She can’t even spell “Mary” correctly so why should we take her seriously?
Why should we take you seriously if you can't even accept there is more than one linguistic way to spell Mary in the UK?
My understanding is that the original/correct pronunciation of her name would have been ~"Vari", as the "mh" in Scots Gaelic is pronounced with a "v" sound. Similar to Niamh.
Indeed, my daughter knew a Vari who had been born abroad, so had her name spelt with a "v" to make life easier among those unaware of Gaelic spelling rules.
Of course, Mhairi Black is free to spell and pronounce her name however she wishes. Names often evolve due to these sorts of mistakes and misunderstandings, and life's tapestry is the richer for it.
"The average age of those who have died from coronavirus in England and Wales since the start of the pandemic is 82.4 years old. Using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), researchers at the University of Oxford found that the median age of a Covid-19 fatality was slightly higher than the median age of those who died of other causes over the same period, which was 81.5."
Thought experiment. New pandemic, massively transmissible, infects everyone in short order. Kills anyone infected aged 80 or over, spares everyone below.
The median age of death from $newpandemic is > 80 (well over 80, probably) The median age of death not from $newpandemic is < 80 (well under 80, probably)
But those people killed by $newpandemic have died earlier than they otherwise would, possibly losing years of life.
I don't see what point you think you're making. If something preferentially kills old people (e.g. Covid) then it is very likely that any average age of death from the something will be higher than an average age of death not from the something.
Isn't it just more simple?
Average Life Expectancy at birth might be 81 years, but Average Life Expectency at age 81 is not zero, but more like 10 years.
Just had a look at the ONS Life Expectancy calculator.
For males in the UK:
Life expectancy at 60 is 84 At 65 is 85 At 70 is 86 At 75 is 87 At 80 is 89 At 85 is 91 At 90 is 94 At 95 is 98
Which is an average and if you extrapolate from that as you're mistakenly doing then no 80 year olds will die today, but that isn't true.
However an 80 year old cancer-ridden and dementia-afflicted individual in a care home, versus a spritely 80 year old living in their own home, do not have the same life expectancy. And COVID sought the former far more than the latter.
Median life expectancy upon entering a care home is months, not decades.
Hence the actuarial and scientific papers adjusted for these factors.
Indeed and across 31 nations even if we take their word for it, the pandemic only cost 28 million years of living freely.
Lockdown and restrictions in the UK alone cost about 100 million years of living freely lost. So lockdown was quantitatively worse for the UK alone than the pandemic was across the 31 nations studied.
Nonsense. Lockdowns were not total, and not all freedoms were lost. I worked face to face throughout, and while there were inconveniences to social life, it was hardly a life without pleasure. Indeed like many others, I rediscovered the pleasures of garden, family, my local community, cooking, reading etc.
Lockdown was 60 million different experiences though. I'm married with no kids, but with some pets, including a dog who loves a walk. I live on the edge of a forest with fields and Salisbury plain all around. I have a decent house and a garden.
Very much different to living in a cramped flat with large family in a city. Or living on your own in a flat.
And don't forget in a sense you were lucky to be working face to face - many would have loved to be able to do that.
Those of us who live and work at home, alone, with no garden - and rely on an open society for our interactions and human life - were basically condemned to a particularly nasty, tormenting form of prison
I appreciate the point you're making but just in terms of accuracy I'm not sure that being in your own home with the ability to go outside for exercise or buy essentials could be described as a particularly nasty form of prison. It sounds more like a Ford Open Prison white collar crime kind of experience than a don't drop the soap, pool ball in a sock, sharing a cell with a psycho called Big Jimmy kind of vibe.
Well, you’d be wrong, wouldn’t you?
Because - unlike most PB-ers, I am guessing - I have actually done time in prison. Several months in Wormwood Scrubs and Brixton. I was also innocent of the crime alleged
And, take it from me, for multiple reasons lockdown 3 was still WORSE
Dunno, but maybe a bit of thinking this is a difficult time for Labour with the uncertainties (perceived, anyway) over SKS so they might well not win, plus they might as well get some brownie points with the LDs for next time. It may be a calculation about likely shifts in voting. The Labour vote might be relatively solid but restricted, and local Tories much more likely to shift to LD than Labour. And you need a lot of Tories to shift for the Tories to lose, which means if anyone wins it's LD. So might as well keep out of it?
Perhaps it has something to do with the number of councillors for each party on the two district councils that are in play? And therefore with the relative local organisations' strength and engagement with the community?
There's rightly been a correction re Lab having a dog, only it's not really getting into the fight. But the logic will be the same.
Having looked things up, I find that East Devon District Council has a Lib Dem-Independent Alliance run administration. There are only two Labour councillors.
In Mid Devon District, the Lib Dems are the largest group after the Conservatives. There are no Labour councillors at all.
So Labour has just two councillors in the whole constituency. It makes perfect sense for them to put all their resources into Wakefield, and leave it to the Lib Dems to topple the Tory hegemony in Tiverton & Honiton.
Laughable bilge from Lilico, who made a lot more sense when talking about the pandemic and models:
"The PM may well have done things that pressed the rules to their maximum licence in ways he shouldn’t have. But it was always implausible that he would have acted in ways he knew violated them. He’s jolly. He’s lax. He blurs the lines between work and play. But he isn’t cynical."
I have a lot of sympathy with the fact that governments - at the start - didn't know very much. And the fact that massive hospitals were being built in Wuhan and people were being welded inside their homes will have really weighed on politicians minds. (The bodies piling up in Milan and New York will have played a role too.)
But we did learn some things pretty quickly, that should have allowed a return to (somewhat) normal life.
The most obvious of which was that Covid didn't spread very easily outside. Sunlight and ventilation rapidly reduced concentrations to levels where infection was extremely unlikely.
Now, I get that stadiums might still have a concentration of people where it would have been a problem, but really - from very early on - we should have been allowing (even encouraging) people to get together and spend time outside.
Here in LA (and yes, I know the weather is better here) there were maybe six weeks through the pandemic when you couldn't go and sit outside at a restaurant or coffee shop with your friends. That made it massively less isolating, and probably had bugger all effect on spread.
A lot of people on here probably think of me as a lockdown hawk, because I take exception to people making crap innumerate arguments against trying to do anything to prevent the spread of a sufficiently deadly infectious virus, but I was one of those making the point that the government should have been positively encouraging social mixing outside as a better alternative to social mixing inside from an early stage.
I expect that the pro/anti lockdown arguments are going to continue indefinitely, and the less contentious things that were done wrong will receive much less attention, when the government could have done so much more on ventilation, filtering, meeting outside, blood oxygen monitoring, etc.
I have a lot of sympathy with the fact that governments - at the start - didn't know very much. And the fact that massive hospitals were being built in Wuhan and people were being welded inside their homes will have really weighed on politicians minds. (The bodies piling up in Milan and New York will have played a role too.)
But we did learn some things pretty quickly, that should have allowed a return to (somewhat) normal life.
The most obvious of which was that Covid didn't spread very easily outside. Sunlight and ventilation rapidly reduced concentrations to levels where infection was extremely unlikely.
Now, I get that stadiums might still have a concentration of people where it would have been a problem, but really - from very early on - we should have been allowing (even encouraging) people to get together and spend time outside.
Here in LA (and yes, I know the weather is better here) there were maybe six weeks through the pandemic when you couldn't go and sit outside at a restaurant or coffee shop with your friends. That made it massively less isolating, and probably had bugger all effect on spread.
A lot of people on here probably think of me as a lockdown hawk, because I take exception to people making crap innumerate arguments against trying to do anything to prevent the spread of a sufficiently deadly infectious virus, but I was one of those making the point that the government should have been positively encouraging social mixing outside as a better alternative to social mixing inside from an early stage.
I expect that the pro/anti lockdown arguments are going to continue indefinitely, and the less contentious things that were done wrong will receive much less attention, when the government could have done so much more on ventilation, filtering, meeting outside, blood oxygen monitoring, etc.
Quite so re ventilation, aircon, etc. I must say having one's own BOM, never mind BP meter, has been a very worthwhile purchase - already been used in a non-covid context as a quick check for a momentary panic.
Laughable bilge from Lilico, who made a lot more sense when talking about the pandemic and models:
"The PM may well have done things that pressed the rules to their maximum licence in ways he shouldn’t have. But it was always implausible that he would have acted in ways he knew violated them. He’s jolly. He’s lax. He blurs the lines between work and play. But he isn’t cynical."
Clad in black and representing a Nationalist party speaking of fascism.
Interesting
A moving but truly terrible, left-populist, opportunist speech, speaking of a creeping fascism when her speech won't land her in any sort of trouble with the state. What sort of creeping fascism allows its leaders to be civilly despatched to the back benches when the voters freely decide it is time for a change (which, BTW, it is). But if Labour went down the same track as Ms Black, the change is not going to happen. The government is bad. But a government of people who thought that this constitutionalist democratic government is a fascist one would be much more dangerous.
Boris Johnson is running a "constitutionalist democratic government"? News to me - and him!
Laughable bilge from Lilico, who made a lot more sense when talking about the pandemic and models:
"The PM may well have done things that pressed the rules to their maximum licence in ways he shouldn’t have. But it was always implausible that he would have acted in ways he knew violated them. He’s jolly. He’s lax. He blurs the lines between work and play. But he isn’t cynical."
As ludicrous as @Carnyx's dodgy suggestion that The Greens are libertarian. People will believe what they want to believe I guess. Apparently 26% of the population believe Johnson is a capable leader. This percentage also contains all the people who believe the earth is flat.
Clad in black and representing a Nationalist party speaking of fascism.
Interesting
Hmm yes perhaps the wardrobe wasn't the best choice. Good speech though, worth a watch, whether it makes you foam with rage or nod sagely in agreement.
It doesn't make me foam with rage, it just makes me disappointed that Mhairi has become the latest stooge so desperate to get one over on the Tories that they had to devalue the word "fascism".
Vladimir Putin + friends are what I would describe as modern day fascists, and it's embarrassing that Mhairi would apply the same term to a democratically elected party purely because it's politically to the right of her.
I say all this as someone who doesn't even vote Conservative, but I'm not willing to stoop to that level to score points.
Fair enough. I get where you're coming from. But did you watch it? I think it's more subtle than just standing up and shouting 'fascists!!!' - if anything she is pointing out that the way he government is behaving, the legislation it is passing, is reminiscent of the way you would expect Putin and his cronies to behave. Such as legislation limiting the right to protest, or legislation to privatise a media organisation that is a consistent thorn in the government's side. A ruling party that seems to enjoy accepting money from Russians with ties to Putin's government.
Of course the current government isn't fascist - but it has certain character traits that are worrying, and if left unchecked where will they lead us?
Clad in black and representing a Nationalist party speaking of fascism.
Interesting
Bit unfair. Any colour of shirt could be used and you'd be referring to it as a sign of fascism. There was a shirt for every variety, blue I think in Ireland (slightly surprisingly but maybe there was a special offer or something).
"The colour blue was chosen by Ernest Blythe, specifically because it was Saint Patrick’s blue and the philosophy behind the choice was to rekindle the Irish nationalistic spirit."
Clad in black and representing a Nationalist party speaking of fascism.
Interesting
Bit unfair. Any colour of shirt could be used and you'd be referring to it as a sign of fascism. There was a shirt for every variety, blue I think in Ireland (slightly surprisingly but maybe there was a special offer or something).
"The colour blue was chosen by Ernest Blythe, specifically because it was Saint Patrick’s blue and the philosophy behind the choice was to rekindle the Irish nationalistic spirit."
Laughable bilge from Lilico, who made a lot more sense when talking about the pandemic and models:
"The PM may well have done things that pressed the rules to their maximum licence in ways he shouldn’t have. But it was always implausible that he would have acted in ways he knew violated them. He’s jolly. He’s lax. He blurs the lines between work and play. But he isn’t cynical."
"The average age of those who have died from coronavirus in England and Wales since the start of the pandemic is 82.4 years old. Using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), researchers at the University of Oxford found that the median age of a Covid-19 fatality was slightly higher than the median age of those who died of other causes over the same period, which was 81.5."
Thought experiment. New pandemic, massively transmissible, infects everyone in short order. Kills anyone infected aged 80 or over, spares everyone below.
The median age of death from $newpandemic is > 80 (well over 80, probably) The median age of death not from $newpandemic is < 80 (well under 80, probably)
But those people killed by $newpandemic have died earlier than they otherwise would, possibly losing years of life.
I don't see what point you think you're making. If something preferentially kills old people (e.g. Covid) then it is very likely that any average age of death from the something will be higher than an average age of death not from the something.
Isn't it just more simple?
Average Life Expectancy at birth might be 81 years, but Average Life Expectency at age 81 is not zero, but more like 10 years.
Just had a look at the ONS Life Expectancy calculator.
For males in the UK:
Life expectancy at 60 is 84 At 65 is 85 At 70 is 86 At 75 is 87 At 80 is 89 At 85 is 91 At 90 is 94 At 95 is 98
Which is an average and if you extrapolate from that as you're mistakenly doing then no 80 year olds will die today, but that isn't true.
However an 80 year old cancer-ridden and dementia-afflicted individual in a care home, versus a spritely 80 year old living in their own home, do not have the same life expectancy. And COVID sought the former far more than the latter.
Median life expectancy upon entering a care home is months, not decades.
Hence the actuarial and scientific papers adjusted for these factors.
Indeed and across 31 nations even if we take their word for it, the pandemic only cost 28 million years of living freely.
Lockdown and restrictions in the UK alone cost about 100 million years of living freely lost. So lockdown was quantitatively worse for the UK alone than the pandemic was across the 31 nations studied.
Nonsense. Lockdowns were not total, and not all freedoms were lost. I worked face to face throughout, and while there were inconveniences to social life, it was hardly a life without pleasure. Indeed like many others, I rediscovered the pleasures of garden, family, my local community, cooking, reading etc.
Lockdown was 60 million different experiences though. I'm married with no kids, but with some pets, including a dog who loves a walk. I live on the edge of a forest with fields and Salisbury plain all around. I have a decent house and a garden.
Very much different to living in a cramped flat with large family in a city. Or living on your own in a flat.
And don't forget in a sense you were lucky to be working face to face - many would have loved to be able to do that.
Those of us who live and work at home, alone, with no garden - and rely on an open society for our interactions and human life - were basically condemned to a particularly nasty, tormenting form of prison
I seem to recall your previous incarnation voluntarily heading to a safe house in Penarth in a blind panic to hide from London's Covid zombies. The poster eloquently regaled stories of pleasant daily walks along the headland to Cosmeston Lakes and back again during Lockdown 1.
This header has generated perhaps the most unpleasant and disingenuous posting I have seen since first dipping in and out of PB from 2005.
Clad in black and representing a Nationalist party speaking of fascism.
Interesting
Bit unfair. Any colour of shirt could be used and you'd be referring to it as a sign of fascism. There was a shirt for every variety, blue I think in Ireland (slightly surprisingly but maybe there was a special offer or something).
"The colour blue was chosen by Ernest Blythe, specifically because it was Saint Patrick’s blue and the philosophy behind the choice was to rekindle the Irish nationalistic spirit."
Clad in black and representing a Nationalist party speaking of fascism.
Interesting
Bit unfair. Any colour of shirt could be used and you'd be referring to it as a sign of fascism. There was a shirt for every variety, blue I think in Ireland (slightly surprisingly but maybe there was a special offer or something).
"The colour blue was chosen by Ernest Blythe, specifically because it was Saint Patrick’s blue and the philosophy behind the choice was to rekindle the Irish nationalistic spirit."
Just popped in over lunch. Has this blog been renamed PoliticalRevisionism.com?
I've written to Priti Patel demanding a pardon for Dr Harold Shipman on the grounds he only murdered old crumblies who were already past their life expectancy. /s
Why don't we talk about the fact that a lot of children have had their education ruined by the lockdowns.
What we don't know is whether that educational disturbance would have been worse with an uncontrolled pandemic.
There is plenty of scope to extensively review what happened in the pandemic to see what worked and what was ineffective, for future reference. Worth noting that the next pandemic may be rather different, so different measures needed.
We would never have had an uncontrolled pandemic. A significant number of the public were taking cautious, voluntary measures before the lockdowns came in.
Well, exactly. Even before schools closed, a lot of parents were keeping children at home, similarly pubs and restaraunts were emptying.
That's reasonable if it's their choice. Not if it isn't.
Freedom means letting people decide.
That sort of freedom also means letting other people do the disease controlling for you. Freeloading, in other words.
No it doesn't, it means determining your own risk levels and operating accordingly.
Disease is part of life, it is hubristic arrogance to say it can or must all be "controlled".
Eat your heart out, Edward Jenner ...
Disease still exists post Jenner.
We can all take steps to help, but we can't elimated risk. Risk is a part of living.
You said we shouldn't even try to control disease.
You need to improve your reading comprehension as I didn't use the word try. I said it can't "all" be controlled.
Disease is part of life, it is hubristic arrogance to say it can or must all be "controlled".
Voluntarily taking actions to mitigate risk is trying. I endorsed that.
That works as long as your actions only affect your risk.
The thing that made (and makes!) Covid such a medical and ethical challenge is that my actions affect other people's risk too. It was clear from really early on that a lot of the spread was from people who were symptomless. It also because clear fairly early on that low-grade face coverings, fine enough to catch droplets, had a decent effect on stopping other people getting infected. In that sort of situation, pretending that people can manage their individual risks is a cruel trick.
Libertarian thinking struggles with this sort of scenario. We can't parcel risks and benefits out at an individual level, and adapting the famous slogan to "my freedom stops at your nostril" doesn't work either.
No.man is an island, even on a pirate ship.
People need to adjust their risk based upon other people's behaviour yes but unless exceptionally egregious that doesn't justify taking away other people's freedom.
We can look at this qualitatively or quantitatively but either way lockdown caused more harm than the pandemic.
Qualitatively imprisoning the old and vulnerable to die locked away from their loved ones who legally couldn't visit is worse than them dying surrounded by loved ones.
Qualitatively disrupting the education of the young is far worse than some of the old having less time to spend imprisoned in their own home without access to their loved ones.
Quantitatively the lockdown multiplied by the amount of people it affected cost an order of magnitude more days of life to be lived freely than the death toll even multiplied by ten years per person which I am skeptical about.
Quantitatively a year of lockdown multiplied by 67 million people is equivalent to 6.7 million excess deaths, based on ten years per death. We had more than a year of lockdown, and were never going to have 6.7 million excess deaths.
How you do go on, Barty
The dying peacefully surrounded by loved ones thing has never ever happened to anyone I have known about, and I am 60 and have lost all gparents one parent and a parent in law. The average is more like this
a US physician who says that "this is the way many of my patients die. Old, limbless, bedridden, ulcerated, in a puddle of waste, gasping for breath, loopy on morphine, hopelessly demented, in a sterile hospital room with someone from a volunteer program who just met them sitting by their bed."
So less of the Ladybird Book of Loveliness spin in your qualitative judgments, pls. Tks.
Excuse me but I was trying to be polite.
If you want to be crude and blunt then you're just furthering my own point.
To be explicitly blunt, yes I agree with you. Qualitatively we stole from our children's education, development, ability to play with friends etc in order for people to spend more time "Old, limbless, bedridden, ulcerated, in a puddle of waste, gasping for breath, loopy on morphine, hopelessly demented, in a sterile hospital room with someone from a volunteer program who just met them sitting by their bed."
Death isn't a tragedy it is a release for many people and even as an atheist who doesn't believe in an afterlife I can acknowledge that. So yes, prolonging people's suffering at the end of their life, while cruelly bruising children's social development and education at the start of it was a horrendous not even Faustian bargain. It was not remotely "worth it".
I was trying to be polite and circumspect but if you want to be brutally honest that just furthers my own points I thought I could make delicately.
@Cyclefree writes eloquently and passionately. The only difference between this piece and one written by a professional journalist is structure. Most pieces of this type use the inverted pyramid format, start with an attention grabbing headline, first part outlines the headline in slightly greater depth, second part outlines it in even more depth, and so on. Headline: Mis-cake-n Identity - the real culprit in party-gate is our rotten Covid laws First line: Instead of condeming Boris for his regulation breaking, we should condemining his Government for the rotten Covid regulations that they introduced. Etc.
"The average age of those who have died from coronavirus in England and Wales since the start of the pandemic is 82.4 years old. Using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), researchers at the University of Oxford found that the median age of a Covid-19 fatality was slightly higher than the median age of those who died of other causes over the same period, which was 81.5."
Thought experiment. New pandemic, massively transmissible, infects everyone in short order. Kills anyone infected aged 80 or over, spares everyone below.
The median age of death from $newpandemic is > 80 (well over 80, probably) The median age of death not from $newpandemic is < 80 (well under 80, probably)
But those people killed by $newpandemic have died earlier than they otherwise would, possibly losing years of life.
I don't see what point you think you're making. If something preferentially kills old people (e.g. Covid) then it is very likely that any average age of death from the something will be higher than an average age of death not from the something.
Isn't it just more simple?
Average Life Expectancy at birth might be 81 years, but Average Life Expectency at age 81 is not zero, but more like 10 years.
Just had a look at the ONS Life Expectancy calculator.
For males in the UK:
Life expectancy at 60 is 84 At 65 is 85 At 70 is 86 At 75 is 87 At 80 is 89 At 85 is 91 At 90 is 94 At 95 is 98
Which is an average and if you extrapolate from that as you're mistakenly doing then no 80 year olds will die today, but that isn't true.
However an 80 year old cancer-ridden and dementia-afflicted individual in a care home, versus a spritely 80 year old living in their own home, do not have the same life expectancy. And COVID sought the former far more than the latter.
Median life expectancy upon entering a care home is months, not decades.
Hence the actuarial and scientific papers adjusted for these factors.
Indeed and across 31 nations even if we take their word for it, the pandemic only cost 28 million years of living freely.
Lockdown and restrictions in the UK alone cost about 100 million years of living freely lost. So lockdown was quantitatively worse for the UK alone than the pandemic was across the 31 nations studied.
Nonsense. Lockdowns were not total, and not all freedoms were lost. I worked face to face throughout, and while there were inconveniences to social life, it was hardly a life without pleasure. Indeed like many others, I rediscovered the pleasures of garden, family, my local community, cooking, reading etc.
Lockdown was 60 million different experiences though. I'm married with no kids, but with some pets, including a dog who loves a walk. I live on the edge of a forest with fields and Salisbury plain all around. I have a decent house and a garden.
Very much different to living in a cramped flat with large family in a city. Or living on your own in a flat.
And don't forget in a sense you were lucky to be working face to face - many would have loved to be able to do that.
I was living in my own in a small flat during lockdown. I had a near complete nervous breakdown in the end, prescribed diazepam amongst other things, which did very little, ended up punching holes in the wall and breaking all my furniture in desperation. Signed off sick from work, eventually left my job to work part time to recover, still suffer from anxiety and on medication now.
As you say, lockdown was 60 million different experiences. Mine was extremely bad, and I have no doubt that lockdown damaged my health far more than catching covid at my age and with my BMI/level of physical fitness ever would.
Really sorry to hear this. Just awful.
Thank you.
I've spoken about it on here a couple of times in the past, and essentially now it's been a year and a half since it all happened I am a lot better. But I still have days where my anxiety is too much to do fairly ordinary stuff, like drive or go to the shops.
From a less selfish perspective, the amount of time I spent off work and now with working part time only means I will be contributing a lot less to the exchequer this year.
I know other people who had a similar experience (also living alone in one bedroom flats - don't know if that is significant) so I do wonder if there is a mental health epidemic going unchecked out there.
A friend who is living in a small one bedroom flat, on his own, had a bit of a crisis.
Signed off sick - he got to the doctors early enough, thank {insert deity here}
I do wonder about the human interaction vs remote working. We know, from some quite horrible history with solitary confinement, that humans without regular interaction with others do not do well.
Does remote working replace human interaction? Or is it worthless? Or in between?
One comment I've heard from people who are remote working 100% - that small comments and imagined attitudes in others seem to increase in size/importance. They end up brooding over a managers joke at the online stand up all day - he is really saying they are shit, etc?
you don't work 24 hours a day, if your only social contact is at work you don't have a life to start with.
She can’t even spell “Mary” correctly so why should we take her seriously?
Why should we take you seriously if you can't even accept there is more than one linguistic way to spell Mary in the UK?
Clearly I was being a supercilious knob and so you are correct - do not ever take me seriously.
I thought it was a casual attempt at humour. @Carnyx clearly does have a sense of humour, but it suddenly becomes switched off if anyone criticises a Scottish nationalist .
Not the Scottish nationalist stuff. More a reaction to perceived cultural bias. Okay, it may be a joke. But would it be made about an Italian or an Irishwoman called Maria?
You have a fair point. It would be pleasant to see you take exception next time you see clear anti-English cultural bias displayed by a couple of well-known supporters of Scottish nationalism who frequent these part perhaps?
Pity red faced gammon Little Englanders don't follow the same rules
She can’t even spell “Mary” correctly so why should we take her seriously?
Why should we take you seriously if you can't even accept there is more than one linguistic way to spell Mary in the UK?
My understanding is that the original/correct pronunciation of her name would have been ~"Vari", as the "mh" in Scots Gaelic is pronounced with a "v" sound. Similar to Niamh.
Indeed, my daughter knew a Vari who had been born abroad, so had her name spelt with a "v" to make life easier among those unaware of Gaelic spelling rules.
Of course, Mhairi Black is free to spell and pronounce her name however she wishes. Names often evolve due to these sorts of mistakes and misunderstandings, and life's tapestry is the richer for it.
It would never be vari in Scotland, unbelievable that the Little Englanders on here are ever ready to rubbish any other culture, language , you name it and pontificate as if they know what they are talking about whilst spouting absolute bullshit.
"The average age of those who have died from coronavirus in England and Wales since the start of the pandemic is 82.4 years old. Using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), researchers at the University of Oxford found that the median age of a Covid-19 fatality was slightly higher than the median age of those who died of other causes over the same period, which was 81.5."
Thought experiment. New pandemic, massively transmissible, infects everyone in short order. Kills anyone infected aged 80 or over, spares everyone below.
The median age of death from $newpandemic is > 80 (well over 80, probably) The median age of death not from $newpandemic is < 80 (well under 80, probably)
But those people killed by $newpandemic have died earlier than they otherwise would, possibly losing years of life.
I don't see what point you think you're making. If something preferentially kills old people (e.g. Covid) then it is very likely that any average age of death from the something will be higher than an average age of death not from the something.
Isn't it just more simple?
Average Life Expectancy at birth might be 81 years, but Average Life Expectency at age 81 is not zero, but more like 10 years.
Just had a look at the ONS Life Expectancy calculator.
For males in the UK:
Life expectancy at 60 is 84 At 65 is 85 At 70 is 86 At 75 is 87 At 80 is 89 At 85 is 91 At 90 is 94 At 95 is 98
Which is an average and if you extrapolate from that as you're mistakenly doing then no 80 year olds will die today, but that isn't true.
However an 80 year old cancer-ridden and dementia-afflicted individual in a care home, versus a spritely 80 year old living in their own home, do not have the same life expectancy. And COVID sought the former far more than the latter.
Median life expectancy upon entering a care home is months, not decades.
Hence the actuarial and scientific papers adjusted for these factors.
Indeed and across 31 nations even if we take their word for it, the pandemic only cost 28 million years of living freely.
Lockdown and restrictions in the UK alone cost about 100 million years of living freely lost. So lockdown was quantitatively worse for the UK alone than the pandemic was across the 31 nations studied.
Nonsense. Lockdowns were not total, and not all freedoms were lost. I worked face to face throughout, and while there were inconveniences to social life, it was hardly a life without pleasure. Indeed like many others, I rediscovered the pleasures of garden, family, my local community, cooking, reading etc.
Lockdown was 60 million different experiences though. I'm married with no kids, but with some pets, including a dog who loves a walk. I live on the edge of a forest with fields and Salisbury plain all around. I have a decent house and a garden.
Very much different to living in a cramped flat with large family in a city. Or living on your own in a flat.
And don't forget in a sense you were lucky to be working face to face - many would have loved to be able to do that.
Those of us who live and work at home, alone, with no garden - and rely on an open society for our interactions and human life - were basically condemned to a particularly nasty, tormenting form of prison
I appreciate the point you're making but just in terms of accuracy I'm not sure that being in your own home with the ability to go outside for exercise or buy essentials could be described as a particularly nasty form of prison. It sounds more like a Ford Open Prison white collar crime kind of experience than a don't drop the soap, pool ball in a sock, sharing a cell with a psycho called Big Jimmy kind of vibe.
Well, you’d be wrong, wouldn’t you?
Because - unlike most PB-ers, I am guessing - I have actually done time in prison. Several months in Wormwood Scrubs and Brixton. I was also innocent of the crime alleged
And, take it from me, for multiple reasons lockdown 3 was still WORSE
Probly cos you had more sex and drugs in the jile.
Old old news from the pair of you, Woolie and I already examined all these pebbles, and concluded yougov are too variable to pay much attention to anymore. Nothing to get excited about here. I won’t be using them in any of my analyse anymore, their erratic behaviour will spoil my analysis. PB should drop any mention of them till they stop flying around like a coked up number generating machine whilst everyone else not moving.
Comments
Because - unlike most PB-ers, I am guessing - I have actually done time in prison. Several months in Wormwood Scrubs and Brixton. I was also innocent of the crime alleged
And, take it from me, for multiple reasons lockdown 3 was still WORSE
In Mid Devon District, the Lib Dems are the largest group after the Conservatives. There are no Labour councillors at all.
So Labour has just two councillors in the whole constituency. It makes perfect sense for them to put all their resources into Wakefield, and leave it to the Lib Dems to topple the Tory hegemony in Tiverton & Honiton.
"The PM may well have done things that pressed the rules to their maximum licence in ways he shouldn’t have. But it was always implausible that he would have acted in ways he knew violated them. He’s jolly. He’s lax. He blurs the lines between work and play. But he isn’t cynical."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/20/boris-partygate-critics-have-given-humiliating-thrashing/
I expect that the pro/anti lockdown arguments are going to continue indefinitely, and the less contentious things that were done wrong will receive much less attention, when the government could have done so much more on ventilation, filtering, meeting outside, blood oxygen monitoring, etc.
UNLESS of course you're talking about Donald Trumpsky or Fucker Carlson. Then it's just fair comment!
Of course the current government isn't fascist - but it has certain character traits that are worrying, and if left unchecked where will they lead us?
Religion. Should have known.
https://www.irishfamilydetective.ie/post/2019/08/06/who-what-were-the-irish-blueshirts
I must admit I can’t figure out who is supposed to be enjoying that kink.
This header has generated perhaps the most unpleasant and disingenuous posting I have seen since first dipping in and out of PB from 2005.
That would make sense to me for a few reasons, but I haven't considered it before.
If you want to be crude and blunt then you're just furthering my own point.
To be explicitly blunt, yes I agree with you. Qualitatively we stole from our children's education, development, ability to play with friends etc in order for people to spend more time "Old, limbless, bedridden, ulcerated, in a puddle of waste, gasping for breath, loopy on morphine, hopelessly demented, in a sterile hospital room with someone from a volunteer program who just met them sitting by their bed."
Death isn't a tragedy it is a release for many people and even as an atheist who doesn't believe in an afterlife I can acknowledge that. So yes, prolonging people's suffering at the end of their life, while cruelly bruising children's social development and education at the start of it was a horrendous not even Faustian bargain. It was not remotely "worth it".
I was trying to be polite and circumspect but if you want to be brutally honest that just furthers my own points I thought I could make delicately.
I am SO stealing that.