxford Union and the improvement would be marked.
Boris is actually only the first Oxford Union president to be PM since Ted Heath. Blair and Cameron were not even members of the Oxford Union when at Oxford. Hague managed to achieve the double of a first at Oxford and president of the Union but that did not help him win in 2001, Blair trounced him, so not sure that is true.
In any case the Oxford Union is not just politics, it attracts speakers from a broad range of fields including scientists, historians, actors, musicians, generals, religious leaders, journalists, entrepreneurs and business leaders etc
Does that not tell us something about inequalities still if such a thing is not considered a mind boggling coincidence rather than a potential norm even if not a regularly recurring norm. For example nobody from my school has ever been an MP to my knowledge let alone PM (although we do have a Nobel winner). I don't think there has ever been a PM from Manchester Uni (could be wrong?) from where I graduated even though it is one of the oldest and biggest Universities and with an excellent reputation. Yet Oxford? Eton? I wonder why?
Also the fact that you mention it results in generals and religious leaders rather than lieutenants and vicars says it all.
Just out of interest HYUFD do you come from a privileged background and if not why are you in awe of such people?
How many candidates from Manchester University have even stood for PM or party leader? It is no surprise the best universities in the land produce the most PMs as do the best schools, though we have had an Edinburgh graduate PM in Brown more recently than a Cambridge graduate, the last was Baldwin and from 1964-1997 all our PMs went to state schools, mostly grammars.
Personally I went to private school, Warwick and Aber, my wife though has a postgrad from Oxford but did her undergrad at Durham
Do you think Eton has the best pupils or pupils with the richest parents? Do you think Eton pupils succeed over other schools' pupils because the Eton ex-pupils are brighter or because they went to Eton?
There was not a single Etonian PM from 1964 to 2010 when we had more grammar school educated PMs (albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Scottish Eton)
Didn't answer my question. You answered a question I didn't ask.
It was interconnected. When we had more grammar schools we had more top state schools that produced pupils who could challenge Etonians and other public schools and more got top jobs in politics after Oxford including PM
I'm not going down the Grammar school argument again, but now we don't have many Grammar schools but Comprehensives do you really think all those successful Grammar school pupils who are now coming out of Comprehensives can't do the same thing? Do you actually think the Comprehensives have destroyed those pupil and they have all disappeared?
And go on, have a go at answering my 2 questions. It wasn't meant to be connected. You referred to best schools and I assume as we were talking about Eton I was intrigued as to why you thought their pupils were more successful, as they clearly on a whole are. Is it because they went to Eton or because they are brighter? And did they go to Eton because they were brighter or because their parents were rich?
There is no doubt that while we have had a few comprehensive educated party leaders eg Hague and Ed Milliband, they seem less effective at producing PMs given both lost general elections to the public school educated Blair and Cameron. By contrast grammar school educated party leaders were better able to defeat public school opponents eg when grammar school educated Wilson beat the old Etonian Home in 1964 or grammar school educated Thatcher beat the public school educated Foot in 1983.
Eton is highly selective now and you have to pass an entrance exam, having rich parents alone is not enough. The rich but less bright go to schools like Stowe.
Stowe has not yet produced a PM though it is good at producing actors like David Niven or Henry Cavill
Grammar schools consciously aped the structures and values of private schools, with the aim of producing pupils who were close enough in accent, opinions and social class that they could slot into leadership positions alongside the privately educated, without challenging the prevailing social hierarchy. By contrast, comprehensive schools were created on the heretical notion that the social hierarchy itself was fundamentally rotten. Unfortunately, the hierarchy has persisted, locking out comprehensive school kids from the positions they are qualified for by dint of their intelligence and education. Until the British escape the mental slavery that the class system has trapped them in, comprehensive schools will continue to "fail" in the terms set by the elite, even as most of them continue to do an excellent job in educating their pupils. And Britain will stay an unhappy, frustrated country that can't understand why it keeps failing to achieve its huge potential.
Uncomfortable though I am at being on the same side as Hyufd, your premise is flawed. Comprehensives were designed to give everyone a grammar school style education. Which would not only refute your claims about them being designed to eliminate the social hierarchy but actually invert it - it was to spread it more widely, particularly among those less affluent groups whose children wanted to go to grammars but couldn't.
You might find this article of interest (helpfully it appears to be open access):
Indeed good comprehensive schools are still selective. Merely they are selective by wealth as witnessed by house prices and rental costs in their cachement area's. Personally if we have selection I would much prefer it to be selection by ability rather than wealth. For reference I went to a comprehensive and it was appalling.
In areas where there are grammars (eg Birmingham) the better off send their kids to prep schools so they can pass the 11 plus (I have friends who have done this) or employ private tutors to prep their kids for the test. There may well be some additional house price premium in our area owing to the school being decent (it is decent rather than outstanding) but there is also a huge volume of social housing and those kids also attend. The idea that grammars = selection by ability while comprehensives = selection by post code is overly simplistic, to say the least.
The idea that poor kids have equal access to good comprehensives is also simplistic but you fail to address that. My son went to the local grammar, he wasn't sent to prep school nor did he have tutors. If he hadn't gone there he would have had to attend the local comprehensive which is widely regarded as more a recruitment centre for street gangs than an educational establishment
If you have a local grammar school then you have no local comprehensive schools, they are secondary moderns, and the fact they are terrible is a testament to the effect that the selective system has on the education available for most kids.
If you live in a deprived inner city area or seaside town then in the 1950s or 1960s you could still have gone to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice will be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name anyway if you do not have rich parents who can send you to private school
If we had the death penalty as some want, we'd have killed him
There was an MP who complained bitterly about the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six not being executed as it meant there was lots of effort wasted on trying to get them freed.
This was of course before they were found to have been innocent...
If that MP is still alive, we should execute him
I've tracked down the reference. It wasn't an MP. It was a lot worse. It was Lord Denning, a judge who had thrown out a previous appeal, commenting on the appeal of the Birmingham Six in 1991.
From his wiki page -
In the summer of 1990, he agreed to a taped interview with A.N. Wilson, to be published in The Spectator. They discussed the Guildford Four; Denning remarked that if the Guildford Four had been hanged "They'd probably have hanged the right men. Just not proved against them, that's all". His remarks were controversial and came at a time when the issue of miscarriage of justice was a sensitive topic. He had expressed a similar controversial opinion regarding the Birmingham Six in 1988, saying: "Hanging ought to be retained for murder most foul. We shouldn't have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they'd been hanged. They'd have been forgotten, and the whole community would be satisfied... It is better that some innocent men remain in jail than that the integrity of the English judicial system be impugned."
The thing I hate about this country is that’s it’s run in exactly the same way as the Oxford Union. Forget Eton, or even Oxford University as a whole, abolish the Oxford Union and the improvement would be marked.
Boris is actually only the first Oxford Union president to be PM since Ted Heath. Blair and Cameron were not even members of the Oxford Union when at Oxford. Hague managed to achieve the double of a first at Oxford and president of the Union but that did not help him win in 2001, Blair trounced him, so not sure that is true.
In any case the Oxford Union is not just politics, it attracts speakers from a broad range of fields including scientists, historians, actors, musicians, generals, religious leaders, journalists, entrepreneurs and business leaders etc
Does that not tell us something about inequalities still if such a thing is not considered a mind boggling coincidence rather than a potential norm even if not a regularly recurring norm. For example nobody from my school has ever been an MP to my knowledge let alone PM (although we do have a Nobel winner). I don't think there has ever been a PM from Manchester Uni (could be wrong?) from where I graduated even though it is one of the oldest and biggest Universities and with an excellent reputation. Yet Oxford? Eton? I wonder why?
Also the fact that you mention it results in generals and religious leaders rather than lieutenants and vicars says it all.
Just out of interest HYUFD do you come from a privileged background and if not why are you in awe of such people?
How many candidates from Manchester University have even stood for PM or party leader? It is no surprise the best universities in the land produce the most PMs as do the best schools, though we have had an Edinburgh graduate PM in Brown more recently than a Cambridge graduate, the last was Baldwin and from 1964-1997 all our PMs went to state schools, mostly grammars.
Personally I went to private school, Warwick and Aber, my wife though has a postgrad from Oxford but did her undergrad at Durham
Do you think Eton has the best pupils or pupils with the richest parents? Do you think Eton pupils succeed over other schools' pupils because the Eton ex-pupils are brighter or because they went to Eton?
There was not a single Etonian PM from 1964 to 2010 when we had more grammar school educated PMs (albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Scottish Eton)
Didn't answer my question. You answered a question I didn't ask.
It was interconnected. When we had more grammar schools we had more top state schools that produced pupils who could challenge Etonians and other public schools and more got top jobs in politics after Oxford including PM
I'm not going down the Grammar school argument again, but now we don't have many Grammar schools but Comprehensives do you really think all those successful Grammar school pupils who are now coming out of Comprehensives can't do the same thing? Do you actually think the Comprehensives have destroyed those pupil and they have all disappeared?
And go on, have a go at answering my 2 questions. It wasn't meant to be connected. You referred to best schools and I assume as we were talking about Eton I was intrigued as to why you thought their pupils were more successful, as they clearly on a whole are. Is it because they went to Eton or because they are brighter? And did they go to Eton because they were brighter or because their parents were rich?
There is no doubt that while we have had a few comprehensive educated party leaders eg Hague and Ed Milliband, they seem less effective at producing PMs given both lost general elections to the public school educated Blair and Cameron. By contrast grammar school educated party leaders were better able to defeat public school opponents eg when grammar school educated Wilson beat the old Etonian Home in 1964 or grammar school educated Thatcher beat the public school educated Foot in 1983.
Eton is highly selective now and you have to pass an entrance exam, having rich parents alone is not enough. The rich but less bright go to schools like Stowe.
Stowe has not yet produced a PM though it is good at producing actors like David Niven or Henry Cavill
Grammar schools consciously aped the structures and values of private schools, with the aim of producing pupils who were close enough in accent, opinions and social class that they could slot into leadership positions alongside the privately educated, without challenging the prevailing social hierarchy. By contrast, comprehensive schools were created on the heretical notion that the social hierarchy itself was fundamentally rotten. Unfortunately, the hierarchy has persisted, locking out comprehensive school kids from the positions they are qualified for by dint of their intelligence and education. Until the British escape the mental slavery that the class system has trapped them in, comprehensive schools will continue to "fail" in the terms set by the elite, even as most of them continue to do an excellent job in educating their pupils. And Britain will stay an unhappy, frustrated country that can't understand why it keeps failing to achieve its huge potential.
Uncomfortable though I am at being on the same side as Hyufd, your premise is flawed. Comprehensives were designed to give everyone a grammar school style education. Which would not only refute your claims about them being designed to eliminate the social hierarchy but actually invert it - it was to spread it more widely, particularly among those less affluent groups whose children wanted to go to grammars but couldn't.
You might find this article of interest (helpfully it appears to be open access):
Indeed good comprehensive schools are still selective. Merely they are selective by wealth as witnessed by house prices and rental costs in their cachement area's. Personally if we have selection I would much prefer it to be selection by ability rather than wealth. For reference I went to a comprehensive and it was appalling.
In areas where there are grammars (eg Birmingham) the better off send their kids to prep schools so they can pass the 11 plus (I have friends who have done this) or employ private tutors to prep their kids for the test. There may well be some additional house price premium in our area owing to the school being decent (it is decent rather than outstanding) but there is also a huge volume of social housing and those kids also attend. The idea that grammars = selection by ability while comprehensives = selection by post code is overly simplistic, to say the least.
The idea that poor kids have equal access to good comprehensives is also simplistic but you fail to address that. My son went to the local grammar, he wasn't sent to prep school nor did he have tutors. If he hadn't gone there he would have had to attend the local comprehensive which is widely regarded as more a recruitment centre for street gangs than an educational establishment
If you have a local grammar school then you have no local comprehensive schools, they are secondary moderns, and the fact they are terrible is a testament to the effect that the selective system has on the education available for most kids.
If you live in a deprived inner city area or seaside town then in the 1950s or 1960s you could still have gone to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice will be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name anyway
Friend of mine went to Uni in the late 60's from a sec mod not too far from where you are now. Ended up as a maths teacher, and someone with a strong desire to help children in a similar position.
On the criticism (much of it ill-informed) of the Sage figures and models: I think many people are forgetting the time factor. Even just a few days ago we knew a lot less about how the Omicron waves in various places are unfolding, and on the severity of it, than we do now. Criticising them for being 'wrong' (i.e. for modelling based on very uncertain assumptions) then, on the basis of extra information we have now, is silly.
It's looking, as at today, as though (for reasons which still aren't fully understood), Omicron is less of a problem than appeared to be likely when the only real information we had was its super-fast spread in the early stages. That's good news, at least for countries like the UK which are well-advanced in delivering booster jabs, but it doesn't mean the Sage boffins were idiots, let alone that that had a malign agenda and were plotting to get us locked down just for fun. That's a conspiracy theory as bonkers as some of the anti-vax garbage.
It's not a conspiracy theory. The SAGE guy confirmed to Nelson that positive scenarios that used valid data inputs were deliberately excluded from the reporting because what they were saying didn't suit the agenda. Only negative scenarios were getting reported.
Not reporting scenarios because the inputs aren't relevant is reasonable. If you have no reason to believe those inputs, then you wouldn't have done the analysis.
But if you get a reasonable set of inputs, that then presents a reasonable scenario, that should be included within the science for consideration. Not to the exclusion of all other scenarios, but it should be there.
As per my comments yesterday, "the SAGE guy" misunderstood the syntax of Nelson's question on Twitter, and confirmed nothing of the sort. You (and Nelson) are misunderstanding the use of the term "scenario" in the context of a stochastic model.
No we're not. I understand full well the use of the term scenario, and so does Nelson.
The question isn't about which scenarios were ran, but why scenarios with certain outputs that didn't suit the agenda of locking down weren't included within "the science".
The whole range of scenarios should be included, not just the doomcasting ones.
How on earth can you possibly know that without having seen the model? It's simply ridiculous to believe that a member of SAGE said, on Twitter, that they don't model optimistic scenarios because it doesn't support the narrative. It has to be a misunderstanding, and based on long professional experience, I can see how it probably occurred. Nelson is using "scenario" to mean an output, Medley was (probably) interpreting it within the context of the actual model to mean a version of the model with a particular set of inputs.
No, there's no difference in understanding of scenario. They're explicitly discussing which ones were selected for inclusion after the fact for the evidence.
Medley is determining that scenarios that don't show crisis "doesn't inform anything" so shouldn't be shown to the decision makers, but that's wrong. Decision makers do need to know the full range of scenarios, not just those that Medley determines "inform" what needs to be informed.
Please focus very carefully on this next sentence. It is impossible for you to assert that two people have not misunderstood each other, without carefully questioning what each of them meant by the terms they used. You have definitely not done this, so you cannot know that they are using the word "scenario" to mean the same thing.
No but you can then look at the modelling they have actually presented and therefore come to the conclusion that Nelson is correct in his assertion. Moreover, in that exchange Nelson was very careful in his last comment to set out explicitly the conclusion he drew from Medley's replies and Medley did not use that opportunity to correct any perceived misunderstanding.
Medley might have taken the view it was best to end it because Nelson was not going to get it and Twitter wasn't the medium to have the rather tortuous conversation that would be required. We see this happen on PB sometimes.
Medley's comment that low severity scenarios are worthless as they don't require a decision, as if 'a decision' can only possibly mean 'more restrictions' is really quite hard to brush off.
The best possible interpretation is he only models edge cases and worse, and honestly believes that's how the work is being presented to decision makers. And that leaves him too naive to be in such a role.
Anyway, my wife and I now have two negative test days in a row. We want to go and visit my sister and brother-in-law who have both also just had two negative test days in a row, what's the consensus on that? Should we go or not? Considering they've all just had COVID as well and we'll be going by car.
I would do it. We cannot continue to live in fear of either the virus or the state forever.
But then I suppose it is fairly obvious I would say that
So would I. We plan on having several (small) and one large household together on Christmas,as Day and we are LFTesting every two days. It'll be a windy Christmas Day lunch though as all windows will be open.
Chilly perhaps. Windy - not unless the weather changes.
EE and Three UK Deal to Put 4G and 5G on London Underground
Excellent
The red team as well by the looks of it, good for me. Unlimited 5G, 83 country roaming, data on the tube and Spotify all for the low, low price of £27 per month.
Lol. I’m expecting vox pops with descendants of Laval to figure in the BBC’s almost certainly hysteria steeped coverage of the upcoming French elections.
The thing I hate about this country is that’s it’s run in exactly the same way as the Oxford Union. Forget Eton, or even Oxford University as a whole, abolish the Oxford Union and the improvement would be marked.
I didn’t realise that Amanda Pritchard was doing such a bad job as to raise your ire in this way
On the criticism (much of it ill-informed) of the Sage figures and models: I think many people are forgetting the time factor. Even just a few days ago we knew a lot less about how the Omicron waves in various places are unfolding, and on the severity of it, than we do now. Criticising them for being 'wrong' (i.e. for modelling based on very uncertain assumptions) then, on the basis of extra information we have now, is silly.
It's looking, as at today, as though (for reasons which still aren't fully understood), Omicron is less of a problem than appeared to be likely when the only real information we had was its super-fast spread in the early stages. That's good news, at least for countries like the UK which are well-advanced in delivering booster jabs, but it doesn't mean the Sage boffins were idiots, let alone that that had a malign agenda and were plotting to get us locked down just for fun. That's a conspiracy theory as bonkers as some of the anti-vax garbage.
It's not a conspiracy theory. The SAGE guy confirmed to Nelson that positive scenarios that used valid data inputs were deliberately excluded from the reporting because what they were saying didn't suit the agenda. Only negative scenarios were getting reported.
Not reporting scenarios because the inputs aren't relevant is reasonable. If you have no reason to believe those inputs, then you wouldn't have done the analysis.
But if you get a reasonable set of inputs, that then presents a reasonable scenario, that should be included within the science for consideration. Not to the exclusion of all other scenarios, but it should be there.
As per my comments yesterday, "the SAGE guy" misunderstood the syntax of Nelson's question on Twitter, and confirmed nothing of the sort. You (and Nelson) are misunderstanding the use of the term "scenario" in the context of a stochastic model.
No we're not. I understand full well the use of the term scenario, and so does Nelson.
The question isn't about which scenarios were ran, but why scenarios with certain outputs that didn't suit the agenda of locking down weren't included within "the science".
The whole range of scenarios should be included, not just the doomcasting ones.
How on earth can you possibly know that without having seen the model? It's simply ridiculous to believe that a member of SAGE said, on Twitter, that they don't model optimistic scenarios because it doesn't support the narrative. It has to be a misunderstanding, and based on long professional experience, I can see how it probably occurred. Nelson is using "scenario" to mean an output, Medley was (probably) interpreting it within the context of the actual model to mean a version of the model with a particular set of inputs.
No, there's no difference in understanding of scenario. They're explicitly discussing which ones were selected for inclusion after the fact for the evidence.
Medley is determining that scenarios that don't show crisis "doesn't inform anything" so shouldn't be shown to the decision makers, but that's wrong. Decision makers do need to know the full range of scenarios, not just those that Medley determines "inform" what needs to be informed.
Please focus very carefully on this next sentence. It is impossible for you to assert that two people have not misunderstood each other, without carefully questioning what each of them meant by the terms they used. You have definitely not done this, so you cannot know that they are using the word "scenario" to mean the same thing.
No but you can then look at the modelling they have actually presented and therefore come to the conclusion that Nelson is correct in his assertion. Moreover, in that exchange Nelson was very careful in his last comment to set out explicitly the conclusion he drew from Medley's replies and Medley did not use that opportunity to correct any perceived misunderstanding.
Medley might have taken the view it was best to end it because Nelson was not going to get it and Twitter wasn't the medium to have the rather tortuous conversation that would be required. We see this happen on PB sometimes.
Nelson is right, to the extent that decision-makers do need to know that there is one or more scenarios that requires no action.
But beyond that, Medley is right. Those scenarios contain no additional information, and so attention of decision-makers should at that point concentrate on the hazards contained in the other, worse case, scenarios and the mitigating measures that can (given asset constraints and any adverse impacts of those mitigating measures) be taken to alleviate the Never Event impacts of those hazards should they be realized.
EE and Three UK Deal to Put 4G and 5G on London Underground
Excellent
The red team as well by the looks of it, good for me. Unlimited 5G, 83 country roaming, data on the tube and Spotify all for the low, low price of £27 per month.
Indeed - and good too as they've recently terminated the deal with Virgin to use the Wi-Fi network at stations
On the criticism (much of it ill-informed) of the Sage figures and models: I think many people are forgetting the time factor. Even just a few days ago we knew a lot less about how the Omicron waves in various places are unfolding, and on the severity of it, than we do now. Criticising them for being 'wrong' (i.e. for modelling based on very uncertain assumptions) then, on the basis of extra information we have now, is silly.
It's looking, as at today, as though (for reasons which still aren't fully understood), Omicron is less of a problem than appeared to be likely when the only real information we had was its super-fast spread in the early stages. That's good news, at least for countries like the UK which are well-advanced in delivering booster jabs, but it doesn't mean the Sage boffins were idiots, let alone that that had a malign agenda and were plotting to get us locked down just for fun. That's a conspiracy theory as bonkers as some of the anti-vax garbage.
It's not a conspiracy theory. The SAGE guy confirmed to Nelson that positive scenarios that used valid data inputs were deliberately excluded from the reporting because what they were saying didn't suit the agenda. Only negative scenarios were getting reported.
Not reporting scenarios because the inputs aren't relevant is reasonable. If you have no reason to believe those inputs, then you wouldn't have done the analysis.
But if you get a reasonable set of inputs, that then presents a reasonable scenario, that should be included within the science for consideration. Not to the exclusion of all other scenarios, but it should be there.
As per my comments yesterday, "the SAGE guy" misunderstood the syntax of Nelson's question on Twitter, and confirmed nothing of the sort. You (and Nelson) are misunderstanding the use of the term "scenario" in the context of a stochastic model.
No we're not. I understand full well the use of the term scenario, and so does Nelson.
The question isn't about which scenarios were ran, but why scenarios with certain outputs that didn't suit the agenda of locking down weren't included within "the science".
The whole range of scenarios should be included, not just the doomcasting ones.
How on earth can you possibly know that without having seen the model? It's simply ridiculous to believe that a member of SAGE said, on Twitter, that they don't model optimistic scenarios because it doesn't support the narrative. It has to be a misunderstanding, and based on long professional experience, I can see how it probably occurred. Nelson is using "scenario" to mean an output, Medley was (probably) interpreting it within the context of the actual model to mean a version of the model with a particular set of inputs.
No, there's no difference in understanding of scenario. They're explicitly discussing which ones were selected for inclusion after the fact for the evidence.
Medley is determining that scenarios that don't show crisis "doesn't inform anything" so shouldn't be shown to the decision makers, but that's wrong. Decision makers do need to know the full range of scenarios, not just those that Medley determines "inform" what needs to be informed.
I can't see that that excludes the common sense interpretation that the modellers say "forget about this area of the parameter space, below n extra deaths a day, but we have to look at this area, which we need to discuss in detail".
But that's not common sense.
Yes you may want to highlight the detail of the worst case but you can't "forget about" the rest. That's not their choice to make.
If the models show things would probably be fine, but there's a worst case scenario where it's awful, then the politicians should get all that information.
If the models show things are definitely awful, and there's no positive scenario to show, then the politicians should get all that information.
If the modellers choose to disregard any scenarios that aren't catastrophic then there's no distinction between those two cases when there really should be!
What the politicians choose to do with the information is for them. But they should get the full oversight not just a cherry picked version.
Lol. I’m expecting vox pops with descendants of Laval to figure in the BBC’s almost certainly hysteria steeped coverage of the upcoming French elections.
He was one of the more impressive foreign secretaries of recent times (admittedly a low bar) and is an acclaimed historical biographer.
Even if he didn’t succeed (and I would distinguish that from failing) as Tory leader because he came to the role too early and was up against Blair in his probe, I’m willing to bet that he’s achieved more in his life than you have
I'd rewrite the last couple of clauses to something like ' I’m willing to bet that he’s achieved more in his life than many people'. And then Like it. Hague was the right man in the wrong place at the wrong time.
For most people I would have written it as you suggest. But @Chris is special.
Does that make him a medical doctor? I would have thought no. And is that a particularly relevant PhD for the things he is talking about? Just find it a bit misleading for him to use "Dr" in the circumstances.
He was promoting hydroxychloroquine in at least one video I saw last year, and apparently ivermectin more recently, so I find him generally a bit suspect.
I didn't say it did make him a medical doctor. My cousin has recently qualified as a medical doctor but I'm pretty sure she doesn't know as much about these subjects as John Campbell does.
That doesn't make John Campbell an expert in the subject.
This is the only video I've seen from him, which a pro-hydroxychloroquine friend sent me last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzXHnUViro claims in the first minute that hydroxychloroquine "is an effective treatment" and "seems to lower the death rate by 30%"
He then goes on in the second minute to say that the Recovery trial showed no effect because they gave the wrong dose which is "bemusing at best" and says something strange is going on. Hmmm. Maybe someone with some expertise can confirm, but my understanding is that hydroxychloroquine doesn't work. And hinting that something "very strange" is going on to make other studies use the wrong dose seems irresponsible. I mean I assume the Recovery trial had a reason for using the dose they did, and Campbell keeps repeating that he can't understand why they used that dosage but he doesn't seem to have made any attempt whatsoever to find out their reasons - instead he just keeps repeating that something strange is going on.
Given the hours of output he produces each week, I'd be surprised if he didn't fall down rabbit holes occasionally. But I still think that his channel is one of the best out there for Covid stuff.
My personal favourite was his obsession with covid dogs: sniffer dogs that could smell covid. Whilst probably real, the chances of finding and training large quantities of dogs in a time to have a real effect seemed rather optimistic...
(On that, I'd rather scientists look at *how* dogs could smell out Covid, and look if it is possible to create a machine that could do the same. Machine olfaction is a growing area of interest.)
Owlstone’s technology is cool. It doesn’t work, of course, but it’s still cool
On the criticism (much of it ill-informed) of the Sage figures and models: I think many people are forgetting the time factor. Even just a few days ago we knew a lot less about how the Omicron waves in various places are unfolding, and on the severity of it, than we do now. Criticising them for being 'wrong' (i.e. for modelling based on very uncertain assumptions) then, on the basis of extra information we have now, is silly.
It's looking, as at today, as though (for reasons which still aren't fully understood), Omicron is less of a problem than appeared to be likely when the only real information we had was its super-fast spread in the early stages. That's good news, at least for countries like the UK which are well-advanced in delivering booster jabs, but it doesn't mean the Sage boffins were idiots, let alone that that had a malign agenda and were plotting to get us locked down just for fun. That's a conspiracy theory as bonkers as some of the anti-vax garbage.
It's not a conspiracy theory. The SAGE guy confirmed to Nelson that positive scenarios that used valid data inputs were deliberately excluded from the reporting because what they were saying didn't suit the agenda. Only negative scenarios were getting reported.
Not reporting scenarios because the inputs aren't relevant is reasonable. If you have no reason to believe those inputs, then you wouldn't have done the analysis.
But if you get a reasonable set of inputs, that then presents a reasonable scenario, that should be included within the science for consideration. Not to the exclusion of all other scenarios, but it should be there.
As per my comments yesterday, "the SAGE guy" misunderstood the syntax of Nelson's question on Twitter, and confirmed nothing of the sort. You (and Nelson) are misunderstanding the use of the term "scenario" in the context of a stochastic model.
No we're not. I understand full well the use of the term scenario, and so does Nelson.
The question isn't about which scenarios were ran, but why scenarios with certain outputs that didn't suit the agenda of locking down weren't included within "the science".
The whole range of scenarios should be included, not just the doomcasting ones.
How on earth can you possibly know that without having seen the model? It's simply ridiculous to believe that a member of SAGE said, on Twitter, that they don't model optimistic scenarios because it doesn't support the narrative. It has to be a misunderstanding, and based on long professional experience, I can see how it probably occurred. Nelson is using "scenario" to mean an output, Medley was (probably) interpreting it within the context of the actual model to mean a version of the model with a particular set of inputs.
No, there's no difference in understanding of scenario. They're explicitly discussing which ones were selected for inclusion after the fact for the evidence.
Medley is determining that scenarios that don't show crisis "doesn't inform anything" so shouldn't be shown to the decision makers, but that's wrong. Decision makers do need to know the full range of scenarios, not just those that Medley determines "inform" what needs to be informed.
I can't see that that excludes the common sense interpretation that the modellers say "forget about this area of the parameter space, below n extra deaths a day, but we have to look at this area, which we need to discuss in detail".
But that's not common sense.
Yes you may want to highlight the detail of the worst case but you can't "forget about" the rest. That's not their choice to make.
If the models show things would probably be fine, but there's a worst case scenario where it's awful, then the politicians should get all that information.
If the models show things are definitely awful, and there's no positive scenario to show, then the politicians should get all that information.
If the modellers choose to disregard any scenarios that aren't catastrophic then there's no distinction between those two cases when there really should be!
What the politicians choose to do with the information is for them. But they should get the full oversight not just a cherry picked version.
In managing risks in conditions of ignorance, you can forget about the scenarios that require no action, as the default is no action. What you are concerned about is whether action needs to be taken, because a failure to take timely action is by its nature a fall back to the default of no action.
Thus, in conditions of ignorance and one or more scenarios that contain high consequence hazards* (not risks - we are avoiding numbers as we are in the zone of ignorance) that potentially would result in Never Events, you do just concentrate on those scenarios with such hazards and potential Never Event consequences.
* For those who don't know the vocabulary, a hazard is something that can cause harm, regardless of probability; and risk is a numerical calculation of probability x impact, which requires numerical values for both p and I
Does that make him a medical doctor? I would have thought no. And is that a particularly relevant PhD for the things he is talking about? Just find it a bit misleading for him to use "Dr" in the circumstances.
He was promoting hydroxychloroquine in at least one video I saw last year, and apparently ivermectin more recently, so I find him generally a bit suspect.
I didn't say it did make him a medical doctor. My cousin has recently qualified as a medical doctor but I'm pretty sure she doesn't know as much about these subjects as John Campbell does.
That doesn't make John Campbell an expert in the subject.
This is the only video I've seen from him, which a pro-hydroxychloroquine friend sent me last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzXHnUViro claims in the first minute that hydroxychloroquine "is an effective treatment" and "seems to lower the death rate by 30%"
He then goes on in the second minute to say that the Recovery trial showed no effect because they gave the wrong dose which is "bemusing at best" and says something strange is going on. Hmmm. Maybe someone with some expertise can confirm, but my understanding is that hydroxychloroquine doesn't work. And hinting that something "very strange" is going on to make other studies use the wrong dose seems irresponsible. I mean I assume the Recovery trial had a reason for using the dose they did, and Campbell keeps repeating that he can't understand why they used that dosage but he doesn't seem to have made any attempt whatsoever to find out their reasons - instead he just keeps repeating that something strange is going on.
Given the hours of output he produces each week, I'd be surprised if he didn't fall down rabbit holes occasionally. But I still think that his channel is one of the best out there for Covid stuff.
My personal favourite was his obsession with covid dogs: sniffer dogs that could smell covid. Whilst probably real, the chances of finding and training large quantities of dogs in a time to have a real effect seemed rather optimistic...
(On that, I'd rather scientists look at *how* dogs could smell out Covid, and look if it is possible to create a machine that could do the same. Machine olfaction is a growing area of interest.)
Owlstone’s technology is cool. It doesn’t work, of course, but it’s still cool
Oddly enough, I recently parked in their car park...
Anyway, my wife and I now have two negative test days in a row. We want to go and visit my sister and brother-in-law who have both also just had two negative test days in a row, what's the consensus on that? Should we go or not? Considering they've all just had COVID as well and we'll be going by car.
I say go. Who is to know? You are no more a risk than someone else who has tested negative by lateral flow.
My understanding is that warrant or no warrant debt enforcers have no power to break into a house through a locked over an unpaid energy bill, especially not in the absence of the owner, and if they do they are committing the crime of breaking and entering.
So how come these people have not been named and prosecuted? £500 goodwill gesture doesn't begin to address the gravity of what they've done.
And how come the CEO and the payments division are not also in the dock for conspiring to gain unlawful entry and pervert the course of justice?
Because that's what it will take to stop this nonsense.
Edit - I'm sure I've asked this question before, but I've forgotten the answer. At the same time, the mere fact it's still ongoing is pretty outrageous.
Normal people don't have enough access to the law to enforce their rights. In this case the poor woman was being harassed by this company over a debt she didn't owe, and she should have been able to use the courts to force them to desist when contacting them directly failed to have the desired effect.
We need to dramatically widen access to the courts, so that the law can protect ordinary people from abuses of power by large companies and the government.
I had a constituent whose door was broken down without warning by a team of helmeted police with batons. They were trying to arrest a major drug dealer but got the streets mixed up. After 2 MONTHS she came to me to say that she'd not yet had more than a brief apology and a promise to pay for the repairs at some future point. I contacted them and they coughed up within two weeks and gave a proper fulsome apology, but it shouldn't need an MP's intervention.
She wasn't even especially traumatised - she reckoned that "the police sometimes behave like that, what can one do?" It wasn't an especially rough area, just a largely WWC village.
I had a constituent who was an elderly Tory member, whose door was broken down by the Police, called after a Tory canvasser and candidate became worried that he wasn't answering his door. Reason being, it transpired, that he'd gone out shopping.
Anyhow the Tories made themselves scarce, the Police nailed some corrugated metal where the glass in his front door had been, and he was left with no explanation or redress other than a "sorry, our mistake" note from the Police. Until he phoned me a week later, as his local LibDem councillor for help; I managed to get his door mended gratis by the Council (which had been the telephone intermediary between the canvasser, a Tory cabinet member, and the Police) and was the first to explain to him what had happened.
I don't think he voted Tory the next time! Sadly, that election turned out to be his last.
On the other hand: people were concerned for his welfare. The alternative was perhaps just to ignore the fact this elderly man was not answering his door.
Leaving the party-political aspect out of this, perhaps everyone did the correct thing from what they knew, even if it turned out to the wrong thing in reality.
I don't think running off and leaving the Police to sort the situation was the right thing to do, nor keeping clear and not going back to explain or apologise, nor turning it into a joke being spread around the Town Hall? Tory councillors were having a good laugh at this guy's accidental misfortune while he was sitting in his house with a cold draught blowing through his ruined front door.
When the guy found out that it was the Tory candidate who had called the Police, and that they'd simply run off and disappeared, he was appalled. I managed to get his door re-glazed the day after he phoned me; something they could and should have arranged themselves. The council was embarrassed at the whole episode and its role in it, and agreed to pay up straight away.
I'm afraid this sounds more like a biased anti-Tory story than anything else. It'd be good to hear the other side of your anecdote.
If he had been ill, then they did the right thing. The police, council etc generally don't just break down doors for LOLs.
That sounds like a reverse ferret of your earlier attempt at defending what was clearly very bad behaviour.
???
What 'very bad behaviour' ? Calling for assistance when they thought someone who was elderly needed help?
Yes, they were mistaken. But the 'very bad behaviour' would have been walking away and doing nothing.
Lol. They did walk away and do nothing. After the poor guy's front door had been smashed in.
Well, I hope when a member of the public is concerned about the welfare of another person, they call for help without having to consider that they might have to pay for, or deal with, any damage caused by others when gaining entry.
Anyway, my wife and I now have two negative test days in a row. We want to go and visit my sister and brother-in-law who have both also just had two negative test days in a row, what's the consensus on that? Should we go or not? Considering they've all just had COVID as well and we'll be going by car.
How long has it been ? There was some talk of their looking at reducing the quarantine period to seven days anyway.
Comments
Incredible words from the man who Thatcher (obvs) called "probably the greatest English judge of modern times."
It'll be a windy Christmas Day lunch though as all windows will be open.
Now your only choice will be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name anyway if you do not have rich parents who can send you to private school
In the summer of 1990, he agreed to a taped interview with A.N. Wilson, to be published in The Spectator. They discussed the Guildford Four; Denning remarked that if the Guildford Four had been hanged "They'd probably have hanged the right men. Just not proved against them, that's all". His remarks were controversial and came at a time when the issue of miscarriage of justice was a sensitive topic. He had expressed a similar controversial opinion regarding the Birmingham Six in 1988, saying: "Hanging ought to be retained for murder most foul. We shouldn't have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they'd been hanged. They'd have been forgotten, and the whole community would be satisfied... It is better that some innocent men remain in jail than that the integrity of the English judicial system be impugned."
The best possible interpretation is he only models edge cases and worse, and honestly believes that's how the work is being presented to decision makers. And that leaves him too naive to be in such a role.
EE and Three UK Deal to Put 4G and 5G on London Underground
Excellent
99% booster vax effectiveness vs hospitalisation
UKHSA test negative case control study for Delta
https://gov.uk/guidance/monitoring-reports-of-the-effectiveness-of-covid-19-vaccination
https://twitter.com/DevanSinha/status/1473270012639129601?s=20
I’m expecting vox pops with descendants of Laval to figure in the BBC’s almost certainly hysteria steeped coverage of the upcoming French elections.
https://twitter.com/marcusbarnett_/status/1472933253132734467?s=21
I note in the replies that there is/was a Brazilian police director named Hitler Mussolini. Bit of a Hyde & Hyde character apparently.
But beyond that, Medley is right. Those scenarios contain no additional information, and so attention of decision-makers should at that point concentrate on the hazards contained in the other, worse case, scenarios and the mitigating measures that can (given asset constraints and any adverse impacts of those mitigating measures) be taken to alleviate the Never Event impacts of those hazards should they be realized.
Yes you may want to highlight the detail of the worst case but you can't "forget about" the rest. That's not their choice to make.
If the models show things would probably be fine, but there's a worst case scenario where it's awful, then the politicians should get all that information.
If the models show things are definitely awful, and there's no positive scenario to show, then the politicians should get all that information.
If the modellers choose to disregard any scenarios that aren't catastrophic then there's no distinction between those two cases when there really should be!
What the politicians choose to do with the information is for them. But they should get the full oversight not just a cherry picked version.
His daughter made the news recently.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg877g/brazilian-prosecutor-accused-of-spreading-nazi-propaganda-facebook
scored record low approval ratings
Thus, in conditions of ignorance and one or more scenarios that contain high consequence hazards* (not risks - we are avoiding numbers as we are in the zone of ignorance) that potentially would result in Never Events, you do just concentrate on those scenarios with such hazards and potential Never Event consequences.
* For those who don't know the vocabulary, a hazard is something that can cause harm, regardless of probability; and risk is a numerical calculation of probability x impact, which requires numerical values for both p and I
There was some talk of their looking at reducing the quarantine period to seven days anyway.