In my previous home town of Horsham there used to be a vile piece of public 'art', a hideous fountain known as 'the malteser'. It was like a large crusty eyeball that tottered upwards as it gushed water out of its lower portions. It was far more offensive than 10 Edward Colstons dancing a nude jig. I would have liked someone to criminally damage it (in fact I believe someone did attach chains to it and drag it away once, only for it to be repaired at the taxpayers' expense). It only went eventually because the costs of repair and maintenance became untenable. I would have a lot of sympathy with someone taking it upon themselves to get rid of it. However, it would still have been criminal damage.
Yes. Even uglier than I remember it. The really bad thing was, it was meant to commemorate Shelley, but it was just a repurposed design with a plaque of one of his poems tacked on. A figurative statue of the man would have been a million times better in terms of actually attracting fans of the poet to the town. Very few of whom are likely to have come to have a photo taken standing in front of an enormous gushing lychee. The Lib Dems were responsible for its creation and it's protracted reign of terror.
That is fucking hideous, right down to the mud-brown colour. Jeez Louise
It was even worse in motion. The 'gush' bit only lasted a second, after that it rose ponderously with just drips that didn't cover the ugly runners beneath. The Lib Dems actually had the stones to defend it on the basis that if it came down it would be undermining the town's connection with Shelley, as if it ever had anything to do with him. Interestingly, the artist behind the design was heavily patronised by the late Duke of Devonshire, and there is (was?) a large collection of her gruesome waterworks at Chatsworth.
Yes, it's awful but gets worse. Braverman starts her tweet by saying: Trial by jury is an important guardian of liberty and must not be undermined. She then goes on to do precisely that; her next word is "However...." I'm not sure this is a well-judged intervention; I don't think juries will be seen as fair game in any culture war she wants to provoke.
What's the problem? She's been quite clear: legal experts know that this trial doesn't set a precedent that can be relied upon in future, but your average rioter doesn't, and may take this judgment to mean they are at liberty to simply take out any statue they don't like the look of. Therefore, she is referring it for clarification. As I believe she is entitled to do, especially given the publicity over the case.
Let's be honest, if it was a hypothetical situation of a bunch of racists who took down a statue of Nelson Mandela and were cleared under the same circumstances, we wouldn't be hearing much about the jury's sacrosanct right and why is the Government appealing the decision from those most outraged.
The principle doesn't count, it's whether your side won.
PS I agree with you, the AG has the perfect right to do this. In the above circumstance, I bet these same people would criticise her if she did NOT take action.
Your "fully accept the verdict" has not quite made the 24 hours mark.
Yes, it's awful but gets worse. Braverman starts her tweet by saying: Trial by jury is an important guardian of liberty and must not be undermined. She then goes on to do precisely that; her next word is "However...." I'm not sure this is a well-judged intervention; I don't think juries will be seen as fair game in any culture war she wants to provoke.
What's the problem? She's been quite clear: legal experts know that this trial doesn't set a precedent that can be relied upon in future, but your average rioter doesn't, and may take this judgment to mean they are at liberty to simply take out any statue they don't like the look of. Therefore, she is referring it for clarification. As I believe she is entitled to do, especially given the publicity over the case.
Let's be honest, if it was a hypothetical situation of a bunch of racists who took down a statue of Nelson Mandela and were cleared under the same circumstances, we wouldn't be hearing much about the jury's sacrosanct right and why is the Government appealing the decision from those most outraged.
The principle doesn't count, it's whether your side won.
PS I agree with you, the AG has the perfect right to do this. In the above circumstance, I bet these same people would criticise her if she did NOT take action.
With all due respect, that's bollocks.
I'm ambivalent on this case. I think the defendents were lucky, but I'm not particularly bothered by them being acquitted. In your hypothetical, I'd be sad that they were acquitted and might think badly of the jury. In both cases I'd remain a supporter of the jury trial process and not be calling for the government to appeal (which they cannot) or change anything.
Actually, forget the hypothetical. Let's take, in the US, the guy who took arms to a protest/riot and killed some people. I'm uneasy with the fact that he faced no sanction for his actions, but I don't blame the jury and I strongly believe that, acquitted, he should have his freedom. On the specific charges, it's not even clear to me that he was guilty under the law (I didn't follow very closely). I do think someone who takes guns to a protest/riot apparently looking for trouble should be guilty of something, but that's the law as it stands in the States.
Australia has cancelled the visa of Czech tennis player Renata Voracova, who had entered the country to play in the Australian Open. She is being held in the same hotel as Serbian star Novak Djokovic, who is appealing the cancellation of his visa.
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
If Winston went down the far right would go up to London the next day ready for a fight with the far left. It really would kick off.
Boris would have to have him put him back up straight away as the Tory party would also be mad
Is it really far left who always been itching to tear down Tory statues? Maybe saying woke is far left politics is a bit confused about it?
If you can imagine tit for tat statue tear down, you have to concede tit for tat statue put ups in first place don’t you?
I have one hell of hangover I feel like I want to be edgy and confrontational this afternoon. Who wants some 😈
Certainly the PB statue-lovers have been uncharacteristically silent when it comes to the statue of R. Bruce at Bannockburn and its vandalism. Can't be on artistic grounds as it is a perfectly respectable representative sculpture. And it is Royal too so it can't be that (he was ancestor of HMtQ and Ms Markle). There must be some factor that escapes me. Can't think what.
If the government were clever they would pass a law that allows the government to sue statue attackers in the civil courts for the cost of putting it right.
Much more likely to achieve the deterrent aim that way, and 99% more likelihood of success legally.
Nah, if the government were clever they would stay out of the whole debate and worry about their own shit.
Statue-bothering is already a worse criminal offence than rape, in terms of the max sentence.
Probably much more likely to go to trial too (at least part of which is due to evidence being much easier to gather - CCTV near most statues, I expect, multiple witnesses etc)
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
In my previous home town of Horsham there used to be a vile piece of public 'art', a hideous fountain known as 'the malteser'. It was like a large crusty eyeball that tottered upwards as it gushed water out of its lower portions. It was far more offensive than 10 Edward Colstons dancing a nude jig. I would have liked someone to criminally damage it (in fact I believe someone did attach chains to it and drag it away once, only for it to be repaired at the taxpayers' expense). It only went eventually because the costs of repair and maintenance became untenable. I would have a lot of sympathy with someone taking it upon themselves to get rid of it. However, it would still have been criminal damage.
Yes. Even uglier than I remember it. The really bad thing was, it was meant to commemorate Shelley, but it was just a repurposed design with a plaque of one of his poems tacked on. A figurative statue of the man would have been a million times better in terms of actually attracting fans of the poet to the town. Very few of whom are likely to have come to have a photo taken standing in front of an enormous gushing lychee. The Lib Dems were responsible for its creation and it's protracted reign of terror.
That is fucking hideous, right down to the mud-brown colour. Jeez Louise
It was even worse in motion. The 'gush' bit only lasted a second, after that it rose ponderously with just drips that didn't cover the ugly runners beneath. The Lib Dems actually had the stones to defend it on the basis that if it came down it would be undermining the town's connection with Shelley, as if it ever had anything to do with him. Interestingly, the artist behind the design was heavily patronised by the late Duke of Devonshire, and there is (was?) a large collection of her gruesome waterworks at Chatsworth.
Her gruesome waterworks? A performance art piece?
Have a look at the statue of his mum-in-law referenced a little earlier ...
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
I don't think this case sets any firm precedent let alone one that would protect somebody toppling Winnie. Colston in Bristol was a very particular situation. The way I look at it is that Not Guilty was the technical verdict but Justifiable Homocide was in effect found. That's a rare occurrence. It needs extremely strong mitigating circumstances. They were judged to be so here.
I think the chances of Churchill being hauled down were zero before this verdict and zero afterwards. Fears of some kind of iconoclastic holocaust exist only in the minds of reactionaries. Whatever you might think of Churchill's role in the Bengal famine, gassing the Kurds, Galipoli, turning the army on the British working class or indeed his general racism and hatred of organised labour, the fact is that he led the country to victory in WW2 after facing down appeasement in his own party and for that reason his statue will stay up indefinitely.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
If the government were clever they would pass a law that allows the government to sue statue attackers in the civil courts for the cost of putting it right.
Much more likely to achieve the deterrent aim that way, and 99% more likelihood of success legally.
Nah, if the government were clever they would stay out of the whole debate and worry about their own shit.
Statue-bothering is already a worse criminal offence than rape, in terms of the max sentence.
Probably much more likely to go to trial too (at least part of which is due to evidence being much easier to gather - CCTV near most statues, I expect, multiple witnesses etc)
Not as if the defence can bully the victim, is it?
Not noticed this but I've not had time to read Private Eye yet
Private Eye Magazine @PrivateEyeNews · 1h Radioactive sign We’re throwing money at French firm EDF to build our nuclear reactors. But the only operational model of their design suffered damaged fuel rods and a radioactive leak last year, causing France itself to halt any more construction. Full story in the new Eye, in shops now. Radioactive sign
We need those RR mini-reactors by the looks of things.
Tbf we're not throwing money at the French. Hinckley Point C is fully funded by EDF and the state Chinese nuclear corporation. The deal is that they would get guaranteed above market rate prices for electricity generated. If it never generates electricity they never get paid.
Isn't going to be the deal for Sizewell, though. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/business/great-britain-china-nuclear-power.html ...EDF, which is majority owned by the French government, says it can’t afford to pay the project’s costs upfront and wants to reduce its 80 percent stake to a minority holding to make room for other investors.
The arrangement being considered would allow investors to obtain an immediate return on the capital they spent on the plant through surcharges on energy bills. Pension funds, university endowments and similar investors would most likely be attracted by predictable, long-term revenue streams, analysts said..
From posts this morning, it's clear that the axiomatic obsession with 'cases' continues largely unabated in some circles.
Ha.
While the boosters have further disconnected COVID cases from hospitalisation and deaths (and Omicron itself seems to have had some effect), it is clear that a numbers of people are getting sick and dying.
It is beginning to look as if we *may* be able to get through this wave without Italy style medical collapse, but it won't be jolly in the hospitals for a while.
3.5m infections in England (mostly Omicron) has resulted in somewhere around 8-9k in hospital for COVID in England and a further 6-8k with COVID. The infection hospitalisation rate must be miniscule. We're talking maybe 0.2% of infected people requiring an overnight stay in hospital for Omicron.
The biggest threat to hospitals is isolation rules. Making people who are perfectly fine stay home for at least 7 days is why the NHS is under pressure right now.
That's interesting, because when I did my back-of-a-fag-packet, Not A Mathematician, exercise the the other day, I ended up with ~0.2% IHR too. I thought it too low to be true, but maybe you are right. I would certainly trust your numbers over my own amateurish efforts.
Presumably not allowing for any time-lag between positive test and hospitalisation?
Allowing for a 10-day time-lag it's more like 1.9%, as a percentage of positive tests. Almost exactly what it was in bad old days of Delta
With a ten day lag, and using the ONS infections estimates for infections, and the hospital admissions for England multiplied by the ratio of "in hospital primarily for covid/all hospital beds occupied with covid" rate published today [This will give too high a rate of IHR in times when the incidentals rate is climbing and too low a rate when it is falling, but as it was relatively constant for a prolonged period prior to this time and this would cause the IHR to err towards being too high rather than too low at the moment is thus an overconservative adjustment], I get this:
0.2% – that's what Max said upthread. I'm buried in work but popped back in to see whether Chris' claim that the IHR rate for Omicron was the same that for Delta had been debunked yet?
Chris has done his usual thing of applying hard maths on covid numbers and then said - refute this, we are all going to die tomorrow. What has changed (again) is that the reported cases have now substantially decoupled from the true level of infection. Whereas for delta we might have been finding 1 in 2 of the new cases, it may be as little as 1 in 7 now, as a result of extremely mild infections (thanks vaccines, and omicron). So that's why his numbers, although correct for the data and choices her has used, are not a true reflection of the situation.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
Could you not equally draw the conclusion that a lot of people have covid, and so the number in hospital "with covid" will naturally be shooting up at the same rate as the overall infection rate. i.e. Covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation in the cases that they have labelled "covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" - people with broken legs are just more likely to have covid.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
I wonder who would best write that bit of irony- that a successful campaign to leave the EU ends up locking the UK into the Eurosystem even more tightly than before.
But a rapid shift is a problem for Starmer as well. His (loud) Make Brexit Work (quiet) by diluting it (for nothing else can, surely?) is a neat bit of positioning. If the Will Of The People moves too quickly to strong rejoin (big if, it may not happen at all), Starmer could find himself in a barrel he can't control.
The government appealing the Colston verdict for 'clarification' isn't likely to provide anything useful imo. The verdict was (effectively) the jury saying that the statue was so offensive that the ad hoc pulling of it down was justified. I can't see we'll be getting a written definition of how offensive a statue has to be in order to meet this test. Maybe we will but I doubt it. I think you just have to judge each case on its merits. Which is in general what juries are meant to do.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Covid anecdote time. At the end of our road live(d) an elderly, stridently anti-vax and anti-mask couple. Have been involved in protests on the high street about the vaccination of children. Called masks 'face-nappies'.
We had thought something was up before Christmas (curtains drawn etc).
I've now found out that the woman contracted covid, passed it on to her husband, who has now died of it.
I'm sad for him, as he was genuinely a nice chap, but the anti-vax bollix really wound me up, so much that I shouted at them in the high street from my car (they were using NHS yellow card reports out of context and with no understanding).
I don't like to think ill of people, but I wonder if she is having second thoughts about the vaccine now?
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
I wonder who would best write that bit of irony- that a successful campaign to leave the EU ends up locking the UK into the Eurosystem even more tightly than before.
But a rapid shift is a problem for Starmer as well. His (loud) Make Brexit Work (quiet) by diluting it (for nothing else can, surely?) is a neat bit of positioning. If the Will Of The People moves too quickly to strong rejoin (big if, it may not happen at all), Starmer could find himself in a barrel he can't control.
In such circumstances he would just need one likely veto from across the EU to make that issue moot. Wouldnt be hard to find if desired, in fact it will be tough to avoid.
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
It is not, thankfully. What they can do is ask the Court of Appeal to clarify the law as it applies to such a situation.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what it becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that
As I’ve said before I reckon this is all highly unlikely - but not impossible. There will be a sweet spot some time this decade when Labour might bring it off. Imagine the UK is really struggling and the EU is not. Public opinion is 65/35 in favour of Rejoin. A window of opportunity opens..
By 2030 we will be used to our independence and so different from the EU Rejoin will seem absurd, and far too painful
Drakeford "He said the latest figures suggested staff absences from illness and isolation across the NHS were 8.3% in Wales, as high as 16.5% in some NHS organisations."
I've just done a quick bit of maths, 16.7% of our org have Covid. All working (From home). I'm in for some stock take today..
The government appealing the Colston verdict for 'clarification' isn't likely to provide anything useful imo. The verdict was (effectively) the jury saying that the statue was so offensive that the ad hoc pulling of it down was justified. I can't see we'll be getting a written definition of how offensive a statue has to be in order to meet this test. Maybe we will but I doubt it. I think you just have to judge each case on its merits. Which is in general what juries are meant to do.
Suella DeVille should be allowed to adjudicate politically sensitive cases like a stipendiary magistrate or Lord Geidt. That way we always get the correct result.
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
You'd be wanting a clinical trial grade of evidence, no? Too many cross-correlations to rely on raw data, however. And no sane medic would put half the patients in the 'wrong' side with such a whacking disparity in anaesthesia outcomes.
Hmmmm
"Hi, I would like to run a clinical study. Half the patients will have their COVID ignored and we will go ahead with the operations, to see what happens. Yes, that increased their risk of death by 10x earlier in the epidemic. I hope it will be all fine now."
Surely we can see what the outcomes are for covid incidentals (in separate wards) versus non-covid patients? It strikes me that we must have that data already, we can actually analyse it, without changing any policy now.
Doesn't work, because there are so many potential biases. You MUST have proper balanced random sampling. And allocate the patients BEFORE you do the study. Justr saying we'll compare that lot with that lot because they are in different wards won't do. For one thing, I would expect that the age distribution of people with seriously harmful covid is going to differ from those with asymptomatic covid, so that's a confounding factor right there.
Not only that, but knowing that there was a large risk associated with anaesthetic when unvaccinated means they will be less likely to want to operate on someone who has Covid now, so the people they do operate on now who have Covid are likely to be those who are more unwell, where the surgery is more urgent, and so are likely to be at greater risk of complications from surgery for that reason.
The only clinical situation you can probably gather the data from is trauma patients undergoing emergency surgery, whose Covid and vaccination status is only determined later. Until this Omicron wave came along the rate of infection probably wasn't high enough to generate useful statistics, but that's where I'd look.
Vandalising statues is barbaric, and a jury endorsing mob rule is not an edifying spectacle.
Afternoon, Mr Dancer!
Completely coincidentally I have bought de Bedoyere's new history of the Roman Army, which has by a train of thought reminded me of the classical world more generally, and its little quirk. Some statues of Aphrodite were supposed to be so erotic in Ancient Greece that some of their devotees couldn't restrain their excitement. No idea if that is true, but it certainly adds a new dimension to statue-bothering.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what it becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that
The Tories ought to have considered that before they made such an arse of Brexit.
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
You'd be wanting a clinical trial grade of evidence, no? Too many cross-correlations to rely on raw data, however. And no sane medic would put half the patients in the 'wrong' side with such a whacking disparity in anaesthesia outcomes.
Hmmmm
"Hi, I would like to run a clinical study. Half the patients will have their COVID ignored and we will go ahead with the operations, to see what happens. Yes, that increased their risk of death by 10x earlier in the epidemic. I hope it will be all fine now."
Surely we can see what the outcomes are for covid incidentals (in separate wards) versus non-covid patients? It strikes me that we must have that data already, we can actually analyse it, without changing any policy now.
Doesn't work, because there are so many potential biases. You MUST have proper balanced random sampling. And allocate the patients BEFORE you do the study. Justr saying we'll compare that lot with that lot because they are in different wards won't do. For one thing, I would expect that the age distribution of people with seriously harmful covid is going to differ from those with asymptomatic covid, so that's a confounding factor right there.
Not only that, but knowing that there was a large risk associated with anaesthetic when unvaccinated means they will be less likely to want to operate on someone who has Covid now, so the people they do operate on now who have Covid are likely to be those who are more unwell, where the surgery is more urgent, and so are likely to be at greater risk of complications from surgery for that reason.
The only clinical situation you can probably gather the data from is trauma patients undergoing emergency surgery, whose Covid and vaccination status is only determined later. Until this Omicron wave came along the rate of infection probably wasn't high enough to generate useful statistics, but that's where I'd look.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what it becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that
As I’ve said before I reckon this is all highly unlikely - but not impossible. There will be a sweet spot some time this decade when Labour might bring it off. Imagine the UK is really struggling and the EU is not. Public opinion is 65/35 in favour of Rejoin. A window of opportunity opens..
By 2030 we will be used to our independence and so different from the EU Rejoin will seem absurd, and far too painful
I doubt public opinion will ever get anywhere near 65% rejoin.
Had we gone to No Deal which crashed the economy it might have but we didn't
As noted in the article, the only question the Court of Appeal can consider is whether the judge's directions to the jury were correct. I'm not aware that anyone has suggested they aren't. So I am unclear on what a referral would achieve.
I heard one of them being interviewed last night and it made me happy that they had been found not guilty.
Had they been convicted, we would not have been able to hear so openly from them and it would therefore have remained far less clear just how silly, self-centred, shallow, stupid, and ignorant of history, precedent and the basic rules of justice in a democratic society these little twats are.
Now we all know and are surely better off for it.
I have the parallel view on keeping statues of reprobates where they are. Let their ignominy be shown for all to see.
While this is a superficially attractive approach, it begs the question why do we not put up statues of todays reprobates?
Jimmy Saville statue, anyone?
Obviously not. So why keep up the statues of yesteryears reprobates?
The museum solution is, I recon, the best way to deal with the problem. Let the interested parties fight it out over how to contextualise them.
Good points that I generally agree with. There's a nice historical irony about the Colston statue though. That statue was erected as a deliberate piece of PR - here's a great man, philanthropist, benefactor of Bristol, blah blah. So now it turns out to be off the backs of an evil trade, we get to hear about someone who would otherwise be forgotten.
Doesn't work if we know the individual to be bad from the off.
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
I don't think this case sets any firm precedent let alone one that would protect somebody toppling Winnie. Colston in Bristol was a very particular situation. The way I look at it is that Not Guilty was the technical verdict but Justifiable Homocide was in effect found. That's a rare occurrence. It needs extremely strong mitigating circumstances. They were judged to be so here.
I think the chances of Churchill being hauled down were zero before this verdict and zero afterwards. Fears of some kind of iconoclastic holocaust exist only in the minds of reactionaries. Whatever you might think of Churchill's role in the Bengal famine, gassing the Kurds, Galipoli, turning the army on the British working class or indeed his general racism and hatred of organised labour, the fact is that he led the country to victory in WW2 after facing down appeasement in his own party and for that reason his statue will stay up indefinitely.
Yes, it's nonsense. What's under sustained attack atm aren't our traditional values (however defined), it's integrity in our public life.
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
Could you not equally draw the conclusion that a lot of people have covid, and so the number in hospital "with covid" will naturally be shooting up at the same rate as the overall infection rate. i.e. Covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation in the cases that they have labelled "covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" - people with broken legs are just more likely to have covid.
Considering the numbers, around 25% of my hospitals inpatients have a covid confirmation. If 1 in 15 is taken as the prevalence of coincidental covid, then nearly 20% have more than coincidental covid. This is assuming that the hospital inpatients have the same demography as the prevalent cases. We know however that hospital patients are older, so have a lower age specific prevalence. As such I would say that in the vast majority of covid inpatients, covid is contributing to their admission.
Covid anecdote time. At the end of our road live(d) an elderly, stridently anti-vax and anti-mask couple. Have been involved in protests on the high street about the vaccination of children. Called masks 'face-nappies'.
We had thought something was up before Christmas (curtains drawn etc).
I've now found out that the woman contracted covid, passed it on to her husband, who has now died of it.
I'm sad for him, as he was genuinely a nice chap, but the anti-vax bollix really wound me up, so much that I shouted at them in the high street from my car (they were using NHS yellow card reports out of context and with no understanding).
I don't like to think ill of people, but I wonder if she is having second thoughts about the vaccine now?
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
No need to worry, the monarchy will be secure under Charles and William
In my previous home town of Horsham there used to be a vile piece of public 'art', a hideous fountain known as 'the malteser'. It was like a large crusty eyeball that tottered upwards as it gushed water out of its lower portions. It was far more offensive than 10 Edward Colstons dancing a nude jig. I would have liked someone to criminally damage it (in fact I believe someone did attach chains to it and drag it away once, only for it to be repaired at the taxpayers' expense). It only went eventually because the costs of repair and maintenance became untenable. I would have a lot of sympathy with someone taking it upon themselves to get rid of it. However, it would still have been criminal damage.
Yes. Even uglier than I remember it. The really bad thing was, it was meant to commemorate Shelley, but it was just a repurposed design with a plaque of one of his poems tacked on. A figurative statue of the man would have been a million times better in terms of actually attracting fans of the poet to the town. Very few of whom are likely to have come to have a photo taken standing in front of an enormous gushing lychee. The Lib Dems were responsible for its creation and it's protracted reign of terror.
That is fucking hideous, right down to the mud-brown colour. Jeez Louise
Figurative statues don't always satisfy a consensus (though why should they, I suppose?). Ms Wollstonecroft (aka Mrs P. B. Shelley) is perhaps more famous for her physical attributes than her intellectual output thanks to her statue.
Point of order: it was Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter who married Shelley. I've never seen the statue because I avoid North London on a point of principle but I have read the Vindication of the Rights of Women (or at least I've read bits of it, it's rather repetitive).
I'm not sure whether to flag this or not but one point to say when it comes to the fight for the women's vote pre-WW1 is the question of whether it was meant for all women or just those who were "respectable" enough to be able to vote. Pre-1918, the UK electoral franchise was actually the most restrictive of the major European countries / colonies when it came to the male vote - one third to 40% of men didn't have the right to vote and the franchise was underpinned by the idea that you had to be "respectable" enough usually by owning property.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what it becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that
The Tories ought to have considered that before they made such an arse of Brexit.
The argument is moot given that there is no reason to suppose that the EU would want us back.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
We had this discussion last night. I don't have strong feelings about getting rid of the monarchy, but if we did why do we have this big thing about what to replace it with. It is not as if the Queen actually runs the country currently. We have an executive that does that and they could carry on doing it.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
There is no state money, any legal funds would come from the Queen's private estate and Andrew selling his Swiss villa
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
Could you not equally draw the conclusion that a lot of people have covid, and so the number in hospital "with covid" will naturally be shooting up at the same rate as the overall infection rate. i.e. Covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation in the cases that they have labelled "covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" - people with broken legs are just more likely to have covid.
Considering the numbers, around 25% of my hospitals inpatients have a covid confirmation. If 1 in 15 is taken as the prevalence of coincidental covid, then nearly 20% have more than coincidental covid. This is assuming that the hospital inpatients have the same demography as the prevalent cases. We know however that hospital patients are older, so have a lower age specific prevalence. As such I would say that in the vast majority of covid inpatients, covid is contributing to their admission.
THanks. That's exactly the sort of assessment the discussion was needing, and with some points that had not been anticipated.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
The people in the IRA also tend to wear shoes when they walk around, so I expect you'll want to walk around barefoot from now on so as not to be confused with them.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
We had this discussion last night. I don't have strong feelings about getting rid of the monarchy, but if we did why do we have this big thing about what to replace it with. It is not as if the Queen actually runs the country currently. We have an executive that does that and they could carry on doing it.
The armed forces swear loyalty to the Queen not PM. The monarch is head of the armed forces as well as Head of State but the PM is effectively Head of Government in the UK.
A Head of State who is also Head of Government and head of the armed forces too has too much power
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
If Winston went down the far right would go up to London the next day ready for a fight with the far left. It really would kick off.
Boris would have to have him put him back up straight away as the Tory party would also be mad
Is it really far left who always been itching to tear down Tory statues? Maybe saying woke is far left politics is a bit confused about it?
If you can imagine tit for tat statue tear down, you have to concede tit for tat statue put ups in first place don’t you?
I have one hell of hangover I feel like I want to be edgy and confrontational this afternoon. Who wants some 😈
Who wants some 😈
Well in my opinion I think the left, like Marxists, being just a traditionalist as the right would love the statues to their own, like Marx, so would think again about tearing down a Churchill statue. Whilst a committee of wokists do you think would ever agree which stature should go up or stay up?
Anyone who thinks BLM and woke is simply far left I think might be missing something. And I don’t regard myself as woke! I just think it’s different and more subtle than far left label. AND not really that widespread and prevalent in community as made out. I’m Gen z and I don’t know any wokists.
Newspaper headlines declaring war on woke and statue bothering is comedy politics in my opinion. It’s making the political right look a bit out of touch, history book burners, and all round silly.
For example. Who posted yesterday “I still say bow de see her, because I’m a traditionalist” LOL. If it’s “traditional teaching of history with air brushing” then it’s not history is it? All history assess and then accept revisionist changes by peer review. Simples.
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
I don't think this case sets any firm precedent let alone one that would protect somebody toppling Winnie. Colston in Bristol was a very particular situation. The way I look at it is that Not Guilty was the technical verdict but Justifiable Homocide was in effect found. That's a rare occurrence. It needs extremely strong mitigating circumstances. They were judged to be so here.
I think the chances of Churchill being hauled down were zero before this verdict and zero afterwards. Fears of some kind of iconoclastic holocaust exist only in the minds of reactionaries. Whatever you might think of Churchill's role in the Bengal famine, gassing the Kurds, Galipoli, turning the army on the British working class or indeed his general racism and hatred of organised labour, the fact is that he led the country to victory in WW2 after facing down appeasement in his own party and for that reason his statue will stay up indefinitely.
Yes, it's nonsense. What's under sustained attack atm aren't our traditional values (however defined), it's integrity in our public life.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
45% wanting to rejoin is insanely high considering the absolute palaver it would be.
It isn't, it is 3% less than voted Remain even in 2016 and given 2/3 of constituencies voted Leave full rejoin is political suicide under FPTP
Of course it is, both because rejoining is a more dramatic proposition than remaining, and because what was a very significant gap between the proportion thinking Brexit is a bad idea and those wanting to rejoin has narrowed dramatically. That the rejoin percentage isn't far below the original remain percentage represents a significant shift in opinion
What proportion of those saying rejoin do we imagine believe that it's possible to rejoin in the same state that we left?
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
Could you not equally draw the conclusion that a lot of people have covid, and so the number in hospital "with covid" will naturally be shooting up at the same rate as the overall infection rate. i.e. Covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation in the cases that they have labelled "covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" - people with broken legs are just more likely to have covid.
It's the near vertical curves on those plots that suggest both lines are due to the epidemic. So you have the "for Covid" shooting up - no surprises there -but the "not primarily for Covid" line shooting up in tandem. If those hospitalisations are not primarily for Covid, what gives?
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
So does Donald Trump, but I am neither tying myself to him or the IRA, just President Boris.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
'as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate' - you say that like it's a bad thing...
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what it becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that
The Tories ought to have considered that before they made such an arse of Brexit.
The argument is moot given that there is no reason to suppose that the EU would want us back.
Yes there really is. Britain returning humbly to the EU would be the ultimate demonstration that leaving the EU is bad and stupid. Thus shoring up the whole Project
The EU is also significantly stronger with the UK inside, and of course it would benefit most traders
However it is quite unlikely to happen, for other reasons
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
I don't think this case sets any firm precedent let alone one that would protect somebody toppling Winnie. Colston in Bristol was a very particular situation. The way I look at it is that Not Guilty was the technical verdict but Justifiable Homocide was in effect found. That's a rare occurrence. It needs extremely strong mitigating circumstances. They were judged to be so here.
"Justifiable Homocide" sounds like a legal concept you would find in Iran.
Que? I'm just using it as an umbrella layman term which recognizes mitigating circs inc (eg) self defence. I'd be shocked if you don't recognize that as being valid sometimes. Don't have you down as a namby pamby pacifist type. Leave that to me and Nick Palmer.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
No need to worry, the monarchy will be secure under Charles and William
Queen Camilla, Kate or maybe even according to twitter Rose!!
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
I don't think this case sets any firm precedent let alone one that would protect somebody toppling Winnie. Colston in Bristol was a very particular situation. The way I look at it is that Not Guilty was the technical verdict but Justifiable Homocide was in effect found. That's a rare occurrence. It needs extremely strong mitigating circumstances. They were judged to be so here.
"Justifiable Homocide" sounds like a legal concept you would find in Iran.
Que? I'm just using it as an umbrella layman term which recognizes mitigating circs inc (eg) self defence. I'd be shocked if you don't recognize that as being valid sometimes. Don't have you down as a namby pamby pacifist type. Leave that to me and Nick Palmer.
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
You'd be wanting a clinical trial grade of evidence, no? Too many cross-correlations to rely on raw data, however. And no sane medic would put half the patients in the 'wrong' side with such a whacking disparity in anaesthesia outcomes.
Hmmmm
"Hi, I would like to run a clinical study. Half the patients will have their COVID ignored and we will go ahead with the operations, to see what happens. Yes, that increased their risk of death by 10x earlier in the epidemic. I hope it will be all fine now."
Surely we can see what the outcomes are for covid incidentals (in separate wards) versus non-covid patients? It strikes me that we must have that data already, we can actually analyse it, without changing any policy now.
Doesn't work, because there are so many potential biases. You MUST have proper balanced random sampling. And allocate the patients BEFORE you do the study. Justr saying we'll compare that lot with that lot because they are in different wards won't do. For one thing, I would expect that the age distribution of people with seriously harmful covid is going to differ from those with asymptomatic covid, so that's a confounding factor right there.
I feel like my last ten years* or so of work (which is basically doing as Anabobazina suggested) has been entirely invalidated.
It would be tricky and the results wouldn't stand up like a RCT (potential for lots of unobserved confounders) but there is still potential to do something useful. The better question perhaps is whether it's worth doing - the 'so what?' of the research. Say it shows there isn't much risk for incidental Covid admissions, what would that change? The patients would surely still go onto Covid-only wards (still a risk to others) and likely have non-essential treatment delayed anyway (risks to clinicians etc, risks from further spread from being e.g. wheeled to theatre).
*Part of my early career was spent on NEWS (National Early Warning Score) and more complex models for predicting which patients in hospital were at risk of adverse outcomes (death, cardiac arrest, ICU admission) within the next 24 hours. The models worked very well, in spite of the ultimate counfounder that clinicians kept intervening with sick patients (hopefully, in some cases at least, preventing adverse outcomes) and we could not control for those interventions in the models. So, either there was massive confounding or clinicians were essentially powerless to change outcomes anyway. If the latter then the whole thing was a massive waste of time (no point in flagging up patients at risk of adverse outcomes if no intervention will help!)
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
Could you not equally draw the conclusion that a lot of people have covid, and so the number in hospital "with covid" will naturally be shooting up at the same rate as the overall infection rate. i.e. Covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation in the cases that they have labelled "covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" - people with broken legs are just more likely to have covid.
Considering the numbers, around 25% of my hospitals inpatients have a covid confirmation. If 1 in 15 is taken as the prevalence of coincidental covid, then nearly 20% have more than coincidental covid. This is assuming that the hospital inpatients have the same demography as the prevalent cases. We know however that hospital patients are older, so have a lower age specific prevalence. As such I would say that in the vast majority of covid inpatients, covid is contributing to their admission.
THanks. That's exactly the sort of assessment the discussion was needing, and with some points that had not been anticipated.
Though if a large percentage acquired it in hospital, it gets more complicated. Are these significant? Possibly so, and it would be an indication of a real problem for uninfected but immunosuppressed patients coming in for example for cancer treatment.
In my previous home town of Horsham there used to be a vile piece of public 'art', a hideous fountain known as 'the malteser'. It was like a large crusty eyeball that tottered upwards as it gushed water out of its lower portions. It was far more offensive than 10 Edward Colstons dancing a nude jig. I would have liked someone to criminally damage it (in fact I believe someone did attach chains to it and drag it away once, only for it to be repaired at the taxpayers' expense). It only went eventually because the costs of repair and maintenance became untenable. I would have a lot of sympathy with someone taking it upon themselves to get rid of it. However, it would still have been criminal damage.
Yes. Even uglier than I remember it. The really bad thing was, it was meant to commemorate Shelley, but it was just a repurposed design with a plaque of one of his poems tacked on. A figurative statue of the man would have been a million times better in terms of actually attracting fans of the poet to the town. Very few of whom are likely to have come to have a photo taken standing in front of an enormous gushing lychee. The Lib Dems were responsible for its creation and it's protracted reign of terror.
That is fucking hideous, right down to the mud-brown colour. Jeez Louise
Figurative statues don't always satisfy a consensus (though why should they, I suppose?). Ms Wollstonecroft (aka Mrs P. B. Shelley) is perhaps more famous for her physical attributes than her intellectual output thanks to her statue.
Point of order: it was Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter who married Shelley. I've never seen the statue because I avoid North London on a point of principle but I have read the Vindication of the Rights of Women (or at least I've read bits of it, it's rather repetitive).
I'm not sure whether to flag this or not but one point to say when it comes to the fight for the women's vote pre-WW1 is the question of whether it was meant for all women or just those who were "respectable" enough to be able to vote. Pre-1918, the UK electoral franchise was actually the most restrictive of the major European countries / colonies when it came to the male vote - one third to 40% of men didn't have the right to vote and the franchise was underpinned by the idea that you had to be "respectable" enough usually by owning property.
Was it Lloyd George who said "This is not a campaign for votes for women. But for votes for ladies"?
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
I don't think this case sets any firm precedent let alone one that would protect somebody toppling Winnie. Colston in Bristol was a very particular situation. The way I look at it is that Not Guilty was the technical verdict but Justifiable Homocide was in effect found. That's a rare occurrence. It needs extremely strong mitigating circumstances. They were judged to be so here.
"Justifiable Homocide" sounds like a legal concept you would find in Iran.
Que? I'm just using it as an umbrella layman term which recognizes mitigating circs inc (eg) self defence. I'd be shocked if you don't recognize that as being valid sometimes. Don't have you down as a namby pamby pacifist type. Leave that to me and Nick Palmer.
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
Could you not equally draw the conclusion that a lot of people have covid, and so the number in hospital "with covid" will naturally be shooting up at the same rate as the overall infection rate. i.e. Covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation in the cases that they have labelled "covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" - people with broken legs are just more likely to have covid.
It's the near vertical curves on those plots that suggest both lines are due to the epidemic. So you have the "for Covid" shooting up - no surprises there -but the "not primarily for Covid" line shooting up in tandem. If those hospitalisations are not primarily for Covid, what gives?
the number of people going to hospital for say a broken leg will stay constant, perhaps 100 a day (I don't know)
if 1% of the population has COVID then 1 of the 100 going to hospital for a broken leg will also have Covid
if 10% of the population has COVID then 10 of the 100 going to hospital for a broken leg will also have Covid
therefor you have seen a 10 fold increase in the number in hospital with covid.
Its likely at the same time you will also see an increases in the number of people going to hospital FOR Covid.
Vandalising statues is barbaric, and a jury endorsing mob rule is not an edifying spectacle.
Afternoon, Mr Dancer!
Completely coincidentally I have bought de Bedoyere's new history of the Roman Army, which has by a train of thought reminded me of the classical world more generally, and its little quirk. Some statues of Aphrodite were supposed to be so erotic in Ancient Greece that some of their devotees couldn't restrain their excitement. No idea if that is true, but it certainly adds a new dimension to statue-bothering.
Aphrodite Kallipygos. Venus of the beautiful buttocks
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
So does Trump and his acolytes. A similar physical response.
Vandalising statues is barbaric, and a jury endorsing mob rule is not an edifying spectacle.
Afternoon, Mr Dancer!
Completely coincidentally I have bought de Bedoyere's new history of the Roman Army, which has by a train of thought reminded me of the classical world more generally, and its little quirk. Some statues of Aphrodite were supposed to be so erotic in Ancient Greece that some of their devotees couldn't restrain their excitement. No idea if that is true, but it certainly adds a new dimension to statue-bothering.
Aphrodite Kallipygos. Venus of the beautiful buttocks
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
The people in the IRA also tend to wear shoes when they walk around, so I expect you'll want to walk around barefoot from now on so as not to be confused with them.
We never agree Farooq! Because you never concede a point and meet someone halfway. You are always cruising around looking for a punch up 🙂
On statues, surely the answer is that Yes they can be taken down, but No it should not be done at the whim of a mob. Get the necessary votes and permissions: fine. They failed to do that with Colston
The jury’s verdict was - to me - perverse and wrong, but I support the right of juries to make up their own minds and so, fair enough
The government should, however, appeal the decision if that is legally do-able
You cannot appeal a not guilty jury verdict. However the AG has asked judges to clarify the law going forward
Yes, my assumption was that appealing it was impossible? - but the AG’s tweets implied that it was
You are correct about Churchill. The danger now is that others will get all excited and go for juicier targets - like Winston - and then it will REALLY kick off
I don't think this case sets any firm precedent let alone one that would protect somebody toppling Winnie. Colston in Bristol was a very particular situation. The way I look at it is that Not Guilty was the technical verdict but Justifiable Homocide was in effect found. That's a rare occurrence. It needs extremely strong mitigating circumstances. They were judged to be so here.
I think the chances of Churchill being hauled down were zero before this verdict and zero afterwards. Fears of some kind of iconoclastic holocaust exist only in the minds of reactionaries. Whatever you might think of Churchill's role in the Bengal famine, gassing the Kurds, Galipoli, turning the army on the British working class or indeed his general racism and hatred of organised labour, the fact is that he led the country to victory in WW2 after facing down appeasement in his own party and for that reason his statue will stay up indefinitely.
Yes, it's nonsense. What's under sustained attack atm aren't our traditional values (however defined), it's integrity in our public life.
It's interesting to compare the approach. Greek statues wanted to represent physical perfection. Romans (pre-Augustus) were much more true to life, before the emperors started using them as stony propaganda.
Iconoclasts, of course, also featured for a time in the Eastern Empire.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
No need to worry, the monarchy will be secure under Charles and William
William may be "a safe pair of hands" but we have to endure King Fabien Barthez first.
As noted in the article, the only question the Court of Appeal can consider is whether the judge's directions to the jury were correct. I'm not aware that anyone has suggested they aren't. So I am unclear on what a referral would achieve.
It's just a sop to the statue shaggers. It would achieve putting the waste of space Braverman in the news and enamouring her to the Tory base who love slaver statues so job done.
The Tory base are no fonder of slaver statues than anyone else. What they dislike is angry lefties getting their own way.
I don't understand why nobody has had a pop at James II outside the National Gallery. The Royal African Company wasn't called Royal for nothing, and James was a complete c--t anyway. And he was Duke of York which plays nicely with other current affairs.
Tangential follow up to yesterday's discussion about the "Scottish" prefix: I was confused by this post because I know there's not a statue of James II (or even James VII) outside the National Gallery. Ah, but I forget: it's the Scottish National Gallery. The National Gallery is in London.
By the way, why IS is James II? There were half a dozen Jameses before him in the UK.
VII and II, sorry
But it's not Elizabeth II and I. It's a bit confusing. Or maybe it's just me that's confused.
James II was James II of England and James VII of Scotland, because at that time the two Kingdoms were separate, even though the crowns were held by the same person.
Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom, not England (II) and Scotland (I) separately.
I'm not sure whether the numbers are following on from the English numbers, or from the highest of the numbers of either preceding kingdom. I guess if we had another James* we would see whether they were the VIII or the III, but they wouldn't be the VIII and III - unless the Union had been dissolved by then.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what it becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that
The Tories ought to have considered that before they made such an arse of Brexit.
The argument is moot given that there is no reason to suppose that the EU would want us back.
Yes there really is. Britain returning humbly to the EU would be the ultimate demonstration that leaving the EU is bad and stupid. Thus shoring up the whole Project
The EU is also significantly stronger with the UK inside, and of course it would benefit most traders
However it is quite unlikely to happen, for other reasons
Nah. They've just spent years dealing with Brexit (which still isn't entirely resolved,) so the appetite to spend years negotiating Brentry (with a backdrop of anything from 35-45% of the population being very strongly opposed) is bound to be somewhat limited.
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
You'd be wanting a clinical trial grade of evidence, no? Too many cross-correlations to rely on raw data, however. And no sane medic would put half the patients in the 'wrong' side with such a whacking disparity in anaesthesia outcomes.
Hmmmm
"Hi, I would like to run a clinical study. Half the patients will have their COVID ignored and we will go ahead with the operations, to see what happens. Yes, that increased their risk of death by 10x earlier in the epidemic. I hope it will be all fine now."
Surely we can see what the outcomes are for covid incidentals (in separate wards) versus non-covid patients? It strikes me that we must have that data already, we can actually analyse it, without changing any policy now.
Doesn't work, because there are so many potential biases. You MUST have proper balanced random sampling. And allocate the patients BEFORE you do the study. Justr saying we'll compare that lot with that lot because they are in different wards won't do. For one thing, I would expect that the age distribution of people with seriously harmful covid is going to differ from those with asymptomatic covid, so that's a confounding factor right there.
I feel like my last ten years* or so of work (which is basically doing as Anabobazina suggested) has been entirely invalidated.
It would be tricky and the results wouldn't stand up like a RCT (potential for lots of unobserved confounders) but there is still potential to do something useful. The better question perhaps is whether it's worth doing - the 'so what?' of the research. Say it shows there isn't much risk for incidental Covid admissions, what would that change? The patients would surely still go onto Covid-only wards (still a risk to others) and likely have non-essential treatment delayed anyway (risks to clinicians etc, risks from further spread from being e.g. wheeled to theatre).
*Part of my early career was spent on NEWS (National Early Warning Score) and more complex models for predicting which patients in hospital were at risk of adverse outcomes (death, cardiac arrest, ICU admission) within the next 24 hours. The models worked very well, in spite of the ultimate counfounder that clinicians kept intervening with sick patients (hopefully, in some cases at least, preventing adverse outcomes) and we could not control for those interventions in the models. So, either there was massive confounding or clinicians were essentially powerless to change outcomes anyway. If the latter then the whole thing was a massive waste of time (no point in flagging up patients at risk of adverse outcomes if no intervention will help!)
Sorry, didn't mean to hurt your feelings! That's interesting and useful and practical stuff.
I was just trying to think what would satisfy the let-it-rip and incidental-doesn't-matter constituencies in terms of studies, in view of the fact that they'd be seeking to pick holes in any research they didn't like.
As noted in the article, the only question the Court of Appeal can consider is whether the judge's directions to the jury were correct. I'm not aware that anyone has suggested they aren't. So I am unclear on what a referral would achieve.
I heard one of them being interviewed last night and it made me happy that they had been found not guilty.
Had they been convicted, we would not have been able to hear so openly from them and it would therefore have remained far less clear just how silly, self-centred, shallow, stupid, and ignorant of history, precedent and the basic rules of justice in a democratic society these little twats are.
Now we all know and are surely better off for it.
I have the parallel view on keeping statues of reprobates where they are. Let their ignominy be shown for all to see.
While this is a superficially attractive approach, it begs the question why do we not put up statues of todays reprobates?
Jimmy Saville statue, anyone?
Obviously not. So why keep up the statues of yesteryears reprobates?
The museum solution is, I recon, the best way to deal with the problem. Let the interested parties fight it out over how to contextualise them.
Save not just statues but painting works of art too
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
It has significantly increased, but most in hospital with covid are "For" covid rather than incidental admissions, still, and the "For covid" numbers have been climbing.
Note that the orange incidental admissions aren't there as a fraction of the whole but separately plotted to the blue "for" admissions. Wherever the orange is below the blue (everywhere) admissions for covid have been larger than incidental admissions.
It helps to an extent, but only to an extent. Incidental admissions must be quarantined from the non-covid patients (because hospital-acquired infections can be enough to kill a poorly patient recovering from other things), require PPE, and can end up making whatever the incidental patient was admitted for far worse (as a rule of thumb, adding covid to any illness or injury never helps matters).
But it does make it somewhat less of an impact, and reflects a lower infection hospitalisation rate (at least amongst the vaccinated, and it's looking like we're running out of unvaccinated/uninfected people. The USA, on the other hand, may be comprehensively fucked by this)
Looking at those charts where the "with Covid" hospitalisations are shooting up in tandem with "for Covid" cases, it is hard to believe that Covid is not responsible for most of those hospitalisations. In other words the label "COVID is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" in these cases is incorrect. The "for" and the "with" distinction is moot.
Could you not equally draw the conclusion that a lot of people have covid, and so the number in hospital "with covid" will naturally be shooting up at the same rate as the overall infection rate. i.e. Covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation in the cases that they have labelled "covid is not the primary cause of hospitalisation" - people with broken legs are just more likely to have covid.
It's the near vertical curves on those plots that suggest both lines are due to the epidemic. So you have the "for Covid" shooting up - no surprises there -but the "not primarily for Covid" line shooting up in tandem. If those hospitalisations are not primarily for Covid, what gives?
the number of people going to hospital for say a broken leg will stay constant, perhaps 100 a day (I don't know)
if 1% of the population has COVID then 1 of the 100 going to hospital for a broken leg will also have Covid
if 10% of the population has COVID then 10 of the 100 going to hospital for a broken leg will also have Covid
therefor you have seen a 10 fold increase in the number in hospital with covid.
Its likely at the same time you will also see an increases in the number of people going to hospital FOR Covid.
As noted in the article, the only question the Court of Appeal can consider is whether the judge's directions to the jury were correct. I'm not aware that anyone has suggested they aren't. So I am unclear on what a referral would achieve.
It's just a sop to the statue shaggers. It would achieve putting the waste of space Braverman in the news and enamouring her to the Tory base who love slaver statues so job done.
The Tory base are no fonder of slaver statues than anyone else. What they dislike is angry lefties getting their own way.
I don't understand why nobody has had a pop at James II outside the National Gallery. The Royal African Company wasn't called Royal for nothing, and James was a complete c--t anyway. And he was Duke of York which plays nicely with other current affairs.
Tangential follow up to yesterday's discussion about the "Scottish" prefix: I was confused by this post because I know there's not a statue of James II (or even James VII) outside the National Gallery. Ah, but I forget: it's the Scottish National Gallery. The National Gallery is in London.
By the way, why IS is James II? There were half a dozen Jameses before him in the UK.
VII and II, sorry
But it's not Elizabeth II and I. It's a bit confusing. Or maybe it's just me that's confused.
James II was James II of England and James VII of Scotland, because at that time the two Kingdoms were separate, even though the crowns were held by the same person.
Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom, not England (II) and Scotland (I) separately.
I'm not sure whether the numbers are following on from the English numbers, or from the highest of the numbers of either preceding kingdom. I guess if we had another James* we would see whether they were the VIII or the III, but they wouldn't be the VIII and III - unless the Union had been dissolved by then.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
'as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate' - you say that like it's a bad thing...
Our economic policy would be decided by Berlin and Frankfurt, our foreign policy would be decided by Paris and our most important Parliament would be in Brussels.
Much as it increasingly already is for EU member States who are also in the Eurozone
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
I have my doubts that Britain will ever go back in even in the long term but I feel that the recent gvt mishandling of Brexit has probably made a long term close alignment with the EU inevitable.
We could get some sensible compromises with a Labour gvt propped up by the LDs (and possibly SNP as well).
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
The people in the IRA also tend to wear shoes when they walk around, so I expect you'll want to walk around barefoot from now on so as not to be confused with them.
We never agree Farooq! Because you never concede a point and meet someone halfway. You are always cruising around looking for a punch up 🙂
I can't help it if you're indistinguishable from a terrorist because of footwear habits. Don't bomb me, please.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
We had this discussion last night. I don't have strong feelings about getting rid of the monarchy, but if we did why do we have this big thing about what to replace it with. It is not as if the Queen actually runs the country currently. We have an executive that does that and they could carry on doing it.
The armed forces swear loyalty to the Queen not PM. The monarch is head of the armed forces as well as Head of State but the PM is effectively Head of Government in the UK.
A Head of State who is also Head of Government and head of the armed forces too has too much power
I disagree. In my opinion (although I appreciate not yours) the Queen is powerless. I might not like it but Boris is in charge. They might swear loyalty to the Queen, but they do as Boris says, not as the Queen says.
As noted in the article, the only question the Court of Appeal can consider is whether the judge's directions to the jury were correct. I'm not aware that anyone has suggested they aren't. So I am unclear on what a referral would achieve.
It's just a sop to the statue shaggers. It would achieve putting the waste of space Braverman in the news and enamouring her to the Tory base who love slaver statues so job done.
The Tory base are no fonder of slaver statues than anyone else. What they dislike is angry lefties getting their own way.
I don't understand why nobody has had a pop at James II outside the National Gallery. The Royal African Company wasn't called Royal for nothing, and James was a complete c--t anyway. And he was Duke of York which plays nicely with other current affairs.
Tangential follow up to yesterday's discussion about the "Scottish" prefix: I was confused by this post because I know there's not a statue of James II (or even James VII) outside the National Gallery. Ah, but I forget: it's the Scottish National Gallery. The National Gallery is in London.
By the way, why IS is James II? There were half a dozen Jameses before him in the UK.
VII and II, sorry
But it's not Elizabeth II and I. It's a bit confusing. Or maybe it's just me that's confused.
James II was James II of England and James VII of Scotland, because at that time the two Kingdoms were separate, even though the crowns were held by the same person.
Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom, not England (II) and Scotland (I) separately.
I'm not sure whether the numbers are following on from the English numbers, or from the highest of the numbers of either preceding kingdom. I guess if we had another James* we would see whether they were the VIII or the III, but they wouldn't be the VIII and III - unless the Union had been dissolved by then.
* Or a Malcolm, Duncan, David, Robert, etc.
Apparently a convention has now been established whereby the highest number is used, so a hypothetical King James would be number 8 not number 3. Though in practice a repeat of the Elizabeth flap is unlikely, either because monarchs will pick names that avoid the issue or Scotland will secede.
Article a couple of years old which tries to give some context to the financial importance of slavery to this country. Reckons slave related business was 11% of gdp in 1800. NB we were a hugely agricultural economy still at that stage and this means that if you were making money from anything but farming slavery probably came in to it. Colston's problem is that he was nicer than most and put his profits into philanthropy rather than just being a fat cat, which wouldn't have got him a statue.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
We had this discussion last night. I don't have strong feelings about getting rid of the monarchy, but if we did why do we have this big thing about what to replace it with. It is not as if the Queen actually runs the country currently. We have an executive that does that and they could carry on doing it.
The armed forces swear loyalty to the Queen not PM. The monarch is head of the armed forces as well as Head of State but the PM is effectively Head of Government in the UK.
A Head of State who is also Head of Government and head of the armed forces too has too much power
I disagree. In my opinion (although I appreciate not yours) the Queen is powerless. I might not like it but Boris is in charge. They might swear loyalty to the Queen, but they do as Boris says, not as the Queen says.
No, if Boris tried to launch a military coup or impose a dictatorship under him the armed forces would refuse as they swear loyalty to the Queen not the PM
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what it becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that
The Tories ought to have considered that before they made such an arse of Brexit.
The argument is moot given that there is no reason to suppose that the EU would want us back.
Yes there really is. Britain returning humbly to the EU would be the ultimate demonstration that leaving the EU is bad and stupid. Thus shoring up the whole Project
The EU is also significantly stronger with the UK inside, and of course it would benefit most traders
However it is quite unlikely to happen, for other reasons
The likes of Boris and Farage will need to be distant memories before the EU even contemplates our readmittance. (Darren Grimes might still be about - perhaps by then even leader of what's left of the Tory Party - but I doubt he'd have the destructive charisma to cause reservations.)
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
'as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate' - you say that like it's a bad thing...
Our economic policy would be decided by Berlin and Frankfurt, our foreign policy would be decided by Paris and our most important Parliament would be in Brussels.
Much as it increasingly already is for EU member States who are also in the Eurozone
Ooooh you silver tongued devil. You’re making me weak at the knees. If only…
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
'as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate' - you say that like it's a bad thing...
Our economic policy would be decided by Berlin and Frankfurt, our foreign policy would be decided by Paris and our most important Parliament would be in Brussels.
Much as it increasingly already is for EU member States who are also in the Eurozone
Ooooh you silver tongued devil. You’re making me weak at the knees. If only…
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
The people in the IRA also tend to wear shoes when they walk around, so I expect you'll want to walk around barefoot from now on so as not to be confused with them.
We never agree Farooq! Because you never concede a point and meet someone halfway. You are always cruising around looking for a punch up 🙂
I can't help it if you're indistinguishable from a terrorist because of footwear habits. Don't bomb me, please.
Oh behave. 🙂
I think I had a valid point, how a word can mean one thing to one person, something very different to another.
When I was reading into William Blake he blustered out some lack of support for the monarchy and it nearly done for him.
Did you know I instantly linked your post to I ❤️ Huckerbees and burst out laughing? 🙂
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
At some point people will realise:
a. Brexit is an abject failure b. We're not going back
Then they will try to find ways to mitigate some, but by no means all, of the damage.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I am instinctively (moderate) conservative, so not really in favour of getting rid of the Royal Family, not because I am a strong supporter but because it is a change that is unnecessary. However, I can think of a much better system quite easily. This would be a Presidential system akin to Germany and Ireland where the President is a largely ceremonial role, not unlike our own monarch. Those that are in favour of HMQ could vote for her, and she would probably easily win. The House of Windsor could remain as "Presidents" for as long as they remain popular. They would also be absolutely sure that they really do have the support of the people.
Yesterday it looked like Covid hospital numbers peaked on the 5th at around 4,100.
Latest update only covers to the 4th, but on that day the number in acute trusts actually being treated for Covid was 2,026.
So on the inflated numbers the hospital peak is half last year. And of that roughly half is either not really covid or not acute.
Don't get me started on the 'incidental' admissions nonsense – I will end up boring PBers to death! Incidental covid admissions is an oxymoron – given that by their very definition such people are not admitted for covid.
(And yes, I know, I know – they still need to be sequestered in a covid ward. But still...)
But then, as @Foxy points out, medical outcomes for people with various conditions and a side order of COVID are massively different....
Are you referring to the Nature paper he has cited, which uses ancient data from the pre-vaccine, alpha age?
Even if it is out of date, the changes in outcome were so radical that the medics will have to take the same precautions until proven otherwise.....
Not clear to me why a pre-vaccination report has much relevance TBH, but happy to be corrected.
If you have a report that a disease + condition X = *orders* of magnitude more bad outcomes.... well, it is not surprising that the medics are going "hey, throw that out the window, things are different now" without further evidence.
We must have plenty of real world evidence now, either to the affirmative or to the contrary, given how many 'incidental' admissions we have sustained since omicron arrived. Has anyone run the numbers?
You'd be wanting a clinical trial grade of evidence, no? Too many cross-correlations to rely on raw data, however. And no sane medic would put half the patients in the 'wrong' side with such a whacking disparity in anaesthesia outcomes.
Hmmmm
"Hi, I would like to run a clinical study. Half the patients will have their COVID ignored and we will go ahead with the operations, to see what happens. Yes, that increased their risk of death by 10x earlier in the epidemic. I hope it will be all fine now."
Surely we can see what the outcomes are for covid incidentals (in separate wards) versus non-covid patients? It strikes me that we must have that data already, we can actually analyse it, without changing any policy now.
Doesn't work, because there are so many potential biases. You MUST have proper balanced random sampling. And allocate the patients BEFORE you do the study. Justr saying we'll compare that lot with that lot because they are in different wards won't do. For one thing, I would expect that the age distribution of people with seriously harmful covid is going to differ from those with asymptomatic covid, so that's a confounding factor right there.
I feel like my last ten years* or so of work (which is basically doing as Anabobazina suggested) has been entirely invalidated.
It would be tricky and the results wouldn't stand up like a RCT (potential for lots of unobserved confounders) but there is still potential to do something useful. The better question perhaps is whether it's worth doing - the 'so what?' of the research. Say it shows there isn't much risk for incidental Covid admissions, what would that change? The patients would surely still go onto Covid-only wards (still a risk to others) and likely have non-essential treatment delayed anyway (risks to clinicians etc, risks from further spread from being e.g. wheeled to theatre).
*Part of my early career was spent on NEWS (National Early Warning Score) and more complex models for predicting which patients in hospital were at risk of adverse outcomes (death, cardiac arrest, ICU admission) within the next 24 hours. The models worked very well, in spite of the ultimate counfounder that clinicians kept intervening with sick patients (hopefully, in some cases at least, preventing adverse outcomes) and we could not control for those interventions in the models. So, either there was massive confounding or clinicians were essentially powerless to change outcomes anyway. If the latter then the whole thing was a massive waste of time (no point in flagging up patients at risk of adverse outcomes if no intervention will help!)
Sorry, didn't mean to hurt your feelings! That's interesting and useful and practical stuff.
I was just trying to think what would satisfy the let-it-rip and incidental-doesn't-matter constituencies in terms of studies, in view of the fact that they'd be seeking to pick holes in any research they didn't like.
Yep, one of the problems with observational studies is that if you don't like the answer you can just attack the decision to include/exclude a particular variable or quantise it in a particular way. And, if you have the funding/ability/time, do your own study with different variables until you get the opposite answer.
The prediction models we did on hospital risk were wrong, as the famous quote goes, but useful. Tested in the real world, they gave useful predictions that were eerily close in terms of predicting how may patients in a group would die for example. Descriptive modelling is a lot harder, imho, as you probably don't have enough to get great predictions so can't test that way, but can still pick out important factors (but may be undone by counfounding etc). Best thing I try and do is sensitivity analyses on everything I can think of. If I get broadly the same answer repeatedly, then I have a bit of confidence.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I'm a republican (post HMQ) but not looking forward to President Bozza.
Good for you. 🙂
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
The people in the IRA also tend to wear shoes when they walk around, so I expect you'll want to walk around barefoot from now on so as not to be confused with them.
We never agree Farooq! Because you never concede a point and meet someone halfway. You are always cruising around looking for a punch up 🙂
I can't help it if you're indistinguishable from a terrorist because of footwear habits. Don't bomb me, please.
Oh behave. 🙂
I think I had a valid point, how a word can mean one thing to one person, something very different to another.
When I was reading into William Blake he blustered out some lack of support for the monarchy and it nearly done for him.
Did you know I instantly linked your post to I ❤️ Huckerbees and burst out laughing? 🙂
I'm with @Farooq but couldn't think of an amusing post to demonstrate how silly it was to confuse a Republican with a terrorist. I was thinking of the Republican party in American but these days that isn't such a good analogy.
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
'as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate' - you say that like it's a bad thing...
Our economic policy would be decided by Berlin and Frankfurt, our foreign policy would be decided by Paris and our most important Parliament would be in Brussels.
Much as it increasingly already is for EU member States who are also in the Eurozone
Ooooh you silver tongued devil. You’re making me weak at the knees. If only…
As it worked so well for Greece
If it isn’t hurting it isn’t working! They seem to be doing ok now though? Perhaps the brisk smack of Teutonic rigour has done them good.
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
I am instinctively (moderate) conservative, so not really in favour of getting rid of the Royal Family, not because I am a strong supporter but because it is a change that is unnecessary. However, I can think of a much better system quite easily. This would be a Presidential system akin to Germany and Ireland where the President is a largely ceremonial role, not unlike our own monarch. Those that are in favour of HMQ could vote for her, and she would probably easily win. The House of Windsor could remain as "Presidents" for as long as they remain popular. They would also be absolutely sure that they really do have the support of the people.
There you go, not difficult really.
99% of the global population have no idea who the President of Germany or Ireland are but 99% have heard of Queen Elizabeth II. Our constitutional monarchy is a great advert for global Britain while also not being the elected imperial presidencies of the US or France
There has been quite a significant swing to “join” the EU over “stay out” in recent months. I wonder, again, if at some point Labour will seek to take advantage of this. They are now led by an arch-Remainer
It would be an incredibly difficult political manoeuvre to pull off, however
Still only 45% want to rejoin though, even less than the 48% who voted Remain.
Starmer backing Rejoin would also be political suicide as it would hand the redwall back to Boris on a plate
Would it? We don’t know that - unless you have granular data on the people switching from “stay out” to “join”
They could be Red Wallers. Or Scots. Or professional knitters. We need to know before we can see if Labour could benefit from cultivating them
Given 48% backed Remain even in 2016 just 45% backing Rejoin now means even some Remainers are no longer Rejoiners but undecided.
If Starmer backed Rejoin Boris will be re elected easily under FPTP and tye redwall would stay blue. Hence he will back a customs union at most.
Rejoin would need to get to 60%+ for Starmer to even consider it
Remember that comparing 45% in a poll where "Don't know" is a valid result with 48% in a referendum where "Don't know" isn't counted isn't really fair. To quote myself;
Tricky to compare directly with the 2016 results, because they didn't allow DK. If you just ignore the don't knows, you get R56 L44.
Now, this isn't going to reverse anything tomorrow. But I do wonder what happens to a country where the Powers That Be refuse to discuss (or even double down) on something that a plurality-to-majority think is a mistake and would prefer to reverse.
60:40 might come round sooner than we expect.
If it reached 60/40 and stayed there I’m sure Labour would go for it. They are all Remainers. And, indeed, why should they not? Democracy is there to serve public opinion
The question then is: would the EU have us back? The French might be tempted to say Non for Anglophobic fun but in the end they would, as it would strengthen the EU in multiple ways, not least by proving that leaving is stupid and ultimately impossible
They would exact a price, however. We’d surely have to join the euro (and Schengen) thus locking us in forever. It really is impossible to leave the euro, as Greece discovered
In which case it really would be bye to an independent UK, as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
'as part of the eurozone we would just be a region of what is becoming an increasingly Federal EU superstate' - you say that like it's a bad thing...
Our economic policy would be decided by Berlin and Frankfurt, our foreign policy would be decided by Paris and our most important Parliament would be in Brussels.
Much as it increasingly already is for EU member States who are also in the Eurozone
Ooooh you silver tongued devil. You’re making me weak at the knees. If only…
As it worked so well for Greece
1) we are not Greece, 2) it has worked quite well for them longer term.
Vandalising statues is barbaric, and a jury endorsing mob rule is not an edifying spectacle.
Afternoon, Mr Dancer!
Completely coincidentally I have bought de Bedoyere's new history of the Roman Army, which has by a train of thought reminded me of the classical world more generally, and its little quirk. Some statues of Aphrodite were supposed to be so erotic in Ancient Greece that some of their devotees couldn't restrain their excitement. No idea if that is true, but it certainly adds a new dimension to statue-bothering.
Aphrodite Kallipygos. Venus of the beautiful buttocks
I would be careful there, by the same logic the uk tax payer was never stumping up for the Indian Space program?
Agreed. We seem to be wading through flood waters of "Hard-up Prince Andy" stories in the press & I think the flood water will keep rising.
The stories are surely softening us patsies up for the absolutely ginormous bill .... as Andy "I Can't Remember Meeting Her" settles out of court and forgets to bring his wallet.
Agreed. As all parties are comfortably well off today, I don’t think it reflects great on any of them to settle this out of court and not fight to clear their name. So gynormous legal bill it is. Jaundice versus jaundice.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
Republic are a goon army who would lose a debate with a lobotomised hamster.
Comments
I'm ambivalent on this case. I think the defendents were lucky, but I'm not particularly bothered by them being acquitted. In your hypothetical, I'd be sad that they were acquitted and might think badly of the jury. In both cases I'd remain a supporter of the jury trial process and not be calling for the government to appeal (which they cannot) or change anything.
Actually, forget the hypothetical. Let's take, in the US, the guy who took arms to a protest/riot and killed some people. I'm uneasy with the fact that he faced no sanction for his actions, but I don't blame the jury and I strongly believe that, acquitted, he should have his freedom. On the specific charges, it's not even clear to me that he was guilty under the law (I didn't follow very closely). I do think someone who takes guns to a protest/riot apparently looking for trouble should be guilty of something, but that's the law as it stands in the States.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-59910838
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy
Was it for the Lawrence case?
Though I am not sure that an Appeal in this statue case counts as such under the rules.
I am a big supporter of the Royal family, those calling themselves republican on pb havn’t a clue how to replace it with better. But I fear as state money goes in one end of royal ltd and paying out other end to lawyers for this, the republicans are going to have a lot of fun. 🤨
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/business/great-britain-china-nuclear-power.html
...EDF, which is majority owned by the French government, says it can’t afford to pay the project’s costs upfront and wants to reduce its 80 percent stake to a minority holding to make room for other investors.
The arrangement being considered would allow investors to obtain an immediate return on the capital they spent on the plant through surcharges on energy bills. Pension funds, university endowments and similar investors would most likely be attracted by predictable, long-term revenue streams, analysts said..
What has changed (again) is that the reported cases have now substantially decoupled from the true level of infection. Whereas for delta we might have been finding 1 in 2 of the new cases, it may be as little as 1 in 7 now, as a result of extremely mild infections (thanks vaccines, and omicron). So that's why his numbers, although correct for the data and choices her has used, are not a true reflection of the situation.
Even EFTA would be preferable to that. However I doubt full rejoin will ever get to 60% or even to 50%
Vandalising statues is barbaric, and a jury endorsing mob rule is not an edifying spectacle.
But a rapid shift is a problem for Starmer as well. His (loud) Make Brexit Work (quiet) by diluting it (for nothing else can, surely?) is a neat bit of positioning. If the Will Of The People moves too quickly to strong rejoin (big if, it may not happen at all), Starmer could find himself in a barrel he can't control.
We had thought something was up before Christmas (curtains drawn etc).
I've now found out that the woman contracted covid, passed it on to her husband, who has now died of it.
I'm sad for him, as he was genuinely a nice chap, but the anti-vax bollix really wound me up, so much that I shouted at them in the high street from my car (they were using NHS yellow card reports out of context and with no understanding).
I don't like to think ill of people, but I wonder if she is having second thoughts about the vaccine now?
What they can do is ask the Court of Appeal to clarify the law as it applies to such a situation.
By 2030 we will be used to our independence and so different from the EU Rejoin will seem absurd, and far too painful
I've just done a quick bit of maths, 16.7% of our org have Covid. All working (From home). I'm in for some stock take today..
The only clinical situation you can probably gather the data from is trauma patients undergoing emergency surgery, whose Covid and vaccination status is only determined later. Until this Omicron wave came along the rate of infection probably wasn't high enough to generate useful statistics, but that's where I'd look.
Completely coincidentally I have bought de Bedoyere's new history of the Roman Army, which has by a train of thought reminded me of the classical world more generally, and its little quirk. Some statues of Aphrodite were supposed to be so erotic in Ancient Greece that some of their devotees couldn't restrain their excitement. No idea if that is true, but it certainly adds a new dimension to statue-bothering.
Had we gone to No Deal which crashed the economy it might have but we didn't
Doesn't work if we know the individual to be bad from the off.
You do realise the IRA call themselves republicans, so hearing you declare you are one instantly sends a chill down some spines? 😕
A Head of State who is also Head of Government and head of the armed forces too has too much power
Well in my opinion I think the left, like Marxists, being just a traditionalist as the right would love the statues to their own, like Marx, so would think again about tearing down a Churchill statue. Whilst a committee of wokists do you think would ever agree which stature should go up or stay up?
Anyone who thinks BLM and woke is simply far left I think might be missing something. And I don’t regard myself as woke! I just think it’s different and more subtle than far left label. AND not really that widespread and prevalent in community as made out. I’m Gen z and I don’t know any wokists.
Newspaper headlines declaring war on woke and statue bothering is comedy politics in my opinion. It’s making the political right look a bit out of touch, history book burners, and all round silly.
For example. Who posted yesterday “I still say bow de see her, because I’m a traditionalist” LOL. If it’s “traditional teaching of history with air brushing” then it’s not history is it? All history assess and then accept revisionist changes by peer review. Simples.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-52972531
The EU is also significantly stronger with the UK inside, and of course it would benefit most traders
However it is quite unlikely to happen, for other reasons
Yuk
It would be tricky and the results wouldn't stand up like a RCT (potential for lots of unobserved confounders) but there is still potential to do something useful. The better question perhaps is whether it's worth doing - the 'so what?' of the research. Say it shows there isn't much risk for incidental Covid admissions, what would that change? The patients would surely still go onto Covid-only wards (still a risk to others) and likely have non-essential treatment delayed anyway (risks to clinicians etc, risks from further spread from being e.g. wheeled to theatre).
*Part of my early career was spent on NEWS (National Early Warning Score) and more complex models for predicting which patients in hospital were at risk of adverse outcomes (death, cardiac arrest, ICU admission) within the next 24 hours. The models worked very well, in spite of the ultimate counfounder that clinicians kept intervening with sick patients (hopefully, in some cases at least, preventing adverse outcomes) and we could not control for those interventions in the models. So, either there was massive confounding or clinicians were essentially powerless to change outcomes anyway. If the latter then the whole thing was a massive waste of time (no point in flagging up patients at risk of adverse outcomes if no intervention will help!)
if 1% of the population has COVID then 1 of the 100 going to hospital for a broken leg will also have Covid
if 10% of the population has COVID then 10 of the 100 going to hospital for a broken leg will also have Covid
therefor you have seen a 10 fold increase in the number in hospital with covid.
Its likely at the same time you will also see an increases in the number of people going to hospital FOR Covid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Callipyge
How does this Beeb story say otherwise?
It's interesting to compare the approach. Greek statues wanted to represent physical perfection. Romans (pre-Augustus) were much more true to life, before the emperors started using them as stony propaganda.
Iconoclasts, of course, also featured for a time in the Eastern Empire.
And with that, I must be off.
Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom, not England (II) and Scotland (I) separately.
I'm not sure whether the numbers are following on from the English numbers, or from the highest of the numbers of either preceding kingdom. I guess if we had another James* we would see whether they were the VIII or the III, but they wouldn't be the VIII and III - unless the Union had been dissolved by then.
* Or a Malcolm, Duncan, David, Robert, etc.
I was just trying to think what would satisfy the let-it-rip and incidental-doesn't-matter constituencies in terms of studies, in view of the fact that they'd be seeking to pick holes in any research they didn't like.
Much as it increasingly already is for EU member States who are also in the Eurozone
We could get some sensible compromises with a Labour gvt propped up by the LDs (and possibly SNP as well).
Article a couple of years old which tries to give some context to the financial importance of slavery to this country. Reckons slave related business was 11% of gdp in 1800. NB we were a hugely agricultural economy still at that stage and this means that if you were making money from anything but farming slavery probably came in to it. Colston's problem is that he was nicer than most and put his profits into philanthropy rather than just being a fat cat, which wouldn't have got him a statue.
I think I had a valid point, how a word can mean one thing to one person, something very different to another.
When I was reading into William Blake he blustered out some lack of support for the monarchy and it nearly done for him.
Did you know I instantly linked your post to I ❤️ Huckerbees and burst out laughing? 🙂
a. Brexit is an abject failure
b. We're not going back
Then they will try to find ways to mitigate some, but by no means all, of the damage.
There you go, not difficult really.
The prediction models we did on hospital risk were wrong, as the famous quote goes, but useful. Tested in the real world, they gave useful predictions that were eerily close in terms of predicting how may patients in a group would die for example. Descriptive modelling is a lot harder, imho, as you probably don't have enough to get great predictions so can't test that way, but can still pick out important factors (but may be undone by counfounding etc). Best thing I try and do is sensitivity analyses on everything I can think of. If I get broadly the same answer repeatedly, then I have a bit of confidence.
Maajid أبو عمّار
@MaajidNawaz
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i’ll post there soon but forgive the basic set up for now, I have a wife & child to support and my show was our family’s only source of income:
Not one really to worry about.