My Dad is true blue Tory and I frequently disagree with him on mostly everything but he has instilled in me a work ethic which I will always appreciate. And he is an honourable man, politics is not everything
I wish I had your work ethic. I can only spend about half the day on PB before I get bored and go off to something else.
Actually I'm off work at the moment so that is why I am here all the time.
Curious thread. Tories still trying to conjure up some party political advantage out of Omicron. Smells a little desperate, but perhaps understandable after the last few weeks. If they were wise they would shut up, try to govern and hope people forget that they party while others lock down.
Everything about this is politics. You could argue the welsh and Scottish governments are doing exactly the same with their approach to Omicron.
Be interesting to see why England fared worse than both Scotland and Wales , if they ever bother to really look at it in future which I seriously doubt.
The reason is obvious. But problematic in polite conversation.
I don't know where you get all this "truth is muzzled in the corner" stuff.
It isn't. You can say what the reason is. You can say it here. You can say it anywhere.
I didn't say it was banned. I said it was problematic. Which is why, when the BBC puts up an article on vaccines refusal (for example), the actual reasons are rather elliptically alluded to.
It’s a very good point. Any evidence the great unjabbed getting jabbed in any numbers at all, or is it just all the jab luvers getting the new jab?
If you were never jabbed at all or only had one, are you added to the booster jabbed total the media put out?
The booster figure is just boosters - jabs are still reported split between 1st, 2nd and booster/3rd dose (3rd is for vulnerable - usually immunosuppressed - people for whom an extra dose is recommended). Reporting is here: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Thank you Endilon. Proper helpful post.
So the 16K & 19K for first and second doses, is that good speed for getting through the Great Wall unvaxxed, or we are we still not denting it enough? 🤔
My Dad is true blue Tory and I frequently disagree with him on mostly everything but he has instilled in me a work ethic which I will always appreciate. And he is an honourable man, politics is not everything
I see the "waverers" are back on the Boris bandwagon again, it's honestly hilarious to read their "I really am quitting this week" posts.
@HYUFD was right, I'd be a millionaire by now if I had a Pound for every time they said they were leaving.
To be fair on them, "waverers" are likely to, well, waver.
The hope is they waver in the right direction come the election. That's more likely now, as once you start wavering it's hard to stop.
They'll waver and then go back to voting Tory, it's not really wavering.
In 2005, I could not vote Labour because of Iraq, so I voted Lib Dem. In 2010 I voted Tory because it was time for a change of Government and Labour needed time to get itself together.
I am happy to reserve the right to do either again if and when Labour is elected. That's actually having principles.
I'd agree with you if it were Corbyn, or even Burnham.
Starmer as the asset of being dull and inoffensive, so basically anyone could vote for him.
Actually, the current shower are so woeful that, for a few days, I did consider voting for Corbyn. In the end I decided that none of them were good enough and, for the first time ever, I did not bother voting.
To me this seems the most principled stance of the GE19 election - of which you should have a great deal of respect.
I conclude Corbyn and Johnson are just as bad as each other, I really regret voting for Corbyn twice
You need to re-read 'The Importance of Being Earnest' - Lady Bracknell is none too impressed when people do daft things twice!
Huge cargo ships carrying liquid gas that were destined for China have changed course and are now heading towards the UK as Europe remains trapped in a major supply crunch.
While the Continent’s energy crisis and high prices have attracted ships away from other parts of the world, the new arrivals are now bringing prices down. Benchmark Dutch front-month gas fell for a fifth day yesterday, dropping as much as 9.2pc in Amsterdam.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
Nope. It's over once it's clear that our level of immunity, as topped up by regular vaccination, is such that NPIs can be dispensed with without material risk to the healthcare system. We're close to that now but we're not there yet.
The smears and slurs on Dr Angelique Coetzee were colonial attitudes at their worst. As I had here repeatedly at the time.
All credit to @NerysHughes on here by the way - he has been proved absolutely right despite the usual unthinking slurry being thrown his way by the lockdown hawks on PB.
No credit whatever to him, unless you absolutely believe that it was *in principle utterly impossible* (the bar really is that high) that the demographics/prior infection/vacc profile/climate of the SA population meant that omicron was significantly more serious of a problem here, than there. And if you do believe that, you are a serious idiot.
Analogously, consider the discipline relating to the handling of guns, which says that you never, ever point one at someone even if you are utterly certain it is unloaded. Nerys is the idiot who wants to point one at someone and pull the trigger for fun because hur hur hur it was obviously unloaded
Your posts are usually inhabited by shadowy and, crucially, unidentified strawmen, and I think we will put your colonialists and hawks in that category. All that was ever urged by anyone was prudence, as far as I remember.
That reminds me of a scene in a book where a character was asked to dry fire a rifle that he had just seen being assembled from its component parts (so no chance of it being loaded). He first opened the chamber to confirm it was empty, then carefully aimed it away from everyone before pulling the trigger.
If Starmer took us into a pointless war I'd quit the Labour Party.
If Starmer ran out of ideas I'd probably vote Lib Dem.
The Tories can consider my vote when they go back to being the party of Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart
If he ran out of ideas? Wouldn't he have to have any to begin with to runout?
Captain Hindsight hasn't had an original idea this entire pandemic, except for a circuit break which failed in Wales and he swiftly distanced himself from.
What ideas does Johnson have? Isn't that the reason the Red Wall are currently running away?
I happen to think bringing the railways back into public ownership, cutting VAT on energy bills, investing in renewable energy, re-introducing SureStart and bringing the country back with competent leadership is probably a good thing.
But you seem to enjoy chaotic populism so his platform probably isn't for you
Johnson has reneged on levelling up. Red Wall voters, as @RochdalePioneers says, are not fools.
I think you'll know I have said that here many times, they are not stupid whatsoever.
But my point is that levelling up has failed because it is an empty slogan with no actual ideas behind it.
I think that was true when the phrase was invented but in placing Gove there, by far the most innovative minister in the government for good or ill, there is a good chance that we will see a plethora of new ideas this year. Whether we can afford them and whether they are good ideas of course remains to be seen.
My point is that Starmer is accused of having no ideas yet the person who keeps saying that has just voted for somebody else with the same problem. The reality is that they like "Boris" whatever that means. It's about personality not really about policies, which is fine.
I happen to think Gove is constantly underrated.
I must confess I was a little uncertain about what was meant by Johnsonism. I agree that he does not have clearly defined principles or policies. The result is something of a muddle but seems in practice to result in a much more interventionist state than Tories are used to and higher levels of public spending because he finds saying no hard. Whether you consider that a good or a bad thing really depends on your own views about the benefits of state intervention.
Being LOTO is hard. Even Cameron struggled at times and he was much better at it than anyone since Blair. You need to have ideas, to be informed, to be good at giving clear soundbites (Blair was particularly good at this) and to be heard. SKS did very poorly at this in his first year where he was clearly more focused on the internal disaster area that Corbyn left behind. More recently he has improved but he has a long way to go.
David I know we frequently disagree but I do value your contributions greatly, as they always give me something to think about.
I think the point about interventionism is a fair one but I am not sure this comes down to Johnson's principles - he was a supporter of austerity and didn't ever try to spend more money as far as I can tell, when he was Mayor of London - it comes down to more about what he thinks he needs to do to win.
In many ways what he did was to steal the Labour 2017 manifesto in part and run on that.
I think Johnson is a superb election winner and he's good at that - but I think he is terrible at actually doing anything afterwards. He saw that more spending was popular so he ran with it, but what he actually wants to spend the money on, he doesn't know.
Being LOTO is hard - but I really think Starmer is better at it than he is given credit for. What he spent the first year doing was quietly removing the muppets from the party and sorting out anti-Semitism. The real prats removed themselves and removing Corbyn got rid of the others.
He's now fixed the Shadow Cabinet and removed the poor performers.
I think he's doing alright, not as good as Cameron was but I think he's doing the best of any LOTO since Cameron
The smears and slurs on Dr Angelique Coetzee were colonial attitudes at their worst. As I had here repeatedly at the time.
All credit to @NerysHughes on here by the way - he has been proved absolutely right despite the usual unthinking slurry being thrown his way by the lockdown hawks on PB.
No credit whatever to him, unless you absolutely believe that it was *in principle utterly impossible* (the bar really is that high) that the demographics/prior infection/vacc profile/climate of the SA population meant that omicron was significantly more serious of a problem here, than there. And if you do believe that, you are a serious idiot.
Analogously, consider the discipline relating to the handling of guns, which says that you never, ever point one at someone even if you are utterly certain it is unloaded. Nerys is the idiot who wants to point one at someone and pull the trigger for fun because hur hur hur it was obviously unloaded
Your posts are usually inhabited by shadowy and, crucially, unidentified strawmen, and I think we will put your colonialists and hawks in that category. All that was ever urged by anyone was prudence, as far as I remember.
That reminds me of a scene in a book where a character was asked to dry fire a rifle that he had just seen being assembled from its component parts (so no chance of it being loaded). He first opened the chamber to confirm it was empty, then carefully aimed it away from everyone before pulling the trigger.
Only ever voted for the Conservative candidate once, back around 1960 in a Co. Council election and my father was the candidate. Before and ever since then it's been Labour or Lib/LD until the last Co. Council, when I voted Green. I like to find out something about the candidate though. Don't necessarily feel I'm voting for the Party leader, although Priti Patel once asked if if I was really voting for Corbyn!
You're supposed to be a Tory as a wise "old" (I hope you won't think me using this as disparaging) man, that's what they say here
It's always on 'on average', otherwise you'd never have any old non-Tory voters. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that *everyone* becomes a Tory when they get older.
Many of my u3a friends (all over 60 by definition) don't vote Tory.
Is that really surprising? We like to spend time with people similar to ourselves. You can't deny that old people tend to vote Tory.
You also can't deny that the tories have to keep adopting increasingly progressive political positions as their core vote keeps dying.
Even its current abhorrent incarnation the tories are well to the left of where Red Ken's GLC were in the 80s on social issues.
The people inevitably vote tory as they get older is true but the tories continually have to reposition to get them.
Curious thread. Tories still trying to conjure up some party political advantage out of Omicron. Smells a little desperate, but perhaps understandable after the last few weeks. If they were wise they would shut up, try to govern and hope people forget that they party while others lock down.
Everything about this is politics. You could argue the welsh and Scottish governments are doing exactly the same with their approach to Omicron.
Be interesting to see why England fared worse than both Scotland and Wales , if they ever bother to really look at it in future which I seriously doubt.
The reason is obvious. But problematic in polite conversation.
I don't know where you get all this "truth is muzzled in the corner" stuff.
It isn't. You can say what the reason is. You can say it here. You can say it anywhere.
I didn't say it was banned. I said it was problematic. Which is why, when the BBC puts up an article on vaccines refusal (for example), the actual reasons are rather elliptically alluded to.
It’s a very good point. Any evidence the great unjabbed getting jabbed in any numbers at all, or is it just all the jab luvers getting the new jab?
If you were never jabbed at all or only had one, are you added to the booster jabbed total the media put out?
The booster figure is just boosters - jabs are still reported split between 1st, 2nd and booster/3rd dose (3rd is for vulnerable - usually immunosuppressed - people for whom an extra dose is recommended). Reporting is here: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Thank you Endilon. Proper helpful post.
So the 16K & 19K for first and second doses, is that good speed for getting through the Great Wall unvaxxed, or we are we still not denting it enough? 🤔
Would be not enough, but most of them have now been infected with one or other variant, so their immunity is doing OK without vaccines.
My Dad is true blue Tory and I frequently disagree with him on mostly everything but he has instilled in me a work ethic which I will always appreciate. And he is an honourable man, politics is not everything
I wish I had your work ethic. I can only spend about half the day on PB before I get bored and go off to something else.
Actually I'm off work at the moment so that is why I am here all the time.
Got a run in this morning and now relaxing
Just did a run - seven miles around Bar Hill (shudders) and one small fall - only the third this year. It was raining and I was running a narrow tarmac path and slipped on some moss. Aside from a sore hand and thumb, I'm fine.
And the big news is that I've only got two more runs to do to complete one run every day this year! Woohoo! I'm considering topping it off by attempting my first ever marathon distance on Saturday, but I might chicken out ...
It'll be blooming annoying if I get Covid in the next couple of days ...
Telegraph saying that incidental admissions rate is now around 80% of the daily announced figures, up from 40%. That's similar to what we heard from SA which was ~75% incidental admissions during their Omicron wave.
Overall bed occupancy and ICU occupancy is steady or down. These two are the ones to watch.
Either 25 or 80% sounds high frankly - say 3 million have Covid, you'd expect 3/67ths of the population being admitted to a hospital to have "incidental Covid" ?
Indicates a large amount of transmission in hospitals ?
Isn't that a well known fact? An acquaintance of mine died of covid acquired in hospital. The Nightingales could have kept the covid patients separate from others.
Without being an expert it seems crazy they did not move staff to the nightingale hospitals and have all covid patients in them rather than mixing it all up
Nightingales were warehouses with ventilators not hospitals. As we learnt more about the disease it was clear their practical utility was limited
That doesn't make a good headline. Far easier and better to push a fake narrative that UK is failing on testing. As I pointed out down thread this is clearly deliberate as you can access the test capacity etc data with one click and see that they are talking horseshit.
The fact the system hasn't fallen over yet given the incredible throughput and it being Christmas is quite something. There will always be an upper bound and I imagine if the government ordered that to be say 2 million PCR capacity, all we would hear about is what a waste of money, all these people standing around doing nothing etc etc etc.
The only countries doing more per capita are places like Austria, Denmark, and Norway, as well as a couple of Gulf states.
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
It is astonishing to see somebody accusing Europe of mismanaging the pandemic and yet giving Johnson a 10/10 for it here.
Let's check how many people died buddy
There's much, much more to the pandemic than how many people "died" and Johnson definitely doesn't deserve a 10/10, he's been far too lockdown heavy and lifted lockdown restrictions too late in the summer.
Being better than others, doesn't mean you're perfect by any means.
There is more to the pandemic than how many people died. There’s how many got sick, there’s how many developed long COVID, there’s how many couldn’t get timely NHS treatment for other conditions because the system was swamped with COVID patients. There’s the economic and societal cost of lockdowns that were longer than they had to be because they were brought in too late, because there’s never been enough support for people who are self-isolating. There’s the impact of stingy government support for those affected by disruptions to the economy. There are the hypocrisies of cheese and wine parties in Government while the public followed the rules.
Yes, Johnson’s government has failed on multiple fronts, not just how many died.
Another darts player out with a positive covid test - Dave Chisnall.
They must be getting anxious about both the integrity of the competition if there are more withdrawals, and of the possibility of e.g. a walkover in the semis or the final rendering the whole thing a massive anti-climax.
MVG out yesterday was a huge blow on that front. That's i think the 4 or 5th cae they have had among the players, you have to suspect it might well be well seeded.
My Dad is true blue Tory and I frequently disagree with him on mostly everything but he has instilled in me a work ethic which I will always appreciate. And he is an honourable man, politics is not everything
So was Brutus, as I recall.
Brutus did the right thing. The lack of planning afterwards was a huge problem, but the thing he's famous for was [chef's kiss].
Only ever voted for the Conservative candidate once, back around 1960 in a Co. Council election and my father was the candidate. Before and ever since then it's been Labour or Lib/LD until the last Co. Council, when I voted Green. I like to find out something about the candidate though. Don't necessarily feel I'm voting for the Party leader, although Priti Patel once asked if if I was really voting for Corbyn!
You're supposed to be a Tory as a wise "old" (I hope you won't think me using this as disparaging) man, that's what they say here
It's always on 'on average', otherwise you'd never have any old non-Tory voters. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that *everyone* becomes a Tory when they get older.
Many of my u3a friends (all over 60 by definition) don't vote Tory.
Is that really surprising? We like to spend time with people similar to ourselves. You can't deny that old people tend to vote Tory.
You also can't deny that the tories have to keep adopting increasingly progressive political positions as their core vote keeps dying.
Even its current abhorrent incarnation the tories are well to the left of where Red Ken's GLC were in the 80s on social issues.
The people inevitably vote tory as they get older is true but the tories continually have to reposition to get them.
Do they? It was the LDs and Labour MPs who passed gay marriage, most Tory MPs voted against.
Most current Tory voters want lower immigration too.
The Tories may accept social change, they rarely drive it, though they may like Thatcher or Cameron drive economic change
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
I'm curious - do we know yet how bad Omicorn is for the double vaccinated - my partner here in Spain had the 2nd jab over 6 mnths ago - he's early 50s and is unlikely to get 'boostered' for at least 3/4 weeks. Omicron is rapidly taking over here now but if it is generally less virulent there may be less need for me to worry unduly. Anyone know?
That doesn't make a good headline. Far easier and better to push a fake narrative that UK is failing on testing. As I pointed out down thread this is clearly deliberate as you can access the test capacity etc data with one click and see that they are talking horseshit.
The fact the system hasn't fallen over yet given the incredible throughput and it being Christmas is quite something. There will always be an upper bound and I imagine if the government ordered that to be say 2 million PCR capacity, all we would hear about is what a waste of money, all these people standing around doing nothing etc etc etc.
The only countries doing more per capita are places like Austria, Denmark, and Norway, as well as a couple of Gulf states.
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
After a poor start, given by PHE saying "can't be done" to every suggestion, in my mind no doubt it has been one of the more successful parts of the UK response.
Remember last Christmas when everybody laughed at Boris saying it will become the norm to take a test before you go out to a football match or the theatre...there will be tests you can take before you go and see a vulnerable person. The media piled in saying what total nonsense.
Now the criticism is occasionally people can't get packs of 20 instantly so the whole family can't take 5 tests a day....
Telegraph saying that incidental admissions rate is now around 80% of the daily announced figures, up from 40%. That's similar to what we heard from SA which was ~75% incidental admissions during their Omicron wave.
Overall bed occupancy and ICU occupancy is steady or down. These two are the ones to watch.
Either 25 or 80% sounds high frankly - say 3 million have Covid, you'd expect 3/67ths of the population being admitted to a hospital to have "incidental Covid" ?
Indicates a large amount of transmission in hospitals ?
Isn't that a well known fact? An acquaintance of mine died of covid acquired in hospital. The Nightingales could have kept the covid patients separate from others.
Without being an expert it seems crazy they did not move staff to the nightingale hospitals and have all covid patients in them rather than mixing it all up
Nightingales were warehouses with ventilators not hospitals. As we learnt more about the disease it was clear their practical utility was limited
They were useful for scaring the shit out of everyone.
The Chinese did the same with the huge mass graves.
That doesn't make a good headline. Far easier and better to push a fake narrative that UK is failing on testing. As I pointed out down thread this is clearly deliberate as you can access the test capacity etc data with one click and see that they are talking horseshit.
The fact the system hasn't fallen over yet given the incredible throughput and it being Christmas is quite something. There will always be an upper bound and I imagine if the government ordered that to be say 2 million PCR capacity, all we would hear about is what a waste of money, all these people standing around doing nothing etc etc etc.
The only countries doing more per capita are places like Austria, Denmark, and Norway, as well as a couple of Gulf states.
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
After a poor start, given by PHE saying "can't be done" to every suggestion, in my mind no doubt it has been one of the more successful parts of the UK response.
Remember last Christmas when everybody laughed at Boris saying it will become the norm to take a test before you go out to a football match or the theatre...there will be tests you can take before you go and see a vulnerable person.
The media piled in saying what total nonsense.
As you predicted, at 12:27 the BBC notes the LFTs and PCRs are available in every area again.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
Nope. It's over once it's clear that our level of immunity, as topped up by regular vaccination, is such that NPIs can be dispensed with without material risk to the healthcare system. We're close to that now but we're not there yet.
That's arse about tit and you're letting the Conservative government get away with it.
You don't manage healthcare by capping demand to meet supply. Post vaccinations you should be demanding as much supply as is required to meet demand.
If the healthcare system gets overloaded then that's a failure to implement proper triage and surge protocols. It's a failure to invest.
Biden is responding to Omicron not by implementing restrictions but by activating FEMA to boost hospital and ambulance capacity to meet the extra demand.
Capping demand should have been a short term solution to a novel virus not a long term solution two years into the pandemic after a vaccine rollout.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
Yup
The massive jump in R for 10-24 was interesting... Now being replaced by older groups
Younger groups show in waves first because they are more social?
This tells the story, in conjunction with the graph above.
The London wave was/is massively in the younger groups. Hence while hospitalisation went up (and are going up) it didn't turn into a 10/10 Apocalypse.
EDIT - Ignore the Scottish line, that's bad data caused by lack of reporting.
Huge cargo ships carrying liquid gas that were destined for China have changed course and are now heading towards the UK as Europe remains trapped in a major supply crunch.
While the Continent’s energy crisis and high prices have attracted ships away from other parts of the world, the new arrivals are now bringing prices down. Benchmark Dutch front-month gas fell for a fifth day yesterday, dropping as much as 9.2pc in Amsterdam.
All based on the assumption that Russia continues to supply Gas on demand
And what is the current issue - Russia is restricting Gas supplies prior to potentially invading the Ukraine.
Also my point wasn't as much about what the Government allowed - imagine being in a position where you are sat on Gas bought at 30p a therm when everyone else in the market is spending £4+ to maintain supply.
Only ever voted for the Conservative candidate once, back around 1960 in a Co. Council election and my father was the candidate. Before and ever since then it's been Labour or Lib/LD until the last Co. Council, when I voted Green. I like to find out something about the candidate though. Don't necessarily feel I'm voting for the Party leader, although Priti Patel once asked if if I was really voting for Corbyn!
You're supposed to be a Tory as a wise "old" (I hope you won't think me using this as disparaging) man, that's what they say here
It's always on 'on average', otherwise you'd never have any old non-Tory voters. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that *everyone* becomes a Tory when they get older.
Many of my u3a friends (all over 60 by definition) don't vote Tory.
Is that really surprising? We like to spend time with people similar to ourselves. You can't deny that old people tend to vote Tory.
You also can't deny that the tories have to keep adopting increasingly progressive political positions as their core vote keeps dying.
Even its current abhorrent incarnation the tories are well to the left of where Red Ken's GLC were in the 80s on social issues.
The people inevitably vote tory as they get older is true but the tories continually have to reposition to get them.
Surely that is true of all parties. Views on issues, rather like the stock exchange, move in both directions.
If Starmer took us into a pointless war I'd quit the Labour Party.
If Starmer ran out of ideas I'd probably vote Lib Dem.
The Tories can consider my vote when they go back to being the party of Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart
If he ran out of ideas? Wouldn't he have to have any to begin with to runout?
Captain Hindsight hasn't had an original idea this entire pandemic, except for a circuit break which failed in Wales and he swiftly distanced himself from.
What ideas does Johnson have? Isn't that the reason the Red Wall are currently running away?
I happen to think bringing the railways back into public ownership, cutting VAT on energy bills, investing in renewable energy, re-introducing SureStart and bringing the country back with competent leadership is probably a good thing.
But you seem to enjoy chaotic populism so his platform probably isn't for you
Johnson has reneged on levelling up. Red Wall voters, as @RochdalePioneers says, are not fools.
I think you'll know I have said that here many times, they are not stupid whatsoever.
But my point is that levelling up has failed because it is an empty slogan with no actual ideas behind it.
I think that was true when the phrase was invented but in placing Gove there, by far the most innovative minister in the government for good or ill, there is a good chance that we will see a plethora of new ideas this year. Whether we can afford them and whether they are good ideas of course remains to be seen.
My point is that Starmer is accused of having no ideas yet the person who keeps saying that has just voted for somebody else with the same problem. The reality is that they like "Boris" whatever that means. It's about personality not really about policies, which is fine.
I happen to think Gove is constantly underrated.
I must confess I was a little uncertain about what was meant by Johnsonism. I agree that he does not have clearly defined principles or policies. The result is something of a muddle but seems in practice to result in a much more interventionist state than Tories are used to and higher levels of public spending because he finds saying no hard. Whether you consider that a good or a bad thing really depends on your own views about the benefits of state intervention.
Being LOTO is hard. Even Cameron struggled at times and he was much better at it than anyone since Blair. You need to have ideas, to be informed, to be good at giving clear soundbites (Blair was particularly good at this) and to be heard. SKS did very poorly at this in his first year where he was clearly more focused on the internal disaster area that Corbyn left behind. More recently he has improved but he has a long way to go.
David I know we frequently disagree but I do value your contributions greatly, as they always give me something to think about.
I think the point about interventionism is a fair one but I am not sure this comes down to Johnson's principles - he was a supporter of austerity and didn't ever try to spend more money as far as I can tell, when he was Mayor of London - it comes down to more about what he thinks he needs to do to win.
In many ways what he did was to steal the Labour 2017 manifesto in part and run on that.
I think Johnson is a superb election winner and he's good at that - but I think he is terrible at actually doing anything afterwards. He saw that more spending was popular so he ran with it, but what he actually wants to spend the money on, he doesn't know.
Being LOTO is hard - but I really think Starmer is better at it than he is given credit for. What he spent the first year doing was quietly removing the muppets from the party and sorting out anti-Semitism. The real prats removed themselves and removing Corbyn got rid of the others.
He's now fixed the Shadow Cabinet and removed the poor performers.
I think he's doing alright, not as good as Cameron was but I think he's doing the best of any LOTO since Cameron
Personally, I had quite a lot of time for Ed Miliband. He had a lot of ideas and was interesting even if his record in government was poor to middling. I have no doubt at all that Labour chose the right brother. I think he was unfairly treated. I wouldn't put SKS in his class yet. If Labour are going to be a source of new ideas Ed will play an important role.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
Yup
The massive jump in R for 10-24 was interesting... Now being replaced by older groups
Younger groups show in waves first because they are more social?
I’m not taking the piss, this is the key stat now, wave moving from young and social to old and… less social except for Christmas. But I reckon you need a graph with the following vectors - number of brand new sexual partners due to party season versus number of times picked up radio times this week and ending up wondering where the golden age of television went to.
I’m catching up with Dirty Duchess now. Loving the funky theme tune, the skirts and red lips. Claire Foy is so ****able! If I met her at a party I’d let her know I was looking in her direction.
Off-topic, its already increasingly clear how difficult it is going to be to get "groupage" loads across the GB / EU border from Saturday. The GB new customs computer isn't ready so have to rely on the old system which they said from the start was utterly incapable of such a thing. We haven't built the Border Control Posts, or staffed them, and the few we have built in Kent are utterly inadequate.
We have to start to impose these rules because there are a stack of countries ready to take us to the WTO for giving illegal preferential terms to the EU. But we aren't ready, and hauliers sensibly are saying "fuck that" at the prospect of having their vehicle stuck in Ashford over a weekend because one line on one page of one item of the thousands on their groupage load is wrong.
I've already been told that the pallet load chilled imports we have been doing happily so far (as the GB authorities aren't checking) are now likely impossible. We need to be doing full loads which we can't as the business hasn't grown sufficiently and now won't do if we can't import.
I expect we will get through this by simply dropping the 1st Jan / 1st April / 1st July implementation. Which isn't a long-term fix. Our border model doesn't work as drawn up...
That I think is already in place. I have pasted some of the weasel-words.
The irony is that this unfit-for-purpose set of processes will continue until the UK govt introduces enough of it to gum up the EU side of the border. Idiots.
Revised timetable will give businesses more time to adjust to new processes Global pandemic has affected supply chains in the UK and across Europe Controls will be phased in across 2022 The government has today set out a pragmatic new timetable for introducing full import controls for goods being imported from the EU to the UK.
Businesses have faced a range of challenges over recent months as they recover from the global pandemic which has impacted supply chains across Europe. This is being felt particularly by the agri-food sector, where new requirements on importing products of animal origin were due to be introduced from next month. Rather than introduce these controls at this time, the government has listened to those who have called for a new approach to give businesses more time to adjust.
This will be a great case study, for future students of international politics and game theory.
It was sadly predictable that the EU, and the French in particular, would be obstinate arseholes around the border, in the expectation that the UK would not retailiate in any meaningful way.
Hopefully, over time and as the politicians in charge change, everyone will realise that obstinate border arseholery benefits no-one, and that life is much better when everyone just gets their computers talking to each other.
The silver lining in the cloud appears to be the Dutch, who are planning to actively encourage EU>UK freight traffic through Rotterdam in the new year.
One that I want to see is:
1 - Stronger ferry links to Zeebrugge, to defang Macron's threats wrt Channel Tunnel. So attacks on that will harm mainly the French company that owns it. 2 - Join Belgium in the European Court action to stop France building a windfarm across the Zeebrugge -> Dover link. 3 - Pay for upgraded border force and migrant / refugee services via a levy on international travel to source countries, paid by the operators on the relevant border.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
I'm curious - do we know yet how bad Omicorn is for the double vaccinated - my partner here in Spain had the 2nd jab over 6 mnths ago - he's early 50s and is unlikely to get 'boostered' for at least 3/4 weeks. Omicron is rapidly taking over here now but if it is generally less virulent there may be less need for me to worry unduly. Anyone know?
Well just double jabbed 6 months ago, it seems like virtually no protection against catching Omicron.
It is less clear cut about protection against serious illness, it looks like that has dropped some amount, but the error bars are massive on how much. There is also the complications of if you had prior COVID, which variant etc. Double jabbed and previous infection to Beta or Delta looks to still give you good level of protection.
At the moment, lots of moving parts in terms of all the different vaccine combinations, the gaps between when people have been jabbed, plus at least in the UK, we are now only just starting to see the hospitalisations and deaths ramp up.
That doesn't make a good headline. Far easier and better to push a fake narrative that UK is failing on testing. As I pointed out down thread this is clearly deliberate as you can access the test capacity etc data with one click and see that they are talking horseshit.
The fact the system hasn't fallen over yet given the incredible throughput and it being Christmas is quite something. There will always be an upper bound and I imagine if the government ordered that to be say 2 million PCR capacity, all we would hear about is what a waste of money, all these people standing around doing nothing etc etc etc.
The only countries doing more per capita are places like Austria, Denmark, and Norway, as well as a couple of Gulf states.
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
After a poor start, given by PHE saying "can't be done" to every suggestion, in my mind no doubt it has been one of the more successful parts of the UK response.
Remember last Christmas when everybody laughed at Boris saying it will become the norm to take a test before you go out to a football match or the theatre...there will be tests you can take before you go and see a vulnerable person.
The media piled in saying what total nonsense.
As you predicted, at 12:27 the BBC notes the LFTs and PCRs are available in every area again.
The juxtaposition of the two headlines is quite something:
Posted at 9:17 9:17 Covid test supply issues 'a total shambles' - Labour
Posted at 9:27 9:27 PCR and lateral flow tests available again
Perhaps "Covid test supply reporting 'a total shambles'" would be more appropriate.
That doesn't make a good headline. Far easier and better to push a fake narrative that UK is failing on testing. As I pointed out down thread this is clearly deliberate as you can access the test capacity etc data with one click and see that they are talking horseshit.
The fact the system hasn't fallen over yet given the incredible throughput and it being Christmas is quite something. There will always be an upper bound and I imagine if the government ordered that to be say 2 million PCR capacity, all we would hear about is what a waste of money, all these people standing around doing nothing etc etc etc.
The only countries doing more per capita are places like Austria, Denmark, and Norway, as well as a couple of Gulf states.
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
After a poor start, given by PHE saying "can't be done" to every suggestion, in my mind no doubt it has been one of the more successful parts of the UK response.
Remember last Christmas when everybody laughed at Boris saying it will become the norm to take a test before you go out to a football match or the theatre...there will be tests you can take before you go and see a vulnerable person.
The media piled in saying what total nonsense.
As you predicted, at 12:27 the BBC notes the LFTs and PCRs are available in every area again.
Its like they have put in place a demand management system or something....
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
The UK gov covid cases page has a nice heatmap for England and below data.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
The UK gov covid cases page has a nice heatmap for England and below data.
If Starmer took us into a pointless war I'd quit the Labour Party.
If Starmer ran out of ideas I'd probably vote Lib Dem.
The Tories can consider my vote when they go back to being the party of Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart
If he ran out of ideas? Wouldn't he have to have any to begin with to runout?
Captain Hindsight hasn't had an original idea this entire pandemic, except for a circuit break which failed in Wales and he swiftly distanced himself from.
What ideas does Johnson have? Isn't that the reason the Red Wall are currently running away?
I happen to think bringing the railways back into public ownership, cutting VAT on energy bills, investing in renewable energy, re-introducing SureStart and bringing the country back with competent leadership is probably a good thing.
But you seem to enjoy chaotic populism so his platform probably isn't for you
Johnson has reneged on levelling up. Red Wall voters, as @RochdalePioneers says, are not fools.
I think you'll know I have said that here many times, they are not stupid whatsoever.
But my point is that levelling up has failed because it is an empty slogan with no actual ideas behind it.
I think that was true when the phrase was invented but in placing Gove there, by far the most innovative minister in the government for good or ill, there is a good chance that we will see a plethora of new ideas this year. Whether we can afford them and whether they are good ideas of course remains to be seen.
My point is that Starmer is accused of having no ideas yet the person who keeps saying that has just voted for somebody else with the same problem. The reality is that they like "Boris" whatever that means. It's about personality not really about policies, which is fine.
I happen to think Gove is constantly underrated.
I must confess I was a little uncertain about what was meant by Johnsonism. I agree that he does not have clearly defined principles or policies. The result is something of a muddle but seems in practice to result in a much more interventionist state than Tories are used to and higher levels of public spending because he finds saying no hard. Whether you consider that a good or a bad thing really depends on your own views about the benefits of state intervention.
Being LOTO is hard. Even Cameron struggled at times and he was much better at it than anyone since Blair. You need to have ideas, to be informed, to be good at giving clear soundbites (Blair was particularly good at this) and to be heard. SKS did very poorly at this in his first year where he was clearly more focused on the internal disaster area that Corbyn left behind. More recently he has improved but he has a long way to go.
David I know we frequently disagree but I do value your contributions greatly, as they always give me something to think about.
I think the point about interventionism is a fair one but I am not sure this comes down to Johnson's principles - he was a supporter of austerity and didn't ever try to spend more money as far as I can tell, when he was Mayor of London - it comes down to more about what he thinks he needs to do to win.
In many ways what he did was to steal the Labour 2017 manifesto in part and run on that.
I think Johnson is a superb election winner and he's good at that - but I think he is terrible at actually doing anything afterwards. He saw that more spending was popular so he ran with it, but what he actually wants to spend the money on, he doesn't know.
Being LOTO is hard - but I really think Starmer is better at it than he is given credit for. What he spent the first year doing was quietly removing the muppets from the party and sorting out anti-Semitism. The real prats removed themselves and removing Corbyn got rid of the others.
He's now fixed the Shadow Cabinet and removed the poor performers.
I think he's doing alright, not as good as Cameron was but I think he's doing the best of any LOTO since Cameron
Personally, I had quite a lot of time for Ed Miliband. He had a lot of ideas and was interesting even if his record in government was poor to middling. I have no doubt at all that Labour chose the right brother. I think he was unfairly treated. I wouldn't put SKS in his class yet. If Labour are going to be a source of new ideas Ed will play an important role.
He was advised extremely poorly and presented himself the wrong way. He's quite endearing now.
Anyway, yes he has some great ideas and he should be at the forefront of any Labour Government, I enjoy his podcast
Off-topic, its already increasingly clear how difficult it is going to be to get "groupage" loads across the GB / EU border from Saturday. The GB new customs computer isn't ready so have to rely on the old system which they said from the start was utterly incapable of such a thing. We haven't built the Border Control Posts, or staffed them, and the few we have built in Kent are utterly inadequate.
We have to start to impose these rules because there are a stack of countries ready to take us to the WTO for giving illegal preferential terms to the EU. But we aren't ready, and hauliers sensibly are saying "fuck that" at the prospect of having their vehicle stuck in Ashford over a weekend because one line on one page of one item of the thousands on their groupage load is wrong.
I've already been told that the pallet load chilled imports we have been doing happily so far (as the GB authorities aren't checking) are now likely impossible. We need to be doing full loads which we can't as the business hasn't grown sufficiently and now won't do if we can't import.
I expect we will get through this by simply dropping the 1st Jan / 1st April / 1st July implementation. Which isn't a long-term fix. Our border model doesn't work as drawn up...
That I think is already in place. I have pasted some of the weasel-words.
The irony is that this unfit-for-purpose set of processes will continue until the UK govt introduces enough of it to gum up the EU side of the border. Idiots.
Revised timetable will give businesses more time to adjust to new processes Global pandemic has affected supply chains in the UK and across Europe Controls will be phased in across 2022 The government has today set out a pragmatic new timetable for introducing full import controls for goods being imported from the EU to the UK.
Businesses have faced a range of challenges over recent months as they recover from the global pandemic which has impacted supply chains across Europe. This is being felt particularly by the agri-food sector, where new requirements on importing products of animal origin were due to be introduced from next month. Rather than introduce these controls at this time, the government has listened to those who have called for a new approach to give businesses more time to adjust.
This will be a great case study, for future students of international politics and game theory.
It was sadly predictable that the EU, and the French in particular, would be obstinate arseholes around the border, in the expectation that the UK would not retailiate in any meaningful way.
Hopefully, over time and as the politicians in charge change, everyone will realise that obstinate border arseholery benefits no-one, and that life is much better when everyone just gets their computers talking to each other.
The silver lining in the cloud appears to be the Dutch, who are planning to actively encourage EU>UK freight traffic through Rotterdam in the new year.
I'm not sure you're listening. This is not about the French. They can do what they like - they have a functional border. This is about our side of the border where inbound stuff is going to get stacked up faster than we can handle, because we do not have a functional border. The people who have insisted that we do this is us, not the French or EU.
It's about both.
The arrangements need redesigning because they are not fit for purpose in such a high-volume situation. And that requires a perception of that on both sides, which will not happen whilst the UK Gov keep kludging it.
The Cabinet might not agree on what levelling up is but filling in potholes for a Conservative Peer is definitely not it. How many streets in Britain have had 330k to repair their roads? Ministers must come clean on how these shocking decisions are made.
Curious thread. Tories still trying to conjure up some party political advantage out of Omicron. Smells a little desperate, but perhaps understandable after the last few weeks. If they were wise they would shut up, try to govern and hope people forget that they party while others lock down.
Everything about this is politics. You could argue the welsh and Scottish governments are doing exactly the same with their approach to Omicron.
Be interesting to see why England fared worse than both Scotland and Wales , if they ever bother to really look at it in future which I seriously doubt.
The reason is obvious. But problematic in polite conversation.
I don't know where you get all this "truth is muzzled in the corner" stuff.
It isn't. You can say what the reason is. You can say it here. You can say it anywhere.
I didn't say it was banned. I said it was problematic. Which is why, when the BBC puts up an article on vaccines refusal (for example), the actual reasons are rather elliptically alluded to.
I've read countless pieces on a wide variety of platforms about the troubling lack of vaccine uptake amongst certain ethnic groups and what the reasons for this might be.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
Yup
The massive jump in R for 10-24 was interesting... Now being replaced by older groups
Younger groups show in waves first because they are more social?
I’m not taking the piss, this is the key stat now, wave moving from young and social to old and… less social except for Christmas. But I reckon you need a graph with the following vectors - number of brand new sexual partners due to party season versus number of times picked up radio times this week and ending up wondering where the golden age of television went to.
I’m catching up with Dirty Duchess now. Loving the funky theme tune, the skirts and red lips. Claire Foy is so ****able! If I met her at a party I’d let her know I was looking in her direction.
"I’m not taking the piss" - why not? This is PB!
I'll ask the Dashboard guys for the data.
Hmmm. Surely we need a dimension for amount of champagne cocktails drunk? Then a dimension about the alcohol capacity across the population, quality of bar tenders...
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
The UK gov covid cases page has a nice heatmap for England and below data.
Yes I know, why isn't it available for the UK?
Ask the devolved administrations... case rates in the 5 year segments not being recorded etc.
When I asked about the 18-64 segmentation in the admissions data, you could *hear* the sigh. In an email....
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
That doesn't make a good headline. Far easier and better to push a fake narrative that UK is failing on testing. As I pointed out down thread this is clearly deliberate as you can access the test capacity etc data with one click and see that they are talking horseshit.
The fact the system hasn't fallen over yet given the incredible throughput and it being Christmas is quite something. There will always be an upper bound and I imagine if the government ordered that to be say 2 million PCR capacity, all we would hear about is what a waste of money, all these people standing around doing nothing etc etc etc.
The only countries doing more per capita are places like Austria, Denmark, and Norway, as well as a couple of Gulf states.
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
After a poor start, given by PHE saying "can't be done" to every suggestion, in my mind no doubt it has been one of the more successful parts of the UK response.
Remember last Christmas when everybody laughed at Boris saying it will become the norm to take a test before you go out to a football match or the theatre...there will be tests you can take before you go and see a vulnerable person.
The media piled in saying what total nonsense.
As you predicted, at 12:27 the BBC notes the LFTs and PCRs are available in every area again.
The juxtaposition of the two headlines is quite something:
Posted at 9:17 9:17 Covid test supply issues 'a total shambles' - Labour
Posted at 9:27 9:27 PCR and lateral flow tests available again
Perhaps "Covid test supply reporting 'a total shambles'" would be more appropriate.
This is Labour's issue IMO, they're a directionless rent-a-gob party. Any other party would have researchers to make sure that they wouldn't look like fools but Labour seem to ready to believe the worst every time and it catches them out.
The main criticism of the government is strategic, not whether there's 7 tests or 7000 tests available to book.
Omicron is registering as an issue in the UK because we failed to prepare with a wide booster roll out in October and November. That's the strategic issue that needs to be attacked and if/when the government fucks up the fourth dose for over 50s in March/April then you have a basis to say "we fucking told you so".
Starmer and Labour haven't had a single moment where they could tell media "we fucking told the bastard Tories and they didn't listen" and the government has fucked up a lot over the last two years, like a lot of fucking up. Instead they just carp from the sidelines about stuff no one cares about.
They can't support nationalisation because they're ideologically opposed so they'll remove any advantages of private ownership and gain none of the benefits of public. But something has changed and they've got a new logo.
Only ever voted for the Conservative candidate once, back around 1960 in a Co. Council election and my father was the candidate. Before and ever since then it's been Labour or Lib/LD until the last Co. Council, when I voted Green. I like to find out something about the candidate though. Don't necessarily feel I'm voting for the Party leader, although Priti Patel once asked if if I was really voting for Corbyn!
You're supposed to be a Tory as a wise "old" (I hope you won't think me using this as disparaging) man, that's what they say here
It's always on 'on average', otherwise you'd never have any old non-Tory voters. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that *everyone* becomes a Tory when they get older.
Many of my u3a friends (all over 60 by definition) don't vote Tory.
That's what the university education has done for them...
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
The UK gov covid cases page has a nice heatmap for England and below data.
Yes I know, why isn't it available for the UK?
Ask the devolved administrations... case rates in the 5 year segments not being recorded etc.
When I asked about the 18-64 segmentation in the admissions data, you could *hear* the sigh. In an email....
The 18-64 segmentation makes no sense for today’s data requirement. It may have made sense in the pre-covid past, when all they wanted was split into children, adults and pensioners. Even cutting the group in half at 40 or 45 would help.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
Yup
The massive jump in R for 10-24 was interesting... Now being replaced by older groups
Younger groups show in waves first because they are more social?
I’m not taking the piss, this is the key stat now, wave moving from young and social to old and… less social except for Christmas. But I reckon you need a graph with the following vectors - number of brand new sexual partners due to party season versus number of times picked up radio times this week and ending up wondering where the golden age of television went to.
I’m catching up with Dirty Duchess now. Loving the funky theme tune, the skirts and red lips. Claire Foy is so ****able! If I met her at a party I’d let her know I was looking in her direction.
"I’m not taking the piss" - why not? This is PB!
I'll ask the Dashboard guys for the data.
Hmmm. Surely we need a dimension for amount of champagne cocktails drunk? Then a dimension about the alcohol capacity across the population, quality of bar tenders...
{Gets PhD application form out...}
LOL. We don’t need to know how many geriatrics (those over 50) have been shagging around during Omicron, nor if anyone under 50 had heard of the Radio Times. 🙂 but firstly waves get into socially active first, and they tend not to need hospitalisation for it, so maybe Daily Express too quick to claim today Boris has beaten it, covid over in UK as we still need to infect lots of geriatrics (those over 50) and see how they cope. In my opinion.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
The UK gov covid cases page has a nice heatmap for England and below data.
Yes I know, why isn't it available for the UK?
Ask the devolved administrations... case rates in the 5 year segments not being recorded etc.
When I asked about the 18-64 segmentation in the admissions data, you could *hear* the sigh. In an email....
The 18-64 segmentation makes no sense for today’s data requirement. It may have made sense in the pre-covid past, when all they wanted was split into children, adults and pensioners. Even cutting the group in half at 40 or 45 would help.
It makes no sense they don't report on cases by vaccination status or (not) all cases including reinfections.....at very least as a % taken as a sample from the data. Tim Spector regularly estimates that unvaccinated account for 2/3 of the total number of cases.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
The Cabinet might not agree on what levelling up is but filling in potholes for a Conservative Peer is definitely not it. How many streets in Britain have had 330k to repair their roads? Ministers must come clean on how these shocking decisions are made.
Repairing and improving roads absolutely should be a priority. What's your problem? If it was 330k to fix a problem on a rail track would you be moaning?
How about complaining about potholes that AREN'T repaired instead of bitching about those that are?
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
The UK gov covid cases page has a nice heatmap for England and below data.
Yes I know, why isn't it available for the UK?
Ask the devolved administrations... case rates in the 5 year segments not being recorded etc.
When I asked about the 18-64 segmentation in the admissions data, you could *hear* the sigh. In an email....
The 18-64 segmentation makes no sense for today’s data requirement. It may have made sense in the pre-covid past, when all they wanted was split into children, adults and pensioners. Even cutting the group in half at 40 or 45 would help.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Cloud, as if millions of Data Scientists simultaneously sobbed in pain..."
Italian anti-vaxx radio personality who boasted of being a 'plague spreader' who walked through supermarkets without a mask while feverish dies from Covid aged 61
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
The juxtaposition of the two headlines is quite something:
Posted at 9:17 9:17 Covid test supply issues 'a total shambles' - Labour
Posted at 9:27 9:27 PCR and lateral flow tests available again
Perhaps "Covid test supply reporting 'a total shambles'" would be more appropriate.
Wes Streeting made to look like quite a berk, again.
Nah, nobody holds people account for shooting their mouth off too early on things like this. If they were to do so, the whole media would have to start criticising themselves. They just move on, until same time tomorrow...and rinse and repeat.
I imagine at least one day over the next week, the system will overload, and the reaction will be see, I told you so....despite the fact it managed to get going doing millions and millions of tests.
We have all the spreading due to Christmas and New Year, plus all back to work / school, which will cause loads of people to say "better just check, you know in case, it would be terrible if I couldn't go back to work yet"....
"Chinese lockdown rule-breakers are publicly shamed and paraded through the streets carrying placards with their names on in bid to ensure Covid rules are obeyed"
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
That doesn't make a good headline. Far easier and better to push a fake narrative that UK is failing on testing. As I pointed out down thread this is clearly deliberate as you can access the test capacity etc data with one click and see that they are talking horseshit.
The fact the system hasn't fallen over yet given the incredible throughput and it being Christmas is quite something. There will always be an upper bound and I imagine if the government ordered that to be say 2 million PCR capacity, all we would hear about is what a waste of money, all these people standing around doing nothing etc etc etc.
The only countries doing more per capita are places like Austria, Denmark, and Norway, as well as a couple of Gulf states.
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
After a poor start, given by PHE saying "can't be done" to every suggestion, in my mind no doubt it has been one of the more successful parts of the UK response.
Remember last Christmas when everybody laughed at Boris saying it will become the norm to take a test before you go out to a football match or the theatre...there will be tests you can take before you go and see a vulnerable person. The media piled in saying what total nonsense.
Now the criticism is occasionally people can't get packs of 20 instantly so the whole family can't take 5 tests a day....
I'm curious as to the LFT usage.
How many people are:
1) Taking a test a day 2) Taking a test only if ill / been in close proximity to someone infected 3) Not taking tests at all
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
I'm curious - do we know yet how bad Omicorn is for the double vaccinated - my partner here in Spain had the 2nd jab over 6 mnths ago - he's early 50s and is unlikely to get 'boostered' for at least 3/4 weeks. Omicron is rapidly taking over here now but if it is generally less virulent there may be less need for me to worry unduly. Anyone know?
Anecdote from me as similar. 55 years old, tested positive 6 months after second jab. Worse than a bad cold for me. Nowhere near hospital. Fatigue beyond anything else was the worst symptom. Also brain fog. 3 weeks and I'm pretty much over it. But I haven't done a great deal. Hope that is of some use to put your mind at rest.
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
I happen to think BR would have run immensely better had it been given the proper funding. The rail network may have improved but that's because it has a tonne more spent on it by the taxpayer.
So we spend the money, foreign governments take a cut and the leasing companies make a killing on the trains.
I do not understand what private companies bring to the trains and the new structure makes this even less clear. We pay companies to operate the trains but why can't we just operate the trains ourselves? It seems utterly pointless
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
Nope. It's over once it's clear that our level of immunity, as topped up by regular vaccination, is such that NPIs can be dispensed with without material risk to the healthcare system. We're close to that now but we're not there yet.
That's arse about tit and you're letting the Conservative government get away with it.
You don't manage healthcare by capping demand to meet supply. Post vaccinations you should be demanding as much supply as is required to meet demand.
If the healthcare system gets overloaded then that's a failure to implement proper triage and surge protocols. It's a failure to invest.
Biden is responding to Omicron not by implementing restrictions but by activating FEMA to boost hospital and ambulance capacity to meet the extra demand.
Capping demand should have been a short term solution to a novel virus not a long term solution two years into the pandemic after a vaccine rollout.
NPIs are a short term solution. Once we've transitioned to post pandemic they'll be dropped. I predict from March at the latest.
On the general point, you have to manage the supply AND demand side for healthcare. If you only do the first you'll soon turn that fatuous soundbite - "NHS with a country attached" - into a reality.
If Starmer took us into a pointless war I'd quit the Labour Party.
If Starmer ran out of ideas I'd probably vote Lib Dem.
The Tories can consider my vote when they go back to being the party of Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart
If he ran out of ideas? Wouldn't he have to have any to begin with to runout?
Captain Hindsight hasn't had an original idea this entire pandemic, except for a circuit break which failed in Wales and he swiftly distanced himself from.
What ideas does Johnson have? Isn't that the reason the Red Wall are currently running away?
I happen to think bringing the railways back into public ownership, cutting VAT on energy bills, investing in renewable energy, re-introducing SureStart and bringing the country back with competent leadership is probably a good thing.
But you seem to enjoy chaotic populism so his platform probably isn't for you
Johnson has reneged on levelling up. Red Wall voters, as @RochdalePioneers says, are not fools.
I think you'll know I have said that here many times, they are not stupid whatsoever.
But my point is that levelling up has failed because it is an empty slogan with no actual ideas behind it.
Oh, I wasn’t implying otherwise. Just giving one reason why the red wall is abandoning the Tories. You can see from the likes of HYUFD a thinly disguised disregard for these seats and these people but they are the new Tories. Boris would be wise to re engage. Strategically it makes sense too as it cuts off a path back for labour. I suspect where the red wall is concerned there are far more Tories like HYUFD than there are so want to re engage.
The Tories will never outspend Labour, if redwall voters only voted for Boris to get Brexit done no amount of spending on redwall seats will win them back now Brexit is done. Only if Starmer said he would restore free movement and go back to the single market could the Tories hope to win back those former lifelong Labour voters.
If the Tories are re elected it will be only narrowly like 1992, 2015 or 2017 in my view and based on holding the seats Cameron won in 2015 and May won in 2017 and Boris held in 2019. Certainly on that basis there is no point putting up tax on those Tory seats in the South and Midlands Cameron and May won to spend on redwall seats Brown and Ed Milliband won
But in 2015 and 2017 the Tories were already making inroads and gaining red wall seats. You cannot win on traditional Tory seats as the demographics are changing in places like Wycombe, Hastings, Worthing and the like. These will go sooner or later as Canterbury has. If you look at many places in the old red wall these have only been labour because people traditionally vote labour. Lots of owner occupation, nice new estates, decent levels of disposable income.
Your core vote strategy is the same as Ed M in 2015. It failed him, it will fail you if you got for it.
Interesting comment by Nick Triggle on the BBC website:
Hospital data requires much closer analysis than it once did.
On paper there is the highest number in hospital in England since early March.
But that has been artificially inflated by two things this week.
Firstly, the number of people being discharged from hospital will have dropped significantly over the festive period. Last year the rate of discharged halved, meaning there are likely to be hundreds of patients in hospital who have recovered from Covid.
Secondly a growing proportion of hospitalisations are for what is known as an incidental admission. They are people being treated for something else, but just happen to have Covid.
Last week this stood at about three in 10, but the expectation is this will have increased by now. The latest figures will be released on Thursday.
Therefore, it is possible of the 9,500 in hospital maybe around 6,000 are acutely unwell with Covid.
These numbers are undoubtedly going to go up in the coming weeks as Omicron spreads.
But the raw data will only tell us so much.
He's definitely been the BBC's most worthwhile correspondent about covid.
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
BR used fare rises to reduce demand, so that expensive investment (blocked by the Treasury) wouldn't be required.
The major problem with nationalised industries was that they ended up being run for the benefit of the producers, not the consumers. Oh, and the politicians - so nothing would be done on a cycle of more than one election.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
I'm curious - do we know yet how bad Omicorn is for the double vaccinated - my partner here in Spain had the 2nd jab over 6 mnths ago - he's early 50s and is unlikely to get 'boostered' for at least 3/4 weeks. Omicron is rapidly taking over here now but if it is generally less virulent there may be less need for me to worry unduly. Anyone know?
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
I happen to think BR would have run immensely better had it been given the proper funding. The rail network may have improved but that's because it has a tonne more spent on it by the taxpayer.
So we spend the money, foreign governments take a cut and the leasing companies make a killing on the trains.
I do not understand what private companies bring to the trains and the new structure makes this even less clear. We pay companies to operate the trains but why can't we just operate the trains ourselves? It seems utterly pointless
The answer to all public sector woes is "chuck money at it".
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
Yes they are. What's your issue with that?
Are you an antivaxxer?
It strikes me that if one just saw "Vaccines are Hiroshima", with absolutely no further context, they might well draw the opposite conclusion to the one you intended.
The Cabinet might not agree on what levelling up is but filling in potholes for a Conservative Peer is definitely not it. How many streets in Britain have had 330k to repair their roads? Ministers must come clean on how these shocking decisions are made.
Repairing and improving roads absolutely should be a priority. What's your problem? If it was 330k to fix a problem on a rail track would you be moaning?
How about complaining about potholes that AREN'T repaired instead of bitching about those that are?
Firle is a private estate with private roads. Is it common practice for taxpayer money to be spent? My understanding is that upkeep of private roads is at the expense of the owner. I await further information as to what roads had money spent on them.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
Yes they are. What's your issue with that?
Are you an antivaxxer?
It strikes me that if one just saw "Vaccines are Hiroshima", with absolutely no further context, they might well draw the opposite conclusion to the one you intended.
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
I happen to think BR would have run immensely better had it been given the proper funding. The rail network may have improved but that's because it has a tonne more spent on it by the taxpayer.
So we spend the money, foreign governments take a cut and the leasing companies make a killing on the trains.
I do not understand what private companies bring to the trains and the new structure makes this even less clear. We pay companies to operate the trains but why can't we just operate the trains ourselves? It seems utterly pointless
The answer to all public sector woes is "chuck money at it".
Not that I agree with the current model.
Well you saw with BR what happened when you did the opposite and cut it, it fell into decline.
I don't think the answer is "chuck money at it" but that is what we do anyway, so why do we let it leak out to the Germans and French?
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
Yes they are. What's your issue with that?
Are you an antivaxxer?
The breakdown in trust in the vaccines by those who previously insisted on authoritarian measures in anticipation of the vaccines is really something to behold.
I have just found out one of my school friends has died of covid having caught it at Riyadh airport. At school, whenever somebody had to fart the rest of us would hold him down while the designated farter sat on his face. The Old Boys Whatsapp group darkly suggests that one of us should perform an act of sepulchral flatuosity on his coffin at the funeral.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
"Chinese lockdown rule-breakers are publicly shamed and paraded through the streets carrying placards with their names on in bid to ensure Covid rules are obeyed"
Tbf that's a cultural thing. Parading around with a sign on your neck was common in Taiwan too. "I'm a lazy idiot" hat was how discipline was kept in schools.
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
BR used fare rises to reduce demand, so that expensive investment (blocked by the Treasury) wouldn't be required.
The major problem with nationalised industries was that they ended up being run for the benefit of the producers, not the consumers. Oh, and the politicians - so nothing would be done on a cycle of more than one election.
I wonder if anyone will bring up the perils of having a health system that’s around 85% public sector, at the Covid enquiry?
I’m sure Dan Hannan will write something in the Telegraph on the subject, but increasing diversity of healthcare provision, especially retaining some excess capacity, should really form part of the future planning.
Only ever voted for the Conservative candidate once, back around 1960 in a Co. Council election and my father was the candidate. Before and ever since then it's been Labour or Lib/LD until the last Co. Council, when I voted Green. I like to find out something about the candidate though. Don't necessarily feel I'm voting for the Party leader, although Priti Patel once asked if if I was really voting for Corbyn!
You're supposed to be a Tory as a wise "old" (I hope you won't think me using this as disparaging) man, that's what they say here
It's always on 'on average', otherwise you'd never have any old non-Tory voters. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that *everyone* becomes a Tory when they get older.
Many of my u3a friends (all over 60 by definition) don't vote Tory.
Is that really surprising? We like to spend time with people similar to ourselves. You can't deny that old people tend to vote Tory.
You also can't deny that the tories have to keep adopting increasingly progressive political positions as their core vote keeps dying.
Even its current abhorrent incarnation the tories are well to the left of where Red Ken's GLC were in the 80s on social issues.
The people inevitably vote tory as they get older is true but the tories continually have to reposition to get them.
Do they? It was the LDs and Labour MPs who passed gay marriage, most Tory MPs voted against.
Most current Tory voters want lower immigration too.
The Tories may accept social change, they rarely drive it, though they may like Thatcher or Cameron drive economic change
A few weeks ago, this government allowed HIV positive people to join the armed forces.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
There are four Variants of Concern currently listed by WHO. Happy to bet you 100gbp at evens another one is identified in 2022
The point about railways is there is no competition. So let's stop pretending there is and run them ourselves.
Just like water.
Oh there is competition - which is why services such as Grand Central, Hull Trains and Lumo exist.
One thing that concentrated LNERs mind when it tried to cut services this year was getting Ben Houchen to ask Lumo to stop at Darlington alongside Edinburgh and Newcastle.
Bin the monopoly and train prices would be a lot cheaper.
Nice heatmap of the situation. Perhaps an idea for our own charter...
If we look at the rate at which case rates are changing, this has shifted from people in their 20s, to people in their 70s and 80s. Which is obviously *bad*, even if the risks to those groups are much lower because Omicron is less severe and vaccines are awesome. https://t.co/y1xjMUhWwh
The UK gov covid cases page has a nice heatmap for England and below data.
Yes I know, why isn't it available for the UK?
Devolved nations aren't gathering data with the same age buckets (mostly at the lower age ranges).
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
Yes they are. What's your issue with that?
Are you an antivaxxer?
It strikes me that if one just saw "Vaccines are Hiroshima", with absolutely no further context, they might well draw the opposite conclusion to the one you intended.
He just says stuff without thinking, and when someone points out the wild eccentricity of it, he asks incongruous questions like IS YOU ANTIVAX?
The answer, of course, is no, I'm extremely PRO vaccination, to the extent that I usually don't compare vaccinations with NUCLEAR WARFARE.
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
BR used fare rises to reduce demand, so that expensive investment (blocked by the Treasury) wouldn't be required.
The major problem with nationalised industries was that they ended up being run for the benefit of the producers, not the consumers. Oh, and the politicians - so nothing would be done on a cycle of more than one election.
Just like how certain people want the NHS to be managed by us living for reducing demand instead of it being there to serve the country.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
The name of the river has changed but it flows unabated exactly as it did before. An opportunity for reinvention has been spurned.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
Yes they are. What's your issue with that?
Are you an antivaxxer?
It strikes me that if one just saw "Vaccines are Hiroshima", with absolutely no further context, they might well draw the opposite conclusion to the one you intended.
He just says stuff without thinking, and when someone points out the wild eccentricity of it, he asks incongruous questions like IS YOU ANTIVAX?
The answer, of course, is no, I'm extremely PRO vaccination, to the extent that I usually don't compare vaccinations with NUCLEAR WARFARE.
Why? Nuclear warfare won the war!
Are you an anti nuke idiot who thinks dropping the bomb was a bad idea instead?
Great British Railways is a perfect example of Johnson's empty rhetoric.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
You've got a rather rose-tinted view of BR if you felt competition, low fares, strategic planning and long-term thinking - yet alone running on time - was common in the 1970s and 1980s.
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
I happen to think BR would have run immensely better had it been given the proper funding. The rail network may have improved but that's because it has a tonne more spent on it by the taxpayer.
So we spend the money, foreign governments take a cut and the leasing companies make a killing on the trains.
I do not understand what private companies bring to the trains and the new structure makes this even less clear. We pay companies to operate the trains but why can't we just operate the trains ourselves? It seems utterly pointless
Do you realise that those 'foreign governments' often lost money on their deals, and were hence subsidising the network?
I was calling for a move to the concessions system on here for a decade (or as long as I've been on here). It's a good move IMO.
As for funding, in 2018/9 Train Operating Companies received a net subsidy from the government (the first since 2009/10), of £417 million. The year before, TOCs paid the government £227 million. So pre-Covid, the TOCs were often giving money to the exchequer.
Where government money really goes is NR. There are three forms of funding of NR: maintenance, renewals, and enhancements. From memory, in many years NR breaks even on maintenance and renewals costs; the enhancements is where the vast majority of the money goes (e.g. HS2, Crossrail, Werrington, etc).
Our subsidy is also much less than other European countries operating fully nationalised systems. Italy, for instance, has about two-thirds of the passenger-KM, and nearly double the subsidy. Germany has more passenger-KM (80 bn cf 65bn) and nearly four times the subsidy.
This may cause you to spit out your coffee, but I think privatisation of the railways has been a success as a whole - improved safety, doubling of passenger numbers, subsidies under control. And about the correct split between public and user funding. The place it's most failed is freight - and the destruction of trainload coal has been at the heart of that.
The point about railways is there is no competition. So let's stop pretending there is and run them ourselves.
Just like water.
If there is a problem of a lack of competition, then the solution is to introduce more competition.
You cannot have competition on the railways, same track. Same infrastructure.
Wrong. Are you saying that we cannot have competition in road freight, as they all use the same infrastructure (roads?).
That's slightly disingenuous of me, as the railways are much more highly regulated than roads. But Open Access is an example of where there is very much competition, and something I would like to see more of. I'd like to see OA expanded within the concessions system.
The point about railways is there is no competition. So let's stop pretending there is and run them ourselves.
Just like water.
If there is a problem of a lack of competition, then the solution is to introduce more competition.
You cannot have competition on the railways, same track. Same infrastructure.
Which is why Network Rail own the infrastructure, and National Rail - a separate company - operate the services. There's no reason in principle why you couldn't have multiple firms operating services on each line.
Bartholomew will find it helpful as it leans towards his view, though he may want to note AM's point about why the public is slow to move in that direction. I'm gradually shifting myself towards accepting Omicron as something to live with, for the reasons AM sets out.
It's a very nice piece although for me this issue was settled long ago. It's been clear for ages that LIVE WITH IT is the endgame on Covid and is where we are heading. We aren't there quite yet but I expect we will be soon. I'll be surprised if it remains a big story in the UK beyond February.
That sort of post has a hint of "We've done it! We survived the Great War 1914-1917" about it. There's a lot of alphabet after omicron.
We'd done it before Omicron. We'd done it by about April or June this year, it's just taken some time for people to realise it.
Once the vaccines were rolled out, it isn't the virus mutating that is the big change, it's having vaccines that is.
We aren't in the trenches anymore. The vaccine rollout was Hiroshima and the booster is Nagasaki.
You can be Hiroo Onoda if it pleases you.
The Nativity Play fallacy at work again.A story is not true just because it is heartwarming. There is no reason at all to discount the possibility of a vaccine resistant and much more lethal strain emeging.
You're right there's no reason to discount it.
There's also no reason to discount a coup in Russia leading to nuclear conflict.
Or a Carrington Event/Coronal Mass Ejection stopping our modern life as we know it.
Or an asteroid striking the earth.
Or a Rise of the Machines.
But just because something is possible in the future doesn't mean that it's happening right now. It remains science fiction.
You know how some people can argue a weak case so persuasively that you end up half-agreeing with them even though you know they're wrong?
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
Did you see the "vaccines are Hiroshima" gem? Lest we forget.
Yes they are. What's your issue with that?
Are you an antivaxxer?
The breakdown in trust in the vaccines by those who previously insisted on authoritarian measures in anticipation of the vaccines is really something to behold.
This habit of generalised strawmanning is passive aggressive nonsense. Who insisted on what measures when, and has given what signs of breakdown of trust in the vaccines?
And have you not noticed that Pfizer initially offered gtrthn 95% protection against INFECTION after 2 shots, whereas now 2 shots plus booster gives SOME degree of protection against SERIOUS ILLNESS, we hope. Would you not expect any rational agent to reduce the amount of trust they placed in the vaccine given that utterly uncontroversial information?
The point about railways is there is no competition. So let's stop pretending there is and run them ourselves.
Just like water.
If there is a problem of a lack of competition, then the solution is to introduce more competition.
You cannot have competition on the railways, same track. Same infrastructure.
Wrong. Are you saying that we cannot have competition in road freight, as they all use the same infrastructure (roads?).
That's slightly disingenuous of me, as the railways are much more highly regulated than roads. But Open Access is an example of where there is very much competition, and something I would like to see more of. I'd like to see OA expanded within the concessions system.
Comments
Got a run in this morning and now relaxing
So the 16K & 19K for first and second doses, is that good speed for getting through the Great Wall unvaxxed, or we are we still not denting it enough? 🤔
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/770450/gas-security-supply-assessment.pdf
I think the point about interventionism is a fair one but I am not sure this comes down to Johnson's principles - he was a supporter of austerity and didn't ever try to spend more money as far as I can tell, when he was Mayor of London - it comes down to more about what he thinks he needs to do to win.
In many ways what he did was to steal the Labour 2017 manifesto in part and run on that.
I think Johnson is a superb election winner and he's good at that - but I think he is terrible at actually doing anything afterwards. He saw that more spending was popular so he ran with it, but what he actually wants to spend the money on, he doesn't know.
Being LOTO is hard - but I really think Starmer is better at it than he is given credit for. What he spent the first year doing was quietly removing the muppets from the party and sorting out anti-Semitism. The real prats removed themselves and removing Corbyn got rid of the others.
He's now fixed the Shadow Cabinet and removed the poor performers.
I think he's doing alright, not as good as Cameron was but I think he's doing the best of any LOTO since Cameron
Even its current abhorrent incarnation the tories are well to the left of where Red Ken's GLC were in the 80s on social issues.
The people inevitably vote tory as they get older is true but the tories continually have to reposition to get them.
And the big news is that I've only got two more runs to do to complete one run every day this year! Woohoo! I'm considering topping it off by attempting my first ever marathon distance on Saturday, but I might chicken out ...
It'll be blooming annoying if I get Covid in the next couple of days ...
Taking all the different strands of testing, the LFTs, PCRs, sequencing, and surveillance, I genuinely believe that the UK is doing the most and the best testing against the coronavirus in the world. Now whether it it worth the cost and effort is a different matter.
Yes, Johnson’s government has failed on multiple fronts, not just how many died.
Most current Tory voters want lower immigration too.
The Tories may accept social change, they rarely drive it, though they may like Thatcher or Cameron drive economic change
Remember last Christmas when everybody laughed at Boris saying it will become the norm to take a test before you go out to a football match or the theatre...there will be tests you can take before you go and see a vulnerable person. The media piled in saying what total nonsense.
Now the criticism is occasionally people can't get packs of 20 instantly so the whole family can't take 5 tests a day....
The Chinese did the same with the huge mass graves.
[insert image of tiger with cricket ball between its feet if I could be bothered to google for one]
You don't manage healthcare by capping demand to meet supply. Post vaccinations you should be demanding as much supply as is required to meet demand.
If the healthcare system gets overloaded then that's a failure to implement proper triage and surge protocols. It's a failure to invest.
Biden is responding to Omicron not by implementing restrictions but by activating FEMA to boost hospital and ambulance capacity to meet the extra demand.
Capping demand should have been a short term solution to a novel virus not a long term solution two years into the pandemic after a vaccine rollout.
The London wave was/is massively in the younger groups. Hence while hospitalisation went up (and are going up) it didn't turn into a 10/10 Apocalypse.
EDIT - Ignore the Scottish line, that's bad data caused by lack of reporting.
And what is the current issue - Russia is restricting Gas supplies prior to potentially invading the Ukraine.
Also my point wasn't as much about what the Government allowed - imagine being in a position where you are sat on Gas bought at 30p a therm when everyone else in the market is spending £4+ to maintain supply.
I’m catching up with Dirty Duchess now. Loving the funky theme tune, the skirts and red lips. Claire Foy is so ****able! If I met her at a party I’d let her know I was looking in her direction.
1 - Stronger ferry links to Zeebrugge, to defang Macron's threats wrt Channel Tunnel. So attacks on that will harm mainly the French company that owns it.
2 - Join Belgium in the European Court action to stop France building a windfarm across the Zeebrugge -> Dover link.
3 - Pay for upgraded border force and migrant / refugee services via a levy on international travel to source countries, paid by the operators on the relevant border.
It is less clear cut about protection against serious illness, it looks like that has dropped some amount, but the error bars are massive on how much. There is also the complications of if you had prior COVID, which variant etc. Double jabbed and previous infection to Beta or Delta looks to still give you good level of protection.
At the moment, lots of moving parts in terms of all the different vaccine combinations, the gaps between when people have been jabbed, plus at least in the UK, we are now only just starting to see the hospitalisations and deaths ramp up.
Posted at 9:17 9:17
Covid test supply issues 'a total shambles' - Labour
Posted at 9:27 9:27
PCR and lateral flow tests available again
Perhaps "Covid test supply reporting 'a total shambles'" would be more appropriate.
i) No hospital transmission
ii) Hospitalisations and Covid +ve cases are similarly stratified by age.
They're not, but they're also confounding.
Nevertheless it's telling - I've used ONS prevalence estimations and England hospitalisations.
Graph goes to 16th December.
Anyway, yes he has some great ideas and he should be at the forefront of any Labour Government, I enjoy his podcast
The arrangements need redesigning because they are not fit for purpose in such a high-volume situation. And that requires a perception of that on both sides, which will not happen whilst the UK Gov keep kludging it.
The Cabinet might not agree on what levelling up is but filling in potholes for a Conservative Peer is definitely not it. How many streets in Britain have had 330k to repair their roads? Ministers must come clean on how these shocking decisions are made.
I'll ask the Dashboard guys for the data.
Hmmm. Surely we need a dimension for amount of champagne cocktails drunk? Then a dimension about the alcohol capacity across the population, quality of bar tenders...
{Gets PhD application form out...}
When I asked about the 18-64 segmentation in the admissions data, you could *hear* the sigh. In an email....
Ok. Well your talent is for the dead opposite of that. And hats off because what you do is just as difficult.
The problems of the current system are no actual competition, high fares, lack of strategic planning and long term thinking, unreliable trains that don't run on time.
So the Johnson solution is erh...rename Network Rail
The main criticism of the government is strategic, not whether there's 7 tests or 7000 tests available to book.
Omicron is registering as an issue in the UK because we failed to prepare with a wide booster roll out in October and November. That's the strategic issue that needs to be attacked and if/when the government fucks up the fourth dose for over 50s in March/April then you have a basis to say "we fucking told you so".
Starmer and Labour haven't had a single moment where they could tell media "we fucking told the bastard Tories and they didn't listen" and the government has fucked up a lot over the last two years, like a lot of fucking up. Instead they just carp from the sidelines about stuff no one cares about.
*girl crush post*
Beauty personified.
Lest we forget.
How about complaining about potholes that AREN'T repaired instead of bitching about those that are?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10352163/Italian-anti-vaxx-radio-personality-boasted-plague-spreader-dies-Covid.html
But unlike then, passengers seem to quite like travelling by train (pre Covid), and the railways are massively safer as well.
I imagine at least one day over the next week, the system will overload, and the reaction will be see, I told you so....despite the fact it managed to get going doing millions and millions of tests.
We have all the spreading due to Christmas and New Year, plus all back to work / school, which will cause loads of people to say "better just check, you know in case, it would be terrible if I couldn't go back to work yet"....
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10352249/Chinese-lockdown-rule-breakers-publicly-shamed-ensure-Covid-rules-obeyed.html
Are you an antivaxxer?
How many people are:
1) Taking a test a day
2) Taking a test only if ill / been in close proximity to someone infected
3) Not taking tests at all
Worse than a bad cold for me. Nowhere near hospital.
Fatigue beyond anything else was the worst symptom. Also brain fog.
3 weeks and I'm pretty much over it. But I haven't done a great deal.
Hope that is of some use to put your mind at rest.
So we spend the money, foreign governments take a cut and the leasing companies make a killing on the trains.
I do not understand what private companies bring to the trains and the new structure makes this even less clear. We pay companies to operate the trains but why can't we just operate the trains ourselves? It seems utterly pointless
On the general point, you have to manage the supply AND demand side for healthcare. If you only do the first you'll soon turn that fatuous soundbite - "NHS with a country attached" - into a reality.
Labour are missing a trick here, they could sell nationalisation as a patriotic policy
Your core vote strategy is the same as Ed M in 2015. It failed him, it will fail you if you got for it.
Hospital data requires much closer analysis than it once did.
On paper there is the highest number in hospital in England since early March.
But that has been artificially inflated by two things this week.
Firstly, the number of people being discharged from hospital will have dropped significantly over the festive period. Last year the rate of discharged halved, meaning there are likely to be hundreds of patients in hospital who have recovered from Covid.
Secondly a growing proportion of hospitalisations are for what is known as an incidental admission. They are people being treated for something else, but just happen to have Covid.
Last week this stood at about three in 10, but the expectation is this will have increased by now. The latest figures will be released on Thursday.
Therefore, it is possible of the 9,500 in hospital maybe around 6,000 are acutely unwell with Covid.
These numbers are undoubtedly going to go up in the coming weeks as Omicron spreads.
But the raw data will only tell us so much.
He's definitely been the BBC's most worthwhile correspondent about covid.
The major problem with nationalised industries was that they ended up being run for the benefit of the producers, not the consumers. Oh, and the politicians - so nothing would be done on a cycle of more than one election.
Not that I agree with the current model.
I await further information as to what roads had money spent on them.
Does that make me a bad person?
I don't think the answer is "chuck money at it" but that is what we do anyway, so why do we let it leak out to the Germans and French?
Just like water.
He was double vaxxed and boosted but fat as fuck.
Are.
Insane.
"I'm a lazy idiot" hat was how discipline was kept in schools.
I’m sure Dan Hannan will write something in the Telegraph on the subject, but increasing diversity of healthcare provision, especially retaining some excess capacity, should really form part of the future planning.
One thing that concentrated LNERs mind when it tried to cut services this year was getting Ben Houchen to ask Lumo to stop at Darlington alongside Edinburgh and Newcastle.
Bin the monopoly and train prices would be a lot cheaper.
The answer, of course, is no, I'm extremely PRO vaccination, to the extent that I usually don't compare vaccinations with NUCLEAR WARFARE.
Are you an anti nuke idiot who thinks dropping the bomb was a bad idea instead?
I was calling for a move to the concessions system on here for a decade (or as long as I've been on here). It's a good move IMO.
As for funding, in 2018/9 Train Operating Companies received a net subsidy from the government (the first since 2009/10), of £417 million. The year before, TOCs paid the government £227 million. So pre-Covid, the TOCs were often giving money to the exchequer.
Where government money really goes is NR. There are three forms of funding of NR: maintenance, renewals, and enhancements. From memory, in many years NR breaks even on maintenance and renewals costs; the enhancements is where the vast majority of the money goes (e.g. HS2, Crossrail, Werrington, etc).
Our subsidy is also much less than other European countries operating fully nationalised systems. Italy, for instance, has about two-thirds of the passenger-KM, and nearly double the subsidy. Germany has more passenger-KM (80 bn cf 65bn) and nearly four times the subsidy.
This may cause you to spit out your coffee, but I think privatisation of the railways has been a success as a whole - improved safety, doubling of passenger numbers, subsidies under control. And about the correct split between public and user funding. The place it's most failed is freight - and the destruction of trainload coal has been at the heart of that.
https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1547/rail-finance-statistical-release-2018-19.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies
That's slightly disingenuous of me, as the railways are much more highly regulated than roads. But Open Access is an example of where there is very much competition, and something I would like to see more of. I'd like to see OA expanded within the concessions system.
And have you not noticed that Pfizer initially offered gtrthn 95% protection against INFECTION after 2 shots, whereas now 2 shots plus booster gives SOME degree of protection against SERIOUS ILLNESS, we hope. Would you not expect any rational agent to reduce the amount of trust they placed in the vaccine given that utterly uncontroversial information?