Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
The Sunak interview is dangerous rubbish, reads like a man whose epicly bad campaign has melted his brain & he’s about to quit politics. Also pins blame *unfairly* on 🛒 & others. Will blog later
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
And when the advice wasn’t taken (too the liking of some of the scientists) some scientists went screaming to the media to get their way.
To get their way, or to save thousands of lives, at least as they saw things? Remember the motivation for lockdown was to keep the NHS running. The idea that no lockdown would have meant no missed cancer screenings is for the birds because all the hospitals would have been shut owing to staff self-isolating.
Where imo boffins and ministers were culpable is in not commissioning urgent new research to resolve uncertainty about, for instance: how and how far droplets spread; mask efficacy; dodgy modelling code.
In the week before lockdown 1, DNA rates in my clinic hit about 70%, similarly mass cancellations at restaurants etc.
The idea that no lockdown meant no economic or health damage to the country is simply wrong.
Arguably it was Sunaks furlough and business support schemes that kept things going, albeit at great cost in debt.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
Seeing as it's the issue du nos jours, how many geologists and engineers are there in gov't at the moment.
Anyway on Covid what's done is done, the UK probably would have done things differently if we knew there was going to be a land war in europe immediately after the crisis but it's all in the hindsight mirror now.
Do you know, I can'ty think of any geologists - the first five pages in Google throw up various MPs in Peel's time but I can't quickly find one after 1900. This chap Mr Andrew Miller MP seems to be more of an instrumentation specialist (in very important and complex technical fields mind) than a field geologist.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
I had two predictions, with regards to the attitudes of the public towards scientists, at the beginning of COVID.
1. Society was about to get a practical, hands-on education in some of the nuances of how 'science' works, in that as we learn more our understanding of a thing changes. Earlier knowledge may not have been the complete picture, or even completely wrong, as we get a clearer picture over time. I believed that society would learn that this is all part of the process and, ultimately, a good thing.
2. Once 'scientists' had served their purpose, the public's goodwill would evaporate like a drunkard's undying love in the morning. They are after all, by and large, remoanery citizens of nowhere etc etc etc and in post-pandemic times their input would be very much unwelcome. Despite the fact that expertise can be helpful at most times, even outwith a pandemic.
My feeling is that I was way out there on prediction one. Many people seem to think that if my model predicts X unless we do y, and we do y, then X not happening is proof I'm full of shit.
We won't need lockdown this winter. People will simply have less / no spare cash to go out and have fun. A disaster for the hospitality industry who face insane bills with a cut in income.
This winter will be a test of what a voluntary stay at home policy without support for business is like. Better or worse than a lockdown and business support type approach? We will see soon.
I'll be surprised if there is any sort of stay at home policy, voluntary or not.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
1000 excess deaths a day? Are you sure about that?
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
Bit of a myth. as an Oxford classicist I have science and maths O Levels, some degree level stuff in philosophy of science, and an ongoing interest in particular in evolutionary biology. And I knew and understood the rice grains and chessboard story probably pre o level, which gives you the gist of what exponential means. A public-facing scientist should be capable of explaining any practical science issue so that a reasonably intelligent non STEM graduate can accurately understand it.
This breaks down for quantum physics, as most quantum physicists will privately admit. The maths just does not translate to non-mathematical language.
Truss has so many big problems I wonder if her team know which to deny first? Not supported by most Tory MPs Cost of Living catastrophe where the solutions are politically or economically untenable A coterie of the wort members of Johnson's government plus a choice of 2019 mince to promote
If they seriously try and market themselves as a "new" government I expect the response will get pretty brutal. No government would get through this winter without scars. None. But across Europe governments are showing voters they understand the crisis, they are prepared to do whatever it takes, and are putting lots of money into it.
The only money Trussteam are putting up is new debt to give themselves a tax cut, and opening a credit line in the Fetlife store.
*googles Fetlife* ... the things one learns on PB. "FetLife is the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish & Kinky Community. Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me. We think it is more fun that way."
And there was me thinking it was a harmless website for lovers of feta cheese...
Indeed. The expertise and knowledge of of PBers is impressive, from moths downward.
Intelligent people are often incredibly thick in the real world. Any truly clever person wouldn’t come near an obscure querulous blog.
And young people are a bit dim
I just watched this hilarious but terrifying video of American Gen Zs failing to answer the most basic questions
Perhaps the best is the girl who is asked “if you drive at 60mph for an hour, how far will you go?”
First she says “that’s fast” then she says “I don’t drive”
They exhibit mental retardation. Yet seem apparently normal. We are doomed (part 739)
Silly question, because without defining the type of road and what is meant by 'how far' the answer is unknowable.
If (for example) you do 60mph for one hour round a mile long circuit, the correct answer is 'no distance.'
I did one of those motorway awareness courses just recently, and one of the questions they ask you to guess is, if someone who normally drives at 80mph and their journey takes them an hour, how much longer will it take it they drive at 70mph? The group all guessed various numbers of minutes but the official course answer is apparently 86 seconds. How they arrived at that answer, I do not know.
Clear lie, or at best not a maths question but a real life data one. If they drive at 80 for an hour it’s 80 miles. At 70 that take 1.14 h, so an extra 504 seconds.
I’d suggest they are using real life studies, not theoretical maths.
You need to check the source code in your calculator.
No I don’t.
It is 514 seconds.
You are dividing an exact number of hundreds (3600) by 7 therefore the two least significant digits have to be a multiple of 14.2xxx. 504 cannot be correct.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
You know what is odd about Oxford PPE? It is that modern economics is a highly mathematical subject (as are parts of philosophy). Oxford must strive to take all the equations out so they are left with my introductory microeconomics course notes filled with idealised supply/demand curves shifting up and down in response to market conditions.
Truss has so many big problems I wonder if her team know which to deny first? Not supported by most Tory MPs Cost of Living catastrophe where the solutions are politically or economically untenable A coterie of the wort members of Johnson's government plus a choice of 2019 mince to promote
If they seriously try and market themselves as a "new" government I expect the response will get pretty brutal. No government would get through this winter without scars. None. But across Europe governments are showing voters they understand the crisis, they are prepared to do whatever it takes, and are putting lots of money into it.
The only money Trussteam are putting up is new debt to give themselves a tax cut, and opening a credit line in the Fetlife store.
*googles Fetlife* ... the things one learns on PB. "FetLife is the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish & Kinky Community. Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me. We think it is more fun that way."
And there was me thinking it was a harmless website for lovers of feta cheese...
Indeed. The expertise and knowledge of of PBers is impressive, from moths downward.
Intelligent people are often incredibly thick in the real world. Any truly clever person wouldn’t come near an obscure querulous blog.
And young people are a bit dim
I just watched this hilarious but terrifying video of American Gen Zs failing to answer the most basic questions
Perhaps the best is the girl who is asked “if you drive at 60mph for an hour, how far will you go?”
First she says “that’s fast” then she says “I don’t drive”
They exhibit mental retardation. Yet seem apparently normal. We are doomed (part 739)
Silly question, because without defining the type of road and what is meant by 'how far' the answer is unknowable.
If (for example) you do 60mph for one hour round a mile long circuit, the correct answer is 'no distance.'
I did one of those motorway awareness courses just recently, and one of the questions they ask you to guess is, if someone who normally drives at 80mph and their journey takes them an hour, how much longer will it take it they drive at 70mph? The group all guessed various numbers of minutes but the official course answer is apparently 86 seconds. How they arrived at that answer, I do not know.
Clear lie, or at best not a maths question but a real life data one. If they drive at 80 for an hour it’s 80 miles. At 70 that take 1.14 h, so an extra 504 seconds.
I’d suggest they are using real life studies, not theoretical maths.
You need to check the source code in your calculator.
No I don’t.
It is 514 seconds.
You are dividing an exact number of hundreds (3600) by 7 therefore the two least significant digits have to be a multiple of 14.2xxx. 504 cannot be correct.
Good old pen and paper… I have no idea why my photos post upside down…
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
I don't give a fuck, I was just struck by the 2020 vibe of the whole conversation. Also, I read the other day that my chosen occupation is about 20 x as dangerous as riding a motorbike, so don't call me fearful.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
You know what is odd about Oxford PPE? It is that modern economics is a highly mathematical subject (as are parts of philosophy). Oxford must strive to take all the equations out so they are left with my introductory microeconomics course notes filled with idealised supply/demand curves shifting up and down in response to market conditions.
I think you can drop 1 of 3 after mods and they all drop E.
We won't need lockdown this winter. People will simply have less / no spare cash to go out and have fun. A disaster for the hospitality industry who face insane bills with a cut in income.
This winter will be a test of what a voluntary stay at home policy without support for business is like. Better or worse than a lockdown and business support type approach? We will see soon.
I'll be surprised if there is any sort of stay at home policy, voluntary or not.
I mean that many people will not be able to afford going out, particularly with the price jumps. It is affordability that will keep them home.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
Bit of a myth. as an Oxford classicist I have science and maths O Levels, some degree level stuff in philosophy of science, and an ongoing interest in particular in evolutionary biology. And I knew and understood the rice grains and chessboard story probably pre o level, which gives you the gist of what exponential means. A public-facing scientist should be capable of explaining any practical science issue so that a reasonably intelligent non STEM graduate can accurately understand it.
This breaks down for quantum physics, as most quantum physicists will privately admit. The maths just does not translate to non-mathematical language.
Yes, exponential growth as a concept isn't that difficult to understand. Aren't there accounts of Dom C (who did get it) striding round Number 10 saying "1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64..." to anyone who would listen? That's all you need to know.
But you have to want to know. And part of the secret of success in politics is ignoring the information that's inconvenient to your case. If you can find someone with the credentials to back you up, so much the better. Not true for government, but that's another matter.
Since I criticise Truss a lot, I want to be clear that I'm not a fan of Sunak:
I do think Sunak is pretty shit and would be a PM devoid of any interesting ideas and would govern in dull mediocrity (or incompetence) for a couple of years or so before losing the GE. The UK would be in a similar or worse position to now. He appears to have nothing useful to offer and probably lacks the imagination to try.*
The reason I go on about Truss more is that I think she's also pretty shit but would (will) be a PM with plenty of (extremely nutty) ideas and will govern in interesting chaos for a couple of years before losing the GE. I fear the UK will be in a substantially more damaged position than now. She has nothing useful to offer, but will offer it anyway.
The tragedy of it is that the Con leadership race was not completely devoid of people who might have done a half decent job.
*furlough etc was done fairly well, but I don't know how much of the credit for that lies with Sunak
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
Bit of a myth. as an Oxford classicist I have science and maths O Levels, some degree level stuff in philosophy of science, and an ongoing interest in particular in evolutionary biology. And I knew and understood the rice grains and chessboard story probably pre o level, which gives you the gist of what exponential means. A public-facing scientist should be capable of explaining any practical science issue so that a reasonably intelligent non STEM graduate can accurately understand it.
This breaks down for quantum physics, as most quantum physicists will privately admit. The maths just does not translate to non-mathematical language.
Exponential are fine, but any disease in a population is not actually increasing exponentially as it is constrained by a diminishing pool of new hosts. Just as the rice is constrained by there not being enough in the universe.
Fantastic that Rishi Sunak has seen the light on lockdowns.
Yes, good for Sunak. Well said
There are people on Twitter who are saying that this…
“Sunak says it was a mistake to ‘empower scientists’ during Covid pandemic”
… is some kind of outrage. A statement so foul and evil it could only come from Nazi Tories. It’s the usual suspects - mad Remainers, FBPEers, James O’Brien
I can’t quite work out why there is such an overlap between Remoaners and 2nd voters and being fiercely pro-lockdown. But that overlap definitely exists. Starmer is an example
Awful people
It's remarkable to me that Conservative politicians like Sunak think "the scientists/civil servants made me do it" is a winning argument. It makes them look so incredibly weak.
Yep, 'a big boy made me do it and ran away' is a crap look. Though tbf Rishi probably encountered a lot of big boys.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
Bit of a myth. as an Oxford classicist I have science and maths O Levels, some degree level stuff in philosophy of science, and an ongoing interest in particular in evolutionary biology. And I knew and understood the rice grains and chessboard story probably pre o level, which gives you the gist of what exponential means. A public-facing scientist should be capable of explaining any practical science issue so that a reasonably intelligent non STEM graduate can accurately understand it.
This breaks down for quantum physics, as most quantum physicists will privately admit. The maths just does not translate to non-mathematical language.
Exponential are fine, but any disease in a population is not actually increasing exponentially as it is constrained by a diminishing pool of new hosts. Just as the rice is constrained by there not being enough in the universe.
TBF you do start with an exponential curve, certainly when things are starting off. Standard teaching of host/parasite or predator/prey population dynamics, etc, is* to start with the simplest model = plain exponential curve. If you can't grasp that (and Ishmael does well to do so) then you aren't going to do well when you move in ot the sigmoid, cyclical, and chaotic cases.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
Bit of a myth. as an Oxford classicist I have science and maths O Levels, some degree level stuff in philosophy of science, and an ongoing interest in particular in evolutionary biology. And I knew and understood the rice grains and chessboard story probably pre o level, which gives you the gist of what exponential means. A public-facing scientist should be capable of explaining any practical science issue so that a reasonably intelligent non STEM graduate can accurately understand it.
This breaks down for quantum physics, as most quantum physicists will privately admit. The maths just does not translate to non-mathematical language.
Exponential are fine, but any disease in a population is not actually increasing exponentially as it is constrained by a diminishing pool of new hosts. Just as the rice is constrained by there not being enough in the universe.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
A ringleader in a machete-wielding gang of children who robbed a man and threatened to kill him in a Leeds park has avoided custody - after the judge said he did not want to ruin the youngster’s university dreams.
We've made the full version of @maitlis' MacTaggart speech available as a podcast, with some post-match analysis from Emily and @jonsopel. Our first real episode will be in your feeds on Tuesday 30th August. https://pod.fo/e/13a96f
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
So, you didn't read his article or twitter thread to the end? just decided your own conclusion.
Truss has so many big problems I wonder if her team know which to deny first? Not supported by most Tory MPs Cost of Living catastrophe where the solutions are politically or economically untenable A coterie of the wort members of Johnson's government plus a choice of 2019 mince to promote
If they seriously try and market themselves as a "new" government I expect the response will get pretty brutal. No government would get through this winter without scars. None. But across Europe governments are showing voters they understand the crisis, they are prepared to do whatever it takes, and are putting lots of money into it.
The only money Trussteam are putting up is new debt to give themselves a tax cut, and opening a credit line in the Fetlife store.
*googles Fetlife* ... the things one learns on PB. "FetLife is the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish & Kinky Community. Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me. We think it is more fun that way."
And there was me thinking it was a harmless website for lovers of feta cheese...
Indeed. The expertise and knowledge of of PBers is impressive, from moths downward.
Intelligent people are often incredibly thick in the real world. Any truly clever person wouldn’t come near an obscure querulous blog.
And young people are a bit dim
I just watched this hilarious but terrifying video of American Gen Zs failing to answer the most basic questions
Perhaps the best is the girl who is asked “if you drive at 60mph for an hour, how far will you go?”
First she says “that’s fast” then she says “I don’t drive”
They exhibit mental retardation. Yet seem apparently normal. We are doomed (part 739)
Silly question, because without defining the type of road and what is meant by 'how far' the answer is unknowable.
If (for example) you do 60mph for one hour round a mile long circuit, the correct answer is 'no distance.'
I did one of those motorway awareness courses just recently, and one of the questions they ask you to guess is, if someone who normally drives at 80mph and their journey takes them an hour, how much longer will it take it they drive at 70mph? The group all guessed various numbers of minutes but the official course answer is apparently 86 seconds. How they arrived at that answer, I do not know.
Clear lie, or at best not a maths question but a real life data one. If they drive at 80 for an hour it’s 80 miles. At 70 that take 1.14 h, so an extra 504 seconds.
I’d suggest they are using real life studies, not theoretical maths.
You need to check the source code in your calculator.
No I don’t.
It is 514 seconds.
You are dividing an exact number of hundreds (3600) by 7 therefore the two least significant digits have to be a multiple of 14.2xxx. 504 cannot be correct.
Good old pen and paper… I have no idea why my photos post upside down…
That's got a disturbing sitting-on-the-toilet vibe to it.
We've made the full version of @maitlis' MacTaggart speech available as a podcast, with some post-match analysis from Emily and @jonsopel. Our first real episode will be in your feeds on Tuesday 30th August. https://pod.fo/e/13a96f
It's remarkable just how many journalists turn out to hate the Tories once they've left the BBC.
Truss has so many big problems I wonder if her team know which to deny first? Not supported by most Tory MPs Cost of Living catastrophe where the solutions are politically or economically untenable A coterie of the wort members of Johnson's government plus a choice of 2019 mince to promote
If they seriously try and market themselves as a "new" government I expect the response will get pretty brutal. No government would get through this winter without scars. None. But across Europe governments are showing voters they understand the crisis, they are prepared to do whatever it takes, and are putting lots of money into it.
The only money Trussteam are putting up is new debt to give themselves a tax cut, and opening a credit line in the Fetlife store.
*googles Fetlife* ... the things one learns on PB. "FetLife is the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish & Kinky Community. Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me. We think it is more fun that way."
And there was me thinking it was a harmless website for lovers of feta cheese...
Indeed. The expertise and knowledge of of PBers is impressive, from moths downward.
Intelligent people are often incredibly thick in the real world. Any truly clever person wouldn’t come near an obscure querulous blog.
And young people are a bit dim
I just watched this hilarious but terrifying video of American Gen Zs failing to answer the most basic questions
Perhaps the best is the girl who is asked “if you drive at 60mph for an hour, how far will you go?”
First she says “that’s fast” then she says “I don’t drive”
They exhibit mental retardation. Yet seem apparently normal. We are doomed (part 739)
Silly question, because without defining the type of road and what is meant by 'how far' the answer is unknowable.
If (for example) you do 60mph for one hour round a mile long circuit, the correct answer is 'no distance.'
I did one of those motorway awareness courses just recently, and one of the questions they ask you to guess is, if someone who normally drives at 80mph and their journey takes them an hour, how much longer will it take it they drive at 70mph? The group all guessed various numbers of minutes but the official course answer is apparently 86 seconds. How they arrived at that answer, I do not know.
Clear lie, or at best not a maths question but a real life data one. If they drive at 80 for an hour it’s 80 miles. At 70 that take 1.14 h, so an extra 504 seconds.
I’d suggest they are using real life studies, not theoretical maths.
You need to check the source code in your calculator.
No I don’t.
It is 514 seconds.
You are dividing an exact number of hundreds (3600) by 7 therefore the two least significant digits have to be a multiple of 14.2xxx. 504 cannot be correct.
Kill me, I used a pen and paper and rounded.
Lol, fair enough. I didn't pull a calculator either, but 504 just jumped out as obviously wrong, whereas 1.14 hours looked correct.
Similarly, if it had been a division by 9, anything not ending 11, 22 etc would also have been obviously wrong.
One of my Engineering tutors made us calculate all sorts of ridiculous formulae without recourse to calculator or even paper and expected the answer within 10% or so. Methods to spot cockups are important.
Truss has so many big problems I wonder if her team know which to deny first? Not supported by most Tory MPs Cost of Living catastrophe where the solutions are politically or economically untenable A coterie of the wort members of Johnson's government plus a choice of 2019 mince to promote
If they seriously try and market themselves as a "new" government I expect the response will get pretty brutal. No government would get through this winter without scars. None. But across Europe governments are showing voters they understand the crisis, they are prepared to do whatever it takes, and are putting lots of money into it.
The only money Trussteam are putting up is new debt to give themselves a tax cut, and opening a credit line in the Fetlife store.
*googles Fetlife* ... the things one learns on PB. "FetLife is the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish & Kinky Community. Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me. We think it is more fun that way."
And there was me thinking it was a harmless website for lovers of feta cheese...
Indeed. The expertise and knowledge of of PBers is impressive, from moths downward.
Intelligent people are often incredibly thick in the real world. Any truly clever person wouldn’t come near an obscure querulous blog.
And young people are a bit dim
I just watched this hilarious but terrifying video of American Gen Zs failing to answer the most basic questions
Perhaps the best is the girl who is asked “if you drive at 60mph for an hour, how far will you go?”
First she says “that’s fast” then she says “I don’t drive”
They exhibit mental retardation. Yet seem apparently normal. We are doomed (part 739)
Silly question, because without defining the type of road and what is meant by 'how far' the answer is unknowable.
If (for example) you do 60mph for one hour round a mile long circuit, the correct answer is 'no distance.'
I did one of those motorway awareness courses just recently, and one of the questions they ask you to guess is, if someone who normally drives at 80mph and their journey takes them an hour, how much longer will it take it they drive at 70mph? The group all guessed various numbers of minutes but the official course answer is apparently 86 seconds. How they arrived at that answer, I do not know.
Clear lie, or at best not a maths question but a real life data one. If they drive at 80 for an hour it’s 80 miles. At 70 that take 1.14 h, so an extra 504 seconds.
I’d suggest they are using real life studies, not theoretical maths.
You need to check the source code in your calculator.
No I don’t.
It is 514 seconds.
You are dividing an exact number of hundreds (3600) by 7 therefore the two least significant digits have to be a multiple of 14.2xxx. 504 cannot be correct.
Good old pen and paper… I have no idea why my photos post upside down…
That's got a disturbing sitting-on-the-toilet vibe to it.
Given the other side is headed 'PLOTS AND PLANS' I'd really like to see what else is on the other side!
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
And there's your problem right there. It takes under a minute to remind oneself that at peak lockdown we had 1,000 deaths a day for 3 weeks, https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
But rather than admit the 1:7 ratio he says "thousands" on one side of the equation and 1,082 on the other to create the appearance of equivalence where there is none.
Truss has so many big problems I wonder if her team know which to deny first? Not supported by most Tory MPs Cost of Living catastrophe where the solutions are politically or economically untenable A coterie of the wort members of Johnson's government plus a choice of 2019 mince to promote
If they seriously try and market themselves as a "new" government I expect the response will get pretty brutal. No government would get through this winter without scars. None. But across Europe governments are showing voters they understand the crisis, they are prepared to do whatever it takes, and are putting lots of money into it.
The only money Trussteam are putting up is new debt to give themselves a tax cut, and opening a credit line in the Fetlife store.
*googles Fetlife* ... the things one learns on PB. "FetLife is the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish & Kinky Community. Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me. We think it is more fun that way."
And there was me thinking it was a harmless website for lovers of feta cheese...
Indeed. The expertise and knowledge of of PBers is impressive, from moths downward.
Intelligent people are often incredibly thick in the real world. Any truly clever person wouldn’t come near an obscure querulous blog.
And young people are a bit dim
I just watched this hilarious but terrifying video of American Gen Zs failing to answer the most basic questions
Perhaps the best is the girl who is asked “if you drive at 60mph for an hour, how far will you go?”
First she says “that’s fast” then she says “I don’t drive”
They exhibit mental retardation. Yet seem apparently normal. We are doomed (part 739)
Silly question, because without defining the type of road and what is meant by 'how far' the answer is unknowable.
If (for example) you do 60mph for one hour round a mile long circuit, the correct answer is 'no distance.'
I did one of those motorway awareness courses just recently, and one of the questions they ask you to guess is, if someone who normally drives at 80mph and their journey takes them an hour, how much longer will it take it they drive at 70mph? The group all guessed various numbers of minutes but the official course answer is apparently 86 seconds. How they arrived at that answer, I do not know.
Clear lie, or at best not a maths question but a real life data one. If they drive at 80 for an hour it’s 80 miles. At 70 that take 1.14 h, so an extra 504 seconds.
I’d suggest they are using real life studies, not theoretical maths.
You need to check the source code in your calculator.
No I don’t.
It is 514 seconds.
You are dividing an exact number of hundreds (3600) by 7 therefore the two least significant digits have to be a multiple of 14.2xxx. 504 cannot be correct.
Good old pen and paper… I have no idea why my photos post upside down…
One of those idiot young people we're all decrying would be able to tell you.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
So - 1000 excess deaths (non age-standardised). A total of 561 covid deaths. Meaning that the majority are directly down to covid, anyway?
Plus the fact that again and again we've learned that covid causes cardiovascular damage and increased diabetes to those who've had it - and most of the excess deaths that aren't from immediate acute covid are (checks) cardiovascular and diabetes.
And most other countries that had lockdown aren't seeing a big unexplained excess in non-covid deaths.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
Since I criticise Truss a lot, I want to be clear that I'm not a fan of Sunak:
I do think Sunak is pretty shit and would be a PM devoid of any interesting ideas and would govern in dull mediocrity (or incompetence) for a couple of years or so before losing the GE. The UK would be in a similar or worse position to now. He appears to have nothing useful to offer and probably lacks the imagination to try.*
The reason I go on about Truss more is that I think she's also pretty shit but would (will) be a PM with plenty of (extremely nutty) ideas and will govern in interesting chaos for a couple of years before losing the GE. I fear the UK will be in a substantially more damaged position than now. She has nothing useful to offer, but will offer it anyway.
The tragedy of it is that the Con leadership race was not completely devoid of people who might have done a half decent job.
*furlough etc was done fairly well, but I don't know how much of the credit for that lies with Sunak
Have there been any leaks to suggest Sunak should not take credit for furlough (although then-Chief Secretary Steve Barclay is also in Camp Rishi)?
We've made the full version of @maitlis' MacTaggart speech available as a podcast, with some post-match analysis from Emily and @jonsopel. Our first real episode will be in your feeds on Tuesday 30th August. https://pod.fo/e/13a96f
It's remarkable just how many journalists turn out to hate the Tories once they've left the BBC.
May be linked to experiencing continuous institutional hate from the Tories while at the BBC?
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
And there's your problem right there. It takes under a minute to remind oneself that at peak lockdown we had 1,000 deaths a day for 3 weeks, https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
But rather than admit the 1:7 ratio he says "thousands" on one side of the equation and 1,082 on the other to create the appearance of equivalence where there is none.
That’s journalism. He’s framing his argument to get noticed. 1000 excess deaths a week is no small thing. That’s 50,000 a year if it continues and it may continue for a long time
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
You know what is odd about Oxford PPE? It is that modern economics is a highly mathematical subject (as are parts of philosophy). Oxford must strive to take all the equations out so they are left with my introductory microeconomics course notes filled with idealised supply/demand curves shifting up and down in response to market conditions.
It's not known as Piss Poor Economics for nothing.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Lockdowns kill, Andy. They don't save anything, they don't protect anything. They merely alter the balance of risks.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
Dunno. The scientists give advice, it's up to ministers to make decisions.
How quickly we forget the way we all fetishised the boffins. Worshipped them as we worshipped the NHS
Politicians are humans. They don’t operate in a void. They were susceptible to the same pressures of public opinion as anyone. “Listen to Chris Whitty! Lock everything down!”
So they did
If our gullible Oxford PPE and Classics educated government has no understanding of science or its limitations then that is their fault. They are willfully ignorant most of the time.
Seeing as it's the issue du nos jours, how many geologists and engineers are there in gov't at the moment.
Anyway on Covid what's done is done, the UK probably would have done things differently if we knew there was going to be a land war in europe immediately after the crisis but it's all in the hindsight mirror now.
Do you know, I can'ty think of any geologists - the first five pages in Google throw up various MPs in Peel's time but I can't quickly find one after 1900. This chap Mr Andrew Miller MP seems to be more of an instrumentation specialist (in very important and complex technical fields mind) than a field geologist.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
And there's your problem right there. It takes under a minute to remind oneself that at peak lockdown we had 1,000 deaths a day for 3 weeks, https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
But rather than admit the 1:7 ratio he says "thousands" on one side of the equation and 1,082 on the other to create the appearance of equivalence where there is none.
That’s journalism. He’s framing his argument to get noticed. 1000 excess deaths a week is no small thing. That’s 50,000 a year if it continues and it may continue for a long time
Making it the equivalent of another Covid
As he points out, 561 covid deaths in the week. So Covid explains over half of them.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Look at heart/circulatory excess deaths - heart problems ignored during lockdown?
Look at diabetes - poor diets during lockdown?
Look at liver disease - increased alcohol intake during lockdown?
We've made the full version of @maitlis' MacTaggart speech available as a podcast, with some post-match analysis from Emily and @jonsopel. Our first real episode will be in your feeds on Tuesday 30th August. https://pod.fo/e/13a96f
It's remarkable just how many journalists turn out to hate the Tories once they've left the BBC.
Equally remarkable how many BBC types turn out to be Conservatives, most famously Nick Robinson was derided on here as Toenails because he was so far up Gordon Brown's arse, but then we learned David Cameron was trying to sign him up. Oops.
We've made the full version of @maitlis' MacTaggart speech available as a podcast, with some post-match analysis from Emily and @jonsopel. Our first real episode will be in your feeds on Tuesday 30th August. https://pod.fo/e/13a96f
It's remarkable just how many journalists turn out to hate the Tories once they've left the BBC.
Equally remarkable how many BBC types turn out to be Conservatives, most famously Nick Robinson was derided on here as Toenails because he was so far up Gordon Brown's arse, but then we learned David Cameron was trying to sign him up. Oops.
He'd been a member of Conservative Students and the TRG before journalism.
We've made the full version of @maitlis' MacTaggart speech available as a podcast, with some post-match analysis from Emily and @jonsopel. Our first real episode will be in your feeds on Tuesday 30th August. https://pod.fo/e/13a96f
It's remarkable just how many journalists turn out to hate the Tories once they've left the BBC.
Bravely saying little or nothing when their salary depended on it and then trashing their former employer when it is in their interests to do so.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the decisions made, it was the Conservative government including Sunak that made those decisions. The idea that “boffins” had all the power is silly. The Government had the power and exercised the power. The Government routinely ignored all sorts of advice from boffins. (Indeed, sometimes the advice from different boffins was contradictory and the Government had to ignore one or another boffins’ advice.)
Pretending someone else made you do something is an all too common feature of modern populism. Both Tory leadership contenders act as if someone else has been in power for the last decade.
Not to mention the many many lives stunted by lockdown - the children with social skills retarded, educations crippled, their families forced into divorce
The lovers that never met. The friends who lost touch. The scattered families who never saw close relatives for years
The lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake, apart from the first one, when we didn’t know what we were dealing with
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Look at heart/circulatory excess deaths - heart problems ignored during lockdown?
Look at diabetes - poor diets during lockdown?
Look at liver disease - increased alcohol intake during lockdown?
Also exercise. Gyms were shut with police coming to make sure rules were obeyed. Sports clubs and sports events closed for months on end with all the attendant physical and social harms that caused, especially for young people.
Lockdown wasn't just no good, it was downright evil. It was downright dangerous. Our politicians should be saying sorry to us..
Not to mention the many many lives stunted by lockdown - the children with social skills retarded, educations crippled, their families forced into divorce
The lovers that never met. The friends who lost touch. The scattered families who never saw close relatives for years
The lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake, apart from the first one, when we didn’t know what we were dealing with
Fantastic that Rishi Sunak has seen the light on lockdowns.
Yes, good for Sunak. Well said
There are people on Twitter who are saying that this…
“Sunak says it was a mistake to ‘empower scientists’ during Covid pandemic”
… is some kind of outrage. A statement so foul and evil it could only come from Nazi Tories. It’s the usual suspects - mad Remainers, FBPEers, James O’Brien
I can’t quite work out why there is such an overlap between Remoaners and 2nd voters and being fiercely pro-lockdown. But that overlap definitely exists. Starmer is an example
Awful people
It's because many Rejoiners favour the idea of social protection and they see lockdown as a form of it.
Similarly there is a substantial overlap between well-heeled Brexit fans and anti-lockdowners, with the idea being that social protection is anathema and tantamount to surrendering to North Korea and letting overpopulation rip.
Personally I am a Rejoiner Anti-lockdowner and tend to get quite lonely.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
I don't think that correct. See the analysis earlier this week in the FT.
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
And there's your problem right there. It takes under a minute to remind oneself that at peak lockdown we had 1,000 deaths a day for 3 weeks, https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
But rather than admit the 1:7 ratio he says "thousands" on one side of the equation and 1,082 on the other to create the appearance of equivalence where there is none.
That’s journalism. He’s framing his argument to get noticed. 1000 excess deaths a week is no small thing. That’s 50,000 a year if it continues and it may continue for a long time
Making it the equivalent of another Covid
And the evidence of lockdown being a cause is what ?
We've made the full version of @maitlis' MacTaggart speech available as a podcast, with some post-match analysis from Emily and @jonsopel. Our first real episode will be in your feeds on Tuesday 30th August. https://pod.fo/e/13a96f
It's remarkable just how many journalists turn out to hate the Tories once they've left the BBC.
Equally remarkable how many BBC types turn out to be Conservatives, most famously Nick Robinson was derided on here as Toenails because he was so far up Gordon Brown's arse, but then we learned David Cameron was trying to sign him up. Oops.
I wasn't on here until 2013, but I can assure you I've always liked Nick Robinson.
More hustings tonight to discuss the precise positioning of the deckchairs.
Fraid we have to suck it up to support Ukraine, so says Boris.
In a way that will truly do little to maintain support for our support of Ukraine.
Still all these nice pubs, especially ones like the one in the article in London, will be acquired by property developers eager to change them to HMO's.
A facebook group I follow about local restaurants was reporting a bar/restaurant in a part of Durham, popular and well run, was facing an increase from £20K to £55K in its energy bills. At the moment.
People like @RochdalePioneers and I have been saying this for weeks.
A shitstorm is coming for hospitality and these fuckers who run the country or want to run the country don't, yet, have the first clue how to solve it and as each day passes more and more businesses are facing going to the wall.
If they expect us to suffer high energy prices as a consequence of politicians wanting to support Ukraine, and it is the right thing to do, then instead of saying we just need to get on with it they need a plan to mitigate to get through the next 12-24 months.
Not to mention the many many lives stunted by lockdown - the children with social skills retarded, educations crippled, their families forced into divorce
The lovers that never met. The friends who lost touch. The scattered families who never saw close relatives for years
The lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake, apart from the first one, when we didn’t know what we were dealing with
The people who could not say goodbye to dying relatives. The people who could not attend funerals to pay last respects to people they had known for decades.
That disgusting film of some jobsworth moving a grieving widow a foot further away from her relative at a funeral because she wasn't socially distanced enough.
Evil. Disgusting. Inhumane and wholly wrong. Lockdown, and all those who still defend it.
Embarrassingly slanted "survey" - really from the same mindset as the authors of LibDem barcharts, but from our own Government. Even if I agreed with the objective, my toes would curl if I had anything to do with it.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Look at heart/circulatory excess deaths - heart problems ignored during lockdown?
Look at diabetes - poor diets during lockdown?
Look at liver disease - increased alcohol intake during lockdown?
Also exercise. Gyms were shut with police coming to make sure rules were obeyed. Sports clubs and sports events closed for months on end with all the attendant physical and social harms that caused, especially for young people.
Lockdown wasn't just no good, it was downright evil. It was downright dangerous. Our politicians should be saying sorry to us..
We got half an apology from Sunak.
My brother lives in a shack on a hilltop near Pisac, Peru. He’s eccentric, sometimes crazy, but also fiercely intelligent. One of the smartest people I know (when he’s on form). He can be brutally forensic with data
At the beginning of Covid he told me, witheringly, that the lockdowns were a calamitous mistake, and we were pointlessly sacrificing the future to “save the obese and the very old”
At the time I thought he was being a tad sociopathic. And that he didn’t understand the pandemic
Increasingly, and tragically, I think he was right
Not to mention the many many lives stunted by lockdown - the children with social skills retarded, educations crippled, their families forced into divorce
The lovers that never met. The friends who lost touch. The scattered families who never saw close relatives for years
The lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake, apart from the first one, when we didn’t know what we were dealing with
It's over. Let it go.
Tell that to Andy Cooke, who still thinks he was right to defend it to the hilt, and crops up on here with some mealy mouthed interpretation of a bullsh8t graphic from time to time.
The economy and inflation/prices has absolutely dominated this leadership contest.
I get you hate the Tories now with the zeal of the convert but let's try and keep a grip.
No they haven't
The only economic points I've heard from the 2 candidates are
Sunak - no tax cuts yet we can't afford it. Truss - I'll cut taxes tomorrow - we'll just borrow more
And Sunak saying Truss's plan is insane.
That's still discussing the economy, whether you agree with the plans or not. It's not discussing immigration or other issues.
Oh and Truss advocating tax cuts to cut prices and have people having more of their own money available to them, so dealing with inflation. So that's prices/inflation being discussed too.
Whether you like the proposed solutions or not, is a different question to whether they're discussing the subject or not, which they are.
Not to mention the many many lives stunted by lockdown - the children with social skills retarded, educations crippled, their families forced into divorce
The lovers that never met. The friends who lost touch. The scattered families who never saw close relatives for years
The lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake, apart from the first one, when we didn’t know what we were dealing with
It's over. Let it go.
Tell that to Andy Cooke, who still thinks he was right to defend it to the hilt, and crops up on here with some mealy mouthed interpretation of a bullsh8t graphic from time to time.
"Mealy mouthed" and "bullsh8t" in the same sentence is fucking spectacular. Sorry, f8cking spectacular.
andy is generally on top of his statistics. Is it possible you just do not understand the graphics?
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Look at heart/circulatory excess deaths - heart problems ignored during lockdown?
Look at diabetes - poor diets during lockdown?
Look at liver disease - increased alcohol intake during lockdown?
And, miraculously, only in the UK out of the countries with lockdown.
You're pushing the motivated reasoning a bit further than you can get to.
Meanwhile, the causes of increased harm by ambulance delays and insufficient beads aren't questions, but actually known. The facts of increased heart and diabetic (and liver) problems from having had covid and recovered aren't questions but actually known.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Lockdowns kill, Andy. They don't save anything, they don't protect anything. They merely alter the balance of risks.
Let me address your arguments.
...
...
Sorry. Couldn't find any. Just assertions. And ignoring of other arguments.
Embarrassingly slanted "survey" - really from the same mindset as the authors of LibDem barcharts, but from our own Government. Even if I agreed with the objective, my toes would curl if I had anything to do with it.
It could be in the Sun or the Daily Express. But they have no shame.
It's scary. If Truss gives Leavers their pounds and inches back, few of them will call her Remainy-face any more. Next on the list for reversal could be the bill their patron saint made a speech against in 1968.
This also means that the biggest source of CO2 in the UK is going...
Thanks for the tip off. On line now panic buying. 👍🏻
The country is falling apart around us. Big industrial can't afford energy bills so proposes to shut. We either (a) subsidise its energy bill and thus keep strategic industry alive, or (b) let it fail, "market forces", and then face fun* when we have to try and import fertiliser and CO2 forever.
I still can't believe how the long the Tory leadership election is taking at an urgent national point for decisions. It could and should have been done and dusted a week ago at the latest.
But we have a perfectly functioning government to take all these decisions, don't we? They're working on them right now in Downi...er, Kyiv.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Look at heart/circulatory excess deaths - heart problems ignored during lockdown?
Look at diabetes - poor diets during lockdown?
Look at liver disease - increased alcohol intake during lockdown?
And, miraculously, only in the UK out of the countries with lockdown.
You're pushing the motivated reasoning a bit further than you can get to.
Meanwhile, the causes of increased harm by ambulance delays and insufficient beads aren't questions, but actually known. The facts of increased heart and diabetic (and liver) problems from having had covid and recovered aren't questions but actually known.
Another great typo. Too few votive offerings to salve the anger of the deities.
Not to mention the many many lives stunted by lockdown - the children with social skills retarded, educations crippled, their families forced into divorce
The lovers that never met. The friends who lost touch. The scattered families who never saw close relatives for years
The lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake, apart from the first one, when we didn’t know what we were dealing with
Lockdown is ok as a temporary thing, where it has a clear beginning and end. It is living in a half way surveillance state that I found hard to cope with. Many people liked the surveillance and rules on social conduct and wanted it to go on forever, it seemed to weirdly fulfill a human need for security. It also fulfills some deep 'progressive' need to take control of the direction of society and reshape it. This is evidenced by the popularity of covid rules being particularly high on the political left and opposed by the political right.
The bit missing from the Guardian article is the rate of refusal - what percentage are being turned down?
You will expect the number of rejected schemes to go up, if the number of overall schemes is increasing (the number of applications for solar schemes is through the roof)
There may also be a rush of hastily designed/planned schemes as part of such an increase.
Without such information it is just Daily Mailing from the other point of view.
Britain needs a NIMBY tax. You have the right to object to planning proposals as you do now, but only if you've paid an extra 10% of your income for the NIMBY Levy, otherwise you have to STFU.
The bit missing from the Guardian article is the rate of refusal - what percentage are being turned down?
You will expect the number of rejected schemes to go up, if the number of overall schemes is increasing (the number of applications for solar schemes is through the roof)
There may also be a rush of hastily designed/planned schemes as part of such an increase.
Without such information it is just Daily Mailing from the other point of view.
Do journalists even understand what percentages are?
Embarrassingly slanted "survey" - really from the same mindset as the authors of LibDem barcharts, but from our own Government. Even if I agreed with the objective, my toes would curl if I had anything to do with it.
It could be in the Sun or the Daily Express. But they have no shame.
It's scary. If Truss gives Leavers their pounds and inches back, few of them will call her Remainy-face any more. Next on the list for reversal could be the bill their patron saint made a speech against in 1968.
Interesting timing for that "survey".
"3a. If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items (i) in imperial units? (ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent?"
Since I criticise Truss a lot, I want to be clear that I'm not a fan of Sunak:
I do think Sunak is pretty shit and would be a PM devoid of any interesting ideas and would govern in dull mediocrity (or incompetence) for a couple of years or so before losing the GE. The UK would be in a similar or worse position to now. He appears to have nothing useful to offer and probably lacks the imagination to try.*
The reason I go on about Truss more is that I think she's also pretty shit but would (will) be a PM with plenty of (extremely nutty) ideas and will govern in interesting chaos for a couple of years before losing the GE. I fear the UK will be in a substantially more damaged position than now. She has nothing useful to offer, but will offer it anyway.
The tragedy of it is that the Con leadership race was not completely devoid of people who might have done a half decent job.
*furlough etc was done fairly well, but I don't know how much of the credit for that lies with Sunak
Have there been any leaks to suggest Sunak should not take credit for furlough (although then-Chief Secretary Steve Barclay is also in Camp Rishi)?
No, I don't think so. But surely a decision of that magnitude would have gone beyond treasury. Much like the vaccine success wasn't necessarily all Hancock's doing.
Sunak would have taken the blame though had the Treasury cocked it up, so happy to give him the credit.
"Latest transport use figures show rail hit a provisional 95% of pre-pandemic use on August 10. Figures don't include last week for rail. Tube fell to 7% on strike day August 19. Usual key: road is bold line for 28-day moving average, rail is heavy dashes and Tube is light dashes."
Bloody hell. WATO reporting from the Deanery in Wigan. Some of the poshest youngsters ever to have darkened the doors of the Deanery since it stopped being Wigan Grammar.
Sunak is making a perfectly valid point. We gave the lockdowny boffins way too much unaccountable power. Yet the red mist of Remoanerism means Dunt cannot see this
It's not the substantive point it's the "He was for it before he was against it" thing.
The PB right had a curiously retro mini-wave of anti lockdown mewling yesterday. Either Sunak reads here (hi Rishi!) or it was part of a bigger trend on twitter or somewhere that he has picked up on. To test the hypothesis let's all moan about, I dunno, the swathe of high rise hedgehog sanctuaries disfiguring the countryside and see if that crops up this evening.
If you consider a perfectly decent retrospective questioning of whether we may have been a little too eager to restrict personal liberty 'mewling' then it sort of shows the problem of the tyranny of a fearful majority, doesn't it?
Given that we are now seeing 1000 excess deaths a day - same as the worst days of Covid - and that these deaths might have been CAUSED by lockdown (at least in part) a little anti-lockdown “mewling” is, I would say, justified
It's really only an idiot at the Telegraph who howled out "These are caused by lockdowns!" with zero evidence. And I think you mean "500 excess deaths per week"
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with 2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths. ... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
Lockdowns kill, Andy. They don't save anything, they don't protect anything. They merely alter the balance of risks.
Let me address your arguments.
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Sorry. Couldn't find any. Just assertions. And ignoring of other arguments.
You are a witless, dessicated nerd with your charts of excess beads and weekly litres of drool and your daily graphic of X lives saved by preventing people kissing or fucking for 19 weeks and you are mentally incapable of seeing the bigger picture. What lockdowns do to human society and the human soul
Your time as the go-to PB wiseacre on all things covid and statistical is done. Your fame has passed. Now is the moment for you to slink into the shadows with your desperate little diagrams of shame
Embarrassingly slanted "survey" - really from the same mindset as the authors of LibDem barcharts, but from our own Government. Even if I agreed with the objective, my toes would curl if I had anything to do with it.
It could be in the Sun or the Daily Express. But they have no shame.
It's scary. If Truss gives Leavers their pounds and inches back, few of them will call her Remainy-face any more. Next on the list for reversal could be the bill their patron saint made a speech against in 1968.
Interesting timing for that "survey".
"3a. If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items (i) in imperial units? (ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent?"
No metric only option.
iii) relegate imperial units to the status of quaint historical relic.
Embarrassingly slanted "survey" - really from the same mindset as the authors of LibDem barcharts, but from our own Government. Even if I agreed with the objective, my toes would curl if I had anything to do with it.
It could be in the Sun or the Daily Express. But they have no shame.
It's scary. If Truss gives Leavers their pounds and inches back, few of them will call her Remainy-face any more. Next on the list for reversal could be the bill their patron saint made a speech against in 1968.
Interesting timing for that "survey".
"3a. If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items (i) in imperial units? (ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent?"
No metric only option.
Nor even a purchase in metric alongside an imperial equivalent.
Embarrassingly slanted "survey" - really from the same mindset as the authors of LibDem barcharts, but from our own Government. Even if I agreed with the objective, my toes would curl if I had anything to do with it.
The bit missing from the Guardian article is the rate of refusal - what percentage are being turned down?
You will expect the number of rejected schemes to go up, if the number of overall schemes is increasing (the number of applications for solar schemes is through the roof)
There may also be a rush of hastily designed/planned schemes as part of such an increase.
Without such information it is just Daily Mailing from the other point of view.
The Guardian has long since been the left wing Daily Mail.
Indeed it is. But. We urgently need to be expanding domestic energy generation.
Lady Dorries will soon be announcing the Truss government plan to keep people warm, instil a work ethic into the next generation AND solve our domestic power needs.
Embarrassingly slanted "survey" - really from the same mindset as the authors of LibDem barcharts, but from our own Government. Even if I agreed with the objective, my toes would curl if I had anything to do with it.
It could be in the Sun or the Daily Express. But they have no shame.
It's scary. If Truss gives Leavers their pounds and inches back, few of them will call her Remainy-face any more. Next on the list for reversal could be the bill their patron saint made a speech against in 1968.
Interesting timing for that "survey".
"3a. If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items (i) in imperial units? (ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent?"
No metric only option.
iii) relegate imperial units to the status of quaint historical relic.
Which tbf is where they already are for the vast majority of people.
Comments
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/
The idea that no lockdown meant no economic or health damage to the country is simply wrong.
Arguably it was Sunaks furlough and business support schemes that kept things going, albeit at great cost in debt.
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist/Archive/February-2012/Sir-Peter-Kent-Lecture-15-March
1. Society was about to get a practical, hands-on education in some of the nuances of how 'science' works, in that as we learn more our understanding of a thing changes. Earlier knowledge may not have been the complete picture, or even completely wrong, as we get a clearer picture over time. I believed that society would learn that this is all part of the process and, ultimately, a good thing.
2. Once 'scientists' had served their purpose, the public's goodwill would evaporate like a drunkard's undying love in the morning. They are after all, by and large, remoanery citizens of nowhere etc etc etc and in post-pandemic times their input would be very much unwelcome. Despite the fact that expertise can be helpful at most times, even outwith a pandemic.
My feeling is that I was way out there on prediction one. Many people seem to think that if my model predicts X unless we do y, and we do y, then X not happening is proof I'm full of shit.
Prediction two, I'm more confident of.
This breaks down for quantum physics, as most quantum physicists will privately admit. The maths just does not translate to non-mathematical language.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1562004612172873728?t=x48JrhKtiETda1N57DtwHw&s=19
I have no idea why my photos post upside down…
a shame, because Es are good.
But you have to want to know. And part of the secret of success in politics is ignoring the information that's inconvenient to your case. If you can find someone with the credentials to back you up, so much the better. Not true for government, but that's another matter.
I do think Sunak is pretty shit and would be a PM devoid of any interesting ideas and would govern in dull mediocrity (or incompetence) for a couple of years or so before losing the GE. The UK would be in a similar or worse position to now. He appears to have nothing useful to offer and probably lacks the imagination to try.*
The reason I go on about Truss more is that I think she's also pretty shit but would (will) be a PM with plenty of (extremely nutty) ideas and will govern in interesting chaos for a couple of years before losing the GE. I fear the UK will be in a substantially more damaged position than now. She has nothing useful to offer, but will offer it anyway.
The tragedy of it is that the Con leadership race was not completely devoid of people who might have done a half decent job.
*furlough etc was done fairly well, but I don't know how much of the credit for that lies with Sunak
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-re-at-pandemic-levels-of-death-why-is-no-one-talking-about-it-
“At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest week’s data, covering the week to 12 August, some 1,082 more people than would be expected in a normal year died in the UK.
These so-called ‘excess deaths’ have averaged 1,000 for 15 weeks of this year. Yet unlike Covid deaths, they are met with near silence.
But it isn’t Covid that’s causing these deaths anymore. In the latest figures, published by the ONS, just 6 per cent of English and Welsh deaths had anything to do with Covid. Of nearly 10,000 weekly deaths in England, just 561 mentioned the virus on the death certificate.”
https://highviewpower.com/technology/
Though tbf Rishi probably encountered a lot of big boys.
*or was.
God, the Telegraph has gone downhill.
Just imagine if someone said these deaths were down to Brexit. (I DON'T THINK THIS IS DOWN TO BREXIT.)
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1562004612172873728
Main causes are:
1 - Overloaded healthcare system on day-to-day basis (because too few beds left) - we never recovered it from running it past the red line for too long and have consistently had 5%-15% of beds occupied by covid patients since the start of the Delta wave last summer (which messes us up when we run at 80%+ occupancy all the time to begin with
2 - Chronic effects of covid
That's not to say that we won't ever see effects from the lockdown period. But the biggest alarm bell for that would be excess cancer deaths.
... and they don't seem to be the big contributor.
Also, consider: almost all the continent had lockdowns. Yet we're the ones who have age-standardised excess deaths (other than Spain and Portugal which had very prolonged heatwaves having excess deaths coincide with their heatwaves)
A ringleader in a machete-wielding gang of children who robbed a man and threatened to kill him in a Leeds park has avoided custody - after the judge said he did not want to ruin the youngster’s university dreams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1562006322983407616?t=omhAdbHsPu4039FnHPc28A&s=19
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/25/big-energy-firms-refuse-to-supply-small-uk-businesses-bankruptcy-fears-contracts
More hustings tonight to discuss the precise positioning of the deckchairs.
Similarly, if it had been a division by 9, anything not ending 11, 22 etc would also have been obviously wrong.
One of my Engineering tutors made us calculate all sorts of ridiculous formulae without recourse to calculator or even paper and expected the answer within 10% or so. Methods to spot cockups are important.
But rather than admit the 1:7 ratio he says "thousands" on one side of the equation and 1,082 on the other to create the appearance of equivalence where there is none.
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/why-have-there-been-excess-deaths-this-summer/
It is debatable whether locking down or not would have made any difference at all to that.
Meaning that the majority are directly down to covid, anyway?
Plus the fact that again and again we've learned that covid causes cardiovascular damage and increased diabetes to those who've had it - and most of the excess deaths that aren't from immediate acute covid are (checks) cardiovascular and diabetes.
And most other countries that had lockdown aren't seeing a big unexplained excess in non-covid deaths.
Must be lockdown.
Making it the equivalent of another Covid
https://www.agg-net.com/news/geology-gets-a-voice-in-parliament
Stepped down in 2001, I think ?
Down to 450 Excess deaths.
64 Excess deaths a day!!!
Look at diabetes - poor diets during lockdown?
Look at liver disease - increased alcohol intake during lockdown?
Lovely stuff.
Pretending someone else made you do something is an all too common feature of modern populism. Both Tory leadership contenders act as if someone else has been in power for the last decade.
The lovers that never met. The friends who lost touch. The scattered families who never saw close relatives for years
The lockdowns were a catastrophic mistake, apart from the first one, when we didn’t know what we were dealing with
Lockdown wasn't just no good, it was downright evil. It was downright dangerous. Our politicians should be saying sorry to us..
We got half an apology from Sunak.
Let it go.
Similarly there is a substantial overlap between well-heeled Brexit fans and anti-lockdowners, with the idea being that social protection is anathema and tantamount to surrendering to North Korea and letting overpopulation rip.
Personally I am a Rejoiner Anti-lockdowner and tend to get quite lonely.
In a way that will truly do little to maintain support for our support of Ukraine.
Still all these nice pubs, especially ones like the one in the article in London, will be acquired by property developers eager to change them to HMO's.
A facebook group I follow about local restaurants was reporting a bar/restaurant in a part of Durham, popular and well run, was facing an increase from £20K to £55K in its energy bills. At the moment.
People like @RochdalePioneers and I have been saying this for weeks.
A shitstorm is coming for hospitality and these fuckers who run the country or want to run the country don't, yet, have the first clue how to solve it and as each day passes more and more businesses are facing going to the wall.
If they expect us to suffer high energy prices as a consequence of politicians wanting to support Ukraine, and it is the right thing to do, then instead of saying we just need to get on with it they need a plan to mitigate to get through the next 12-24 months.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1562767137584074753
Betfair next prime minister
1.07 Liz Truss 93%
14 Rishi Sunak 7%
Next Conservative leader
1.07 Liz Truss 93%
14.5 Rishi Sunak 7%
That disgusting film of some jobsworth moving a grieving widow a foot further away from her relative at a funeral because she wasn't socially distanced enough.
Evil. Disgusting. Inhumane and wholly wrong. Lockdown, and all those who still defend it.
At the beginning of Covid he told me, witheringly, that the lockdowns were a calamitous mistake, and we were pointlessly sacrificing the future to “save the obese and the very old”
At the time I thought he was being a tad sociopathic. And that he didn’t understand the pandemic
Increasingly, and tragically, I think he was right
Oh and Truss advocating tax cuts to cut prices and have people having more of their own money available to them, so dealing with inflation. So that's prices/inflation being discussed too.
Whether you like the proposed solutions or not, is a different question to whether they're discussing the subject or not, which they are.
But. We urgently need to be expanding domestic energy generation.
andy is generally on top of his statistics. Is it possible you just do not understand the graphics?
You're pushing the motivated reasoning a bit further than you can get to.
Meanwhile, the causes of increased harm by ambulance delays and insufficient beads aren't questions, but actually known. The facts of increased heart and diabetic (and liver) problems from having had covid and recovered aren't questions but actually known.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1562770504259231744
This should be greenlit, irrespective of what the NIMBYs say.
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-east/solar-farm-proposed-for-county-durham-site
The NIMBYs here should have been told to swivel by Durham Council, who seem to be no better than the labour regime they replaced.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-62086628
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Sorry. Couldn't find any. Just assertions. And ignoring of other arguments.
It's scary. If Truss gives Leavers their pounds and inches back, few of them will call her Remainy-face any more. Next on the list for reversal could be the bill their patron saint made a speech against in 1968.
Interesting timing for that "survey".
Too few votive offerings to salve the anger of the deities.
You will expect the number of rejected schemes to go up, if the number of overall schemes is increasing (the number of applications for solar schemes is through the roof)
There may also be a rush of hastily designed/planned schemes as part of such an increase.
Without such information it is just Daily Mailing from the other point of view.
No metric-only option.
Sunak would have taken the blame though had the Treasury cocked it up, so happy to give him the credit.
https://twitter.com/philatrail/status/1562725450241101824
Rail usage has recovered much more quickly than I feared back in mid-2020. Although usage patterns appear to have changed.
WATO reporting from the Deanery in Wigan.
Some of the poshest youngsters ever to have darkened the doors of the Deanery since it stopped being Wigan Grammar.
Your time as the go-to PB wiseacre on all things covid and statistical is done. Your fame has passed. Now is the moment for you to slink into the shadows with your desperate little diagrams of shame
BRING BACK THE TREADMILL!!!!!