Starmer has better than a 13.9% chance of being next PM – politicalbetting.com

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Starmer has better than a 13.9% chance of being next PM – politicalbetting.com

At the weekend I placed a bet at 7.2 on Betfair that Starmer will be the next PM. To be successful this gamble has two very distinctive components – that Johnson goes into the next general election as Prime Minister and in that election the Tories lose their majority.

Read the full story here

OnlyLivingBoy

Agreed.

StuartDickson

Second like Scottish Labour next time.

rottenborough

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
49m
This week those predicting an Omicron crisis will fold their cards. The argument will shift to "we'd have had a crisis if behaviour hadn't changed". But there was significantly more intergenerational Christmas mixing than last year. And that was supposed to be the main trigger.

rottenborough

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/

StuartDickson

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Agreed.

I too concur with Smithson snr.

HYUFD

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

rottenborough

7.2 is value. I have taken a nibble.

Selebian

I've ridden this train once before, due to Kinabalu pointing out the value when Starmer was ~8 (rode it down to 4.something and then got out).

Same issues as before with it actually winning - need the narrowish window of Johson doing well enough to not get kicked out but bad enough for Starmer to be next PM, but likely value at 7.2. Guess I should go back in if those are still the odds, probably with a view to trading out again, though.

Edit: traded out at 4.6, which was about the peak. Not often I manage to do that.

StuartDickson

New YouGov:

Lab 37%
Con 33%
LD 10%
Grn 6%
SNP 5%
Refuk 5%
oth 4%

StuartDickson

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

StuartDickson

Selebian said:

I've ridden this train once before, due to Kinabalu pointing out the value when Starmer was ~8 (rode it down to 4.something and then got out).

Same issues as before with it actually winning - need the narrowish window of Johson doing well enough to not get kicked out but bad enough for Starmer to be next PM, but likely value at 7.2. Guess I should go back in if those are still the odds, probably with a view to trading out again, though.

Absolutely. It is a fair trading bet.

kinabalu

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

Carnyx

FPT for @RochdalePioneers - many thanks for comments re implementation period.

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 risk playing silly buggers with insurance companies or house report surveyors over what an implementation period might or might not be.

HYUFD

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

TimS

StuartDickson said:

New YouGov:

Lab 37%
Con 33%
LD 10%
Grn 6%
SNP 5%
Refuk 5%
oth 4%

Adjusted for FPTP election realities:

Lab 40% (+3 from Green)
Con 37% (+4% from REFUK)

Still a decent lead for Labour for now, but the Tory/pro-Brexit floor level holding up pretty well considering recent events.

StuartDickson

Dreadful Redwall splits for Johnson in that YouGov:

North: Lab 44% Con 33% (weighted sample = 420)
Midlands and Wales: Lab 39% Con 31% (weighted sample = 378)

The May elections are going to be fun.

Selebian

FPT

BartholomewRoberts said:

Selebian said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

BartholomewRoberts 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.

Fari point. Contamination from recent consumption of something could make a difference. Less likely if you've driven somewhere to be supervised than at home, I guess. And supervision might include asking that question, too.

There were the stories about kids faking positives etc, not sure how reliable those were.

Carnyx

Farooq said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

The good people of England are proud of their parliament, so it only makes sense that they want a second.

Not Conservative policy though.

SandyRentool

I will be very pleased if OGH wins this bet!

eek

StuartDickson said:

Dreadful Redwall splits for Johnson in that YouGov:

North: Lab 44% Con 33% (weighted sample = 420)
Midlands and Wales: Lab 39% Con 31% (weighted sample = 378)

The May elections are going to be fun.

Hard to see many places that would generate a headline as leadership of a council changes though

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_Kingdom_local_elections#Elections_for_all_councillors

HYUFD

StuartDickson said:

Dreadful Redwall splits for Johnson in that YouGov:

North: Lab 44% Con 33% (weighted sample = 420)
Midlands and Wales: Lab 39% Con 31% (weighted sample = 378)

The May elections are going to be fun.

10% Conservative lead still in the South though and Labour lead down to only 11% in the North not bad either given Labour won the North overall even in 2019 and 8% behind n the Midlands and Wales not far from the national average.

London a bit more worrying though as Labour now 25% ahead there with Yougov and in 2018 when London councils were last up Labour were only 15% ahead in the capital. That suggests Starmer will see Labour gain Wandsworth and Barnet.

Better news for the SCons with the Tories on 24% in Scotland, little changed from 2019
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/e5m51chrt8/TheTimes_VI_220107_W.pdf

Carnyx

FPT and snipped

RochdalePioneers said:

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".

Presumably the assumption is that many of the poorer folk are renting anyway so their landlords are the ones with the responsibility. But how it works out remains to be seen.

However as with covid this does raise the issue of how one gets to everyone with major public health etc campaigns. We don't all watch BBC1 and buy a newspaper every day. Sure, covid was a hell of a distraction - but even so.

Sunil_Prasannan

BartholomewRoberts

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

kinabalu

Selebian said:

I've ridden this train once before, due to Kinabalu pointing out the value when Starmer was ~8 (rode it down to 4.something and then got out).

Same issues as before with it actually winning - need the narrowish window of Johson doing well enough to not get kicked out but bad enough for Starmer to be next PM, but likely value at 7.2. Guess I should go back in if those are still the odds, probably with a view to trading out again, though.

Edit: traded out at 4.6, which was about the peak. Not often I manage to do that.

Yes, very good exit by you and I think you *can* do it again. I see him back with a 4 handle before too long.

Sunil_Prasannan

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

A majority of UK voters voted for Progressive Parties in 2019. Fact.

HYUFD

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

StuartDickson

YouGov:

- “How well or badly do you think the government are doing at handling Britain's exit from the European Union?”

GB:
Well 28%
Badly 63%
DK 10%

Scotland:
Well 18%
Badly 75%
DK 7%

- “In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?”

GB:
Right to leave 39%
Wrong to leave 49%
DK 12%

Scotland:
Right to leave 21%
Wrong to leave 71%
DK 8%

BartholomewRoberts

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

But that still wouldn't give England its own Parliament in all but name.

In such circumstances England would have elected a Tory majority so should have an English First Minister in the same way as Wales has a Labour one and Scotland an SNP one.

If there's a Labour PM and no Tory First Minister then clearly England still lacks its own Parliament. In practice and not just in name.

Sunil_Prasannan

A little reminder:

According to my calculations (which are SOMETIMES correct!), the "Progressive Alliance" easily, er, "won" GE 2019!

"What is you on about, Sunil?" I hear you cry!

Well, the Progressive Parties won 52.20% of the popular vote, the Right-wing Reactionaries won only 46.83%, and others and independents won 0.97%.

"Show your workings".

OK:

Labour 32.08
LDs 11.55
SNP 3.88
Greens (all UK sections) 2.70
SF 0.57
PC 0.48
APNI 0.42
SDLP 0.37
Yorks 0.09 (yes, they are down as centre-left)
TIGs 0.03
PBP 0.02
Northeast 0.01(yes, they are down as centre-left)
Mebyon Kernow 0.01

TOTAL 52.20%


Conservative 43.63
Brexit 2.01
DUP 0.76
UUP 0.29
UKIP 0.07
Aontu 0.03 (Republicans, but socially conservative)
CPA 0.02
EDP 0.01
Libertarian 0.01

TOTAL 46.83%


OTHERS 0.97%

Dura_Ace

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

HYUFD

BartholomewRoberts said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

But that still wouldn't give England its own Parliament in all but name.

In such circumstances England would have elected a Tory majority so should have an English First Minister in the same way as Wales has a Labour one and Scotland an SNP one.

If there's a Labour PM and no Tory First Minister then clearly England still lacks its own Parliament. In practice and not just in name.

In those circumstances the Tory Leader of the Opposition would effectively be FM of England in all but name, even if Starmer was UK PM

kinabalu

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

HYUFD

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Starmer to vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

The composition of the MPs makes no difference at all to the constitutional status of English legislation or the parliamentary process for passing it. Bills are marked as English-only, and are voted for on a majority.
The party composition of parliament only affects the character of the bills that are attempted and passed. The truth of falsity of England having a parliament is unrelated to who the PM is, what legislation they are attempting, and whether they succeed in passing it.

SNP MPs abstain on English-only legislation. So if Starmer needed SNP MPs to become UK PM he could only get UK wide legislation through, he could not pass any English-only legislation so he would lead a government that could not legislate on English domestic policy

dixiedean

The trouble with an English Parliament is that it would be even more dominated by the SE, and the interests of the SE, than Westminster.
For that alone I oppose.
We need greater devolution. Not another talking shop for London and the Home Counties.

Richard_Tyndall

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

Of course they would vote in everything. They would do exactly what they have done in the past and find some way to justify all legislation as having an impact on Scotland. They have track record for this including having to be blocked by the Speaker from voting under the EVEL Convention.

BartholomewRoberts

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

Carnyx

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Starmer to vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

The composition of the MPs makes no difference at all to the constitutional status of English legislation or the parliamentary process for passing it. Bills are marked as English-only, and are voted for on a majority.
The party composition of parliament only affects the character of the bills that are attempted and passed. The truth of falsity of England having a parliament is unrelated to who the PM is, what legislation they are attempting, and whether they succeed in passing it.

SNP MPs abstain on English-only legislation. So if Starmer needed SNP MPs to become UK PM he could only get UK wide legislation through, he could not pass any English-only legislation so he would lead a government that could not legislate on English domestic policy

Be interesting to see if Unionist MPs don't abstain. In fact, I suspect that Mr Gove abolished EVEL to make sure that the English-constituency Tories can call on Tory MPs for Scottish and Welsh constituencies when opposing Labour on English legislation (illogical given how the Tories whine about Scottish MPs voting on English matters, but logical in another sense for Unionists). So if there were x Scottish Tory MPs in Scotland doing so, the logical thing would be for x (only) SNP MPs to vote opposing them to neutralise them as far as English legislation was concerned.

Dura_Ace

dixiedean said:

The trouble with an English Parliament is that it would be even more dominated by the SE, and the interests of the SE, than Westminster.
For that alone I oppose.
We need greater devolution. Not another talking shop for London and the Home Counties.

The Bruxelles Solutions? A capital region which is excluded from the devolved assemblies.

DecrepiterJohnL

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

HYUFD

dixiedean said:

The trouble with an English Parliament is that it would be even more dominated by the SE, and the interests of the SE, than Westminster.
For that alone I oppose.
We need greater devolution. Not another talking shop for London and the Home Counties.

The swing region for the UK is the Midlands, the swing regions for England alone would be the East and Southwest and East Midlands. In neither case is it London and the SE

RochdalePioneers

rottenborough said:

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
49m
This week those predicting an Omicron crisis will fold their cards. The argument will shift to "we'd have had a crisis if behaviour hadn't changed". But there was significantly more intergenerational Christmas mixing than last year. And that was supposed to be the main trigger.

What does he mean "fold their cards"? Its bloody brilliant that we're seemingly over the top - does he think there are people angry or upset by it?

We're by no means out of the woods yet - still got mega pressure on hospitals in various parts of the country. But can see the way through it which is way better than it looked even late last week.

FrancisUrquhart

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

Western Australia vs the rest?

Carnyx

Richard_Tyndall said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

Of course they would vote in everything. They would do exactly what they have done in the past and find some way to justify all legislation as having an impact on Scotland. They have track record for this including having to be blocked by the Speaker from voting under the EVEL Convention.

They don't. They abstain often - eg in some of the recent covid regs votes.

BlancheLivermore

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

I'm pretty sure that you've read it wrong. There's "will it be BJ v SKS?"; then - given that it IS BJ v SKS - "who wins out of BJ & SKS?". There's zero chance that it isn't BJ v SKS once we get to the second question.

turbotubbs

RochdalePioneers said:

rottenborough said:

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
49m
This week those predicting an Omicron crisis will fold their cards. The argument will shift to "we'd have had a crisis if behaviour hadn't changed". But there was significantly more intergenerational Christmas mixing than last year. And that was supposed to be the main trigger.

What does he mean "fold their cards"? Its bloody brilliant that we're seemingly over the top - does he think there are people angry or upset by it?

We're by no means out of the woods yet - still got mega pressure on hospitals in various parts of the country. But can see the way through it which is way better than it looked even late last week.

Do you realise that the total number of patients in hospital is actually lower than the same time in 2020? The problem is mainly one of staff, and that is a huge issue. Not sure how we solve it to be honest, especially in the short term.

RochdalePioneers

Carnyx said:

FPT and snipped

RochdalePioneers said:

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".

Presumably the assumption is that many of the poorer folk are renting anyway so their landlords are the ones with the responsibility. But how it works out remains to be seen.

However as with covid this does raise the issue of how one gets to everyone with major public health etc campaigns. We don't all watch BBC1 and buy a newspaper every day. Sure, covid was a hell of a distraction - but even so.

I don't see this even as a major public health / safety issue. People who live in flats / apartments need interlinked systems. This legislation, despite making 95% of installed and working alarm systems out of code, doesn't actually do anything for safety in these buildings. Its an epic fail.

MaxPB

RochdalePioneers said:

rottenborough said:

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
49m
This week those predicting an Omicron crisis will fold their cards. The argument will shift to "we'd have had a crisis if behaviour hadn't changed". But there was significantly more intergenerational Christmas mixing than last year. And that was supposed to be the main trigger.

What does he mean "fold their cards"? Its bloody brilliant that we're seemingly over the top - does he think there are people angry or upset by it?

We're by no means out of the woods yet - still got mega pressure on hospitals in various parts of the country. But can see the way through it which is way better than it looked even late last week.

There's actually a weird subset of people who are upset about it. Not anyone on here, but definitely all across twitter and the wider internet there's anger that we didn't have a lockdown and now even more because it looks like we didn't need one.

Selebian

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

I read Kinbalu's 50% chance for SKS win being conditional on the 66% chance SKS v BJ (if the 66% chance comes off then a 50% chance). In which case multiplying is fine.

You do have to consider what happens in the 34% chance of not SKS v BJ, but then there is a near 0% chance of SKS next PM anyway (if BJ goes then we get another Tory PM next, unless he goes through a vote of no-confidence in parliament and SKS invited next - very unlikely; if SKS goes then he's not next PM, barring again some very unlikely post-election negotiations - Labour switch to corbyn mk2, potential coalition partners demand SKS)

Edit: So there is very little overlap you describe. If BJ is replaced pre-election then SKS not next PM, bar a whole flock of black swans.

Carnyx

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

Western Australia vs the rest?

The Aussies had a small but useful armoured force in WW2 to support the inevitably primarily infantry campaigns in the South-West Pacific islands - New Guinea, Solomons, etc., - and in case of Japanese landings on the Australian mainland. Presumably the logic remains the same against any threat.

More recently they sent armour and infantry etc. to Viet Nam to support the US forces there.

BartholomewRoberts

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

When I lived there in 1999 they became heavily involved in a UN peacekeeping mission in Indonesia/East Timor (East Timor was at the time a part of Indonesia). Some in Australia were concerned at the time this could lead to conflict with the Indonesian military, who were behind some of the violence they went in to resolve.

Dura_Ace

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

I suspect the optimistic calculation is that they are buying favour and goodwill with the US defence establishment and having some tanks thrown in as a bonus.

StuartDickson

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

FrancisUrquhart

StuartDickson said:

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

"Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8."

The good old COVID likes an early night.

BartholomewRoberts

BlancheLivermore said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

I'm pretty sure that you've read it wrong. There's "will it be BJ v SKS?"; then - given that it IS BJ v SKS - "who wins out of BJ & SKS?". There's zero chance that it isn't BJ v SKS once we get to the second question.

Only if he means 50% from BJ v SKS rather than 50% for SKS winning.

Considering that NOT BJ v SKS has a higher chance of SKS winning than BJ v SKS (because BJ is more likely to be replaced if it looks like the Tories are losing the next election) then that only works if Kinabalu is saying SKS has a greater than 50% chance of winning the next election.

If he's saying there's a 50% chance of SKS winning the next election then the two questions are not independent.

Endillion

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Starmer to vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

The composition of the MPs makes no difference at all to the constitutional status of English legislation or the parliamentary process for passing it. Bills are marked as English-only, and are voted for on a majority.
The party composition of parliament only affects the character of the bills that are attempted and passed. The truth of falsity of England having a parliament is unrelated to who the PM is, what legislation they are attempting, and whether they succeed in passing it.

SNP MPs abstain on English-only legislation. So if Starmer needed SNP MPs to become UK PM he could only get UK wide legislation through, he could not pass any English-only legislation so he would lead a government that could not legislate on English domestic policy

Yeah, they could. They would just have to get the agreement of the Conservatives. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

There's no way that would happen in practice - it would make Starmer look ridiculous. In practice, the SNP would have to agree to vote with the Government on all legislation, regardless of whether it applied in Scotland or not.

Cookie

StuartDickson said:

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

Why? Genuine question. The tide across most of Europe (I think?) is in the other direction: i.e. omicron is not the terrifying beasty it once appeared and we can now or at some point in the hopefully near future cautiously start lifting restrictions. What is the situation in Sweden which is resulting in them going into reverse now?

Nigelb

@BartholomewRoberts FPT
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.
I provided you with a link and quote on the last thread for an analysis of 1.7m community LFTs, which is where the 1 in 1000 figure came from.
So your comment is bunkum.

Pulpstar

Wonder if England's number will be higher or lower than 137,541 (Last Monday). Lower might indicate we're past the peak, higher wouldn't be great news.

BlancheLivermore

BartholomewRoberts said:

BlancheLivermore said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

I'm pretty sure that you've read it wrong. There's "will it be BJ v SKS?"; then - given that it IS BJ v SKS - "who wins out of BJ & SKS?". There's zero chance that it isn't BJ v SKS once we get to the second question.

Only if he means 50% from BJ v SKS rather than 50% for SKS winning.

Considering that NOT BJ v SKS has a higher chance of SKS winning than BJ v SKS (because BJ is more likely to be replaced if it looks like the Tories are losing the next election) then that only works if Kinabalu is saying SKS has a greater than 50% chance of winning the next election.

If he's saying there's a 50% chance of SKS winning the next election then the two questions are not independent.

That's what I thought @kinabalu meant by "from it", where "it" was "GE being SKS v BJ".

And it's the only way his maths would work.

MrEd

Dura_Ace said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

I suspect the optimistic calculation is that they are buying favour and goodwill with the US defence establishment and having some tanks thrown in as a bonus.

I see the French have now gotten into another potential corruption scandal involving the sale of fighter jets to India, which is threatening their Rafale contract. They will go nuts if the Indians choose the F-35.

Gary_Burton

I've been on the opinion that the Tories are increasingly likely to lose their majority at the next election for at the last couple of months (before partygate) as Starmer only has to gain 40 seats from the Tories like Kinnock and LDs will probably gain about 10 Tory seats although Sunak/Johnson could could still remain in power if the Tories are on around 315 seats like May in 2017.


Paradoxically another poor/lacklustre Labour local election performance keeps Johnson in place and possibly makes things easier for the Lib Dems and possibly Labour.

I tend to agree with most of what HYUFD and Kinabalu are saying, my only concern is if they try to brazenly oust Johnson (ideally in favour of Sunak) in 2023.

Endillion

BlancheLivermore said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

BlancheLivermore said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

I'm pretty sure that you've read it wrong. There's "will it be BJ v SKS?"; then - given that it IS BJ v SKS - "who wins out of BJ & SKS?". There's zero chance that it isn't BJ v SKS once we get to the second question.

Only if he means 50% from BJ v SKS rather than 50% for SKS winning.

Considering that NOT BJ v SKS has a higher chance of SKS winning than BJ v SKS (because BJ is more likely to be replaced if it looks like the Tories are losing the next election) then that only works if Kinabalu is saying SKS has a greater than 50% chance of winning the next election.

If he's saying there's a 50% chance of SKS winning the next election then the two questions are not independent.

That's what I thought @kinabalu meant by "from it", where "it" was "GE being SKS v BJ".

And it's the only way his maths would work.

So, we should probably give him the benefit of the doubt that he meant the simple explanation in which his maths works, rather than the slightly more complicated version in which they don't?

SandyRentool

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

Serbia?

dixiedean

Pulpstar said:

Wonder if England's number will be higher or lower than 137,541 (Last Monday). Lower might indicate we're past the peak, higher wouldn't be great news.

You are the ghost of Brucie and I claim my jackpot!
Good game.

rottenborough

Cookie said:

StuartDickson said:

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

Why? Genuine question. The tide across most of Europe (I think?) is in the other direction: i.e. omicron is not the terrifying beasty it once appeared and we can now or at some point in the hopefully near future cautiously start lifting restrictions. What is the situation in Sweden which is resulting in them going into reverse now?

Isn't there a new PM who is determined to show they are different from last one?

MaxPB

It's still shocking that people don't get vaccinated.

BartholomewRoberts

Nigelb said:

@BartholomewRoberts FPT
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.
I provided you with a link and quote on the last thread for an analysis of 1.7m community LFTs, which is where the 1 in 1000 figure came from.
So your comment is bunkum.

Bollocks you did. You provided a link to a nearly a year old analysis of 1.7m LFTs of which 24,147 matched with a PCR positive, but the LFTs were taken from community testing at "LFD Community Testing at NHS Test and Trace Asymptomatic Testing Sites (ATSs) "

If you consider NHS testing sites under the supervision of NHS staff the same as self-administered at home or work then I can't help you.

At least Selebian could see the difference even if you can't.

Andy_Cooke

FPT:

rottenborough said:

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.

kinabalu

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

There's no 'bad maths' going on. The GE outcome could indeed be impacted by whether BJ is replaced but I've no firm view on in which direction and by how much. Too complex, too many variables. When replaced? Why replaced? By whom replaced? Etc.Therefore I don't try and bring that in.

Andy_Cooke

MaxPB said:

It's still shocking that people don't get vaccinated.

Too many people take their information from outlets like Toby Young's Daily Skeptic, or from Julia Hartley-Brewer, or listen to journalists like Allison Pearson.

And are disposed to believe the worst about vaccines to begin with and just seize information that confirms their biases.

MoonRabbit

*a little off topic *🐖
After Pope said too many petbabies you remember , they had dogbabies in my dad telegraph saying does the Pope have a point.
I shared my master plan with my other half. We should have a teacup Pig.
She was looking at me so heard me, but didn’t say anything. Maybe it was because she was drinking from a tea mug so got confused.
That is a very miniature breed of pig I added.
She took a long time but asked - what? In the Flat?
Yes. I said. In the flat. Wilbur.
She didn’t say anything. Then she put her headphones on and closed her eyes.

Those of you been in relationships longer than me. Do I take this as master plan back to drawing board already? My vision thing can see how nice it would be having little Wilbur to look after

Theuniondivvie

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

Serbia?

Edit: beaten to it by Comrade Sandy, I see!

MattW

Dura_Ace said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

I suspect the optimistic calculation is that they are buying favour and goodwill with the US defence establishment and having some tanks thrown in as a bonus.

Headlines and URLs again. It's a 3.5 billion deal, not 35 billion. About £2 billion. Which is a lot less than the cost overruns for our army's Fighting Vehicle contract recently.

The upgrade could see the Australian Army gain up to 75 Abrams tanks, 29 assault breacher vehicles, 17 joint assault bridge vehicles, and six armoured recovery vehicles.

About the number of vehicles that the Oz Navy can carry on its two big landing ships, mixed with some smaller bits and pieces. So probably expeditionary.

It's also an upgrade to the older Abrams Tanks they have had for decades.

Apparently there's 10-15x as much to be spent on armoured forces over the next decade or two. Infantry armoured transport and so on.

FrancisUrquhart

MaxPB said:

It's still shocking that people don't get vaccinated.

It doesn't help when the likes of the idiot doctor who has got all the publicity doesn't have his claims challenged. Loads of people will have now heard on national media a doctor say well I had COVID, so I have antibodies, so I don't need to be vaccinated.

BartholomewRoberts

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

There's no 'bad maths' going on. The GE outcome could indeed be impacted by whether BJ is replaced but I've no firm view on in which direction and by how much. Too complex, too many variables. When replaced? Why replaced? By whom replaced? Etc.Therefore I don't try and bring that in.

So I didn't misread it, you've not factored in the overlap as I thought.

Its not just a case of whether the GE outcome could be impacted by whether BJ is replaced, that is complex I agree.

What is less complex is the expected GE outcome affecting whether BJ is replaced though.

If the Tories look like losing the election then they're more likely to replace BJ and vice-versa.

There's 4 possible outcomes and you've assigned the following probabilities to them. defining winning election as controlling Downing Street post-election:

1: BJ not replaced, Tories win election: 2/6
2: BJ not replaced, Labour win election: 2/6
3: BJ replaced, Tories win election: 1/6
4: BJ replaced, Labour win election: 1/6

But the two questions aren't independent. Both 1 and 4 should be more likely, and 2 and 3 less likely.

Theuniondivvie

StuartDickson said:

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

Expect Farage to fly in to stage an intervention any day now.

Pulpstar

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

It's still shocking that people don't get vaccinated.

It doesn't help when the likes of the idiot doctor who has got all the publicity doesn't have his claims challenged. Loads of people will have now heard on national media a doctor say well I had COVID, so I have antibodies, so I don't need to be vaccinated.

It's part of the wider problem that news reporting is now primarily to drive revenue and not inform.
Since antivaxxers absolubtely lap up the antivax horseshit they probably buy into all sorts of other nonsense too. Advertisers dream demographic.

kinabalu

BlancheLivermore said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

I'm pretty sure that you've read it wrong. There's "will it be BJ v SKS?"; then - given that it IS BJ v SKS - "who wins out of BJ & SKS?". There's zero chance that it isn't BJ v SKS once we get to the second question.

Yep. If the GE is SKS v BJ, there's a 50% chance for SKS to be PM and hence Next PM.

If it's SKS v Not BJ, it could be higher or lower than 50% - very hard to say - but Not BJ is then Next PM

OnlyLivingBoy

Pulpstar said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

It's still shocking that people don't get vaccinated.

It doesn't help when the likes of the idiot doctor who has got all the publicity doesn't have his claims challenged. Loads of people will have now heard on national media a doctor say well I had COVID, so I have antibodies, so I don't need to be vaccinated.

It's part of the wider problem that news reporting is now primarily to drive revenue and not inform.

*now*?

RochdalePioneers

turbotubbs said:

RochdalePioneers said:

rottenborough said:

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
49m
This week those predicting an Omicron crisis will fold their cards. The argument will shift to "we'd have had a crisis if behaviour hadn't changed". But there was significantly more intergenerational Christmas mixing than last year. And that was supposed to be the main trigger.

What does he mean "fold their cards"? Its bloody brilliant that we're seemingly over the top - does he think there are people angry or upset by it?

We're by no means out of the woods yet - still got mega pressure on hospitals in various parts of the country. But can see the way through it which is way better than it looked even late last week.

Do you realise that the total number of patients in hospital is actually lower than the same time in 2020? The problem is mainly one of staff, and that is a huge issue. Not sure how we solve it to be honest, especially in the short term.

Do you realise that I am quoting the CEO of NHS Providers who is quoting the CEO of NHS Trusts? Nobody other than you mentioned the total number, this is specific trusts / regions like the NW of England where hospitalisation looks set to overtop the previous record a year ago.

The problem is as the NHS managers describe it at their hospitals to their CEO who tweets the facts.

Selebian

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

@BartholomewRoberts FPT
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.
I provided you with a link and quote on the last thread for an analysis of 1.7m community LFTs, which is where the 1 in 1000 figure came from.
So your comment is bunkum.

Bollocks you did. You provided a link to a nearly a year old analysis of 1.7m LFTs of which 24,147 matched with a PCR positive, but the LFTs were taken from community testing at "LFD Community Testing at NHS Test and Trace Asymptomatic Testing Sites (ATSs) "

If you consider NHS testing sites under the supervision of NHS staff the same as self-administered at home or work then I can't help you.

At least Selebian could see the difference even if you can't.

Having been too lazy busy to dig into the actual documents myself, I've been going on the comments from you two.

1. Nigel provides strong evidence on low false positives (1-0 to Nigel)
2. Bart pops in a cheaky one straight from the restart with the quote about supervision (1-1?)
3. Nigel repeats that they are community tests. VAR disallows goal. (1-0)
4. Bart brought down in area with slightly different quote on ATSs. Ref points to spot, I think. Not sure.

I would note that my Uni had one of the first ATSs, internally run, not NHS as such. Supervsion there extended to being given the test, asked if you knew what you were doing and that was it. Nowadays, you just get given the test.

I might have to go off and read the study myself if you two don't sort this out!

Given we were originally talking about Liverpool, you'd think they would be doing supervised tests as part of the training regime etc, not just relying on players doing it themselves? So self-test cockup, if a possible source of false positives (which is not itself conclusive) seems unlikely in that case.

MattW

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

What's the expected lifetime of these? (Assuming they don't get blown up). 25 years?

StuartDickson

Cookie said:

StuartDickson said:

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

Why? Genuine question. The tide across most of Europe (I think?) is in the other direction: i.e. omicron is not the terrifying beasty it once appeared and we can now or at some point in the hopefully near future cautiously start lifting restrictions. What is the situation in Sweden which is resulting in them going into reverse now?

I only heard the press conference live and haven’t time to re-listen, but I’m pretty sure she prefaced her comments with info that the peak will be in 2 weeks time and that the restrictions are to allow health care workers to do their job properly without unnecessary stress.

glw

MaxPB said:

There's actually a weird subset of people who are upset about it. Not anyone on here, but definitely all across twitter and the wider internet there's anger that we didn't have a lockdown and now even more because it looks like we didn't need one.

I'm not sure that "need one" is the way I'd put it. It's more like some countries chose to have an ineffective lockdown, and some countries did not. Even China with it's everybody stay home or else, and 40,000 people whisked away to camps, and test everybody in a city at once, is struggling with Omicron. The kind of lockdowns Western countries have done have no chance against what may be the most transmissible virus seen in modern times.

But lets say that your extreme lockdown works, then what? Do you lockdown every winter? Do you lockdown every time a new variant of concern crops up? Do you lockdown every time your vaccine efficacy falls below a threshold? I suspect that even countries like China will eventually accept that they can't keep doing such things. Vaccines, ventilation, a bit more work from home, some mass testing when appropriate, those might make sense in the long term. But telling people that they can't do a whole load of things for weeks or months at a time? No, I don't see how that is acceptable in the long term.

StuartDickson

FrancisUrquhart said:

StuartDickson said:

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

"Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8."

The good old COVID likes an early night.

Good old fashioned human behaviour: most snogging and shagging occurs once inhibition-inhibitors kick-in. The midnight hour is popular for a reason.

Chris

Pulpstar said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

It's still shocking that people don't get vaccinated.

It doesn't help when the likes of the idiot doctor who has got all the publicity doesn't have his claims challenged. Loads of people will have now heard on national media a doctor say well I had COVID, so I have antibodies, so I don't need to be vaccinated.

It's part of the wider problem that news reporting is now primarily to drive revenue and not inform.
Since antivaxxers absolubtely lap up the antivax horseshit they probably buy into all sorts of other nonsense too. Advertisers dream demographic.

So probably someone is putting "gullible loony" cookies on some people's devices, which can later be used to advertise bridges for sale?

Dura_Ace

MrEd said:

Dura_Ace said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Does no-one in Australia own a map? With whom are they expecting to fight a *land* war?

I suspect the optimistic calculation is that they are buying favour and goodwill with the US defence establishment and having some tanks thrown in as a bonus.

I see the French have now gotten into another potential corruption scandal involving the sale of fighter jets to India, which is threatening their Rafale contract. They will go nuts if the Indians choose the F-35.

The deliveries on the IAF Rafale deal is nearly complete. They aren't going to send them back.

Rafale had a good run on export sales recently (Croatia, Greece, UAE) but F-35 has never been beaten in a competitive procurement competition.

Having said that the Indian Navy are desperate for Rafale-M to replace MiG-29K on the Vikrant and the only competition for that is F/A-18E/F. The Chasse Embarquée are at INS Hansa in GOA doing ski jump trials until February so they must be close to a deal.

Nigelb

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

@BartholomewRoberts FPT
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.
I provided you with a link and quote on the last thread for an analysis of 1.7m community LFTs, which is where the 1 in 1000 figure came from.
So your comment is bunkum.

Bollocks you did. You provided a link to a nearly a year old analysis of 1.7m LFTs of which 24,147 matched with a PCR positive, but the LFTs were taken from community testing at "LFD Community Testing at NHS Test and Trace Asymptomatic Testing Sites (ATSs) "

If you consider NHS testing sites under the supervision of NHS staff the same as self-administered at home or work then I can't help you.

At least Selebian could see the difference even if you can't.

Except that the figures for confirmatory PCR tests for self administered LFTs have been published regularly, and remain entirely consistent with that figure.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1043471/rapid-testing-16-december-2021.pdf

Pulpstar

Selebian said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigelb said:

@BartholomewRoberts FPT
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.
I provided you with a link and quote on the last thread for an analysis of 1.7m community LFTs, which is where the 1 in 1000 figure came from.
So your comment is bunkum.

Bollocks you did. You provided a link to a nearly a year old analysis of 1.7m LFTs of which 24,147 matched with a PCR positive, but the LFTs were taken from community testing at "LFD Community Testing at NHS Test and Trace Asymptomatic Testing Sites (ATSs) "

If you consider NHS testing sites under the supervision of NHS staff the same as self-administered at home or work then I can't help you.

At least Selebian could see the difference even if you can't.

Having been too lazy busy to dig into the actual documents myself, I've been going on the comments from you two.

1. Nigel provides strong evidence on low false positives (1-0 to Nigel)
2. Bart pops in a cheaky one straight from the restart with the quote about supervision (1-1?)
3. Nigel repeats that they are community tests. VAR disallows goal. (1-0)
4. Bart brought down in area with slightly different quote on ATSs. Ref points to spot, I think. Not sure.

I would note that my Uni had one of the first ATSs, internally run, not NHS as such. Supervsion there extended to being given the test, asked if you knew what you were doing and that was it. Nowadays, you just get given the test.

I might have to go off and read the study myself if you two don't sort this out!

Given we were originally talking about Liverpool, you'd think they would be doing supervised tests as part of the training regime etc, not just relying on players doing it themselves? So self-test cockup, if a possible source of false positives (which is not itself conclusive) seems unlikely in that case.

LFTs and PCR user test error is the same these days, I thought you'd get some NHS bod sticking a swab up your nose but the instructions and PCR test kit are just given for you to do whilst you park up.

OldKingCole

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Starmer to vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

The composition of the MPs makes no difference at all to the constitutional status of English legislation or the parliamentary process for passing it. Bills are marked as English-only, and are voted for on a majority.
The party composition of parliament only affects the character of the bills that are attempted and passed. The truth of falsity of England having a parliament is unrelated to who the PM is, what legislation they are attempting, and whether they succeed in passing it.

SNP MPs abstain on English-only legislation. So if Starmer needed SNP MPs to become UK PM he could only get UK wide legislation through, he could not pass any English-only legislation so he would lead a government that could not legislate on English domestic policy

Yeah, they could. They would just have to get the agreement of the Conservatives. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Because in our friends' mind the president generation of Conservative MPs are mindless zombies who will never vote for any policies except those espoused by Central Office.

StuartDickson

Theuniondivvie said:

StuartDickson said:

Swedish PM presents new restrictions:

Work from home: everyone who can shall, especially strict for state employees

Pubs and restaurants shut 23:00 and max group 8.

Adults must minimise indoors contact.

Public meetings/events max 50 if unvaccinated
Up to 500 if vaccinated.

Universities can resume distance learning.

Vaccine certification needed for larger meetings: over 50

Private parties: max 20 must be seated.

Restrictions on sports events indoors

Etc

Expect Farage to fly in to stage an intervention any day now.

Pigs do fly.

Nigelb

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

Prep for the war between the states ?

kinabalu

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

SKS has a MUCH better than 13.9% chance of being next PM. He has a 33% chance. I'm long of him at average 8 and it's one of my best positions.

What's your working out for that? What are the odds that he becomes PM after the election, and what are the odds that Boris isn't replaced? And remember that these are not independent bets, if Labour look like winning the odds increase that Boris is replaced.

I estimate a 25% chance that Labour wins the next election (ie gets PM, even if behind in seats). Of which that's a 5% chance of a Labour overall majority and a 20% chance of NOM leading to Labour gaining Downing Street.

I estimate about a 16% chance that Boris is replaced before the next election.

However there's a lot of overlap between the 25% and the 16% which would make Starmer next PM a losing bet.

Overall therefore 7.2 seems like a fair price by my maths and I wouldn't personally enter the market either back or lay.

Ok, so I see a 66% chance of the GE being SKS v BJ and I give SKS a 50% chance of emerging from it as PM.

Your numbers are relatively comparable to mine, just doubled for both. I had 1/4 for SKS emerging as PM and 1/6 for BJ being replaced (I'm assuming a 0% chance of SKS being replaced) and you've doubled both for 1/2 and 1/3.

But you've not factored in the overlap. Do you really see no overlap between the 1/3 chance you've given to BJ being replaced and SKS winning 1/2 chance?

Those possibilities are correlated so multiplying them together is bad maths. The 2/3 chance you've given for BJ not being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for SKS losing the election - and the 1/3 chance you've given for him being replaced will largely overlap with the 1/2 chance you've given for the election being lost by the Tories.

There's no 'bad maths' going on. The GE outcome could indeed be impacted by whether BJ is replaced but I've no firm view on in which direction and by how much. Too complex, too many variables. When replaced? Why replaced? By whom replaced? Etc.Therefore I don't try and bring that in.

So I didn't misread it, you've not factored in the overlap as I thought.

Its not just a case of whether the GE outcome could be impacted by whether BJ is replaced, that is complex I agree.

What is less complex is the expected GE outcome affecting whether BJ is replaced though.

If the Tories look like losing the election then they're more likely to replace BJ and vice-versa.

There's 4 possible outcomes and you've assigned the following probabilities to them. defining winning election as controlling Downing Street post-election:

1: BJ not replaced, Tories win election: 2/6
2: BJ not replaced, Labour win election: 2/6
3: BJ replaced, Tories win election: 1/6
4: BJ replaced, Labour win election: 1/6

But the two questions aren't independent. Both 1 and 4 should be more likely, and 2 and 3 less likely.

That's all fine but so was my shortcut. 66% x 50% works because the 50% is on the basis that the 66% has already happened. I think you did misread it but no probs, I get what you mean.

HYUFD

OldKingCole said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Starmer to vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

The composition of the MPs makes no difference at all to the constitutional status of English legislation or the parliamentary process for passing it. Bills are marked as English-only, and are voted for on a majority.
The party composition of parliament only affects the character of the bills that are attempted and passed. The truth of falsity of England having a parliament is unrelated to who the PM is, what legislation they are attempting, and whether they succeed in passing it.

SNP MPs abstain on English-only legislation. So if Starmer needed SNP MPs to become UK PM he could only get UK wide legislation through, he could not pass any English-only legislation so he would lead a government that could not legislate on English domestic policy

Yeah, they could. They would just have to get the agreement of the Conservatives. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Because in our friends' mind the president generation of Conservative MPs are mindless zombies who will never vote for any policies except those espoused by Central Office.

Even if they did that would mean that in effect there was a Labour-Conservative Grand Coalition in England even if a Labour-SNP agreement UK wide

Andy_Cooke

FrancisUrquhart said:

MaxPB said:

It's still shocking that people don't get vaccinated.

It doesn't help when the likes of the idiot doctor who has got all the publicity doesn't have his claims challenged. Loads of people will have now heard on national media a doctor say well I had COVID, so I have antibodies, so I don't need to be vaccinated.

Unfortunately, rebuttals aren't newsworthy, apparently.

I spent ten minutes accumulating a fraction of the rebuttals from serving doctors:

https://twitter.com/KingsICUSupport/status/1479791646137061384
https://twitter.com/Prof_Marciniak/status/1480432900218703993

https://twitter.com/BeadleMarcus/status/1480272595656351749
https://twitter.com/oj_long/status/1480225530867859461
https://twitter.com/Existential_Doc/status/1480241557173325825
https://twitter.com/DrQIslam/status/1480245152069439491
https://twitter.com/DrNeilStone/status/1480226827763437568
https://twitter.com/drphiliplee1/status/1480222045434753025
https://twitter.com/DrSimonAshworth/status/1480219467737190400
https://twitter.com/thatsnotmine125/status/1480285649240481800
https://twitter.com/KarenMarshall02/status/1480264736260476929
https://twitter.com/ChetnaModi3/status/1480267283691982852
https://twitter.com/people_nhs/status/1479482435658301448
https://twitter.com/GoughCJ/status/1480126223187591172
https://twitter.com/Ganesh_ICM/status/1480194733821636614
https://twitter.com/NHSLeader/status/1480197365529296896
https://twitter.com/rupert_pearse/status/1480111808698630146
https://twitter.com/AntonEmmanuel2/status/1479724400115175426
https://twitter.com/WelshGasDoc/status/1479566920571662346
https://twitter.com/Prof_Marciniak/status/1479758023145013248
https://twitter.com/shaun_qureshi/status/1479545093019385861
https://twitter.com/LondonSneh/status/1479596032912723968
https://twitter.com/docdai/status/1480294739480043525
https://twitter.com/eye_polly/status/1480249903276339200
https://twitter.com/StSenka/status/1480294203007676420
https://twitter.com/LondonAllergy/status/1480263461431033861
https://twitter.com/iceman_ex/status/1480247202857553920
https://twitter.com/jruddlesdin/status/1480245638507995140
https://twitter.com/ProfMarkTaubert/status/1480225946556841985
https://twitter.com/LawtonTri/status/1480182414123147266
https://twitter.com/drpjdickinson/status/1480246713524891662
https://twitter.com/nysuri/status/1480281370320678918
https://twitter.com/lisahocking72/status/1480264174852788225
https://twitter.com/DrLouMur/status/1480257380998950918
https://twitter.com/drwilltopping/status/1480301513876676608
https://twitter.com/SuzeQKnits/status/1479869929503473664
https://twitter.com/IndiaBown/status/1480242207638671369

Richard_Tyndall

Carnyx said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

Of course they would vote in everything. They would do exactly what they have done in the past and find some way to justify all legislation as having an impact on Scotland. They have track record for this including having to be blocked by the Speaker from voting under the EVEL Convention.

They don't. They abstain often - eg in some of the recent covid regs votes.

'Often' is a very subjective description. They regularly vote on matters that are otherwise devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Endillion

OldKingCole said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

StuartDickson said:

HYUFD said:

Starmer has an excellent chance of being PM, agreed.

However on current polls it will be more Cameron 2010 in a hung parliament than Blair 1997 with a landslide majority. If the Tories win most seats he would need SNP support to make him PM too while the Tories could still get their way on England only legislation as the SNP would abstain on that

“England only legislation”?

So, England does have a legislature. Contrary to the bollocks on these threads yesterday.

Not at the moment as there is a Tory majority in the UK and in England.

In 2023/24 however if there is a Labour + SNP majority in the UK but a Tory majority still in England alone in a hung parliament, if the SNP continue to abstain on English only legislation then England would have its own parliament in all but name

That makes no sense.

It makes absolute sense.

The SNP would make Starmer UK PM in a hung parliament, the SNP would not however vote with Starmer to vote with Labour MPs on English only legislation if the Tories still had a majority of MPs in England even if no longer a majority of MPs across the UK

The composition of the MPs makes no difference at all to the constitutional status of English legislation or the parliamentary process for passing it. Bills are marked as English-only, and are voted for on a majority.
The party composition of parliament only affects the character of the bills that are attempted and passed. The truth of falsity of England having a parliament is unrelated to who the PM is, what legislation they are attempting, and whether they succeed in passing it.

SNP MPs abstain on English-only legislation. So if Starmer needed SNP MPs to become UK PM he could only get UK wide legislation through, he could not pass any English-only legislation so he would lead a government that could not legislate on English domestic policy

Yeah, they could. They would just have to get the agreement of the Conservatives. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Because in our friends' mind the president generation of Conservative MPs are mindless zombies who will never vote for any policies except those espoused by Central Office.

He's right. It would make absolutely no sense for Tory backbenchers to prop up a Starmer Government in England, while the SNP helped them pass UK-wide legislation. I would expect any Tory MP who volunteered to do so, to suffer the same fate as Grieve et al, immediately.

StuartDickson

MattW said:

Dura_Ace said:

AUKUS bears fruit (for General Dynamics).

https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/588951-australia-agrees-to-35-billion-tank-deal-with-us-report

75 x M1A2 SEPv3 is a lot of tank for the ADF.

What's the expected lifetime of these? (Assuming they don't get blown up). 25 years?

More junk to rot in the Australian desert.

Benpointer

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

FPT and snipped

RochdalePioneers said:

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".

Presumably the assumption is that many of the poorer folk are renting anyway so their landlords are the ones with the responsibility. But how it works out remains to be seen.

However as with covid this does raise the issue of how one gets to everyone with major public health etc campaigns. We don't all watch BBC1 and buy a newspaper every day. Sure, covid was a hell of a distraction - but even so.

I don't see this even as a major public health / safety issue. People who live in flats / apartments need interlinked systems. This legislation, despite making 95% of installed and working alarm systems out of code, doesn't actually do anything for safety in these buildings. Its an epic fail.

Mmmm... I can see some downside to interlinked systems in apartment blocks: how often do you want to be woken up at 5 in the morning by your neighbours 8 floors above you burning the toast?