The key decision with railways (and bus services) is simple: what proportion of the cost should be borne by the service users, and what proportion by the state?
I reckon we've got it about right in this country, for rail services at least. Bus services should have more money invested.
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.
Yes, Triggle is excellent. Sadly he seems to be excluded from the main news programmes in favour of irrational hysterions.
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.
Plenty of things are run more for the benefit of participants than users. Eg most professional firms and almost every outfit in the City.
Indeed. Aren't companies obliged to act in the interests of shareholders? Not consumers?
"George Galloway @georgegalloway My daughter - carrying her baby! - was told to “get back to England, you English c**t” in your Dumfries store @Tesco at 12.50pm today. I have a picture of her racial abuser. I will not let this drop. I’m not that sort of father @PoliceScotland@DumfriesGPolice@scotgov"
This graph isn't quite right as it assumes 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.
Excellent. Any chance of plotting the difference between the two lines - i.e. the implied rate of hospitalisations due to Covid-caused illness?
Another assumption, all 141,000 hospital beds are occupied. Now that's clearly not true, but as we've got a backlog on operations & waiting ambulances & last minute cancelled operations it's not an assumption that's going to be colossally wrong
The key decision with railways (and bus services) is simple: what proportion of the cost should be borne by the service users, and what proportion by the state?
I reckon we've got it about right in this country, for rail services at least. Bus services should have more money invested.
Yep. The starting point question rarely asked is "What are buses for?" If it is to make a profit, then they wouldn't exist but for a few routes at certain hours in big cities. So it clearly isn't that.
Yet Tory members continue to mysteriously rate her very highly indeed. Maybe they are sick of winning?
Tory members love her past republicanism.
Truss has now told Nick Robinson she backs a constitutional monarchy. She is an ex LD Republican, Remainer pitching herself now as a Tory, Thatcherite Brexiteer. However on that Opinium poll Truss would lead the Tories to their worst defeat in voteshare terms since 1832 and even fewer seats than Major got in 1997. Truss would be a UK Kim Campbell who led the Canadian Tories to a landslide defeat in 1993 based on Opinium.
Though remember less than a third of Tory members backed her in that survey still
Interesting that the energy industry is asking for a £20bn 10 year state backed loan for energy subsidies and the government is considering giving it to them in order to keep prices down. Imagine winding the clock back to 2012 and creating the same £20bn state backed loan fund for companies to borrow and invest cheaply in renewable energy creation and for industry to borrow cheaply to create a whole renewable energy industry for countries where solar isn't viable.
We're going to spend the money either way, this way all we're doing is subsidising high gas prices, effectively a transfer of taxpayer cash to Qatar, Russia and Shell.
Once again, a real lack of strategic thinking from the government and the same treasury bods who don't understand the concept of value creation.
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.
Plenty of things are run more for the benefit of participants than users. Eg most professional firms and almost every outfit in the City.
Indeed. Aren't companies obliged to act in the interests of shareholders? Not consumers?
The market ultra argument is the profit motive effectively means the consumer is king but in practice this is often hard to detect. To put it mildly.
Yet Tory members continue to mysteriously rate her very highly indeed. Maybe they are sick of winning?
I think mostly she has very poor name recognition generally compared with the other possibilities, and with Starmer - she's only been foreign sec for a few months and attention has largely been focused on the domestic agenda in that time.
I have absolutely no idea why she's so incredibly highly rated; she did an excellent job at Trade but was mostly invisible in her sundry other Ministerial positions. I think Sunak beats her 75-25 in a head-to-head if it comes to that, which I assume it won't because they have similar bases within the Parliamentary party).
Personally, I think she'd be out of her depth as PM, although she's still young and could be a good candidate in the future. She may not even stand this time - it could end up harming her prospects in the same way that Leadsom looked a better prospect before standing in 2016.
Yet Tory members continue to mysteriously rate her very highly indeed. Maybe they are sick of winning?
I think mostly she has very poor name recognition generally compared with the other possibilities, and with Starmer - she's only been foreign sec for a few months and attention has largely been focused on the domestic agenda in that time.
I have absolutely no idea why she's so incredibly highly rated; she did an excellent job at Trade but was mostly invisible in her sundry other Ministerial positions. I think Sunak beats her 75-25 in a head-to-head if it comes to that, which I assume it won't because they have similar bases within the Parliamentary party).
Personally, I think she'd be out of her depth as PM, although she's still young and could be a good candidate in the future. She may not even stand this time - it could end up harming her prospects in the same way that Leadsom looked a better prospect before standing in 2016.
Being invisible in ministerial positions generally means you haven't cocked anything up.
Yet Tory members continue to mysteriously rate her very highly indeed. Maybe they are sick of winning?
Tory members love her past republicanism.
Truss has now told Nick Robinson she bscks a constitutional monarchy. She is an ex LD Republican, Remainer pitching herself now as a Thatcherite. However on that Opinium poll Truss would lead the Tories to their worst defeat in voteshare terms since 1832 and even fewer seats than Major got in 1997
Though remember less than a third of Tory members backed her in that survey still
A Tory whose beliefs are framed entirely around the question "What will get me the gig, then?" If only there were a recent, similar exemplar for comparison.
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
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.
Of course you can. One (possibly public) company owns the infrastructure, and other companies provide competitive services and compete for business. Same as road haulage, airports, broadband…
The mistake with rail, was the huge regional service monopolies, especially on intercity routes.
Why isn't there more competition with bus services? Most places end up with a local monopoly.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
Yet Tory members continue to mysteriously rate her very highly indeed. Maybe they are sick of winning?
Tory members love her past republicanism.
Truss has now told Nick Robinson she backs a constitutional monarchy. She is an ex LD Republican, Remainer pitching herself now as a Tory, Thatcherite Brexiteer. However on that Opinium poll Truss would lead the Tories to their worst defeat in voteshare terms since 1832 and even fewer seats than Major got in 1997. Truss would be a UK Kim Campbell who led the Canadian Tories to a landslide defeat in 1993 based on Opinium.
Though remember less than a third of Tory members backed her in that survey still
Campbell of course not only saw the Canadian Tories trounced by the Liberals in 1993 but even overtaken by the populist rightwing Reform party. Our populist rightwing non Tory party now coincidentally called ReformUK
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
I personally am in the 3) section. The whole testing thing is ridiculous as is disrupting the economy and essential services when people are not ill but test positive
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.
Plenty of things are run more for the benefit of participants than users. Eg most professional firms and almost every outfit in the City.
Would you like public transport to join that list?
The case for public ownership of rail is pretty strong imo but I doubt it'll make the Labour manifesto. Hope to be proved wrong.
Residents in locked-down Chinese city plead for food
Chinese officials have admitted supply issues for residents in locked-down Xi'an, after the city's inhabitants decried food shortages and called for help.
Some 13 million residents in northern Xi'an are in their seventh day of home confinement, and national health officials have called for measures to be strengthened further as China battles its worst virus surge in months.
Beijing has followed a strict "zero Covid" strategy involving tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first surfaced in a central city in late 2019.
But officials admitted at a press conference on Wednesday that "low staff attendance and difficulties in logistics and distribution" had led to trouble providing essential supplies.
A day before, many residents asked on social media for help acquiring food and other essentials, with some saying their housing compounds would not let them out even though they were running out of food.
----
Its definitely only 200 cases.....
I, for one, like the use of videos. After yesterday's mass spraying, we have name and shame parades.
I guess the timing is completely coincidental. Completely.
Interesting that the energy industry is asking for a £20bn 10 year state backed loan for energy subsidies and the government is considering giving it to them in order to keep prices down. Imagine winding the clock back to 2012 and creating the same £20bn state backed loan fund for companies to borrow and invest cheaply in renewable energy creation and for industry to borrow cheaply to create a whole renewable energy industry for countries where solar isn't viable.
We're going to spend the money either way, this way all we're doing is subsidising high gas prices, effectively a transfer of taxpayer cash to Qatar, Russia and Shell.
Once again, a real lack of strategic thinking from the government and the same treasury bods who don't understand the concept of value creation.
The IEA came up with the astonishing claim the other day the government actually wants much higher energy prices because of the potential profit motive. The logic is that high prices will supercharge investment in new non carbon alternatives to make a buck - bringing the price down long term.
Yet Tory members continue to mysteriously rate her very highly indeed. Maybe they are sick of winning?
Tory members love her past republicanism.
Truss has now told Nick Robinson she bscks a constitutional monarchy. She is an ex LD Republican, Remainer pitching herself now as a Thatcherite. However on that Opinium poll Truss would lead the Tories to their worst defeat in voteshare terms since 1832 and even fewer seats than Major got in 1997
Though remember less than a third of Tory members backed her in that survey still
A Tory whose beliefs are framed entirely around the question "What will get me the gig, then?" If only there were a recent, similar exemplar for comparison.
The difference was Boris backed Leave in the referendum and delivered Brexit, has always backed the monarchy and polls were clear he would beat Labour in 2019
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
It is how numbers work.
20x 5% = 1 40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
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.
Oh for the good old days when one attached one's own personal carriage to the engine and didn't have to mix with the great unwashed!
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.
Hmmm. This is incredibly thin.
The so-called "Conservative Peer" - Viscount Gage - has not been a member of the House of Lords for more than 20 years.
Far from the work being done "for him, on his estate", afaics it is being done on an access road to an independent museum who made the application.
I don't think stooping nearly to Angela Rayner levels will help Nandy. Doesn't she have anything better?
I wonder if in a few days we will see another of those Michael Gove rebuttals?
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
It is how numbers work.
20x 5% = 1 40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
Yet Tory members continue to mysteriously rate her very highly indeed. Maybe they are sick of winning?
I think mostly she has very poor name recognition generally compared with the other possibilities, and with Starmer - she's only been foreign sec for a few months and attention has largely been focused on the domestic agenda in that time.
I have absolutely no idea why she's so incredibly highly rated; she did an excellent job at Trade but was mostly invisible in her sundry other Ministerial positions. I think Sunak beats her 75-25 in a head-to-head if it comes to that, which I assume it won't because they have similar bases within the Parliamentary party).
Personally, I think she'd be out of her depth as PM, although she's still young and could be a good candidate in the future. She may not even stand this time - it could end up harming her prospects in the same way that Leadsom looked a better prospect before standing in 2016.
Being invisible in ministerial positions generally means you haven't cocked anything up.
Foreign Minister is usually subject to disasters elsewhere and given Covid and the new state of Afghanistan there isn't that many places that are going to have disasters in the short term.
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?
A private road for their Tory pal, corrupt to the core.
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.
Yes, Triggle is excellent. Sadly he seems to be excluded from the main news programmes in favour of irrational hysterions.
The latter generate the numbers - twas ever thus.
EDIT: Actually it was not ever thus - the BBC used to have standards.
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
It is how numbers work.
20x 5% = 1 40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
It is how numbers work.
20x 5% = 1 40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
I can't be arsed to try and explain to you why vaccine effectiveness isn't a linear function of disease severity - and as a corollary, why case loads and hospitalisation rates aren't linear functions of either - so let's just pretend I did my best and you still didn't get it, OK?
Actually, here's my one go: - Omicron is milder than Delta - Vaccines are less effective against Omicron than against Delta - This is incompatible with your argument, above
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.
Plenty of things are run more for the benefit of participants than users. Eg most professional firms and almost every outfit in the City.
Indeed. Aren't companies obliged to act in the interests of shareholders? Not consumers?
The market ultra argument is the profit motive effectively means the consumer is king but in practice this is often hard to detect. To put it mildly.
Also, how do you definitively decide what is the best interests of shareholders, who themselves are a diverse body? Are short-term profits more in their interests than financial sustainability? Or environmental sustainability?
In fact, most corporations seem to be run for the benefit of the C-suite.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
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?
A private road for their Tory pal, corrupt to the core.
As ever with such stories, the reality is more nuanced. If I've got the story correct, there is a museum on the estate that is open to the public, and that is where the money has been spent. The roads from the museum to the rest of the estate buildings were paid for by the estate.
It looks bad though. Although I can remember Labour people defending Tony and Hilary Benn having their private seawall around their estate funded by the state - when other areas were going undefended...
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
"George Galloway @georgegalloway My daughter - carrying her baby! - was told to “get back to England, you English c**t” in your Dumfries store @Tesco at 12.50pm today. I have a picture of her racial abuser. I will not let this drop. I’m not that sort of father @PoliceScotland@DumfriesGPolice@scotgov"
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Care to say why it is 'hideously expensive' ?
Compare it to the cost of a train in Europe
Isn't the trope that the UK has the highest rail prices massively distorted by relatively short-distance commuter rail?
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Care to say why it is 'hideously expensive' ?
Compare it to the cost of a train in Europe
Florence to Rome - picking a random date (Thursday 13th Jan) €32.90 or €43.90 business class one way
So actually that London to Leeds train is about half the price of a similar journey in Italy.
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?
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
It is how numbers work.
20x 5% = 1 40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
I can't be arsed to try and explain to you why vaccine effectiveness isn't a linear function of disease severity - and as a corollary, why case loads and hospitalisation rates aren't linear functions of either - so let's just pretend I did my best and you still didn't get it, OK?
Actually, here's my one go: - Omicron is milder than Delta - Vaccines are less effective against Omicron than against Delta - This is incompatible with your argument, above
No shit Sherlock its not linear to severity, of course its not, but that's why I never used the word severity in the post you replied to I said "serious" and in overall seriousness I'm factoring in the vaccine effectiveness.
If a new variant was exactly as severe as Delta but eliminated all vaccine efficacy then that'd be basically 20x more serious for us than Delta is because of removing the 95% protection. If a new variant was twice as severe and eliminated all vaccine efficacy then we'd have your 40x more serious scenario.
But its both not very probable and if it does happen then we should cross that bridge if and when we get there.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Care to say why it is 'hideously expensive' ?
Compare it to the cost of a train in Europe
Please, go on and compare.
And if it is the case, why aren't the European railways massively more used compared to the subsidies they get? If Germany (a bigger country) pays four times the subsidy, how come they don't get four times as many passenger-KM as us? In fact, they don't get much more (8bn cf 65bn).
The point is this: for one person, and often two, railways can be very competitive with roads for many journeys, particularly ones into conurbations. I think that's probably the sweet spot.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
No it really isn't!
Yes it is
It's a very good price.
Rail privatisation has been superb for massively increased patronage, far better safety, greater investment and generally much improved quality of service. As is shown, for example, by data from the European Commission, which has the UK rail system just below the top 3 or 4 across Europe.
The changes are interesting - franchisees will get a fixed fee for running their railways, and ticket marketing / risk will transfer to the new body.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
£27 for a 200 mile journey is not hideously expensive IMO.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Care to say why it is 'hideously expensive' ?
Compare it to the cost of a train in Europe
Madrid to Valencia today €64.60 - much the cheapest offer with most around €73.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
£27 for a 200 mile journey is not hideously expensive IMO.
You could do it for a quid with Ryanair.
Although you'd still end up 200 miles from your destination.
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
It is how numbers work.
20x 5% = 1 40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
I can't be arsed to try and explain to you why vaccine effectiveness isn't a linear function of disease severity - and as a corollary, why case loads and hospitalisation rates aren't linear functions of either - so let's just pretend I did my best and you still didn't get it, OK?
Actually, here's my one go: - Omicron is milder than Delta - Vaccines are less effective against Omicron than against Delta - This is incompatible with your argument, above
No shit Sherlock its not linear to severity, of course its not, but that's why I never used the word severity in the post you replied to I said "serious" and in overall seriousness I'm factoring in the vaccine effectiveness.
If a new variant was exactly as severe as Delta but eliminated all vaccine efficacy then that'd be basically 20x more serious for us than Delta is because of removing the 95% protection. If a new variant was twice as severe and eliminated all vaccine efficacy then we'd have your 40x more serious scenario.
But its both not very probable and if it does happen then we should cross that bridge if and when we get there.
You're out of your depth and it shows. What are your qualifications?
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Care to say why it is 'hideously expensive' ?
Compare it to the cost of a train in Europe
Isn't the trope that the UK has the highest rail prices massively distorted by relatively short-distance commuter rail?
That's why it's good to compare subsidy to passenger-miles - although that doesn't account for things like freight.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
No it really isn't!
Yes it is
Are you saying that going to Leeds is something you don't value, and hence this is horrendously expensive?
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
There can be four, ten or forty seven it wouldn't be relevant to my point. There can be several solar flares per day, it doesn't make any of them cause a Carrington Event.
Unless any of these variants of concern take us back to a pre-vaccines scenario, which they haven't, then it's moot to me.
Since when did you become a PHD level epidemiologist?
The simple fact is that every mutation may make something more or less infectious and more or less serious.
Omicron is seemingly (and for which we should be thankful) more infectious but less serious... That doesn't mean the next variant will follow the same path.
Absolutely the next one could be more serious but considering the vaccines has ~95% efficacy against the most serious outcomes basic logic would suggest that the next mutation would need to be 20x more serious in order to revert us back to a pre-vaccines scenario.
Colour me skeptical that's ever going to happen.
Oh God.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
It is how numbers work.
20x 5% = 1 40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
I can't be arsed to try and explain to you why vaccine effectiveness isn't a linear function of disease severity - and as a corollary, why case loads and hospitalisation rates aren't linear functions of either - so let's just pretend I did my best and you still didn't get it, OK?
Actually, here's my one go: - Omicron is milder than Delta - Vaccines are less effective against Omicron than against Delta - This is incompatible with your argument, above
No shit Sherlock its not linear to severity, of course its not, but that's why I never used the word severity in the post you replied to I said "serious" and in overall seriousness I'm factoring in the vaccine effectiveness.
If a new variant was exactly as severe as Delta but eliminated all vaccine efficacy then that'd be basically 20x more serious for us than Delta is because of removing the 95% protection. If a new variant was twice as severe and eliminated all vaccine efficacy then we'd have your 40x more serious scenario.
But its both not very probable and if it does happen then we should cross that bridge if and when we get there.
You're out of your depth and it shows. What are your qualifications?
For knowing that 40x 5% = 2?
Being able to handle arithmetic without a calculator.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Last time I was in Germany, rail fares seemed quite high, especially if bought at short notice. I did get a good deal from Berlin to Leipzig, but I was able to buy that one in advance. There are some good group tickets, but I was travelling on my own. The Land/Regional day tickets can be good value, especially if bought as a group, but some seem no longer available - I'm sure there used to be a Berlin-Brandenburg-Vorpommen one that took you to Szczecin, but it no longer seemed to exist.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Interesting that the energy industry is asking for a £20bn 10 year state backed loan for energy subsidies and the government is considering giving it to them in order to keep prices down. Imagine winding the clock back to 2012 and creating the same £20bn state backed loan fund for companies to borrow and invest cheaply in renewable energy creation and for industry to borrow cheaply to create a whole renewable energy industry for countries where solar isn't viable.
We're going to spend the money either way, this way all we're doing is subsidising high gas prices, effectively a transfer of taxpayer cash to Qatar, Russia and Shell.
Once again, a real lack of strategic thinking from the government and the same treasury bods who don't understand the concept of value creation.
The IEA came up with the astonishing claim the other day the government actually wants much higher energy prices because of the potential profit motive. The logic is that high prices will supercharge investment in new non carbon alternatives to make a buck - bringing the price down long term.
Its brave, minister.
It wouldn't surprise me. Not particularly brave either, given that such idiotic thinking is shared by the other side, so there's political cover.
Are these figures for the whole period 25-29 Dec or just for today? In which case where are 25-28?
From the source:
"On Wednesday 29 December and Wednesday 5 January, we will provide the latest daily data for that day and the previous 4 days."
That's unclear. "Providing daily data" would seem to me to require data ascribed to each previous day. As England did on 27th. But yes I think these are just lumped-in figures.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
This graph isn't quite right as it assumes 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.
Excellent. Any chance of plotting the difference between the two lines - i.e. the implied rate of hospitalisations due to Covid-caused illness?
Another assumption, all 141,000 hospital beds are occupied. Now that's clearly not true, but as we've got a backlog on operations & waiting ambulances & last minute cancelled operations it's not an assumption that's going to be colossally wrong
An interesting data point is 04 July 2021 to 10 July 2021
ONS estimates 1.06% prevalence amongst the general population. Hospitalisations on the 7th were 2,144; You'd expect there to be about 1,500 hospitalisations "incidental covid" in hospital. That's the low point with "ill because of Covid" as a proportion. If you look at the heatmap, Covid was very much amongst young people at this point.
It's amusing to see so many zero Covid zealots in a circlejerk denying that a smaller percentage of a bigger number is as serious as a bigger percentage of a smaller number ... When that was the entire point of the Omicron panic.
Chris Whitty and others have been saying that even if the virus is less severe if it effects more people it's just as serious a problem.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Why? That would prevent a lot of people who find the full price difficult to afford from travelling by train. I know friends for whom a price of (approx correct prices) £20 prebooked rather than £60 walk up fare for a day trip to London from Sheffield makes the difference between travelling and not.
Why should high demand times be subsidised by low demand times?
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Ultimately I shouldn't have to guess how much it will cost. Charge more in peak times to "better utilise the infrastructure", sure, but the price from Newcastle Central to London Kings X at say, 10am on a weekday, should always be the same price.
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.
Of course you can. One (possibly public) company owns the infrastructure, and other companies provide competitive services and compete for business. Same as road haulage, airports, broadband…
The mistake with rail, was the huge regional service monopolies, especially on intercity routes.
Why isn't there more competition with bus services? Most places end up with a local monopoly.
Local bus services are usually loss-making, and end up either run by the council or under council subsidy. Where there’s competition for buses, is in large cities and on long-distance services, and you usually see competition on those routes.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Why? That would prevent a lot of people who find the full price difficult to afford from travelling by train. I know friends for whom a price of (approx correct prices) £20 prebooked rather than £60 walk up fare for a day trip to London from Sheffield makes the difference between travelling and not.
Why should high demand times be subsidised by low demand times?
I didn't say high demand times should be subsidised by low demand times.
Residents in locked-down Chinese city plead for food
Chinese officials have admitted supply issues for residents in locked-down Xi'an, after the city's inhabitants decried food shortages and called for help.
Some 13 million residents in northern Xi'an are in their seventh day of home confinement, and national health officials have called for measures to be strengthened further as China battles its worst virus surge in months.
Beijing has followed a strict "zero Covid" strategy involving tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first surfaced in a central city in late 2019.
But officials admitted at a press conference on Wednesday that "low staff attendance and difficulties in logistics and distribution" had led to trouble providing essential supplies.
A day before, many residents asked on social media for help acquiring food and other essentials, with some saying their housing compounds would not let them out even though they were running out of food.
----
Its definitely only 200 cases.....
I, for one, like the use of videos. After yesterday's mass spraying, we have name and shame parades.
I guess the timing is completely coincidental. Completely.
Seeing the footage, it does again rather seem like the Chinese authorities watch these Western Dystopian films as an instruction manual rather than a warning.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Care to say why it is 'hideously expensive' ?
Compare it to the cost of a train in Europe
Isn't the trope that the UK has the highest rail prices massively distorted by relatively short-distance commuter rail?
Pretty much.
Just from my own experiences - Paris Metro and RER was dirt cheap while unprepared travel in UK can be costly.
There is a slightly different pricing structure - buying in advance is much cheaper in the UK, being able to plan in advance cheaper still - but if there were deals in France, I could never find them.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
It's amusing to see so many zero Covid zealots in a circlejerk denying that a smaller percentage of a bigger number is as serious as a bigger percentage of a smaller number ... When that was the entire point of the Omicron panic.
Chris Whitty and others have been saying that even if the virus is less severe if it effects more people it's just as serious a problem.
So yes 20x5% = 1. That is a mathematical truism.
Isn't the problem also that Whitty's calculation assumes the world in November 2020, when nobody was vaccinated, nobody was boosted and nobody had antibodies. Ie the world of Delta....
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
I note that even the tube offers lower cost options to manage demand across different times of day with different demand for services.
But I'm not saying the price shouldn't vary at different times of day, I'm saying however that the price should be fixed at a particular time of day, regardless of whether its booked in advance or not.
If you can book anything in advance it is cheaper, you can book French, Spanish, Italian tickets in advance.
The point is that if you want to go somewhere, you go. If you're flexible sites like Trainline will tell you when to go but the reality is that people get on the train when they want to go.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Why? That would prevent a lot of people who find the full price difficult to afford from travelling by train. I know friends for whom a price of (approx correct prices) £20 prebooked rather than £60 walk up fare for a day trip to London from Sheffield makes the difference between travelling and not.
Why should high demand times be subsidised by low demand times?
I didn't say high demand times should be subsidised by low demand times.
Interesting that the energy industry is asking for a £20bn 10 year state backed loan for energy subsidies and the government is considering giving it to them in order to keep prices down. Imagine winding the clock back to 2012 and creating the same £20bn state backed loan fund for companies to borrow and invest cheaply in renewable energy creation and for industry to borrow cheaply to create a whole renewable energy industry for countries where solar isn't viable.
We're going to spend the money either way, this way all we're doing is subsidising high gas prices, effectively a transfer of taxpayer cash to Qatar, Russia and Shell.
Once again, a real lack of strategic thinking from the government and the same treasury bods who don't understand the concept of value creation.
The IEA came up with the astonishing claim the other day the government actually wants much higher energy prices because of the potential profit motive. The logic is that high prices will supercharge investment in new non carbon alternatives to make a buck - bringing the price down long term.
Its brave, minister.
That might make for economic sense, and help with getting the country away from dependence on foreign-sourced fuels - but it’s political suicide.
Even David Cameron dropped the “Green Crap”, when he realised where it was going with regard to energy bills.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Why? That would prevent a lot of people who find the full price difficult to afford from travelling by train. I know friends for whom a price of (approx correct prices) £20 prebooked rather than £60 walk up fare for a day trip to London from Sheffield makes the difference between travelling and not.
Why should high demand times be subsidised by low demand times?
I didn't say high demand times should be subsidised by low demand times.
Why is it useful to have empty trains running around off peak, with people who can't afford the fares imprisoned at home?
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Ultimately I shouldn't have to guess how much it will cost. Charge more in peak times to "better utilise the infrastructure", sure, but the price from Newcastle Central to London Kings X at say, 10am on a weekday, should always be the same price.
So 10am on a quiet weekday is subsidising 10am on a busy weekday? Why?
The whole point of variable pricing is that the same time on the same day isn't the same all the time.
Eg if Lord's is hosting a Test match starting at 11am do you think the stations near it are no busier than normal at 10am?
Can I ask a silly question - why do the 2 options in the chart not add up to 100%? It seems to be a 2 option Yes/No question, so according to me it should do that.
Implied chance from betting odds always adds up to >100%. That's the margin the bookies make the profit from.
Cheers. I had nor considered that applying here.
So a lowish, but not very low, overround.
I think 8% is pretty standard. Certainly you can easily find 15% in markets with many runners. Basically, the harder it is to see how badly they're screwing you, the worse you can expect it to be. Pretty easy to spot bad value in a two horse race, though, so 8% is expected.
I don’t think that’s right though - the field is bigger so the profit is greater for the bookie but the individual is paying less
Assuming punters bet in equal numbers on each horse
With 2 horses, there is one loser so with 80 punters there are 40 to pay the bookies margin
With 8 horses there are 7 losers, so with 80 punters there are 70 to pay the bookies margin.
If the overround is 15% on the larger race the individual losing punter is paying 1/70*0.15 = 0.002 vs 1/40*.08 = 0.002
Excellent point. For a full analysis, you'd need to know whether there is a systemic bias on the longer or shorter odds, or whether it's spread evenly across all prices. My hunch is that favourite prices tend to be fairer and the longer odds are way too short, but I don't have any inside information on that.
I don’t think long odds are set based on probabilities. At some level they are a marketing tool.
Let’s say there is a 3% chance of a horse winning. The “fair” price is 33-1. A bookie may price at 50-1 to attract more business (and hopefully both losers on that horse plus they will bet at the same time on other horses).
At that point it’s a theoretical loss leader with the price set by the risk of the book rather than the probability of the horse winning.
In contrast if they price at 25-1 in the absence of any better information they will take fewer bets and make less money but at a lower risk
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Ultimately I shouldn't have to guess how much it will cost. Charge more in peak times to "better utilise the infrastructure", sure, but the price from Newcastle Central to London Kings X at say, 10am on a weekday, should always be the same price.
So 10am on a quiet weekday is subsidising 10am on a busy weekday? Why?
The whole point of variable pricing is that the same time on the same day isn't the same all the time.
Eg if Lord's is hosting a Test match starting at 11am do you think the stations near it are no busier than normal at 10am?
I don't really care, I want the fares predictable. Otherwise it isn't convenient.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Why? That would prevent a lot of people who find the full price difficult to afford from travelling by train. I know friends for whom a price of (approx correct prices) £20 prebooked rather than £60 walk up fare for a day trip to London from Sheffield makes the difference between travelling and not.
Why should high demand times be subsidised by low demand times?
I didn't say high demand times should be subsidised by low demand times.
Why is it useful to have empty trains running around off peak, with people who can't afford the fares imprisoned at home?
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Last time I was in Germany, rail fares seemed quite high, especially if bought at short notice. I did get a good deal from Berlin to Leipzig, but I was able to buy that one in advance. There are some good group tickets, but I was travelling on my own. The Land/Regional day tickets can be good value, especially if bought as a group, but some seem no longer available - I'm sure there used to be a Berlin-Brandenburg-Vorpommen one that took you to Szczecin, but it no longer seemed to exist.
In Europe generally, you need to book well ahead to get the best fares.
Although the real European rip-off is charging half the second class fare for dogs, who are only allowed on the floor, when in the UK they travel for free.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Why? That would prevent a lot of people who find the full price difficult to afford from travelling by train. I know friends for whom a price of (approx correct prices) £20 prebooked rather than £60 walk up fare for a day trip to London from Sheffield makes the difference between travelling and not.
Why should high demand times be subsidised by low demand times?
I didn't say high demand times should be subsidised by low demand times.
Why is it useful to have empty trains running around off peak, with people who can't afford the fares imprisoned at home?
Residents in locked-down Chinese city plead for food
Chinese officials have admitted supply issues for residents in locked-down Xi'an, after the city's inhabitants decried food shortages and called for help.
Some 13 million residents in northern Xi'an are in their seventh day of home confinement, and national health officials have called for measures to be strengthened further as China battles its worst virus surge in months.
Beijing has followed a strict "zero Covid" strategy involving tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first surfaced in a central city in late 2019.
But officials admitted at a press conference on Wednesday that "low staff attendance and difficulties in logistics and distribution" had led to trouble providing essential supplies.
A day before, many residents asked on social media for help acquiring food and other essentials, with some saying their housing compounds would not let them out even though they were running out of food.
----
Its definitely only 200 cases.....
I, for one, like the use of videos. After yesterday's mass spraying, we have name and shame parades.
I guess the timing is completely coincidental. Completely.
Seeing the footage, it does again rather seem like the Chinese authorities watch these Western Dystopian films as an instruction manual rather than a warning.
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Ultimately I shouldn't have to guess how much it will cost. Charge more in peak times to "better utilise the infrastructure", sure, but the price from Newcastle Central to London Kings X at say, 10am on a weekday, should always be the same price.
So 10am on a quiet weekday is subsidising 10am on a busy weekday? Why?
The whole point of variable pricing is that the same time on the same day isn't the same all the time.
Eg if Lord's is hosting a Test match starting at 11am do you think the stations near it are no busier than normal at 10am?
I don't really care, I want the fares predictable. Otherwise it isn't convenient.
So you'd prefer expensive predictable fares over potentially cheaper variable ones?
Fair enough.
Either you can have predictability or cheapness, not both. Some people require stability in prices and that's why they pay a surcharge to financial services companies for futures etc
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Ultimately I shouldn't have to guess how much it will cost. Charge more in peak times to "better utilise the infrastructure", sure, but the price from Newcastle Central to London Kings X at say, 10am on a weekday, should always be the same price.
We have had standardised offpeak fares for many many years - An LNER Super Offpeak single from Newcastle to London is £76.20
Peak singles are £169.
Which is why we now have fixed tickets because they work out way, way cheaper.
Dutch economist Robin Fransman, the founder of an anti-lockdown group who refused to get vaccinated because coronavirus poses a "minimal risk," has died of COVID-19. He was 53
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.
Of course you can. One (possibly public) company owns the infrastructure, and other companies provide competitive services and compete for business. Same as road haulage, airports, broadband…
The mistake with rail, was the huge regional service monopolies, especially on intercity routes.
Why isn't there more competition with bus services? Most places end up with a local monopoly.
Local bus services are usually loss-making, and end up either run by the council or under council subsidy. Where there’s competition for buses, is in large cities and on long-distance services, and you usually see competition on those routes.
Transport systems are natural monopolies because they are networks. Hence you don't get competition for the entire network of routes, just the most profitable routes. It was what Freddy Laker and Richard Branson did to BA back in the day. And it is why US domestic routes are now all organized around hubs and spokes.
Dutch economist Robin Fransman, the founder of an anti-lockdown group who refused to get vaccinated because coronavirus poses a "minimal risk," has died of COVID-19. He was 53
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.
Open Access has not reduced prices
It has introduced the discipline of the market, and has provided reduced prices.
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
That is hideously expensive
Really?
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Aye its bollocks. The tickets should be the same price regardless of if they are booked in advance, otherwise driving will always be more convenient.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
Ultimately I shouldn't have to guess how much it will cost. Charge more in peak times to "better utilise the infrastructure", sure, but the price from Newcastle Central to London Kings X at say, 10am on a weekday, should always be the same price.
So 10am on a quiet weekday is subsidising 10am on a busy weekday? Why?
The whole point of variable pricing is that the same time on the same day isn't the same all the time.
Eg if Lord's is hosting a Test match starting at 11am do you think the stations near it are no busier than normal at 10am?
I don't really care, I want the fares predictable. Otherwise it isn't convenient.
I have some sympathy with your view, as I mostly use railways on an on-demand basis getting back from walks.
But convenience can be the other way. If I'm out on a walk, I often need to get back to my start point. Instead of having to catch (say) the 15.35 train from station C, I might choose to walk a little further to station D and get a later one. Or station B and get an earlier one.
I *hate* having a ticket booked in advance (or having to catch the one train or bus that runs in an afternoon), and having the entire day planned around having to catch that one service.
Walk-on tickets are convenient for me, and I'm willing to pay the little extra expense for that convenience.
Comments
I reckon we've got it about right in this country, for rail services at least. Bus services should have more money invested.
Another assumption, all 141,000 hospital beds are occupied. Now that's clearly not true, but as we've got a backlog on operations & waiting ambulances & last minute cancelled operations it's not an assumption that's going to be colossally wrong
If it is to make a profit, then they wouldn't exist but for a few routes at certain hours in big cities.
So it clearly isn't that.
https://twitter.com/shjfrench/status/1476084727312523264
It's basically find a few £bn or be prepared for very large price increases.
Though remember less than a third of Tory members backed her in that survey still
We're going to spend the money either way, this way all we're doing is subsidising high gas prices, effectively a transfer of taxpayer cash to Qatar, Russia and Shell.
Once again, a real lack of strategic thinking from the government and the same treasury bods who don't understand the concept of value creation.
I have absolutely no idea why she's so incredibly highly rated; she did an excellent job at Trade but was mostly invisible in her sundry other Ministerial positions. I think Sunak beats her 75-25 in a head-to-head if it comes to that, which I assume it won't because they have similar bases within the Parliamentary party).
Personally, I think she'd be out of her depth as PM, although she's still young and could be a good candidate in the future. She may not even stand this time - it could end up harming her prospects in the same way that Leadsom looked a better prospect before standing in 2016.
If only there were a recent, similar exemplar for comparison.
Bartholomew - that is Not How Numbers Work. To prove this to yourself, have a think about what would happen if the next mutation was 40x more serious. Would vaccine efficacy drop to -100%?
For example, I can book a ticket from London to Leeds in a few days time for £27 return. Superb value.
and essential services when people are not ill but test positive
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/
I guess the timing is completely coincidental. Completely.
Its brave, minister.
20x 5% = 1
40x 5% = 2
Yes if a mutation was 40x as serious, then so long as VE remained 95% then yes we'd be in a situation twice as bad as pre vaccines.
The so-called "Conservative Peer" - Viscount Gage - has not been a member of the House of Lords for more than 20 years.
Far from the work being done "for him, on his estate", afaics it is being done on an access road to an independent museum who made the application.
I don't think stooping nearly to Angela Rayner levels will help Nandy. Doesn't she have anything better?
I wonder if in a few days we will see another of those Michael Gove rebuttals?
EDIT: Actually it was not ever thus - the BBC used to have standards.
It is about 200 miles, or 400 miles return. At 15 pence per mile by car, that is £60.
The journey also takes 4 hours by car (one way). The train takes 2hr20m to 2ht40m.
Care to say why it is 'hideously expensive' ?
Actually, here's my one go:
- Omicron is milder than Delta
- Vaccines are less effective against Omicron than against Delta
- This is incompatible with your argument, above
In fact, most corporations seem to be run for the benefit of the C-suite.
It looks bad though. Although I can remember Labour people defending Tony and Hilary Benn having their private seawall around their estate funded by the state - when other areas were going undefended...
So actually that London to Leeds train is about half the price of a similar journey in Italy.
If a new variant was exactly as severe as Delta but eliminated all vaccine efficacy then that'd be basically 20x more serious for us than Delta is because of removing the 95% protection. If a new variant was twice as severe and eliminated all vaccine efficacy then we'd have your 40x more serious scenario.
But its both not very probable and if it does happen then we should cross that bridge if and when we get there.
And if it is the case, why aren't the European railways massively more used compared to the subsidies they get? If Germany (a bigger country) pays four times the subsidy, how come they don't get four times as many passenger-KM as us? In fact, they don't get much more (8bn cf 65bn).
The point is this: for one person, and often two, railways can be very competitive with roads for many journeys, particularly ones into conurbations. I think that's probably the sweet spot.
Rail privatisation has been superb for massively increased patronage, far better safety, greater investment and generally much improved quality of service. As is shown, for example, by data from the European Commission, which has the UK rail system just below the top 3 or 4 across Europe.
The changes are interesting - franchisees will get a fixed fee for running their railways, and ticket marketing / risk will transfer to the new body.
Although you'd still end up 200 miles from your destination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies#Europe
Being able to handle arithmetic without a calculator.
"On Wednesday 29 December and Wednesday 5 January, we will provide the latest daily data for that day and the previous 4 days."
https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html
TLDR: UK has a wider range of prices - more expensive for walk up tickets, much cheaper for prebooked and off-peak.
A wider range of options and prices, as one would expect from a more market-based philosophy.
A wider range of prices which will better utilise the infrastructure across the whole day and week. Much better.
Imagine if you had to book the tube in advance?
ONS estimates 1.06% prevalence amongst the general population. Hospitalisations on the 7th were 2,144;
You'd expect there to be about 1,500 hospitalisations "incidental covid" in hospital. That's the low point with "ill because of Covid" as a proportion.
If you look at the heatmap, Covid was very much amongst young people at this point.
That's the case also at 13 December
Chris Whitty and others have been saying that even if the virus is less severe if it effects more people it's just as serious a problem.
So yes 20x5% = 1. That is a mathematical truism.
Why should high demand times be subsidised by low demand times?
Just from my own experiences - Paris Metro and RER was dirt cheap while unprepared travel in UK can be costly.
There is a slightly different pricing structure - buying in advance is much cheaper in the UK, being able to plan in advance cheaper still - but if there were deals in France, I could never find them.
Barcelona to Madrid leave today, return 1st Jan: £81.48 - 388 miles each way
The point is that if you want to go somewhere, you go. If you're flexible sites like Trainline will tell you when to go but the reality is that people get on the train when they want to go.
Even David Cameron dropped the “Green Crap”, when he realised where it was going with regard to energy bills.
I'm in favour of cheaper, standard fares, that can be predicted.
The whole point of variable pricing is that the same time on the same day isn't the same all the time.
Eg if Lord's is hosting a Test match starting at 11am do you think the stations near it are no busier than normal at 10am?
Let’s say there is a 3% chance of a horse winning. The “fair” price is 33-1. A bookie may price at 50-1 to attract more business (and hopefully both losers on that horse plus they will bet at the same time on other horses).
At that point it’s a theoretical loss leader with the price set by the risk of the book rather than the probability of the horse winning.
In contrast if they price at 25-1 in the absence of any better information they will take fewer bets and make less money but at a lower risk
Although the real European rip-off is charging half the second class fare for dogs, who are only allowed on the floor, when in the UK they travel for free.
Fair enough.
Either you can have predictability or cheapness, not both. Some people require stability in prices and that's why they pay a surcharge to financial services companies for futures etc
Peak singles are £169.
Which is why we now have fixed tickets because they work out way, way cheaper.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/rail-fares-rise-2019-how-13799396
KEY: Country From To (Distance in miles) - Monthly season ticket price 2019 (% of monthly earnings)
UK Chelmsford London (28) - £393.19 (13%)
UK Manchester Liverpool (31) - £256.90 (8%)
Germany Eberswalde Berlin (40) - £120.61 (4%)
France Étampes Paris (35) - £67.50 (2%)
Belgium Ghent Brussels (35) - £150.31 (4%)
Ireland Drogheda Dublin (29) - £116.11 (3%)
For people that actually use the trains, the costs are absurd
But convenience can be the other way. If I'm out on a walk, I often need to get back to my start point. Instead of having to catch (say) the 15.35 train from station C, I might choose to walk a little further to station D and get a later one. Or station B and get an earlier one.
I *hate* having a ticket booked in advance (or having to catch the one train or bus that runs in an afternoon), and having the entire day planned around having to catch that one service.
Walk-on tickets are convenient for me, and I'm willing to pay the little extra expense for that convenience.