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YouGov CON members’ poll adds to the pressure on Johnson – politicalbetting.com

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  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,404
    Hypothetically, if someone tried to enter Australia with a faked positive PCR test result, could this lead to prosecution?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    An amazing drone show in the Shenzen skyline, telling citizens to get swabbed. Asia is overtaking us at speed - even as they run out of babies

    https://twitter.com/shenzhencity/status/1479710924441276416?s=21

    This is what the Chinese are going at the World’s Fair, ongoing in my part of the world at the moment. Must be more than a hundred drones and a couple of dozen moving searchlights.
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=2ypMewDmIQw
    Did you see the drone show in the London New Year fireworks?

    It's a thing you can order from various specilist companies, off the shelf, now.
    Actually, no I didn’t see the London fireworks. It was well into sleep time where I was, and everyone on here said it was crap! Will take a look…
  • Hypothetically, if someone tried to enter Australia with a faked positive PCR test result, could this lead to prosecution?

    Who would dare to do such a thing.....
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    Phil said:

    Are the Nest ones actually non-compliant though? Does the legislation specify wired together, or are the radio links Nest devices use sufficient?

    Interlinked, either by radio or wire. Most of them are 10 year battery powered units, with tamper seals, and use a low power radio network like Zigbee. The idea is to put them up, test them occassionally, and replace them when the battery goes, which you need to do after 10 years or so anyway.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,273

    Leon said:

    An amazing drone show in the Shenzen skyline, telling citizens to get swabbed. Asia is overtaking us at speed - even as they run out of babies


    https://twitter.com/shenzhencity/status/1479710924441276416?s=21

    I am not sure why you are so amazed by that? Isn't that exactly the same thing that was used for the London New Year fireworks? The super bowl used it for their half time show last year (or maybe it was the year before).
    Maybe that’s not the best example

    It’s the use of mega-multiple drones where the Chinese seem most advanced. Shenzen is a centre



    https://youtu.be/44KvHwRHb3A
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Hypothetically, if someone tried to enter Australia with a faked positive PCR test result, could this lead to prosecution?

    If found out, yes. It would be lying to the border official.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Hypothetically, if someone tried to enter Australia with a faked positive PCR test result, could this lead to prosecution?

    Certainly in the USA, that would be lying to an immigration officer. You’d be on the next plane home, and would need a good lawyer to ever be allowed back.

    I can’t imagine Australia being any more lenient, in the current climate.
  • alex_ said:

    darkage said:

    MikeL said:

    The risk for Djokovic is surely that even if he does stay to play in the Australian Open he is likely to find it even harder to play anywhere else - because every other country is going to be properly prepared and get their ducks in a row to refuse him entry properly.

    There are a lot of sportspeople who haven't been vaccinated.
    Its not a slam dunk decision to just ban them from entering, because that will effectively put an end to the credibility of their major sporting tournaments, as many participants won't be able to enter.
    Places like the UK are unlikely to impose such restrictions (for as long as we have the current government, at least) so they will ultimately benefit, if countries go down this route.
    Huge numbers of footballers, to take one example.
    when they do..

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    Common cold might have given Britons protection from Covid before pandemic began
    Memory T-cells from colds could be the secret weapon against infection, study suggests

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/10/common-cold-might-have-given-britons-protection-covid-pandemic/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    HYUFD said:

    ping said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    Not that this will surprise many people here but Help To Buy was a waste of money and the money should have been directly spent on social housing - a Lord's report says

    https://www.ft.com/content/19236eef-abed-4401-a6b1-25c1035ab095

    I know a number of people who bought their first properties through Help to Buy.

    Plus while some Tory councils like mine are building more social homes even in 2019 most living in social housing voted Labour. A Tory government will want to create more Tory voters owning their first property not more Labour voters in social housing
    Ignoring the incredible cynicism for a moment,

    A major problem with this kind of thinking from the tories, is, well, it’s a bit more complicated.

    Property owning =/= tory voting. It’s the asset price inflation bit that creates tory voters.

    Stagnant, or declining property values and these people will vote left.

    So the tories, not only have to tax working people to shovel cash to first time buyers, they then have to continue to inflate the house price bubble. Eventually, the music stops.
    That is not true, home owners always vote Tory, even in 1997, regardless of their house price. Those renting in social homes always vote Labour, even in 2019

    Even those owning only with a mortgage are swing voters not always Labour voters, voting Labour in 1997 but Tory in 2019
    My dear chap, you do sometimes let yourself get run away with. For example, I was a home-owner, albeit with some assistance from a mortgage company, from 1963-2003, and never voted Tory. Further, since retiring I've owned outright and still don't, and wouldn't, vote for 'your lot'.
    Further, I know quite a few home-owners who see things as I do.
    There are even some people in social homes who always vote Tory.

    However you are both the exceptions not the norm
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    An amazing drone show in the Shenzen skyline, telling citizens to get swabbed. Asia is overtaking us at speed - even as they run out of babies

    https://twitter.com/shenzhencity/status/1479710924441276416?s=21

    This is what the Chinese are going at the World’s Fair, ongoing in my part of the world at the moment. Must be more than a hundred drones and a couple of dozen moving searchlights.
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=2ypMewDmIQw
    Did you see the drone show in the London New Year fireworks?

    It's a thing you can order from various specilist companies, off the shelf, now.
    Actually, no I didn’t see the London fireworks. It was well into sleep time where I was, and everyone on here said it was crap! Will take a look…
    Wasn't as big as previous years, I think.

    Had a big drone show component - probably the best bit of it.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915

    It looks like the 2 or three per cent uptick for the Tories I was wondering about from being less pro-restrictions a few weeks ago.

    Covid looks to be receding as an issue for the future now though, and the low 'thirties to Labour's 37 is still pretty bad for the Tories. It's near to the worst case scenario, and the bottom end of expectations for the end of the year post-sleaze for the Tories, that I mentioned around the Patterson time.

    I think the Tories' ratings are on a kind of ratchet shaped path downwards. Every time something bad happens and is all over the news their vote share plunges. Then when it's out of the news it slowly recovers, but to a lower number than before. We're currently in that grinding higher phase but as long as bad headlines keep coming (which I think they will because Johnson is crap) then I think the underlying momentum is still downwards. I think the equilibrium we will reach is something like a 5-15pp Labour lead, which will decline as we approach the next election. If the Tories fight that with Johnson, they're probably out of power; if they don't then who knows.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,793
    edited January 2022
    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    alex_ said:

    BBC - If Novak Djokovic does win his appeal there’s no guarantee he'll get to play in the Australian Open. The immigration minister still has the right to cancel the visa again - though if that happened it could be an even worse look for the country than this fiasco has already become.

    Rather bias of the BBC, who says it looks bad for the Australian government?

    Lots of people have said it looks bad for the Australian government, and that the whole thing was a publicity stunt by Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister. A general election is due soon.
    Those "lots of people":

    1. Novax

    2. The political opponents of Scott Morrison in Oz

    3. er...

    4. That's it.
    No, I think what ever you think of Djokovic and vaccines the Aus Govt have screwed up big time. They’ve got themselves in a position where chucking him out may be the popular thing to do, but where doing so will create a bigproblem for them legally. At the end of the day, if he has complied with all legal requirements then (contrary to popular perception) he is not being let in on “special treatment for celebrity” grounds. But “being singled out” will be the reason for deportation. Which is clearly populist, and populist moves have a habit of coming back to bite those who make them.
    From what I have gleaned from BBC news he is claiming a medical exemption on the grounds that he had a positive PCR test on 16th December. Apparently a recent infection is an alternative to the vaccines. If so, this is going to be a difficult trick to repeat. Is being unvaccinated really compatible with the itinerary of an international tennis star? I really don't think so.

    And btw, anyone who gets his appeal/JR resolved in days including a ruling on an adjournment over a weekend is definitely receiving special treatment.
    amusing to see the left in a dilemma - which is worse ? Privileged super rich tennis star v evil right-wing Conservative government? Whoyagonnapick?! :smiley:
    Is this also a dilemma for the right then? Striving, self-made star v sensible conservative government. Whoyagonnapick?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    As I understand it, the Federal Government can chuck him out, just because they want to - almost no reason required.

    So Morrison can look tough on COVID and there is pretty much no comeback.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704
    eek said:

    eek said:

    People saying why didn't BBC monetarise their back catalogue....

    To some extent they did, they are now 100% owners of UKTV. The problem is they backed the wrong horse, they backed more over the air channels, while the smart money backed streaming.

    Again wrong - they backed the correct horse at the time.

    Streaming arrived later by which point Osbourne and co were in power and the BBC were constrained from going all in on streaming...

    Sweeties for OAP Tory voters was way more important than international expansion.
    Nice try, they backed the wrong horse. Netflix backed streaming while Osborne was still on the Opposition benches.
    You also have to look at our broadband speeds and various other options.

    IPlayer kicked off on December 25th 2007 but it was only circa 2010 that it became obvious what Netflix's business model was.

    You are looking at streaming, what is really important is when did it become clear that it was possible to produce content and sell it across the world with little extra effort and that really is from 2010 onwards...

    Heck let's look at the other player within the streaming market

    Disney+ only started in November 2019.
    The BBC did back the wrong Horse. They launched the ill fated BBC Store where you could buy classic TV to keep. Folded a couple of years later and I-player has only relatively recently expanded to be more than just a 30 day catch up service. Britbox looks like it is doing well mind. Also makes its own content. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon Now. The advantage the BBC has is its and ITVs back catalogue for Britbox.
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    People saying why didn't BBC monetarise their back catalogue....

    To some extent they did, they are now 100% owners of UKTV. The problem is they backed the wrong horse, they backed more over the air channels, while the smart money backed streaming.

    Again wrong - they backed the correct horse at the time.

    Streaming arrived later by which point Osbourne and co were in power and the BBC were constrained from going all in on streaming...

    Sweeties for OAP Tory voters was way more important than international expansion.
    Nice try, they backed the wrong horse. Netflix backed streaming while Osborne was still on the Opposition benches.
    You also have to look at our broadband speeds and various other options.

    IPlayer kicked off on December 25th 2007 but it was only circa 2010 that it became obvious what Netflix's business model was.

    You are looking at streaming, what is really important is when did it become clear that it was possible to produce content and sell it across the world with little extra effort and that really is from 2010 onwards...

    Heck let's look at the other player within the streaming market

    Disney+ only started in November 2019.
    That's misleading, prior to Disney+ we had DisneyLife which began streaming in 2015.

    Of course in 2007 (or 2015) Disney had a much smaller catalogue. They've spent years planning Disney+ and building a catalogue including purchasing Marvel (2009), Lucasfilm (2012) and 21st Century Fox (2019).

    Disney+ without Marvel, Star Wars or Fox would be a much inferior product so they lined up the rights first, trialled the software with DisneyLife and other trials, then launched Disney+

    So they did it properly sorting out the rights first and following a strategy that led to the release of Disney+ it wasn't all done overnight.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    tlg86 said:

    Did this get covered yesterday?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10384931/Jurgen-Klopp-reveals-Liverpools-Covid-outbreak-lot-false-positives.html

    'We had last week a proper outbreak and it showed up that we had a lot of false positives but the rules are like they are so all these players who are false positives couldn't play.

    'The only real positive came from Trent Alexander-Arnold and all the rest were false positives.'


    He obviously doesn't mean false positives, but not a great look for him to be talking about such things.

    I don't see why its not a great look? Until now an LFT positive followed by a PCR negative has been treated as a false positive.

    Given that you can very easily fake an LFT positive (I believe Lemonade triggers a positive) I have little faith in its credibility.

    If LFTs are causing positives but PCRs aren't finding them then that's a really serious problem that should be getting discussed.
    Unless you're deliberately messing up the test, the rate of false positives for LFTs is around one in a thousand.
    As far as I'm aware that's not been demonstrated by a self-administered study plus if its possible to get the wrong results by deliberately messing up the test, then we shouldn't rule out getting the wrong results without deliberately doing so.

    The high number of LFT positives followed by PCR negatives doesn't fit with the 1/1000 claim that was only made using data from professionally administered tests.
    The 1 in 1000 figure was derived from data including community use.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-analysis-of-lateral-flow-tests-shows-specificity-of-at-least-999
    Rapid testing in these locations uses the supervised testing model. Supervised testing is where the individual being tested swabs themselves under supervision of a trained operator, and the trained operator processes the test and reads the result.

    Spherical cow in a vacuum.
    Sure, but there's not an obvious mechanism from engineering a false positive unintentionally from simply cocking up the test. Real world sensitivity could be worse (i.e. people don't swab properly and get a negative when positive) but it's hard to see the way in which specificity would fall.

    Human factors though - my brother in law doctored my parents in law's Christmas Day LFTs, before we went over to see them (brother in law was staying with them) with a red biro to engineer a false positive, for the LOLs. I understand he got a Paddington Bear style hard stare from my mother in law when the truth emerged.
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    Knew Fred
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited January 2022

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
    Tennis Australia were working with the local and State governments in Melbourne.

    It’s a bit like the tournament was in Glasgow, and Sturgeon said welcome, and now Boris is saying go away No-vax, because immigration is a UK government competence.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,915
    Farooq said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    alex_ said:

    BBC - If Novak Djokovic does win his appeal there’s no guarantee he'll get to play in the Australian Open. The immigration minister still has the right to cancel the visa again - though if that happened it could be an even worse look for the country than this fiasco has already become.

    Rather bias of the BBC, who says it looks bad for the Australian government?

    Lots of people have said it looks bad for the Australian government, and that the whole thing was a publicity stunt by Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister. A general election is due soon.
    Those "lots of people":

    1. Novax

    2. The political opponents of Scott Morrison in Oz

    3. er...

    4. That's it.
    No, I think what ever you think of Djokovic and vaccines the Aus Govt have screwed up big time. They’ve got themselves in a position where chucking him out may be the popular thing to do, but where doing so will create a bigproblem for them legally. At the end of the day, if he has complied with all legal requirements then (contrary to popular perception) he is not being let in on “special treatment for celebrity” grounds. But “being singled out” will be the reason for deportation. Which is clearly populist, and populist moves have a habit of coming back to bite those who make them.
    From what I have gleaned from BBC news he is claiming a medical exemption on the grounds that he had a positive PCR test on 16th December. Apparently a recent infection is an alternative to the vaccines. If so, this is going to be a difficult trick to repeat. Is being unvaccinated really compatible with the itinerary of an international tennis star? I really don't think so.

    And btw, anyone who gets his appeal/JR resolved in days including a ruling on an adjournment over a weekend is definitely receiving special treatment.
    amusing to see the left in a dilemma - which is worse ? Privileged super rich tennis star v evil right-wing Conservative government? Whoyagonnapick?! :smiley:
    Is this also a dilemma for the right then? Striving, self-made star v sensible conservative government. Whoyagonnapick?
    I couldn't give two shits either way, not sure where that places me on the political spectrum.
  • Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Not compliant I believe - type and location as well as interlink. You need CO alarms in any room that has a combustion source (gas cooker, boiler, wood fire etc) and a smoke alarm in your living space. That this may be on the other side of the door to your already deafening alarm doesn't matter apparently.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,676

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    To recover and show they are in control they need to chuck him out ASAP. State that they will not endanger public for some jumped up millionaire sports clown.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,793
    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Hang on, if I test one and the other doesn't go off, does that mean they are not interlinked for certain?
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    felix said:

    DavidL said:

    alex_ said:

    BBC - If Novak Djokovic does win his appeal there’s no guarantee he'll get to play in the Australian Open. The immigration minister still has the right to cancel the visa again - though if that happened it could be an even worse look for the country than this fiasco has already become.

    Rather bias of the BBC, who says it looks bad for the Australian government?

    Lots of people have said it looks bad for the Australian government, and that the whole thing was a publicity stunt by Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister. A general election is due soon.
    Those "lots of people":

    1. Novax

    2. The political opponents of Scott Morrison in Oz

    3. er...

    4. That's it.
    No, I think what ever you think of Djokovic and vaccines the Aus Govt have screwed up big time. They’ve got themselves in a position where chucking him out may be the popular thing to do, but where doing so will create a bigproblem for them legally. At the end of the day, if he has complied with all legal requirements then (contrary to popular perception) he is not being let in on “special treatment for celebrity” grounds. But “being singled out” will be the reason for deportation. Which is clearly populist, and populist moves have a habit of coming back to bite those who make them.
    From what I have gleaned from BBC news he is claiming a medical exemption on the grounds that he had a positive PCR test on 16th December. Apparently a recent infection is an alternative to the vaccines. If so, this is going to be a difficult trick to repeat. Is being unvaccinated really compatible with the itinerary of an international tennis star? I really don't think so.

    And btw, anyone who gets his appeal/JR resolved in days including a ruling on an adjournment over a weekend is definitely receiving special treatment.
    amusing to see the left in a dilemma - which is worse ? Privileged super rich tennis star v evil right-wing Conservative government? Whoyagonnapick?! :smiley:
    Is this also a dilemma for the right then? Striving, self-made star v sensible conservative government. Whoyagonnapick?
    I couldn't give two shits either way, not sure where that places me on the political spectrum.
    Quite
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,676
    edited January 2022

    malcolmg said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    malcolmg said:

    Hypothetical question. Smoke alarms are there not to prevent fire but to prevent death. Fire in house. Alarms allow the safe evacuation of inhabitants.

    Will their insurance company refuse to pay out because their functional alarms which worked as intended were not the specific type required by Scotland's new law?

    Most insurance policies have a clause about complying with legislation. But that's always so far been about things like building codes (which Grenfell did!). So it's a letter vs spirit of the law question...

    Messing around with insurance companies is probably not a smart move in general. If you give them a loophole to get out of paying, or paying less than you expect, then don't be surprised if they take it. It seems that's the assessors job post-incident.
    I'm going to get it done because I can. But as 95% of existing smoke alarms are not compliant there will be an awful lot of people who won't be. Because they don't know, can't afford it, or think it's stupid.

    So it's back down to how much of a row the insurance industry wants to have up here. Invalidating one person's policy because they had functional smoke alarms that did their job is one thing. If they try and do that to a lot of people, it may be the insurers in trouble.
    I suspect that insurance companies will be more reasonable than jobsworth bureaucrats.
    Er... Insurance companies are staffed with jobsworth bureaucrats.
    According to the new standards I need to fit alarms on either side of my living room door. Which makes total sense really...
    Question - is not hearing an alarm somewhere inside a single property really a thing?

    Obviously, interconnected systems make sense in blocks of flats. But unless you accidentally live in Edinburgh Castle, is there really a problem with not hearing fire alarms in the kitchen from the bedroom etc?
    Every minute counts and if you are upstairs , doors closed there is a very good chance you will not hear immediately. Seconds can make a difference so I would rather be safe than sorry.
    My kids have headphones on a lot of the time. Bedroom door shut + headphones on means they wouldn’t hear an alarm if it was only going off in the kitchen with the kitchen door shut.

    I made a point of putting in a set of wired in smoke alarms throughout the house when we renovated it: if one goes off they all go off (plus a heat alarm in the kitchen). Plus I read the kids the riot act: if they weren’t at the front door within thirty seconds after an alarm going off then privilieges (i.e. internet access) would be pulled.

    Fire is no joke.
    Happily my now non-compliant and imminently illegal alarms set off all the Google devices including the phone my son would be listening to music on. Which is why I will be keeping them as my primary system even as and when a set of dumb compliant alarms go in.
    Are the Nest ones actually non-compliant though? Does the legislation specify wired together, or are the radio links Nest devices use sufficient?
    Non-compliant because Google don't make a separate heat alarm for the kitchen. I believe mine are also non-compliant because replaceable batteries rather than mains, but that's the whole point - if your mains gets knocked out by fire you want an independent power source. They also create their own non-wifi Mesh network so so risk if wifi goes down.
    They can have sealed batteries, the ones that have 10 year life, so not mandatory to be mains, RF connected is mandatory.
    That they have doled out only a tiny fraction of the grants needed to bring 35k of the poorest households up to code is a major problem. Fire safety is important - but the policy is daft and the implementation is worse.
    For sure but typical and council's will need to do social housing , private housing people will only do it when required , ie selling or renovating. Most people will not have even heard of it.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Hang on, if I test one and the other doesn't go off, does that mean they are not interlinked for certain?
    If they aren't working properly, burn them.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    eek said:

    People saying why didn't BBC monetarise their back catalogue....

    To some extent they did, they are now 100% owners of UKTV. The problem is they backed the wrong horse, they backed more over the air channels, while the smart money backed streaming.

    Again wrong - they backed the correct horse at the time.

    Streaming arrived later by which point Osbourne and co were in power and the BBC were constrained from going all in on streaming...

    Sweeties for OAP Tory voters was way more important than international expansion.
    Nice try, they backed the wrong horse. Netflix backed streaming while Osborne was still on the Opposition benches.
    You also have to look at our broadband speeds and various other options.

    IPlayer kicked off on December 25th 2007 but it was only circa 2010 that it became obvious what Netflix's business model was.

    You are looking at streaming, what is really important is when did it become clear that it was possible to produce content and sell it across the world with little extra effort and that really is from 2010 onwards...

    Heck let's look at the other player within the streaming market

    Disney+ only started in November 2019.
    That's misleading, prior to Disney+ we had DisneyLife which began streaming in 2015.

    Of course in 2007 (or 2015) Disney had a much smaller catalogue. They've spent years planning Disney+ and building a catalogue including purchasing Marvel (2009), Lucasfilm (2012) and 21st Century Fox (2019).

    Disney+ without Marvel, Star Wars or Fox would be a much inferior product so they lined up the rights first, trialled the software with DisneyLife and other trials, then launched Disney+

    So they did it properly sorting out the rights first and following a strategy that led to the release of Disney+ it wasn't all done overnight.
    Which is why I said that the point at time in which it was possible to identify what the future looked like was back in 2010-12.

    Instead we have the half baked and very delayed Britbox approach because the BBC brand can't be used.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    As I understand it, the Federal Government can chuck him out, just because they want to - almost no reason required.

    So Morrison can look tough on COVID and there is pretty much no comeback.
    Is there votes in going to those lengths when Surely last result measures are a last result for effective government? The opposition will merely say, you could have achieved exactly same outcome quietly without such a eye of worlds media kuffufle, you silly dingo’s. 🤔 you see my point?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    The fecker is actually in Castle Djoko.

    Andy Murray
    @andy_murray
    Please record the awkward moment when you tell them you’ve spent most of your career campaigning to have people from Eastern Europe deported.

    https://twitter.com/andy_murray/status/1480315965870989316?s=20

    That made me laugh out loud! Sometimes the timing is just perfect.
  • Selebian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    tlg86 said:

    Did this get covered yesterday?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10384931/Jurgen-Klopp-reveals-Liverpools-Covid-outbreak-lot-false-positives.html

    'We had last week a proper outbreak and it showed up that we had a lot of false positives but the rules are like they are so all these players who are false positives couldn't play.

    'The only real positive came from Trent Alexander-Arnold and all the rest were false positives.'


    He obviously doesn't mean false positives, but not a great look for him to be talking about such things.

    I don't see why its not a great look? Until now an LFT positive followed by a PCR negative has been treated as a false positive.

    Given that you can very easily fake an LFT positive (I believe Lemonade triggers a positive) I have little faith in its credibility.

    If LFTs are causing positives but PCRs aren't finding them then that's a really serious problem that should be getting discussed.
    Unless you're deliberately messing up the test, the rate of false positives for LFTs is around one in a thousand.
    As far as I'm aware that's not been demonstrated by a self-administered study plus if its possible to get the wrong results by deliberately messing up the test, then we shouldn't rule out getting the wrong results without deliberately doing so.

    The high number of LFT positives followed by PCR negatives doesn't fit with the 1/1000 claim that was only made using data from professionally administered tests.
    The 1 in 1000 figure was derived from data including community use.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-analysis-of-lateral-flow-tests-shows-specificity-of-at-least-999
    Rapid testing in these locations uses the supervised testing model. Supervised testing is where the individual being tested swabs themselves under supervision of a trained operator, and the trained operator processes the test and reads the result.

    Spherical cow in a vacuum.
    Sure, but there's not an obvious mechanism from engineering a false positive unintentionally from simply cocking up the test. Real world sensitivity could be worse (i.e. people don't swab properly and get a negative when positive) but it's hard to see the way in which specificity would fall.

    Human factors though - my brother in law doctored my parents in law's Christmas Day LFTs, before we went over to see them (brother in law was staying with them) with a red biro to engineer a false positive, for the LOLs. I understand he got a Paddington Bear style hard stare from my mother in law when the truth emerged.
    I don't know how false positives would be more viable, but considering soft-drinks can trigger a false positive its clearly possible. To rule that out with a 1/1000 claim for a clinical setting is really disingenuous.

    Pure speculation but could recently drinking a soft drink be triggering the false positive? Or environmental factors?

    Given that false positives are possible, there certainly can be either environmental or operational reasons to cause them which would make the 1/1000 claim total bunkum.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,153

    Carnyx said:

    Hypothetical question. Smoke alarms are there not to prevent fire but to prevent death. Fire in house. Alarms allow the safe evacuation of inhabitants.

    Will their insurance company refuse to pay out because their functional alarms which worked as intended were not the specific type required by Scotland's new law?

    Most insurance policies have a clause about complying with legislation. But that's always so far been about things like building codes (which Grenfell did!). So it's a letter vs spirit of the law question...

    Messing around with insurance companies is probably not a smart move in general. If you give them a loophole to get out of paying, or paying less than you expect, then don't be surprised if they take it. It seems that's the assessors job post-incident.
    I'm going to get it done because I can. But as 95% of existing smoke alarms are not compliant there will be an awful lot of people who won't be. Because they don't know, can't afford it, or think it's stupid.

    So it's back down to how much of a row the insurance industry wants to have up here. Invalidating one person's policy because they had functional smoke alarms that did their job is one thing. If they try and do that to a lot of people, it may be the insurers in trouble.
    I suspect that insurance companies will be more reasonable than jobsworth bureaucrats.
    It's an interesting one. I understand that they get arsey if people have non-functional alarms. But what of you have functional alarms that do the job but aren't strictly compliant?

    This is the mess we have with this new law. Even the deadline isn't a deadline. Law says homeowners have a "reasonable period" afterwards to be compliant.

    So, 3rd April. Fire. Everyone out as the alarms go off. You're the insurance company. How do you handle it?

    Of course the Scottish government say everyone must know about the new rules as advertised in a locked filing cabinet in the basement with a sign that says beware of the leopard
    Where did you see the compliance period information please?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59623641

    "While we encourage homeowners to install interlinked alarms at the earliest opportunity, the legislation provides flexibility for work to be completed within a reasonable period, taking into account individual circumstances."

    As I currently have interlinked alarms I am considering hanging on before forking out for a 2nd set of them. There was money put up to help at least 35k people who can't afford this, yet only 800 have had new alarms fitted under the grant scheme. They don't have the cash to have had them done without a grant, loads of other people don't know about the change, so I'm assuming they kick the can down the road again next month after shocking headlines about half of households being technically illegal or whatever the number is.
    Thanks. It's all been disrupted by covid anyway. And of course IIRC you moved up here after the original main announcement, come to think of it. I also suspect part of the problem is the fragmentation of the media - in the old days there'd be ads in the Scottish newspapers and public information filmettes on BBC Scotland and STV, Grampian and Border.

    Will see what happens, but we have the alarms ready to install DIY on both my houses (one my late parent's, to be sold) so i may as well get it done! No wish to play silly buggers with insurance companies or house report surveyors.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    malcolmg said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    To recover and show they are in control they need to chuck him out ASAP. State that they will not endanger public for some jumped up millionaire sports clown.
    Agree. But many on here think making a dogs dinner out of something they could have quietly dealt with weeks ago is a great look for them.
  • Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Hang on, if I test one and the other doesn't go off, does that mean they are not interlinked for certain?
    Likely - unless one has flat batteries?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    As I understand it, the Federal Government can chuck him out, just because they want to - almost no reason required.

    So Morrison can look tough on COVID and there is pretty much no comeback.
    Is there votes in going to those lengths when Surely last result measures are a last result for effective government? The opposition will merely say, you could have achieved exactly same outcome quietly without such a eye of worlds media kuffufle, you silly dingo’s. 🤔 you see my point?
    They can try that. Morrison will sell it as "The courts, as usual, made a bad decision following all their legal guff. The Government then stepped in to Do The Right Thing."
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
    Tennis Australia were working with the local and State governments in Melbourne.

    It’s a bit like the tournament was in Glasgow, and Sturgeon said welcome, and now Boris is saying go away No-vax, because immigration is a UK government competence.
    Except tennis Aus asked the Feds to get involved at any early stage and were told “no can do - state issue…”
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,793

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Not compliant I believe - type and location as well as interlink. You need CO alarms in any room that has a combustion source (gas cooker, boiler, wood fire etc) and a smoke alarm in your living space. That this may be on the other side of the door to your already deafening alarm doesn't matter apparently.
    You don't need a smoke alarm in your living space if it shared with kitchen and you have a heat one there.

    I can't find any info online on how to test if the alarms are interlinked. Mine are mains powered.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,094
    edited January 2022

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:
    Definite Tory uptick

    If Boris can steer England through to the end of January with no NHS collapse and declining Omicron cases - and no further restrictions - then OGH will likely win his 3/1 bet (IIRC) on there being at least one Tory poll lead this month

    Might also make Drakeford/Sturgeon look a little foolish

    But, as always with Covid, 🙏🙏🙏🙏
    If things go quiet for a few months and the cost of living leaps in Spring are muted, then I could see the Tory share climbing back up to be on level pegging or even a tiny bit ahead of Labour. The two things that have shifted since a few months ago though are the small but sustained increased in Lib Dem VI (bad for Tories) and a small decline in Green (good for Labour), plus possibly enough of an uptick in SNP to cost the Tories a few close seats in Scotland especially if unionist tactical voting unwinds.

    The impact of all of this, plus what looks like a falling out with Boris in the North, could mean the Labour vote becomes a little less inefficient than it might have been.
    FT and other business media now saying the INFLATION BOMB is unlikely to be a thing at all, very short lived if anything.

    Like I said yesterday, there’s two scientific ways of looking at it. Both are right, just question of degree and weighting. Sure governments been double digit behind mid terms come back to win, and you have (no need to name them) PBers trawling over polls and sub samples for upticks to support that argument. But on the other hand, can’t remember ant and Dec and darts sing song or everyone in country calling Cameron lazy liar bastard I hate him, for example, so I am sure makes this different.
    LOL. Do a search on UK inflation forecasts, and you throw up lots of last year's forecasts with the UK inflation predicted to rise to about 3% in 2022 and then drop back.

    Yet we're already up to 5%+, and even the BoE is now expecting 5-6% by April with high inflation persisting through the year.

    It'll be a miracle if this passes quickly and we're back at 2.5%-ish by Christmas.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    malcolmg said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    To recover and show they are in control they need to chuck him out ASAP. State that they will not endanger public for some jumped up millionaire sports clown.
    But that would be the Federal government of Australia over-ruling the decisions of their colony, the State of Victoria, surely?
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Hypothetical question. Smoke alarms are there not to prevent fire but to prevent death. Fire in house. Alarms allow the safe evacuation of inhabitants.

    Will their insurance company refuse to pay out because their functional alarms which worked as intended were not the specific type required by Scotland's new law?

    Most insurance policies have a clause about complying with legislation. But that's always so far been about things like building codes (which Grenfell did!). So it's a letter vs spirit of the law question...

    Messing around with insurance companies is probably not a smart move in general. If you give them a loophole to get out of paying, or paying less than you expect, then don't be surprised if they take it. It seems that's the assessors job post-incident.
    I'm going to get it done because I can. But as 95% of existing smoke alarms are not compliant there will be an awful lot of people who won't be. Because they don't know, can't afford it, or think it's stupid.

    So it's back down to how much of a row the insurance industry wants to have up here. Invalidating one person's policy because they had functional smoke alarms that did their job is one thing. If they try and do that to a lot of people, it may be the insurers in trouble.
    I suspect that insurance companies will be more reasonable than jobsworth bureaucrats.
    It's an interesting one. I understand that they get arsey if people have non-functional alarms. But what of you have functional alarms that do the job but aren't strictly compliant?

    This is the mess we have with this new law. Even the deadline isn't a deadline. Law says homeowners have a "reasonable period" afterwards to be compliant.

    So, 3rd April. Fire. Everyone out as the alarms go off. You're the insurance company. How do you handle it?

    Of course the Scottish government say everyone must know about the new rules as advertised in a locked filing cabinet in the basement with a sign that says beware of the leopard
    Where did you see the compliance period information please?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59623641

    "While we encourage homeowners to install interlinked alarms at the earliest opportunity, the legislation provides flexibility for work to be completed within a reasonable period, taking into account individual circumstances."

    As I currently have interlinked alarms I am considering hanging on before forking out for a 2nd set of them. There was money put up to help at least 35k people who can't afford this, yet only 800 have had new alarms fitted under the grant scheme. They don't have the cash to have had them done without a grant, loads of other people don't know about the change, so I'm assuming they kick the can down the road again next month after shocking headlines about half of households being technically illegal or whatever the number is.
    Thanks. It's all been disrupted by covid anyway. And of course IIRC you moved up here after the original main announcement, come to think of it. I also suspect part of the problem is the fragmentation of the media - in the old days there'd be ads in the Scottish newspapers and public information filmettes on BBC Scotland and STV, Grampian and Border.

    Will see what happens, but we have the alarms ready to install DIY on both my houses (one my late parent's, to be sold) so i may as well get it done! No wish to play silly buggers with insurance companies or house report surveyors.
    When I posted last night I appear to have prompted several other PBers who didn't know or thought they were compliant... The real issue for the government is that if large numbers are not compliant how do they enforce it?

    Significant numbers of the poorest haven't got the grant to upgrade their detectors - they aren't paying for it themselves are they? Does "reasonable period" that isn't defined in the guidance wash its face if an arsey insurer wants to mess about? Risk to both the government and the insurance industry is claims being turned down to people with fully-functioning alarms within the "reasonable period".
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
    Novak is only a martyr to anti Vaxxers, most Australian voters agree with Morrison and the Federal government
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
    Tennis Australia were working with the local and State governments in Melbourne.

    It’s a bit like the tournament was in Glasgow, and Sturgeon said welcome, and now Boris is saying go away No-vax, because immigration is a UK government competence.
    I just think they failed to got together before hand and have a United strong policy to communicate to tennis players weeks ago. The tennis Australia decision came as surprise to federal government. Not a good look.

    In your scenarios you would think Boris government would be proactive enough not to get caught out by the unexpected lob, if they are on their game 🙂
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884

    Common cold might have given Britons protection from Covid before pandemic began
    Memory T-cells from colds could be the secret weapon against infection, study suggests

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/10/common-cold-might-have-given-britons-protection-covid-pandemic/

    This is interesting. I've said before about people being significantly exposed to the virus but not getting infected (such as the initial cruise ships story, me with a colleague etc). There have been some studies where partners don't catch it from their other halves.

    Ultimately it won't matter much going forward as almost all of us have been exposed now.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,793

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Hang on, if I test one and the other doesn't go off, does that mean they are not interlinked for certain?
    Likely - unless one has flat batteries?
    They both work individually.

    I'm going to have to an electrician in anyway. Might send a copy of the invoice to my MSP.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
    Novak is only a martyr to anti Vaxxers, most Australian voters agree with Morrison and the Federal government
    No. As the dust settles the public will back opposition saying, what a kuffufle! All this could have been dealt with quietly weeks ago by a proactive and effective government.
  • Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Hang on, if I test one and the other doesn't go off, does that mean they are not interlinked for certain?
    Likely - unless one has flat batteries?
    They both work individually.

    I'm going to have to an electrician in anyway. Might send a copy of the invoice to my MSP.
    Expect a lecture. You're living in a potential death trap. That deafening smoke alarm goes off a second or so behind the other one because they aren't interlinked. Think of the children!
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    IanB2 said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:
    Definite Tory uptick

    If Boris can steer England through to the end of January with no NHS collapse and declining Omicron cases - and no further restrictions - then OGH will likely win his 3/1 bet (IIRC) on there being at least one Tory poll lead this month

    Might also make Drakeford/Sturgeon look a little foolish

    But, as always with Covid, 🙏🙏🙏🙏
    If things go quiet for a few months and the cost of living leaps in Spring are muted, then I could see the Tory share climbing back up to be on level pegging or even a tiny bit ahead of Labour. The two things that have shifted since a few months ago though are the small but sustained increased in Lib Dem VI (bad for Tories) and a small decline in Green (good for Labour), plus possibly enough of an uptick in SNP to cost the Tories a few close seats in Scotland especially if unionist tactical voting unwinds.

    The impact of all of this, plus what looks like a falling out with Boris in the North, could mean the Labour vote becomes a little less inefficient than it might have been.
    FT and other business media now saying the INFLATION BOMB is unlikely to be a thing at all, very short lived if anything.

    Like I said yesterday, there’s two scientific ways of looking at it. Both are right, just question of degree and weighting. Sure governments been double digit behind mid terms come back to win, and you have (no need to name them) PBers trawling over polls and sub samples for upticks to support that argument. But on the other hand, can’t remember ant and Dec and darts sing song or everyone in country calling Cameron lazy liar bastard I hate him, for example, so I am sure makes this different.
    LOL. Do a search on UK inflation forecasts, and you throw up lots of last year's forecasts with the UK inflation predicted to rise to about 3% in 2022 and then drop back.

    Yet we're already up to 5%+, and even the BoE is now expecting 5-6% by April with high inflation persisting through the year.

    It'll be a miracle if this passes quickly and we're back at 2.5%-ish by Christmas.
    Not according to financial press now, who are saying it likely to be short term spike. Political betting wise we can’t factor in its certain to be a huge poll plunging credit crunch.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
    Novak is only a martyr to anti Vaxxers, most Australian voters agree with Morrison and the Federal government
    No. As the dust settles the public will back opposition saying, what a kuffufle! All this could have been dealt with quietly weeks ago by a proactive and effective government.
    Not so sure, from what I am hearing from the quite anti-Morrison people I know in Australia.

    They see it as another example of how the rich and connected have been sneaking round the rules. That the State Government and and tennis authorities were trying to hide the issue and allow people to bullshit their way in.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    On the opinion polls, it may well be that the Tories recover and sail to victory at the next GE.

    But what's interesting is the change of mood on PB. It's not so long ago that virtually everybody (right, centre, and left) thought that a Tory GE victory in 2024 or whenever was a slam dunk. The accepted view was that Starmer was hopeless, the Shadow Cabinet crap, and Labour moribund. Whereas Boris, to coin a phrase, had his finger on the metaphorical clitoris of enough of the British people to get away with anything and serve at least two terms.

    How that has changed. Many, if not most, posters seem to think a Labour minority government is reasonably likely, and even a handful think an outright Labour win is not inconceivable. Even HYUFD has been hinting that the Tories are unlikely to be in power next time around. The mood music has certainly changed, hasn't it?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,153
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Not compliant I believe - type and location as well as interlink. You need CO alarms in any room that has a combustion source (gas cooker, boiler, wood fire etc) and a smoke alarm in your living space. That this may be on the other side of the door to your already deafening alarm doesn't matter apparently.
    You don't need a smoke alarm in your living space if it shared with kitchen and you have a heat one there.

    I can't find any info online on how to test if the alarms are interlinked. Mine are mains powered.
    The model number plus a google should help determine if the linking is fitted - but it may not be visible ... there should be a specific test procedure, I believe, to see if the linking actually works.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    No because if it did not become a front page issue Morrison could not make front page political capital out of it.

    Standing up to judges did not work out too badly for Boris in 2019 either
    You sure? Ideally they could have nipped it in the bud, tennis Australia and federal government working together before the player travelled, but you are almost saying federal government choosing this route instead to make an issue instead, rather than caught on hop by tennis Australia de ion. They have now created a martyr in Novak whose determined to beat them and fulfil his fixture, also getting into techy legal argument with the judiciary.
    Novak is only a martyr to anti Vaxxers, most Australian voters agree with Morrison and the Federal government
    No. As the dust settles the public will back opposition saying, what a kuffufle! All this could have been dealt with quietly weeks ago by a proactive and effective government.
    No, the Labor controlled government in Victoria let Novak in
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,870
    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Did this get covered yesterday?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10384931/Jurgen-Klopp-reveals-Liverpools-Covid-outbreak-lot-false-positives.html

    'We had last week a proper outbreak and it showed up that we had a lot of false positives but the rules are like they are so all these players who are false positives couldn't play.

    'The only real positive came from Trent Alexander-Arnold and all the rest were false positives.'


    He obviously doesn't mean false positives, but not a great look for him to be talking about such things.

    Do you think he means asymptomatic then? Why do you say that he doesn't mean false positives? There have been examples.
    I don't know. Just going on what I've read here, false positives basically don't happen.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-analysis-of-lateral-flow-tests-shows-specificity-of-at-least-999

    LFT specificity 99.9%. Odds of 13 false positives about 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001.

    Either the PCRs were false negatives (Lab error) or the lfts were from a duff batch (That brand of LFTs need to be withdrawn from the market immediately). Either way there's more story than blindly putting out '13 false positives'.
    I'm calling bullshit on that study. Considering that soft drinks trigger a false positive I don't believe that 99.9% claim.

    It has been confirmed elsewhere.

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Hang on, if I test one and the other doesn't go off, does that mean they are not interlinked for certain?
    Likely - unless one has flat batteries?
    The randomly beeping is likely a flat battery. The alarms with PP3 batteries are not compliant, and almost certainly not interlinked.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,870
    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Not compliant I believe - type and location as well as interlink. You need CO alarms in any room that has a combustion source (gas cooker, boiler, wood fire etc) and a smoke alarm in your living space. That this may be on the other side of the door to your already deafening alarm doesn't matter apparently.
    You don't need a smoke alarm in your living space if it shared with kitchen and you have a heat one there.

    I can't find any info online on how to test if the alarms are interlinked. Mine are mains powered.
    The model number plus a google should help determine if the linking is fitted - but it may not be visible ... there should be a specific test procedure, I believe, to see if the linking actually works.
    When ours were installed, pressing the test button gradually started them all beeping, one after the other. Certainly scared the dogs!
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,793

    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Not compliant I believe - type and location as well as interlink. You need CO alarms in any room that has a combustion source (gas cooker, boiler, wood fire etc) and a smoke alarm in your living space. That this may be on the other side of the door to your already deafening alarm doesn't matter apparently.
    You don't need a smoke alarm in your living space if it shared with kitchen and you have a heat one there.

    I can't find any info online on how to test if the alarms are interlinked. Mine are mains powered.
    The model number plus a google should help determine if the linking is fitted - but it may not be visible ... there should be a specific test procedure, I believe, to see if the linking actually works.
    When ours were installed, pressing the test button gradually started them all beeping, one after the other. Certainly scared the dogs!
    Yaaaaaaaas. Thanks so much!!!!
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,676
    edited January 2022
    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    I bought a replacement one last year , was a mains one with battery backup, and it was really cheap about 25 pounds Amazon Prime , Aico Ei146RC Smoke Alarm.
    PS: you should really have heat detector for your kitchen area
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793

    Common cold might have given Britons protection from Covid before pandemic began
    Memory T-cells from colds could be the secret weapon against infection, study suggests

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/10/common-cold-might-have-given-britons-protection-covid-pandemic/

    Or might not.

    This has been looked at since the pandemic began (and was a keystone of first Mike Yeadon and then Toby Young's argument that the pandemic was over as of October 2020)
    [Narrator's voice: "The pandemic was not over"]

    The La Jolla institute uncovered that seasonal coronavirus T-cells were stimulated into cross-reactivity by covid infection, but were unsure as to whether it would help, hinder, or do nothing. They did emphasise that whatever the outcome, it would not help towards herd immunity (and both Young and Yeadon decided that was inconvenient, so ignored that statement and claimed the precise opposite)

    Meanwhile, other studies pointed towards negative outcomes (https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(20)30503-3 for example, and a little more recently https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867421001604 )

    One indicated possibly worse outcomes for covid (which can be understood as the immune system sees a coronavirus, activates the T-cells for the common cold, and relaxes - whilst the T-cells turn up and go, "Nope, guv'nor - not me," and the virus gets an extra window of time to replicate.

    The latter one does indicate that the reverse does happen, though - infection with covid does enhance your resistance to those particular common cold strains.

    This latest research may indicate the opposite. Either way, though, it's hardly settled or to be relied upon yet.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited January 2022
    alex_ said:

    darkage said:

    "In March 2020, internal documents leaked to The Intercept revealed that moderators had been instructed to suppress posts created by users deemed "too ugly, poor, or disabled" for the platform, and to censor political speech in livestreams, punishing those who harmed "national honor" or broadcast streams about "state organs such as police" with bans from the platform."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_on_TikTok

    If Facebook is bad, then TikTok is malign.

    I have never bothered with TikTok. Somebody once described it to me as "For people whose attention span is too small for YouTube Shorts". So surely that would mean that TikTok news coverage would be something like "Here is the news. Thank you for watching. More news in an hour" :D
    I've never really bothered with it either, beyond understanding what it is. I've always thought of it as being ok as entertainment but a poor medium to discuss anything remotely serious.

    What stood out to me was Nadia Whittome (MP) saying in a newspaper interview that she doesn't watch films, she spends her evenings on tic tok. These are the people we elect to parliament.
    She’s far from alone. An awful lot of people have totally abandoned old patterns of media usage, eg tv. Watching tv has become a sign that you are way out of the game.
    Like all these discussions I tend to thing these sorts of claims are a bit exaggerated. Often said by people who also complain about the power of the BBC, right wing press barons etc etc
    Fading Ratings: How far broadcast tv has tumbled since 2015

    - Viewership metrics for the 18-49 demo show tremendous declines in live and same-day viewing for primetime fall shows

    - Scripted content has seen the biggest drops as consumption patterns change

    - There are just 10 shows or special events with an average 18-49 demo rating greater than 1.0 in 2021, versus 77 in 2015

    https://variety.com/vip/fading-ratings-how-far-broadcast-tv-has-tumbled-since-2015-1235124641/
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,676

    malcolmg said:

    alex_ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Good morning

    On Djokovic it has just been reported that should the Federal Australian government proceed as rumoured to expel him from Australia, he will be banned from re-entering Australia for 3 years and no doubt cause him problems worldwide

    Surely the Australian Government have to accept defeat on this now. They clearly cocked-up. Time to move on.
    I hope so. It's hard to call though. Domestic politics drove the first decision so it might drive the next one too.
    As I understand it, the Australian Federal government can kick him out, pretty much at whim.

    From what my Australian friends say, this would be approved of by just about everyone there, who isn't an anti-vaxer.
    “Can” and “should” (given they seem to have created the situation which could have been avoided in the first place) are two different things though.

    You can say that Djok has himself to “blame” for not getting vaccinated, but basically if he’s been encouraged to travel to Australia in belief that he would not be deported, and then is, and that then causes him ongoing difficulties in future (including barring him from future participation in Australia for three years) then at the very least he’s strong grounds for complaint on grounds of natural justice.
    I think Felix down thread said this is most difficult for lefties? My mum loves farage, love Djokovic, being rightwinger Conservative loves Morrison loves his stance on coal and jobs versus green wokists. I’d say it’s an odd one to make left-right point scoring.

    HY said it’s going well for electioneering Morrison. I think maybe up to the point the judge didn’t back them, it’s now getting messy. And messy isn’t a good look for a government, it looks like Tennis Australia and federal government were not on same page to nip it in bud before it became an issue, ideally that would have been best thing for the government?
    To recover and show they are in control they need to chuck him out ASAP. State that they will not endanger public for some jumped up millionaire sports clown.
    Agree. But many on here think making a dogs dinner out of something they could have quietly dealt with weeks ago is a great look for them.
    I am never surprised by the bizarre conclusions made on here, you become immune to them eventually and just chuckle.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,676

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Did this get covered yesterday?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10384931/Jurgen-Klopp-reveals-Liverpools-Covid-outbreak-lot-false-positives.html

    'We had last week a proper outbreak and it showed up that we had a lot of false positives but the rules are like they are so all these players who are false positives couldn't play.

    'The only real positive came from Trent Alexander-Arnold and all the rest were false positives.'


    He obviously doesn't mean false positives, but not a great look for him to be talking about such things.

    Do you think he means asymptomatic then? Why do you say that he doesn't mean false positives? There have been examples.
    I don't know. Just going on what I've read here, false positives basically don't happen.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-analysis-of-lateral-flow-tests-shows-specificity-of-at-least-999

    LFT specificity 99.9%. Odds of 13 false positives about 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001.

    Either the PCRs were false negatives (Lab error) or the lfts were from a duff batch (That brand of LFTs need to be withdrawn from the market immediately). Either way there's more story than blindly putting out '13 false positives'.
    I'm calling bullshit on that study. Considering that soft drinks trigger a false positive I don't believe that 99.9% claim.

    It has been confirmed elsewhere.

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Update for Scottish posters:

    I have two fire alarms, one heat in my open living/kitchen space and another smoke in my hall. Compliant with the new regs.

    They are approx 3m away from each other. My bed is a further two metres away from the hall one. The heat detector is deafening in my bedroom.

    Tested them this morning and they are not interlinked, despite being interlink ready, I think?!? Hard to tell as have no ladder.

    I am pissed as they are only two years old.

    Edit: FFS one is randomly beeping now and I have meeting in 10.

    Hang on, if I test one and the other doesn't go off, does that mean they are not interlinked for certain?
    Likely - unless one has flat batteries?
    The randomly beeping is likely a flat battery. The alarms with PP3 batteries are not compliant, and almost certainly not interlinked.
    Yes if the battery lasts to its 10 year lifespan or thinks it is dying it starts annoying you till you change it, whole unit as well. I believe my tenant changed the battery first but they did not work, had to be unit replacement.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,676

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Hypothetical question. Smoke alarms are there not to prevent fire but to prevent death. Fire in house. Alarms allow the safe evacuation of inhabitants.

    Will their insurance company refuse to pay out because their functional alarms which worked as intended were not the specific type required by Scotland's new law?

    Most insurance policies have a clause about complying with legislation. But that's always so far been about things like building codes (which Grenfell did!). So it's a letter vs spirit of the law question...

    Messing around with insurance companies is probably not a smart move in general. If you give them a loophole to get out of paying, or paying less than you expect, then don't be surprised if they take it. It seems that's the assessors job post-incident.
    I'm going to get it done because I can. But as 95% of existing smoke alarms are not compliant there will be an awful lot of people who won't be. Because they don't know, can't afford it, or think it's stupid.

    So it's back down to how much of a row the insurance industry wants to have up here. Invalidating one person's policy because they had functional smoke alarms that did their job is one thing. If they try and do that to a lot of people, it may be the insurers in trouble.
    I suspect that insurance companies will be more reasonable than jobsworth bureaucrats.
    It's an interesting one. I understand that they get arsey if people have non-functional alarms. But what of you have functional alarms that do the job but aren't strictly compliant?

    This is the mess we have with this new law. Even the deadline isn't a deadline. Law says homeowners have a "reasonable period" afterwards to be compliant.

    So, 3rd April. Fire. Everyone out as the alarms go off. You're the insurance company. How do you handle it?

    Of course the Scottish government say everyone must know about the new rules as advertised in a locked filing cabinet in the basement with a sign that says beware of the leopard
    Where did you see the compliance period information please?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59623641

    "While we encourage homeowners to install interlinked alarms at the earliest opportunity, the legislation provides flexibility for work to be completed within a reasonable period, taking into account individual circumstances."

    As I currently have interlinked alarms I am considering hanging on before forking out for a 2nd set of them. There was money put up to help at least 35k people who can't afford this, yet only 800 have had new alarms fitted under the grant scheme. They don't have the cash to have had them done without a grant, loads of other people don't know about the change, so I'm assuming they kick the can down the road again next month after shocking headlines about half of households being technically illegal or whatever the number is.
    Thanks. It's all been disrupted by covid anyway. And of course IIRC you moved up here after the original main announcement, come to think of it. I also suspect part of the problem is the fragmentation of the media - in the old days there'd be ads in the Scottish newspapers and public information filmettes on BBC Scotland and STV, Grampian and Border.

    Will see what happens, but we have the alarms ready to install DIY on both my houses (one my late parent's, to be sold) so i may as well get it done! No wish to play silly buggers with insurance companies or house report surveyors.
    When I posted last night I appear to have prompted several other PBers who didn't know or thought they were compliant... The real issue for the government is that if large numbers are not compliant how do they enforce it?

    Significant numbers of the poorest haven't got the grant to upgrade their detectors - they aren't paying for it themselves are they? Does "reasonable period" that isn't defined in the guidance wash its face if an arsey insurer wants to mess about? Risk to both the government and the insurance industry is claims being turned down to people with fully-functioning alarms within the "reasonable period".
    For sure they will not go round checking them , issue will arise if a) house burns down and insurance say no payout, b) you do alterations and building company / tradesmen insist you must comply blah blah , or c) you want to sell , need to get house report
This discussion has been closed.