26 tennis players applied for exemptions. A handful were granted by a medical panel. All applications anonymised. Djokovic went public. Seems much murkier than at first glance
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Of course. Commenting on her motivations, Rhian Graham stated "well, I was just sat on the settee in me nana's lounge after dinner, wiping me hands on a serviette after a trip to the toilet when I heard that Coulson who has the statue was a slave trader and I was like 'pardon?' and that was it"
How do you get acquitted of criminal damage when you damaged criminally a statue that doesn't belong to you?
Ask the jury. (Actually you're not allowed to). It's their decision.
I suspect it was someone else - and so the actual person isn't identifiable nor in court.
One of those found innocent isn't even from sodding Bristol. They came all the way from Southampton. I was so offended on behalf of the people of Bristol having to walk past it, I came 100 miles to rip it down.
I think it is pretty wrong to give the verdict of not guilty - clearly these people were involved. By all means give light sentences, but offences were committed, or can I go where I like and cause damage, just because I deem it affects my life?
As I say, it's a really interesting case. I think even the quartet who were charged would admit to be involved (did they?). Yet the jury acquitted anyway. Jury nullification is the legal term AIUI.
Anyone else have problems logging in to PB.com on multiple devices? I'm logging on fine from my Mac but just got a new Macbook Air and and old problem has returned...
After clicking the 'Comment As' button the logon window seems to recognise my username and password (as it should) but the screen reloads with the 'Comment As' button still showing and the whole website strangely squeezed into the comments section.
Any ideas anyone?
Log in via vanilla – works every time there on the Mac (I have the same problem as you on the official site – which I no longer use).
Thanks, and just to confirm that yes, I can log in ok in Vanilla (!)
Unfortunately I much prefer the PB.com site with the latest posts at the top of the comments section. I may have to lump it though.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Back to the good old days when Juries make moral judgements rather than just following the judges direction. Long live the Randle and Pottles of this world.
So in some circumstances it is ok to commit criminal damage?
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Classic example of jury nullification – the jury knows the defendants are guilty under the letter of the law, but acquits anyway. I suspect in this case, the youth of the defendants and the fact they are likely to make a good contribution to society (without a criminal record) was at play. But it is an interesting case and debate for sure.
Yep, jury duty is a form of democracy. Those on the left who are so outraged by poor conviction rates for only certain types of crime would do well to remember that.
He's a scruff who hates people who work hard, particularly Margaret Thatcher (a proper girly SWOT).
Is it any surprise he's consistently gets found out for being lazy and unprepared?
On the other hand Boris is the only Tory leader ever to win most voters from the lowest DE social class, as he did in 2019 when 41% of DEs voted Tory to 39% who voted Labour.
Boris being a scruff rather than a stuffed shirt probably helped with them
Is his electoral performance (against Jeremy Corbyn) always your last redoubt? Will you be the last person to realise he is unfit for office? Even he realises it. Even the Downing Street cat would make a better job of it.
There's some truth in it though.
BoJo's image does help him to connect with people in a way that TM and Dave (and Howard, IDS and Hague) didn't. It's an electoral strength. And it's worth noting that, even now, dumping BoJo might well cause Conservative ratings to fall. I suspect that it's a strategy to cut losses in 2024, rather than to win five more glorious years.
However, having a populist image is pretty much orthogonal to being any good at the job of running the country.
Indeed, you can't do one (run the country) without the other (win the election). But to do the latter and be shockingly bad at the former is worse than not winning in the first place.
Bad for the country, I agree. Bad for the Conservatives in the late 2020s and 2030s, probably.
But bad for Boris? Maybe, maybe not. He's got the top job he coveted, and I doubt he would have got there by a more conventional path. And whilst I'd die quite a bit daily if I turned out to be as howlingly terrible at my dream gig as Boris has... that just shows that I don't have the temperament to be Prime Minister.
Anyone else have problems logging in to PB.com on multiple devices? I'm logging on fine from my Mac but just got a new Macbook Air and and old problem has returned...
After clicking the 'Comment As' button the logon window seems to recognise my username and password (as it should) but the screen reloads with the 'Comment As' button still showing and the whole website strangely squeezed into the comments section.
Any ideas anyone?
Log in via vanilla – works every time there on the Mac (I have the same problem as you on the official site – which I no longer use).
Thanks, and just to confirm that yes, I can log in ok in Vanilla (!)
Unfortunately I much prefer the PB.com site with the latest posts at the top of the comments section. I may have to lump it though.
Welcome to correct way up world. I had a similar issue some months ago. After initial bewilderment, I got used to it. Never went back.
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
That Speccie tracker of SAGE models is really quite damning. No wonder the politicians have completely lost all faith in the modelled projections and are now basing decisions on real data. I don't understand where the feedback loop has been for the last two years, it's been pretty obvious that Omicron wouldn't result in 600-6000 deaths per day or 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day in a largely vaccinated population. I just can't understand how it's possible that no one took a step back from the minutiae of the numbers and thought about exactly what it was they were proposing. They were saying Omicron would set us back to February 2020 but we've had 133m vaccine doses jabbed into arms and somewhere around 20m COVID infections. It never made sense that any variant would be able to push us back to where we were at the beginning, yet that's what they said would happen.
My understanding is that some of the models quite transparently did not control for vaccinations and acquired immunity – although I was never clear why they didn't. Not sure I have that right, but that is my memory.
Check Matt Chorley's Twitter thread for details of the recording. This was from one answer to one question.
And you understood that when you posted it and commented "the 46 seconds that is played is really quite shocking", without making any mention of the fact that it was edited? And added that "I cannot recall any of his predecessors over the past half century being so lost for words".
Did you listen to similarly edited excerpts for all of his predecessors over the past half century, in order to make a meaningful comparison, or what?
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Back to the good old days when Juries make moral judgements rather than just following the judges direction. Long live the Randle and Pottles of this world.
So in some circumstances it is ok to commit criminal damage?
The conclusion is rather that in some circumstances you might just get lucky with a jury. Not a gamble I'd take.
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Back to the good old days when Juries make moral judgements rather than just following the judges direction. Long live the Randle and Pottles of this world.
So in some circumstances it is ok to commit criminal damage?
You can do anything if you can convince a jury that it's OK. Pretty much the way it has always been.
He's a scruff who hates people who work hard, particularly Margaret Thatcher (a proper girly SWOT).
Is it any surprise he's consistently gets found out for being lazy and unprepared?
On the other hand Boris is the only Tory leader ever to win most voters from the lowest DE social class, as he did in 2019 when 41% of DEs voted Tory to 39% who voted Labour.
Boris being a scruff rather than a stuffed shirt probably helped with them
Is his electoral performance (against Jeremy Corbyn) always your last redoubt? Will you be the last person to realise he is unfit for office? Even he realises it. Even the Downing Street cat would make a better job of it.
There's some truth in it though.
BoJo's image does help him to connect with people in a way that TM and Dave (and Howard, IDS and Hague) didn't. It's an electoral strength. And it's worth noting that, even now, dumping BoJo might well cause Conservative ratings to fall. I suspect that it's a strategy to cut losses in 2024, rather than to win five more glorious years.
However, having a populist image is pretty much orthogonal to being any good at the job of running the country.
Indeed, you can't do one (run the country) without the other (win the election). But to do the latter and be shockingly bad at the former is worse than not winning in the first place.
and probably speaks with a very Home Counties RP accent when going home to visit Granny and sit on her sofa in the sitting room.
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
I did wonder with the LSHTM 'in hospital' model (which is the closest the speccie includes) whether the difference might be they were working on a typical Delta length of stay (reasonable at the time), whereas Omicron seems to be giving shorter stays. The chart you highlight suggests that might be the case.
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Check Matt Chorley's Twitter thread for details of the recording. This was from one answer to one question.
And you understood that when you posted it and commented "the 46 seconds that is played is really quite shocking", without making any mention of the fact that it was edited? And added that "I cannot recall any of his predecessors over the past half century being so lost for words".
Did you listen to similarly edited excerpts for all of his predecessors over the past half century, in order to make a meaningful comparison, or what?
The tweet at the top if the article is entirely clear (as was Mike's commentary). "Boris Johnson took 4 minutes to answer a question from David at the press conference. 46 er seconds er of er it er was er this…"
Do you have comprehension problems, or are you just being perverse ?
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Classic example of jury nullification – the jury knows the defendants are guilty under the letter of the law, but acquits anyway. I suspect in this case, the youth of the defendants and the fact they are likely to make a good contribution to society (without a criminal record) was at play. But it is an interesting case and debate for sure.
Yep, jury duty is a form of democracy. Those on the left who are so outraged by poor conviction rates for only certain types of crime would do well to remember that.
Jury nullification has a certain... history.
It was quite popular in the Southern States of the US in the Goode Olde Days.
O/T Sorry, posted at the death of the previous thread but I'm still shocked...
My God - Solicitors, eh?
I've just been quoted £600 + VAT to provide a legal opinion on a two-page Declaration of Trust involving one freehold house. How many hours (minutes more like) are they going to spend on it?
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Back to the good old days when Juries make moral judgements rather than just following the judges direction. Long live the Randle and Pottles of this world.
So in some circumstances it is ok to commit criminal damage?
The jury made a moral decision that I would have made had I been on the Jury. The law doesn't always get it right and while Juries are the final arbiters I'm happy for them to use their judgement. I contributed £100 to Randle and Pottles defence as did a lot of people and it gave a good kicking in the groin to some vindictive Tory MPs.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Classic example of jury nullification – the jury knows the defendants are guilty under the letter of the law, but acquits anyway. I suspect in this case, the youth of the defendants and the fact they are likely to make a good contribution to society (without a criminal record) was at play. But it is an interesting case and debate for sure.
Yep, jury duty is a form of democracy. Those on the left who are so outraged by poor conviction rates for only certain types of crime would do well to remember that.
Jury nullification has a certain... history.
It was quite popular in the Southern States of the US in the Goode Olde Days.
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn and axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
I did wonder with the LSHTM 'in hospital' model (which is the closest the speccie includes) whether the difference might be they were working on a typical Delta length of stay (reasonable at the time), whereas Omicron seems to be giving shorter stays. The chart you highlight suggests that might be the case.
Was it reasonable at the time? We had plenty of clinical evidence from South Africa that it wasn't the case. They also underestimated vaccine efficacy of one dose, two doses and three doses by quite some margin too iirc, they used something like 29% for two doses and 0% for one dose against hospitalisation. There was no reason to have such pessimistic inputs other than getting headline grabbing numbers to scare politicians into locking down.
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Exactly right. At what stage in the game does policy properly shift toward protecting the ever dwindling vulnerable cohort (infirm plus elderly antivax plus immuno compromised)? We need to have a national debate about this.
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
How many of those are for covid though (not incidental)? And is that included in the modelling?
I would imagine that the model was developed on historical links between cases and hospitalisations (with adjustments for assumptions about Omicron). If so, those historical links would likely have used all hospitalisations.
Incidentals are tricky, too. For some Covid contracted in hospital will be minor and arguably should not be included. Others will get a servere enough case that they stay longer or would have been admitted if not already in hospital. That doesn't come out in original cause for admission. It might come out through looking at e.g. primary diagnosis or consultant main specialty (or treatment specialty) of finished consultant episodes*, but that's a less trivial analysis.
You'd think that most incidental Covid infections would, like most Covid infections, be minor. But people in hospital are mostly old and sick, so a largeish number might actually end up having treatment for Covid too.
*Hospital data are arranged in finished consultant episodes - periods of care under a single consultant. Most people have only one FCE per admission, but you can have more. Someone with a broken leg who subsequently gets Covid bad enough to received treatment for it would likely get a second FCE under a consultant in respiratory illness, so that would come out in the data. But these are the level of data reported to NHS for payment each year, these levels of data are not necessarily accessible in real time.)
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Yes, fortunately the combination of Omicron being inherently less severe for most people than Delta, and the boosters being rolled out in quantity just in time, means that this is turning out to be much less bad than it would have been if those two factors had not applied. The second was largely the result of actions taken in response to the modelling, so it's a bit rich to blame the modellers. And the first wasn't known at the time, although it was suspected, but it was prudent to present models which didn't rely on it. All this of course was clearly laid out in the SAGE and other papers, and the Speccie, which nowadays has declined to much the same level as the Telegraph, doesn't bother to take account of any of it because they are making some bizarre irrational political point out of it, Lord only knows what or why.
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn and axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
Do you think this is being unconsciously referenced, I wonder?
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
I think we are pretty close to concluding that only vaccines and ventilation matter, you can pretty much forget the rest.
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn and axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
26 tennis players applied for exemptions. A handful were granted by a medical panel. All applications anonymised. Djokovic went public. Seems much murkier than at first glance
LOL. This is going to go down worse than Christmas party stories in Australia. Everyone there knows people who had lives turned upside-down by the strict rules about quarantine and limited places on flights home.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
Djokovic still stuck at airport. He's not getting in is he? State government denying they gave it the OK. Says it's very much a Federal issue. Some questions about visa too.
Who was it who gave him the impression he would be able to get in?
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn and axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
I expect Boris will cut it in time, though the eco friendly position would arguably be to keep VAT on fuel and help cut energy use
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
I did wonder with the LSHTM 'in hospital' model (which is the closest the speccie includes) whether the difference might be they were working on a typical Delta length of stay (reasonable at the time), whereas Omicron seems to be giving shorter stays. The chart you highlight suggests that might be the case.
Was it reasonable at the time? We had plenty of clinical evidence from South Africa that it wasn't the case. They also underestimated vaccine efficacy of one dose, two doses and three doses by quite some margin too iirc, they used something like 29% for two doses and 0% for one dose against hospitalisation. There was no reason to have such pessimistic inputs other than getting headline grabbing numbers to scare politicians into locking down.
At the time, I think the pessimism on vaccine efficacy was far more open to criticism than assuming a similar length of stay. Given the lags, I doubt there was too much on mean LoS at the time (some data perhaps on more people being discharged early, enough for a sensitivity analysis, but I don't think I'd have put it in a central estimate).
I agree that, in general, the model inputs were overly pessimistic. Certainly with hindsight. Some were obvious at the time, as you pointed out at the time.
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
I did wonder with the LSHTM 'in hospital' model (which is the closest the speccie includes) whether the difference might be they were working on a typical Delta length of stay (reasonable at the time), whereas Omicron seems to be giving shorter stays. The chart you highlight suggests that might be the case.
Yes, good point.
Modelling, like guessing what a company's sales are going to be, is much easier with hindsight!
Check Matt Chorley's Twitter thread for details of the recording. This was from one answer to one question.
And you understood that when you posted it and commented "the 46 seconds that is played is really quite shocking", without making any mention of the fact that it was edited? And added that "I cannot recall any of his predecessors over the past half century being so lost for words".
Did you listen to similarly edited excerpts for all of his predecessors over the past half century, in order to make a meaningful comparison, or what?
The tweet at the top if the article is entirely clear (as was Mike's commentary). "Boris Johnson took 4 minutes to answer a question from David at the press conference. 46 er seconds er of er it er was er this…"
Do you have comprehension problems, or are you just being perverse ?
Neither.
Let me spell it out for you, as you seem to have problems understanding: (1) It was obvious to me that this was just bits of Johnson's reply edited together to make him look more stupid than he is. That was why my first comment was to question what the point was of posting this crap. (2) It was equally obvious that some readers here thought it was an unedited extract from his reply, despite the evidence. (3) As for whether Mike Smithson realised what it was, that is what my questions to him were aimed to clarify. I agree that it should have been clear to him. But I don't agree that his comments are consistent with that. Particularly the comment about not being able to remember Johnson's predecessors being similarly lost for words. Because he wouldn't have remembered that unless someone had edited their words in a similar way.
So please try to think a bit more before defending posting rubbish like this without making it clear what it is.
One of those found innocent isn't even from sodding Bristol. They came all the way from Southampton. I was so offended on behalf of the people of Bristol having to walk past it, I came 100 miles to rip it down.
I don't think you have to come from Bristol to be offended by a statue lauding a slave trader
NB. Don't forget the distance American soldiers traveled to pull down a statue of Saddam
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Yes, fortunately the combination of Omicron being inherently less severe for most people than Delta, and the boosters being rolled out in quantity just in time, means that this is turning out to be much less bad than it would have been if those two factors had not applied. The second was largely the result of actions taken in response to the modelling, so it's a bit rich to blame the modellers. And the first wasn't known at the time, although it was suspected, but it was prudent to present models which didn't rely on it. All this of course was clearly laid out in the SAGE and other papers, and the Speccie, which nowadays has declined to much the same level as the Telegraph, doesn't bother to take account of any of it because they are making some bizarre irrational political point out of it, Lord only knows what or why.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They made the same mistakes with the summer unlockdown, there' just been no feedback loop where they sit down and improve their real world validation. After their summer of failure one would have hoped they'd go back and fix what they got wrong, instead they went the other way and used knowingly incorrect inputs in severity, vaccine efficacy and likely population immunity levels. Using the same severity and hospitalisation intensity (for lack of a better term) as Delta really looks like cooking the books, it was pointed out at the time as well and we got that ridiculous explanation that the models only look at "policy making scenarios" rather than using most likely inputs. We knew from the South African data that Omicron was good at infecting people but not very good at giving them severe enough symptoms to send them to hospital. Ignoring that is why the politicians ignored their doom mongering.
He's a scruff who hates people who work hard, particularly Margaret Thatcher (a proper girly SWOT).
Is it any surprise he's consistently gets found out for being lazy and unprepared?
On the other hand Boris is the only Tory leader ever to win most voters from the lowest DE social class, as he did in 2019 when 41% of DEs voted Tory to 39% who voted Labour.
Boris being a scruff rather than a stuffed shirt probably helped with them
Is his electoral performance (against Jeremy Corbyn) always your last redoubt? Will you be the last person to realise he is unfit for office? Even he realises it. Even the Downing Street cat would make a better job of it.
There's some truth in it though.
BoJo's image does help him to connect with people in a way that TM and Dave (and Howard, IDS and Hague) didn't. It's an electoral strength. And it's worth noting that, even now, dumping BoJo might well cause Conservative ratings to fall. I suspect that it's a strategy to cut losses in 2024, rather than to win five more glorious years.
However, having a populist image is pretty much orthogonal to being any good at the job of running the country.
Indeed, you can't do one (run the country) without the other (win the election). But to do the latter and be shockingly bad at the former is worse than not winning in the first place.
Bad for the country, I agree. Bad for the Conservatives in the late 2020s and 2030s, probably.
But bad for Boris? Maybe, maybe not. He's got the top job he coveted, and I doubt he would have got there by a more conventional path. And whilst I'd die quite a bit daily if I turned out to be as howlingly terrible at my dream gig as Boris has... that just shows that I don't have the temperament to be Prime Minister.
Not necessarily, though it does prove you don't have the temperament to be Boris Johnson
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Exactly right. At what stage in the game does policy properly shift toward protecting the ever dwindling vulnerable cohort (infirm plus elderly antivax plus immuno compromised)? We need to have a national debate about this.
Well, hopefully what will happen is that the politicians will hold the line on the existing restrictions for another few weeks (because, regardless of whether they are doing any good, getting rid of them when the patient count is still rising and the hospitals are screaming would appear callous,) but once we're clearly through peak Omicron they'll get rid of the lot and move to the endemic phase. That means extra help for very vulnerable people (e.g. in the form of the ready-at-home test kits and supply of antivirals that has already been established for the immuno-compromised) and, in most other respects, a return to the status quo ante-Covid.
There's no point in continuing to have a panoply of mitigations to try to control a disease that, on the scale of the general population at least, is clearly uncontrollable - especially given that, on top of that, the overwhelming majority of the population now has protection from prior infection and/or multiple vaccinations.
Djokovic still stuck at airport. He's not getting in is he? State government denying they gave it the OK. Says it's very much a Federal issue. Some questions about visa too.
Who was it who gave him the impression he would be able to get in?
He passed an medical panel anonymously apparently. As did a handful of others among 26 who applied. But we don't know who they are. Apparently, though, this exemption isn't covered by his visa status. Looks like the tennis authorities have cocked this up. But Novak loves to be a martyr. As proved by the fact he went public beforehand.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
How does criminal damage not end up as a summary trial in front of magistrates?
Perhaps it's because had they been convicted they'd have received lengthy custodial sentences.
The thing about this case is the egregious neglect and intransigence of Bristol Council. Not just the statue, but the Colston Hall, Colston School etc. were just insults to a richly multi-cultural city. They did nothing for years, and the George Floyd case was the just trigger for people to finally take matters into their own hands. That statue should have come down decades ago.
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
I did wonder with the LSHTM 'in hospital' model (which is the closest the speccie includes) whether the difference might be they were working on a typical Delta length of stay (reasonable at the time), whereas Omicron seems to be giving shorter stays. The chart you highlight suggests that might be the case.
Was it reasonable at the time? We had plenty of clinical evidence from South Africa that it wasn't the case. They also underestimated vaccine efficacy of one dose, two doses and three doses by quite some margin too iirc, they used something like 29% for two doses and 0% for one dose against hospitalisation. There was no reason to have such pessimistic inputs other than getting headline grabbing numbers to scare politicians into locking down.
At the time, I think the pessimism on vaccine efficacy was far more open to criticism than assuming a similar length of stay. Given the lags, I doubt there was too much on mean LoS at the time (some data perhaps on more people being discharged early, enough for a sensitivity analysis, but I don't think I'd have put it in a central estimate).
I agree that, in general, the model inputs were overly pessimistic. Certainly with hindsight. Some were obvious at the time, as you pointed out at the time.
This has always been my point, if a lowly analyst such as myself can spot these issues where is the opposition within SAGE or any of the modelling teams. Why is no one saying "hang on a minute, are we really saying that 2 vaccine doses only does this and that three will be this low?" or "wait, do we really believe that people who got Delta will have no protection from severe symptoms with Omicron?"
There just doesn't seem to be any feedback loop, or if there is one then it feels like the dissenters are simply ignored because they're going against whatever the agenda is. I've been inside teams where that happened, it leads to really bad decisions being made.
26 tennis players applied for exemptions. A handful were granted by a medical panel. All applications anonymised. Djokovic went public. Seems much murkier than at first glance
LOL. This is going to go down worse than Christmas party stories in Australia. Everyone there knows people who had lives turned upside-down by the strict rules about quarantine and limited places on flights home.
I suspect 26 deportations coming tomorrow.
I hope so. Anti-vaxxers need to be called out. If they want to hold their anti-science views then they can step out of public life for a couple of years until the whole thing has blown over. We should all take a leaf out of Macron's playbook on this. Piss off the antivaxxers as much as possible, and the higher the profile the better.
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
I think we are pretty close to concluding that only vaccines and ventilation matter, you can pretty much forget the rest.
Yes, there are increasing signs that the Dutch lockdown is failing against Omicron. The kind of cruel measures available to the Chinese might be capable of stopping this variant, but it would appear that there are no interventions that a liberal democracy can survive applying which can counter its extreme transmissibility.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
How does criminal damage not end up as a summary trial in front of magistrates?
Perhaps it's because had they been convicted they'd have received lengthy custodial sentences.
The thing about this case is the egregious neglect and intransigence of Bristol Council. Not just the statue, but the Colston Hall, Colston School etc. were just insults to a richly multi-cultural city. They did nothing for years, and the George Floyd case was the just trigger for people to finally take matters into their own hands. That statue should have come down decades ago.
If there was so much pent-up rage in the city, why did it need the murder of man 4,000 miles away to trigger some action?
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
I think we are pretty close to concluding that only vaccines and ventilation matter, you can pretty much forget the rest.
Yes, there are increasing signs that the Dutch lockdown is failing against Omicron. The kind of cruel measures available to the Chinese might be capable of stopping this variant, but it would appear that there are no interventions that a liberal democracy can survive applying which can counter its extreme transmissibility.
New Zealand must be looking at Omicron and wondering how they can ever reconnect with the world
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Exactly right. At what stage in the game does policy properly shift toward protecting the ever dwindling vulnerable cohort (infirm plus elderly antivax plus immuno compromised)? We need to have a national debate about this.
Well, hopefully what will happen is that the politicians will hold the line on the existing restrictions for another few weeks (because, regardless of whether they are doing any good, getting rid of them when the patient count is still rising and the hospitals are screaming would appear callous,) but once we're clearly through peak Omicron they'll get rid of the lot and move to the endemic phase. That means extra help for very vulnerable people (e.g. in the form of the ready-at-home test kits and supply of antivirals that has already been established for the immuno-compromised) and, in most other respects, a return to the status quo ante-Covid.
There's no point in continuing to have a panoply of mitigations to try to control a disease that, on the scale of the general population at least, is clearly uncontrollable - especially given that, on top of that, the overwhelming majority of the population now has protection from prior infection and/or multiple vaccinations.
Your suggestion sounds like the Great Barrington declaration. Interesting to look at that again, it was pre-vaccine and says "Keeping these measures [lockdowns etc] in place until a vaccine is available... " - so even these guys were not fearful of state measures going beyond the advent of a vaccine.
Djokovic still stuck at airport. He's not getting in is he? State government denying they gave it the OK. Says it's very much a Federal issue. Some questions about visa too.
Who was it who gave him the impression he would be able to get in?
He passed an medical panel anonymously apparently. As did a handful of others among 26 who applied. But we don't know who they are. Apparently, though, this exemption isn't covered by his visa status. Looks like the tennis authorities have cocked this up. But Novak loves to be a martyr. As proved by the fact he went public beforehand.
Seems as though his tour of Australia will be even less successful than England’s. They at least made it out of the airport.
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Yes, fortunately the combination of Omicron being inherently less severe for most people than Delta, and the boosters being rolled out in quantity just in time, means that this is turning out to be much less bad than it would have been if those two factors had not applied. The second was largely the result of actions taken in response to the modelling, so it's a bit rich to blame the modellers. And the first wasn't known at the time, although it was suspected, but it was prudent to present models which didn't rely on it. All this of course was clearly laid out in the SAGE and other papers, and the Speccie, which nowadays has declined to much the same level as the Telegraph, doesn't bother to take account of any of it because they are making some bizarre irrational political point out of it, Lord only knows what or why.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They made the same mistakes with the summer unlockdown, there' just been no feedback loop where they sit down and improve their real world validation. After their summer of failure one would have hoped they'd go back and fix what they got wrong, instead they went the other way and used knowingly incorrect inputs in severity, vaccine efficacy and likely population immunity levels. Using the same severity and hospitalisation intensity (for lack of a better term) as Delta really looks like cooking the books, it was pointed out at the time as well and we got that ridiculous explanation that the models only look at "policy making scenarios" rather than using most likely inputs. We knew from the South African data that Omicron was good at infecting people but not very good at giving them severe enough symptoms to send them to hospital. Ignoring that is why the politicians ignored their doom mongering.
The boosters were being rolled out before Omicron showed up. They were originally 6 months after second jab I think. Then became 3 months.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
How does criminal damage not end up as a summary trial in front of magistrates?
Perhaps it's because had they been convicted they'd have received lengthy custodial sentences.
The thing about this case is the egregious neglect and intransigence of Bristol Council. Not just the statue, but the Colston Hall, Colston School etc. were just insults to a richly multi-cultural city. They did nothing for years, and the George Floyd case was the just trigger for people to finally take matters into their own hands. That statue should have come down decades ago.
If there was so much pent-up rage in the city, why did it need the murder of man 4,000 miles away to trigger some action?
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
How does criminal damage not end up as a summary trial in front of magistrates?
Perhaps it's because had they been convicted they'd have received lengthy custodial sentences.
The thing about this case is the egregious neglect and intransigence of Bristol Council. Not just the statue, but the Colston Hall, Colston School etc. were just insults to a richly multi-cultural city. They did nothing for years, and the George Floyd case was the just trigger for people to finally take matters into their own hands. That statue should have come down decades ago.
Maybe they were too busy doing less important stuff like social services or collecting bins or running schools to get grafting on identity politics?
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn and axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
I expect Boris will cut it in time, though the eco friendly position would arguably be to keep VAT on fuel and help cut energy use
Thank you for your answer. Your answer is wrong on many levels I think.
First Point being, U turn earlier it’s less remembered as a U turn. If you are known as U Turn politician your authority seeps away, because why believe someone with track record for U turning when they say they won’t?
Actually I don’t think Boris should surrender as you think on the point he is making, I have a feeling Boris is right in that cutting fuel Vat benefits a lot of people who don’t need the benefit even though it doesn’t stop Daily’s mail and mirror bogusly claiming Xx families helped. Cutting the fuel Vat seems a glib position from lazy opposition who don’t have smarter attack lines. I say glib and lazy from opposition because I think it makes a more complicated issue, as you suggest of green levies sound more straightforward than it is.
Tough on “heat or eat” situations by being tough on real causes of “heat or eat” situations and that is this government is going to end up with a tax and waste reputation. If I say Boris is a High Tax High Spend politician, I’m right aren’t I. The next part of the equation is how much waste of tax payer money is going on.
I am disappointed in Ed Davey and all opposition today, you see I could have done better myself linking fuel poverty to high taxes and waste?
One of those found innocent isn't even from sodding Bristol. They came all the way from Southampton. I was so offended on behalf of the people of Bristol having to walk past it, I came 100 miles to rip it down.
I don't think you have to come from Bristol to be offended by a statue lauding a slave trader
NB. Don't forget the distance American soldiers traveled to pull down a statue of Saddam
Djokovic still stuck at airport. He's not getting in is he? State government denying they gave it the OK. Says it's very much a Federal issue. Some questions about visa too.
Who was it who gave him the impression he would be able to get in?
He passed an medical panel anonymously apparently. As did a handful of others among 26 who applied. But we don't know who they are. Apparently, though, this exemption isn't covered by his visa status. Looks like the tennis authorities have cocked this up. But Novak loves to be a martyr. As proved by the fact he went public beforehand.
I have a feeling that they will be asking for medical reports from independent doctors for everyone. There is a long history in sport of doctors who do whatever the client wants.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
How does criminal damage not end up as a summary trial in front of magistrates?
Perhaps it's because had they been convicted they'd have received lengthy custodial sentences.
The thing about this case is the egregious neglect and intransigence of Bristol Council. Not just the statue, but the Colston Hall, Colston School etc. were just insults to a richly multi-cultural city. They did nothing for years, and the George Floyd case was the just trigger for people to finally take matters into their own hands. That statue should have come down decades ago.
Maybe they were too busy doing less important stuff like social services or collecting bins or running schools to get grafting on identity politics?
Djokovic still stuck at airport. He's not getting in is he? State government denying they gave it the OK. Says it's very much a Federal issue. Some questions about visa too.
Who was it who gave him the impression he would be able to get in?
He passed an medical panel anonymously apparently. As did a handful of others among 26 who applied. But we don't know who they are. Apparently, though, this exemption isn't covered by his visa status. Looks like the tennis authorities have cocked this up. But Novak loves to be a martyr. As proved by the fact he went public beforehand.
Seems as though his tour of Australia will be even less successful than England’s. They at least made it out of the airport.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
How does criminal damage not end up as a summary trial in front of magistrates?
Perhaps it's because had they been convicted they'd have received lengthy custodial sentences.
The thing about this case is the egregious neglect and intransigence of Bristol Council. Not just the statue, but the Colston Hall, Colston School etc. were just insults to a richly multi-cultural city. They did nothing for years, and the George Floyd case was the just trigger for people to finally take matters into their own hands. That statue should have come down decades ago.
If there was so much pent-up rage in the city, why did it need the murder of man 4,000 miles away to trigger some action?
There's a big difference between triggers and causes.
You can say the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered the First World War, whilst accepting that there were deeper and wider issues at play which means the War wasn't about that.
It's interesting that the Colston toppling was triggered by events from so far away, but it is also true that Bristol as a city had decades to defuse a simmering issue and didn't take some fairly basic steps to do so.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They didn't say that. They said 'On assumption X and assumption Y etc etc our model shows this result', and they emphasised the uncertainties in all those assumptions. We now know more, and the assumptions were, as it turned out, pessimistic, luckily. But also, we didn't only have plan B, we had plan B with a massive effort to get boosters into arms, and we also had quite a large self-imposed semi-lockdown arising from the public's wish to avoid cancelling their Xmas arrangements.
The attempt by many, most notably Fraser Nelson, to politicise this is a disgrace.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
How does criminal damage not end up as a summary trial in front of magistrates?
Perhaps it's because had they been convicted they'd have received lengthy custodial sentences.
The thing about this case is the egregious neglect and intransigence of Bristol Council. Not just the statue, but the Colston Hall, Colston School etc. were just insults to a richly multi-cultural city. They did nothing for years, and the George Floyd case was the just trigger for people to finally take matters into their own hands. That statue should have come down decades ago.
Except they held an inquiry into this issue, including contributions from direct descendants of families of slaves traded by Colston. They and the inquiry recommended education via placing plaques to explain who this individual was.
The issue was that the organisation who held responsible for the keeping of the statue were disputing the exact wording.
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Yes, fortunately the combination of Omicron being inherently less severe for most people than Delta, and the boosters being rolled out in quantity just in time, means that this is turning out to be much less bad than it would have been if those two factors had not applied. The second was largely the result of actions taken in response to the modelling, so it's a bit rich to blame the modellers. And the first wasn't known at the time, although it was suspected, but it was prudent to present models which didn't rely on it. All this of course was clearly laid out in the SAGE and other papers, and the Speccie, which nowadays has declined to much the same level as the Telegraph, doesn't bother to take account of any of it because they are making some bizarre irrational political point out of it, Lord only knows what or why.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They made the same mistakes with the summer unlockdown, there' just been no feedback loop where they sit down and improve their real world validation. After their summer of failure one would have hoped they'd go back and fix what they got wrong, instead they went the other way and used knowingly incorrect inputs in severity, vaccine efficacy and likely population immunity levels. Using the same severity and hospitalisation intensity (for lack of a better term) as Delta really looks like cooking the books, it was pointed out at the time as well and we got that ridiculous explanation that the models only look at "policy making scenarios" rather than using most likely inputs. We knew from the South African data that Omicron was good at infecting people but not very good at giving them severe enough symptoms to send them to hospital. Ignoring that is why the politicians ignored their doom mongering.
The boosters were being rolled out before Omicron showed up. They were originally 6 months after second jab I think. Then became 3 months.
Originally you were not able to book your booster until 6 months after the second jab. This essentially made it a 6.5 month minimum gap, until someone had the brilliant idea people should be allowed to book in advance. This put us 2 weeks behind where we should have been, and we've been playing catch-up since then.
Djokovic still stuck at airport. He's not getting in is he? State government denying they gave it the OK. Says it's very much a Federal issue. Some questions about visa too.
Who was it who gave him the impression he would be able to get in?
He passed an medical panel anonymously apparently. As did a handful of others among 26 who applied. But we don't know who they are. Apparently, though, this exemption isn't covered by his visa status. Looks like the tennis authorities have cocked this up. But Novak loves to be a martyr. As proved by the fact he went public beforehand.
I have a feeling that they will be asking for medical reports from independent doctors for everyone. There is a long history in sport of doctors who do whatever the client wants.
Yep. One or two have had their practicing certs removed as a result
That is very interesting. The Sages seem to be not very Sage like. Essentially it would seem that based on that data you need to take their least pessimistic forecast and then knock a bit more off to get the real world scenario.
The Speccie has been rather selective in its choice of data, and rather misleading in its presentation, meaning it can be safely filed under 'garbage'. For example, they somehow omitted to display the chart (bottom left) of England hospitalisations against the LHSTM and other models:
But as we've just been told, 1/15 people in England had COVID in the week up to December 31st. The in hospital and daily admissions stats are worthless without knowing what proportion are actually in hospital or being admitted for COVID. At last count around half of all in hospital stays were incidental which works out to around two thirds of the daily admissions being incidental or not serious enough to warrant an overnight stay.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Exactly right. At what stage in the game does policy properly shift toward protecting the ever dwindling vulnerable cohort (infirm plus elderly antivax plus immuno compromised)? We need to have a national debate about this.
Well, hopefully what will happen is that the politicians will hold the line on the existing restrictions for another few weeks (because, regardless of whether they are doing any good, getting rid of them when the patient count is still rising and the hospitals are screaming would appear callous,) but once we're clearly through peak Omicron they'll get rid of the lot and move to the endemic phase. That means extra help for very vulnerable people (e.g. in the form of the ready-at-home test kits and supply of antivirals that has already been established for the immuno-compromised) and, in most other respects, a return to the status quo ante-Covid.
There's no point in continuing to have a panoply of mitigations to try to control a disease that, on the scale of the general population at least, is clearly uncontrollable - especially given that, on top of that, the overwhelming majority of the population now has protection from prior infection and/or multiple vaccinations.
Your suggestion sounds like the Great Barrington declaration. Interesting to look at that again, it was pre-vaccine and says "Keeping these measures [lockdowns etc] in place until a vaccine is available... " - so even these guys were not fearful of state measures going beyond the advent of a vaccine.
My suggestion is based on a reading of the statistics coming out of numerous jurisdictions as the Omicron variant sweeps through them, which tends toward the conclusion that the restrictions are now useless. If one accepts such a conclusion then the abandonment of those restrictions logically follows.
The argument about whether or not to maintain some restrictions would doubtless be more nuanced if Omicron were somewhat less transmissible, and especially if it were also more deadly.
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
I think we are pretty close to concluding that only vaccines and ventilation matter, you can pretty much forget the rest.
Yes, there are increasing signs that the Dutch lockdown is failing against Omicron. The kind of cruel measures available to the Chinese might be capable of stopping this variant, but it would appear that there are no interventions that a liberal democracy can survive applying which can counter its extreme transmissibility.
New Zealand must be looking at Omicron and wondering how they can ever reconnect with the world
They can't. They have ~20 cases/day. Even highly vaxxed when they open up it will rip through an infection naïve population. They are not mentally ready for it and I'm not sure how they get there on purpose. Australia has got there but only because Omicron got through the border and they had no choice.
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn a nd axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
I have answered the vat question before
At 5% it is not a great help to the lower paid but it gives a 5% cut to the wealthy
The answer is for the treasury to make a one off payment to the lower paid and those on UC similar to the £300 winter fuel payment given to pensioners over 80
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn and axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
I expect Boris will cut it in time, though the eco friendly position would arguably be to keep VAT on fuel and help cut energy use
Thank you for your answer. Your answer is wrong on many levels I think.
First Point being, U turn earlier it’s less remembered as a U turn. If you are known as U Turn politician your authority seeps away, because why believe someone with track record for U turning when they say they won’t?
Actually I don’t think Boris should surrender as you think on the point he is making, I have a feeling Boris is right in that cutting fuel Vat benefits a lot of people who don’t need the benefit even though it doesn’t stop Daily’s mail and mirror bogusly claiming Xx families helped. Cutting the fuel Vat seems a glib position from lazy opposition who don’t have smarter attack lines. I say glib and lazy from opposition because I think it makes a more complicated issue, as you suggest of green levies sound more straightforward than it is.
Tough on “heat or eat” situations by being tough on real causes of “heat or eat” situations and that is this government is going to end up with a tax and waste reputation. If I say Boris is a High Tax High Spend politician, I’m right aren’t I. The next part of the equation is how much waste of tax payer money is going on.
I am disappointed in Ed Davey and all opposition today, you see I could have done better myself linking fuel poverty to high taxes and waste?
The severity of the crisis is such that he is going to need to target some serious relief at those in fuel poverty, AND at the same time find something more modest to throw to everyone. The obvious candidate for the latter is VAT on fuel, and he seems to be boxing himself into a corner from which the only way out will be yet another clownish u-turn, handing both his backbenchers and the opposition a victory unnecessarily.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They didn't say that. They said 'On assumption X and assumption Y etc etc our model shows this result', and they emphasised the uncertainties in all those assumptions. We now know more, and the assumptions were, as it turned out, pessimistic, luckily. But also, we didn't only have plan B, we had plan B with a massive effort to get boosters into arms, and we also had quite a large self-imposed semi-lockdown arising from the public's wish to avoid cancelling their Xmas arrangements.
The attempt by many, most notably Fraser Nelson, to politicise this is a disgrace.
Really? I'll tell you what's a disgrace, tyrannical scientists trying to prolong this nonsense one second longer than was necessary.
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
I think we are pretty close to concluding that only vaccines and ventilation matter, you can pretty much forget the rest.
Yes, there are increasing signs that the Dutch lockdown is failing against Omicron. The kind of cruel measures available to the Chinese might be capable of stopping this variant, but it would appear that there are no interventions that a liberal democracy can survive applying which can counter its extreme transmissibility.
New Zealand must be looking at Omicron and wondering how they can ever reconnect with the world
They can't. They have ~20 cases/day. Even highly vaxxed when they open up it will rip through an infection naïve population. They are not mentally ready for it and I'm not sure how they get there on purpose. Australia has got there but only because Omicron got through the border and they had no choice.
Have to go Viagra hard lockdown like the Chinese.....
I wonder what the F1 circus is thinking, looking at everything going on with the tennis players. There’s only a couple of hundred tennis players, against a couple of thousand who travel with F1.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They didn't say that. They said 'On assumption X and assumption Y etc etc our model shows this result', and they emphasised the uncertainties in all those assumptions. We now know more, and the assumptions were, as it turned out, pessimistic, luckily. But also, we didn't only have plan B, we had plan B with a massive effort to get boosters into arms, and we also had quite a large self-imposed semi-lockdown arising from the public's wish to avoid cancelling their Xmas arrangements.
The attempt by many, most notably Fraser Nelson, to politicise this is a disgrace.
Really? I'll tell you what's a disgrace, tyrannical scientists trying to prolong this nonsense one second longer than was necessary.
Four protesters have been found not guilty of causing criminal damage after toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court cleared Rhian Graham, 30, Jake Skuse, 33, Sage Willoughby, 22 and Milo Ponsford, 26, of charges, following a trial that lasted two weeks.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They didn't say that. They said 'On assumption X and assumption Y etc etc our model shows this result', and they emphasised the uncertainties in all those assumptions. We now know more, and the assumptions were, as it turned out, pessimistic, luckily. But also, we didn't only have plan B, we had plan B with a massive effort to get boosters into arms, and we also had quite a large self-imposed semi-lockdown arising from the public's wish to avoid cancelling their Xmas arrangements.
The attempt by many, most notably Fraser Nelson, to politicise this is a disgrace.
That's not true, the reduction from 6 months to 3 months was done well in advance of the models and the government opening up the taps on boosters was also done before the models. Look at PB's guessing game, we actually got the peak of the booster programme pretty bloody close on aggregate. These inputs should all already have been taken into account.
Additionally, that's what the modelling is for. That they didn't predict that - no people won't want to ruin their Xmas by having COVID so will probably stay away from places they could get it - is why their numbers are so out of step with reality. That's exactly what they're supposed to be predicting. You're letting them off the hook, but they've literally failed to do their jobs properly.
So I think you need to actually look at what happened, not this made up scenario where everything they got wrong can be excused.
That's a circular argument, the models said if we only stick to plan b then we'd have 600-6000 deaths per day and 3000 non-incidental hospital admissions per day peaking at somewhere between 60k and 100k. We only have plan b and those predictions are clearly incorrect.
They didn't say that. They said 'On assumption X and assumption Y etc etc our model shows this result', and they emphasised the uncertainties in all those assumptions. We now know more, and the assumptions were, as it turned out, pessimistic, luckily. But also, we didn't only have plan B, we had plan B with a massive effort to get boosters into arms, and we also had quite a large self-imposed semi-lockdown arising from the public's wish to avoid cancelling their Xmas arrangements.
The attempt by many, most notably Fraser Nelson, to politicise this is a disgrace.
Really? I'll tell you what's a disgrace, tyrannical scientists trying to prolong this nonsense one second longer than was necessary.
My hyperbole klaxon just went into overdrive.
They are not "tyrannical scientists" ffs. Sounds like the language of the anti-vaxxers. They have erred (not in a Boris Johnson sense) on the side of caution. That is how they view their job. They have probably got it wrong, but calling them "tyrannical scientists" just makes you look silly.
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
I think we are pretty close to concluding that only vaccines and ventilation matter, you can pretty much forget the rest.
Yes, there are increasing signs that the Dutch lockdown is failing against Omicron. The kind of cruel measures available to the Chinese might be capable of stopping this variant, but it would appear that there are no interventions that a liberal democracy can survive applying which can counter its extreme transmissibility.
New Zealand must be looking at Omicron and wondering how they can ever reconnect with the world
They can't. They have ~20 cases/day. Even highly vaxxed when they open up it will rip through an infection naïve population. They are not mentally ready for it and I'm not sure how they get there on purpose. Australia has got there but only because Omicron got through the border and they had no choice.
At some point they will have to go for it although does Jacinda Ardern have the political guts, she has enjoyed the adulation but could she cope with 10,000+ cases per day
Djokovic still stuck at airport. He's not getting in is he? State government denying they gave it the OK. Says it's very much a Federal issue. Some questions about visa too.
Who was it who gave him the impression he would be able to get in?
He passed an medical panel anonymously apparently. As did a handful of others among 26 who applied. But we don't know who they are. Apparently, though, this exemption isn't covered by his visa status. Looks like the tennis authorities have cocked this up. But Novak loves to be a martyr. As proved by the fact he went public beforehand.
Seems as though his tour of Australia will be even less successful than England’s. They at least made it out of the airport.
England had a better start this morning and took 3 Australian wickets.
It is possible they could win their first Test in Australia since 2011
There's a time and a place for jury nullification, it's part of the reason why we have juries and not judges.
If I were in the jury for a driver who'd nudged an XR protestor with their car then I'd be attracted to nullification in those circumstances as I'm sure would many of those bemoaning nullification for the BLM protestors.
Comments
Djokovic went public. Seems much murkier than at first glance
Unfortunately I much prefer the PB.com site with the latest posts at the top of the comments section. I may have to lump it though.
But bad for Boris? Maybe, maybe not. He's got the top job he coveted, and I doubt he would have got there by a more conventional path. And whilst I'd die quite a bit daily if I turned out to be as howlingly terrible at my dream gig as Boris has... that just shows that I don't have the temperament to be Prime Minister.
I had a similar issue some months ago. After initial bewilderment, I got used to it.
Never went back.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1478339810913931264
Rhian is a common (edit: frequent) enough Welsh name. Guess what is on the other side of the bridges from Bristol? Lots and lots of Welsh folk.
Did you listen to similarly edited excerpts for all of his predecessors over the past half century, in order to make a meaningful comparison, or what?
Not a gamble I'd take.
The models are all predicting hospitalisations for COVID - not including those who turn up for other issues (like my mum who had an ear infection while also having COVID).
I'm actually glad to admit that my prediction of 1/10 people being infected being impossible was wrong, clearly we've got there in London. What's different is that vast majority of those people are experiencing no symptoms, a nothing cough or a bit of sneezing. If we'd ever had 1/10 of London infected with Delta we'd have been in serious trouble.
Pretty much the way it has always been.
Northern Ireland: 2,479.3
Wales: 2,362.9
Scotland: 1,908.5
England: 1,646.2
I don't know whether to take these or the ONS prevalence estimates (which invert the table and put England a little bit ahead and Northern Ireland a little bit behind) more seriously - but, regardless, it's quite something that the effect of all those supposedly vital extra restrictions imposed by the devolved administrations is less than obvious (for which, read "invisible") in this data set.
"Boris Johnson took 4 minutes to answer a question from David at the press conference.
46 er seconds er of er it er was er this…"
Do you have comprehension problems, or are you just being perverse ?
It was quite popular in the Southern States of the US in the Goode Olde Days.
My God - Solicitors, eh?
I've just been quoted £600 + VAT to provide a legal opinion on a two-page Declaration of Trust involving one freehold house. How many hours (minutes more like) are they going to spend on it?
Grrr!
"A former Labour peer has been found guilty of sexual offences against two children in the 1970s.
Lord Ahmed of Rotherham was convicted of a serious sexual assault against a boy and the attempted rape of a young girl."
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn and axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
Incidentals are tricky, too. For some Covid contracted in hospital will be minor and arguably should not be included. Others will get a servere enough case that they stay longer or would have been admitted if not already in hospital. That doesn't come out in original cause for admission. It might come out through looking at e.g. primary diagnosis or consultant main specialty (or treatment specialty) of finished consultant episodes*, but that's a less trivial analysis.
You'd think that most incidental Covid infections would, like most Covid infections, be minor. But people in hospital are mostly old and sick, so a largeish number might actually end up having treatment for Covid too.
*Hospital data are arranged in finished consultant episodes - periods of care under a single consultant. Most people have only one FCE per admission, but you can have more. Someone with a broken leg who subsequently gets Covid bad enough to received treatment for it would likely get a second FCE under a consultant in respiratory illness, so that would come out in the data. But these are the level of data reported to NHS for payment each year, these levels of data are not necessarily accessible in real time.)
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/scapegoat
I suspect 26 deportations coming tomorrow.
Its a good job they stopped a few Brits driving through France on the way to Spain...
I agree that, in general, the model inputs were overly pessimistic. Certainly with hindsight. Some were obvious at the time, as you pointed out at the time.
Modelling, like guessing what a company's sales are going to be, is much easier with hindsight!
Let me spell it out for you, as you seem to have problems understanding:
(1) It was obvious to me that this was just bits of Johnson's reply edited together to make him look more stupid than he is. That was why my first comment was to question what the point was of posting this crap.
(2) It was equally obvious that some readers here thought it was an unedited extract from his reply, despite the evidence.
(3) As for whether Mike Smithson realised what it was, that is what my questions to him were aimed to clarify. I agree that it should have been clear to him. But I don't agree that his comments are consistent with that. Particularly the comment about not being able to remember Johnson's predecessors being similarly lost for words. Because he wouldn't have remembered that unless someone had edited their words in a similar way.
So please try to think a bit more before defending posting rubbish like this without making it clear what it is.
NB. Don't forget the distance American soldiers traveled to pull down a statue of Saddam
They made the same mistakes with the summer unlockdown, there' just been no feedback loop where they sit down and improve their real world validation. After their summer of failure one would have hoped they'd go back and fix what they got wrong, instead they went the other way and used knowingly incorrect inputs in severity, vaccine efficacy and likely population immunity levels. Using the same severity and hospitalisation intensity (for lack of a better term) as Delta really looks like cooking the books, it was pointed out at the time as well and we got that ridiculous explanation that the models only look at "policy making scenarios" rather than using most likely inputs. We knew from the South African data that Omicron was good at infecting people but not very good at giving them severe enough symptoms to send them to hospital. Ignoring that is why the politicians ignored their doom mongering.
There's no point in continuing to have a panoply of mitigations to try to control a disease that, on the scale of the general population at least, is clearly uncontrollable - especially given that, on top of that, the overwhelming majority of the population now has protection from prior infection and/or multiple vaccinations.
Apparently, though, this exemption isn't covered by his visa status.
Looks like the tennis authorities have cocked this up.
But Novak loves to be a martyr. As proved by the fact he went public beforehand.
There just doesn't seem to be any feedback loop, or if there is one then it feels like the dissenters are simply ignored because they're going against whatever the agenda is. I've been inside teams where that happened, it leads to really bad decisions being made.
😍
John Stevens
@johnestevens
· 2h
Boris Johnson twice says the warm homes discount is “£140 a week”
It’s obviously £140 a year
First Point being, U turn earlier it’s less remembered as a U turn. If you are known as U Turn politician your authority seeps away, because why believe someone with track record for U turning when they say they won’t?
Actually I don’t think Boris should surrender as you think on the point he is making, I have a feeling Boris is right in that cutting fuel Vat benefits a lot of people who don’t need the benefit even though it doesn’t stop Daily’s mail and mirror bogusly claiming Xx families helped. Cutting the fuel Vat seems a glib position from lazy opposition who don’t have smarter attack lines. I say glib and lazy from opposition because I think it makes a more complicated issue, as you suggest of green levies sound more straightforward than it is.
Tough on “heat or eat” situations by being tough on real causes of “heat or eat” situations and that is this government is going to end up with a tax and waste reputation. If I say Boris is a High Tax High Spend politician, I’m right aren’t I. The next part of the equation is how much waste of tax payer money is going on.
I am disappointed in Ed Davey and all opposition today, you see I could have done better myself linking fuel poverty to high taxes and waste?
You can say the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered the First World War, whilst accepting that there were deeper and wider issues at play which means the War wasn't about that.
It's interesting that the Colston toppling was triggered by events from so far away, but it is also true that Bristol as a city had decades to defuse a simmering issue and didn't take some fairly basic steps to do so.
The attempt by many, most notably Fraser Nelson, to politicise this is a disgrace.
The issue was that the organisation who held responsible for the keeping of the statue were disputing the exact wording.
The argument about whether or not to maintain some restrictions would doubtless be more nuanced if Omicron were somewhat less transmissible, and especially if it were also more deadly.
At 5% it is not a great help to the lower paid but it gives a 5% cut to the wealthy
The answer is for the treasury to make a one off payment to the lower paid and those on UC similar to the £300 winter fuel payment given to pensioners over 80
Additionally, that's what the modelling is for. That they didn't predict that - no people won't want to ruin their Xmas by having COVID so will probably stay away from places they could get it - is why their numbers are so out of step with reality. That's exactly what they're supposed to be predicting. You're letting them off the hook, but they've literally failed to do their jobs properly.
So I think you need to actually look at what happened, not this made up scenario where everything they got wrong can be excused.
They are not "tyrannical scientists" ffs. Sounds like the language of the anti-vaxxers. They have erred (not in a Boris Johnson sense) on the side of caution. That is how they view their job. They have probably got it wrong, but calling them "tyrannical scientists" just makes you look silly.
It is possible they could win their first Test in Australia since 2011
If I were in the jury for a driver who'd nudged an XR protestor with their car then I'd be attracted to nullification in those circumstances as I'm sure would many of those bemoaning nullification for the BLM protestors.
What's sauce for the goose ...