By the internationally recognised PB metric of right wing people who don’t live in Scotland would vote for Labour to oust the SNP, the Nats are in DEEP trouble.
I am a right wing person who does live in Scotland - I'm ambivalent about voting Labour to oust the SNP. TCOTSA would seem to apply.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
Absolutely not. No first lockdown results in the NHS being completely swamped with cases. We barely coped as it was, with all the extra capacity the NHS threw together at short notice (with no direction from the government either - I know people working in local NHS management & they were working seven days a week putting in as much capacity as they could create on such short notice long before the goverment even thought about doing anything).
Remember all those extra temporary hospitals that were thrown up by the government & then never used? Those were for warehousing the dead & dying that would have resulted had we not locked down at all: The relatively low death rate for the first COVID wave gets ripped up if you can only effectively treat 10% of the caseload.
The effects on the country would have been far far worse without that first lockdown. This was so obvious that the population was already starting to act before the government did. They were in many ways following public opinion rather than leading it. Had they led from the outset we might be in a better position now.
It would appear that lockdown was a success.
Because everyone who opposed it is now saying it wasn't needed.
Which, as I pointed out at the time, was always going to be a bit of a problem...
So you think we should always lockdown for diseases with an infection fatality rate of around 0.2%. Close schools and destroy kids education. You have your view I suppose likely because you had a pleasant lockdown experience working from home with a nice large garden.
Firstly, the fatality rate of alpha was more like 1-2%.
& no, even a desease with a 5% fatality rate doesn’t justify locking down the country by itself. What justifies that is the combination of infectivity and fatality rate.
COVID is very unusual - it is and was extremely infectious, with a significant fatality rate. Those two things in combination are what drives the need for a nationwide pandemic response.
(Omicron is ludicrously infectious - we should all be extremely grateful that the desease didn’t linger in some corner of humanity until an omicron-like strain evolved before breaking out into a full scale pandemic, because that outcome would have been horrendous.)
It’s not even worth bothering with your snide ad hominem barbs. ydoethur has already dealt with them admirably.
And Covid had its peak infectivity in the asymptomatic stage, further increasing spread..
A lot of covid measures were lifted from the pandemic flu plan, but by the end of the first wave it was clear that spread was airborne and indoors. I don't think this was acknowledged soon enough.
I was having a chat about covid with matron over coffee the other day. It is hard to be certain as it spreads asymptomatically, but it seems none of our staff were shown to have caught it from each other or from patients. Nearly all who caught it did so via family members, or their children.
By asymptomatically I assume you mean by large droplets? Can't be aerosol presumably as there is no sneezing or coughing. So the risk of asymptomatic transmission must logically be much less than symptomatic transmission?
How can your colleagues know from whom they caught it (you say "were shown").
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
DavidL. I see you are claiming the Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh has been struck off. I doubt that is true, though I would be willing to review your evidence. If she has not been struck off, then yours is a "brave" comment :-)
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Was calling Blair Bliar okay? I didn't like it much at the time.
If Labour cannot win back Rutherglen in a byelection triggered by a recall petition then they cannot win anything. They should be winning it back by a landslide majority over the SNP.
Talking of which Humza Useless was dire at FMQs today. He has appointed a cabinet of second rate failures to make himself look good and the faces of SNP backbenchers today was noteworthy. Both Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar won't have to look far to choose topics upon which to roast him at PMQs from now on.
As Douglas Ross said today, only one ministerial appointment went to someone who did not publicly support Yousaf. Keeping the Greens in government will also upset a great many Scots.
They should win it because most Conservatives will vote Labour to stop the SNP. We can look forward to the SNP saying Labour only won because they relied on Tory votes.
Given that Rutherglen and Hamilton West was one of the 6 seats which Labour held from 2017-2019, anything other than a Labour gain in these circumstances would set them back severely.
I don't expect SNP to hold this, but it will be relatively easy (despite apocalyptic nonsense from the Brit Nat unionist media) for them to claim special circumstances caused the loss.
By the internationally recognised PB metric of right wing people who don’t live in Scotland would vote for Labour to oust the SNP, the Nats are in DEEP trouble.
I am a right wing person who does live in Scotland - I'm ambivalent about voting Labour to oust the SNP. TCOTSA would seem to apply.
Given that Rutherglen and Hamilton West was one of the 6 seats which Labour held from 2017-2019, anything other than a Labour gain in these circumstances would set them back severely.
I don't expect SNP to hold this, but it will be relatively easy (despite apocalyptic nonsense from the Brit Nat unionist media) for them to claim special circumstances caused the loss.
If the SNP were actually to hold....
'hold' is problematical here, anyway, as it hasn't been a SNP seat for years!
Given that Rutherglen and Hamilton West was one of the 6 seats which Labour held from 2017-2019, anything other than a Labour gain in these circumstances would set them back severely.
I don't expect SNP to hold this, but it will be relatively easy (despite apocalyptic nonsense from the Brit Nat unionist media) for them to claim special circumstances caused the loss.
If the SNP were actually to hold....
I've watched the odds come in on BF since Mike's header. Lab win now down to 1.16.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
Absolutely not. No first lockdown results in the NHS being completely swamped with cases. We barely coped as it was, with all the extra capacity the NHS threw together at short notice (with no direction from the government either - I know people working in local NHS management & they were working seven days a week putting in as much capacity as they could create on such short notice long before the goverment even thought about doing anything).
Remember all those extra temporary hospitals that were thrown up by the government & then never used? Those were for warehousing the dead & dying that would have resulted had we not locked down at all: The relatively low death rate for the first COVID wave gets ripped up if you can only effectively treat 10% of the caseload.
The effects on the country would have been far far worse without that first lockdown. This was so obvious that the population was already starting to act before the government did. They were in many ways following public opinion rather than leading it. Had they led from the outset we might be in a better position now.
It would appear that lockdown was a success.
Because everyone who opposed it is now saying it wasn't needed.
Which, as I pointed out at the time, was always going to be a bit of a problem...
So you think we should always lockdown for diseases with an infection fatality rate of around 0.2%. Close schools and destroy kids education. You have your view I suppose likely because you had a pleasant lockdown experience working from home with a nice large garden.
Firstly, the fatality rate of alpha was more like 1-2%.
& no, even a desease with a 5% fatality rate doesn’t justify locking down the country by itself. What justifies that is the combination of infectivity and fatality rate.
COVID is very unusual - it is and was extremely infectious, with a significant fatality rate. Those two things in combination are what drives the need for a nationwide pandemic response.
(Omicron is ludicrously infectious - we should all be extremely grateful that the desease didn’t linger in some corner of humanity until an omicron-like strain evolved before breaking out into a full scale pandemic, because that outcome would have been horrendous.)
It’s not even worth bothering with your snide ad hominem barbs. ydoethur has already dealt with them admirably.
And Covid had its peak infectivity in the asymptomatic stage, further increasing spread..
A lot of covid measures were lifted from the pandemic flu plan, but by the end of the first wave it was clear that spread was airborne and indoors. I don't think this was acknowledged soon enough.
I was having a chat about covid with matron over coffee the other day. It is hard to be certain as it spreads asymptomatically, but it seems none of our staff were shown to have caught it from each other or from patients. Nearly all who caught it did so via family members, or their children.
By asymptomatically I assume you mean by large droplets? Can't be aerosol presumably as there is no sneezing or coughing. So the risk of asymptomatic transmission must logically be much less than symptomatic transmission?
How can your colleagues know from whom they caught it (you say "were shown").
You get some aerosols from simply breathing. Speaking creates quite a few & singing creates a lot of them, hence the superspreader events in certain US choirs.
Sneezing & coughing are of course very effective means of creating aerosols but they are not required.
DavidL. I see you are claiming the Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh has been struck off. I doubt that is true, though I would be willing to review your evidence. If she has not been struck off, then yours is a "brave" comment :-)
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
Absolutely not. No first lockdown results in the NHS being completely swamped with cases. We barely coped as it was, with all the extra capacity the NHS threw together at short notice (with no direction from the government either - I know people working in local NHS management & they were working seven days a week putting in as much capacity as they could create on such short notice long before the goverment even thought about doing anything).
Remember all those extra temporary hospitals that were thrown up by the government & then never used? Those were for warehousing the dead & dying that would have resulted had we not locked down at all: The relatively low death rate for the first COVID wave gets ripped up if you can only effectively treat 10% of the caseload.
The effects on the country would have been far far worse without that first lockdown. This was so obvious that the population was already starting to act before the government did. They were in many ways following public opinion rather than leading it. Had they led from the outset we might be in a better position now.
It would appear that lockdown was a success.
Because everyone who opposed it is now saying it wasn't needed.
Which, as I pointed out at the time, was always going to be a bit of a problem...
So you think we should always lockdown for diseases with an infection fatality rate of around 0.2%. Close schools and destroy kids education. You have your view I suppose likely because you had a pleasant lockdown experience working from home with a nice large garden.
Firstly, the fatality rate of alpha was more like 1-2%.
& no, even a desease with a 5% fatality rate doesn’t justify locking down the country by itself. What justifies that is the combination of infectivity and fatality rate.
COVID is very unusual - it is and was extremely infectious, with a significant fatality rate. Those two things in combination are what drives the need for a nationwide pandemic response.
(Omicron is ludicrously infectious - we should all be extremely grateful that the desease didn’t linger in some corner of humanity until an omicron-like strain evolved before breaking out into a full scale pandemic, because that outcome would have been horrendous.)
It’s not even worth bothering with your snide ad hominem barbs. ydoethur has already dealt with them admirably.
And Covid had its peak infectivity in the asymptomatic stage, further increasing spread..
A lot of covid measures were lifted from the pandemic flu plan, but by the end of the first wave it was clear that spread was airborne and indoors. I don't think this was acknowledged soon enough.
I was having a chat about covid with matron over coffee the other day. It is hard to be certain as it spreads asymptomatically, but it seems none of our staff were shown to have caught it from each other or from patients. Nearly all who caught it did so via family members, or their children.
By asymptomatically I assume you mean by large droplets? Can't be aerosol presumably as there is no sneezing or coughing. So the risk of asymptomatic transmission must logically be much less than symptomatic transmission?
How can your colleagues know from whom they caught it (you say "were shown").
I think mostly via aerosol. Larger drops are only with sneezing or coughing, so symptomatic.
By the internationally recognised PB metric of right wing people who don’t live in Scotland would vote for Labour to oust the SNP, the Nats are in DEEP trouble.
I am a right wing person who does live in Scotland - I'm ambivalent about voting Labour to oust the SNP. TCOTSA would seem to apply.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Started with Bliar, I think.
Richard Cromwell was known as Queen Dick.....
Also Thatcher milk snatcher, paddy pantsdown, harriet harperson etc. So not that recent.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
Absolutely not. No first lockdown results in the NHS being completely swamped with cases. We barely coped as it was, with all the extra capacity the NHS threw together at short notice (with no direction from the government either - I know people working in local NHS management & they were working seven days a week putting in as much capacity as they could create on such short notice long before the goverment even thought about doing anything).
Remember all those extra temporary hospitals that were thrown up by the government & then never used? Those were for warehousing the dead & dying that would have resulted had we not locked down at all: The relatively low death rate for the first COVID wave gets ripped up if you can only effectively treat 10% of the caseload.
The effects on the country would have been far far worse without that first lockdown. This was so obvious that the population was already starting to act before the government did. They were in many ways following public opinion rather than leading it. Had they led from the outset we might be in a better position now.
It would appear that lockdown was a success.
Because everyone who opposed it is now saying it wasn't needed.
Which, as I pointed out at the time, was always going to be a bit of a problem...
So you think we should always lockdown for diseases with an infection fatality rate of around 0.2%. Close schools and destroy kids education. You have your view I suppose likely because you had a pleasant lockdown experience working from home with a nice large garden.
Firstly, the fatality rate of alpha was more like 1-2%.
& no, even a desease with a 5% fatality rate doesn’t justify locking down the country by itself. What justifies that is the combination of infectivity and fatality rate.
COVID is very unusual - it is and was extremely infectious, with a significant fatality rate. Those two things in combination are what drives the need for a nationwide pandemic response.
(Omicron is ludicrously infectious - we should all be extremely grateful that the desease didn’t linger in some corner of humanity until an omicron-like strain evolved before breaking out into a full scale pandemic, because that outcome would have been horrendous.)
It’s not even worth bothering with your snide ad hominem barbs. ydoethur has already dealt with them admirably.
And Covid had its peak infectivity in the asymptomatic stage, further increasing spread..
A lot of covid measures were lifted from the pandemic flu plan, but by the end of the first wave it was clear that spread was airborne and indoors. I don't think this was acknowledged soon enough.
I was having a chat about covid with matron over coffee the other day. It is hard to be certain as it spreads asymptomatically, but it seems none of our staff were shown to have caught it from each other or from patients. Nearly all who caught it did so via family members, or their children.
How can your colleagues know from whom they caught it (you say "were shown").
Matron has an interest in infection control, as one might expect.
Simply put, we didn't get clusters of people who were working together come down with it, nor of staff who were taking breaks together, but rather would have households come down with it and the staff to get it last in the household. I think the lack of spread was mostly due to ventilation in our workplace break room and proper mask discipline.
We did have ward outbreaks between patients though.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Started with Bliar, I think.
Richard Cromwell was known as Queen Dick.....
Also Thatcher milk snatcher, paddy pantsdown, harriet harperson etc. So not that recent.
It is an effective way of characterising someone. Harperson absolutely hit the nail on the head.
By the internationally recognised PB metric of right wing people who don’t live in Scotland would vote for Labour to oust the SNP, the Nats are in DEEP trouble.
I was asked a question by MexicanPete and I answered it. I know you are throwing your toys out of the pram but you have accept that your leader is a dud. To think otherwise goes against his previous history. The mere fact he was actuslly elected ought to set off alarm bells
Tbh I’m not really interested in your low wattage insights about anything, particularly your abiding long distance hatred of the SNP and Sturgeon. I seem to recall you whining about her being an ‘attention seeker’ because she had the temerity to mention her miscarriage during baby loss awareness week. That told me all I needed to know about you.
I think from here the SNP's support is going to drop mightily. Does anyone disagree?
Is Alba any sort of alternative for erstwhile SNP voters?
I think a lot might depend on *why* people were voting for the SNP; or more accurately, what motivations they had for voting SNP (given people often have more than one reason).
For those who want independence, then the SNP is probably still the best bet, although the hardcore might go Alba. for those who want a Scottish-focused party governing them (in the Scottish parliament), then again, the SNP is probably the best bet. For those who have 'brand loyalty' with the SNP; well, you can excuse away what's just happened. For those fed up with Scottish Labour and Scottish Cons: the latest SNP farrago might send them back there.
But to my English eyes, Alba seem just as much a mess as the SNP. Although that might be very unfair.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Started with Bliar, I think.
Richard Cromwell was known as Queen Dick.....
Also Thatcher milk snatcher, paddy pantsdown, harriet harperson etc. So not that recent.
It is an effective way of characterising someone. Harperson absolutely hit the nail on the head.
In fact the more you look back, the more common it seems, both positive and negative. Supermac being a positive example.
Move along, nothing to see. Did anyone see last week's Deltapoll?
True, though the odd thing is that last week saw quite a few weekly pollsters post a biggish Lab to Con shift, and this week they seem to be flipping back.
It could all be noise, and we don't know how good the newbie's panels or processing are. But if several of them do a jump to the right then a step to the left at the same time...
1 It's politically interesting to ask if there is a real reason
2: Don't book them for the chorus line in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Started with Bliar, I think.
Richard Cromwell was known as Queen Dick.....
Also Thatcher milk snatcher, paddy pantsdown, harriet harperson etc. So not that recent.
It is an effective way of characterising someone. Harperson absolutely hit the nail on the head.
In fact the more you look back, the more common it seems, both positive and negative. Supermac being a positive example.
Or indeed Harold Wislon, from Private Eye - a little before I started reading that ...
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Started with Bliar, I think.
Richard Cromwell was known as Queen Dick.....
Also Thatcher milk snatcher, paddy pantsdown, harriet harperson etc. So not that recent.
It is an effective way of characterising someone. Harperson absolutely hit the nail on the head.
In fact the more you look back, the more common it seems, both positive and negative. Supermac being a positive example.
Or indeed Harold Wislon, from Private Eye - a little before I started reading that ...
Or sometimes Harold Willsoon. Because whenever you think "oh, not even Harold would do that" you know that he will, soon.
By the internationally recognised PB metric of right wing people who don’t live in Scotland would vote for Labour to oust the SNP, the Nats are in DEEP trouble.
I was asked a question by MexicanPete and I answered it. I know you are throwing your toys out of the pram but you have accept that your leader is a dud. To think otherwise goes against his previous history. The mere fact he was actuslly elected ought to set off alarm bells
Tbh I’m not really interested in your low wattage insights about anything, particularly your abiding long distance hatred of the SNP and Sturgeon. I seem to recall you whining about her being an ‘attention seeker’ because she had the temerity to mention her miscarriage during baby loss awareness week. That told me all I needed to know about you.
It's odd, this sort of thing, because you and I don't go on about how we would infallibly vote RefUK or MRLP or Labour or whoever in Much Fuckton-in-the-Swamp in Salop or wherever to get the Tory MP out. Wouldn't occur to me. But perhaps we don't have the correct imperial mindset.
DavidL. I see you are claiming the Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh has been struck off. I doubt that is true, though I would be willing to review your evidence. If she has not been struck off, then yours is a "brave" comment :-)
‘‘Twas only 10 days ago he was suggesting that Mi-Voice might be complicit in a corrupted electoral process. DavidL as the Giuliani of Unionism is an unexpected development.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Started with Bliar, I think.
Richard Cromwell was known as Queen Dick.....
Also Thatcher milk snatcher, paddy pantsdown, harriet harperson etc. So not that recent.
It is an effective way of characterising someone. Harperson absolutely hit the nail on the head.
In fact the more you look back, the more common it seems, both positive and negative. Supermac being a positive example.
Or indeed Harold Wislon, from Private Eye - a little before I started reading that ...
Or sometimes Harold Willsoon. Because whenever you think "oh, not even Harold would do that" you know that he will, soon.
Move along, nothing to see. Did anyone see last week's Deltapoll?
True, though the odd thing is that last week saw quite a few weekly pollsters post a biggish Lab to Con shift, and this week they seem to be flipping back.
It could all be noise, and we don't know how good the newbie's panels or processing are. But if several of them do a jump to the right then a step to the left at the same time...
1 It's politically interesting to ask if there is a real reason
2: Don't book them for the chorus line in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I would just say that over the last week there has been a modest drop in the conservative poll ratings and of course it follows Johnson's appearance before the privileges committee that remained everyone of just how arrogant and insensitive he was
The direction of travel is very favourable for labour and it would be very unexpected if Starmer does not achieve a working majority in October 24
However, there is always a caveat such as a week is a long time in politics and unpredictable events happen, not least as we are seeing in Scotland just now when a couple of months ago Sturgeon seemed immovable
Anyway, an aside, if I may, and one that shows how wonderful PB can be.
Two or three years ago, some peeps on here were talking about books they used to learn Latin, and mentioned 'Ecce Romani' series. Since my son was into things Roman, I bought the first book and put it on his bookshelf.
And there it remained. He would occasionally get it down and look at it, and copy phrases, but last year he asked to learn it on Duolingo. Now, I know Duolingo is in some ways a flawed way of learning a language, but he has worked at it solidly, and has reached a 180-day streak without a break.
And he has learnt much more about English in the process, and has loved recognising Latin roots in English words - e.g. 'Urbs' and 'urban' (though cities and towns). Not bad for an 8-year old.
So thanks to those on PB who talked about it.
edit: and just this moment, he got a 'legend' trophy. Not that I know what that means: he does it with Mrs J. And yes, I am proud of him.
By the internationally recognised PB metric of right wing people who don’t live in Scotland would vote for Labour to oust the SNP, the Nats are in DEEP trouble.
I was asked a question by MexicanPete and I answered it. I know you are throwing your toys out of the pram but you have accept that your leader is a dud. To think otherwise goes against his previous history. The mere fact he was actuslly elected ought to set off alarm bells
Tbh I’m not really interested in your low wattage insights about anything, particularly your abiding long distance hatred of the SNP and Sturgeon. I seem to recall you whining about her being an ‘attention seeker’ because she had the temerity to mention her miscarriage during baby loss awareness week. That told me all I needed to know about you.
Why don't you just scroll by my comments. Your frustration will be there for all to see or not as the case may be as the SNP implode. Forbes should have won.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. If every day at 5pm the PM and the CMO and whoever the other guy was had come into the room and opined upon the dangers of rock climbing, within the week rock climbing would have been banned. Or cigarettes. Or cycling. Or being driven by @Dura_Ace. But they didn't and those things remain legal subject to sensible, voluntary precautions. Or advice.
I don't for one minute blame the modellers. But then don't say "modellers wanted an earlier lockdown" as though a politician wouldn't take note of that. Modellers, together with the CMO, for some time were running the country and I blame the politicians for that.
This is silly. Going rock climbing doesn’t risk infecting a further 1000 people with the desire to go rock climbing & killing 20 of them as a result with the next month.
Pendemics fundamentally alter the basic libertarian calculus on which liberal western societies are usually run. They are unlike most other risks in that individual behaviour doesn’t just affect the individual concerned & those who choose to associate with them, but directly affects every social contact to the nth degree in measurably awful ways.
Wow . You are talking about a disease with an infection fatality rate of 0.2% not the Black Death. Go and read A State of Fear by laura Dodsworth.
No, we're talking about Covid. IFR in the pre-vaccine era can now be seen to have been c. 1.0% - 1.3% thanks to the ONS Infections survey.
Hospitalisation rates were c. 5% in that time as well.
We do not have the hospital capacity to push 5% of the population through hospitals in a matter of a couple of months.
Yes but that death rate was exagerrated by the pushing of people from hospital into care homes and the liberal use of ventilators in hospital which were a near death sentence. I am sure you are aware too of the rumours that Hancock prescribed midazalom in care homes to elderly residents which also pushed the death rate up.
Sorry, but that's Toby-level bollocks. The peak IFR occurred over winter 2020-21.
And people were put onto ventilators when they otherwise couldn't breathe. Yes, it was about a fifty-fifty chance if put onto a ventilator that you weren't coming out the other side. This is because people put onto ventilators were so seriously ill with ARDS that they were otherwise near-certain to die. I
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Anyway, an aside, if I may, and one that shows how wonderful PB can be.
Two or three years ago, some peeps on here were talking about books they used to learn Latin, and mentioned 'Ecce Romani' series. Since my son was into things Roman, I bought the first book and put it on his bookshelf.
And there it remained. He would occasionally get it down and look at it, and copy phrases, but last year he asked to learn it on Duolingo. Now, I know Duolingo is in some ways a flawed way of learning a language, but he has worked at it solidly, and has reached a 180-day streak without a break.
And he has learnt much more about English in the process, and has loved recognising Latin roots in English words - e.g. 'Urbs' and 'urban' (though cities and towns). Not bad for an 8-year old.
So thanks to those on PB who talked about it.
#
I remember this from my youth - though note the disconnect between readng ages in Eng and Latin:
What might be worth a look sometime is Asterix and the Britons in Latin, though IIRC this might be well in the future for him (unless you can translate the difficult bits).
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. If every day at 5pm the PM and the CMO and whoever the other guy was had come into the room and opined upon the dangers of rock climbing, within the week rock climbing would have been banned. Or cigarettes. Or cycling. Or being driven by @Dura_Ace. But they didn't and those things remain legal subject to sensible, voluntary precautions. Or advice.
I don't for one minute blame the modellers. But then don't say "modellers wanted an earlier lockdown" as though a politician wouldn't take note of that. Modellers, together with the CMO, for some time were running the country and I blame the politicians for that.
Modellers were never running the country. That's a fantasy. I was closer to all this than you. I saw Ministers, civil servants and outside advisers coming together to try and solve the myriad of problems caused by the pandemic. But it was always clear that the politicians retained power.
So you haven't changed your view at all?
You still don't accept that making it illegal for family members to see each other, inc in care homes; making it illegal to leave the country; dictating when you can leave your own house and how many people can be in your garden are examples, among others, of massive state over-reach? Regardless of what the emergency is, we have principles and categorical imperatives, this is a liberal democracy not China.
The amazing thing is most people were perfectly happy for people to die alone and for old people to rot away in care homes.
And you see people saying even today that we should have just locked down the most vulnerable even harder and not anyone else.
Which would, of course, have led to that being even more the case
DavidL. I see you are claiming the Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh has been struck off. I doubt that is true, though I would be willing to review your evidence. If she has not been struck off, then yours is a "brave" comment :-)
‘‘Twas only 10 days ago he was suggesting that Mi-Voice might be complicit in a corrupted electoral process. DavidL as the Giuliani of Unionism is an unexpected development.
Mi-Voice seems to be a set of tools to run elections/polls rather than a company that takes responsibility for the electoral probity of those who use its tools. It is clear that they offer a dashboard to view voting - suggesting that SNP insiders may have used the dashboard has nothing to do with Mi-voice.
Couple of unrelated thoughts about mask-wearing. I have carers coming in twice a day to ‘assist with personal care’ since I’m pretty well disabled since my operation and they all wear masks. Sometimes they even wear them properly! My brother- and sister-law, who haven’t worn masks for ages both went down with Covid last week. Neither of them have been within 200 miles of us!
And in my first year studying pharmacy, before most pb-ers were born, we were taught about constructing sterile rooms, and air-filters were part of the fixtures.
AFAIK the latest scientific study showed that masks don't make any difference, with the exception of the industrial-style masks which hardly anyone was wearing.
The Cochrane review?
It found that they couldn't be sure either way for widespread mask mandates (not masking itself; that wasn't controversial. The mask mandate element was to cover such things as level of compliance and using them correctly).
Unless you limited it to only mask studies around covid (ie deleted all the ones other than the covid ones), where there was a significant if modest benefit to mask mandates.
Couple of unrelated thoughts about mask-wearing. I have carers coming in twice a day to ‘assist with personal care’ since I’m pretty well disabled since my operation and they all wear masks. Sometimes they even wear them properly! My brother- and sister-law, who haven’t worn masks for ages both went down with Covid last week. Neither of them have been within 200 miles of us!
And in my first year studying pharmacy, before most pb-ers were born, we were taught about constructing sterile rooms, and air-filters were part of the fixtures.
AFAIK the latest scientific study showed that masks don't make any difference, with the exception of the industrial-style masks which hardly anyone was wearing.
The Cochrane review?
It found that they couldn't be sure either way for widespread mask mandates (not masking itself; that wasn't controversial. The mask mandate element was to cover such things as level of compliance and using them correctly).
Unless you limited it to only mask studies around covid (ie deleted all the ones other than the covid ones), where there was a significant if modest benefit to mask mandates.
When you say there was a significant if modest benefit to mask mandates, do you mean NET benefit - I mean, after adjusting for the many disadvantages? I suspect you are just talking about virus transmission. Pros and cons surely.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. If every day at 5pm the PM and the CMO and whoever the other guy was had come into the room and opined upon the dangers of rock climbing, within the week rock climbing would have been banned. Or cigarettes. Or cycling. Or being driven by @Dura_Ace. But they didn't and those things remain legal subject to sensible, voluntary precautions. Or advice.
I don't for one minute blame the modellers. But then don't say "modellers wanted an earlier lockdown" as though a politician wouldn't take note of that. Modellers, together with the CMO, for some time were running the country and I blame the politicians for that.
Modellers were never running the country. That's a fantasy. I was closer to all this than you. I saw Ministers, civil servants and outside advisers coming together to try and solve the myriad of problems caused by the pandemic. But it was always clear that the politicians retained power.
So you haven't changed your view at all?
You still don't accept that making it illegal for family members to see each other, inc in care homes; making it illegal to leave the country; dictating when you can leave your own house and how many people can be in your garden are examples, among others, of massive state over-reach? Regardless of what the emergency is, we have principles and categorical imperatives, this is a liberal democracy not China.
The amazing thing is most people were perfectly happy for people to die alone and for old people to rot away in care homes.
Tell you what, I'm still furious and I'll never get over this period - not the virus - I mean the government response to it. Scarred for life.
My poor mother. I know I've banged on about this before on here. She was happy in her care home until Covid. Then suddenly no visitors - which was her sole enjoyment in life - and instead people in masks bringing her meals and in masks taking her plate away. No other contact whatsoever. Not allowed to leave her room. Then the fucking indignity of "window visits". The last18 months of her useful life was lost due to this; when quantity of life was prioritised over quality of life against her wishes.
Then - just before visitors were eventually allowed back - she is diagnosed with vascular dementia, cannot remember the name of her children or husband. I want to know who to sue over this. Fucking Hancock I suppose.
Firstly, may I say I have sympathies with you over your experience.
" when quantity of life was prioritised over quality of life against her wishes. "
But surely the alternative was to prioritise quantity of life over quality of life. Which would have seen lots of people dying early when they could have been saved, and who are now living happy lives. And their relatives would br talking about suing Hancock.
What's more, it may have been your mother's choice to prioritise quantity of life over quality of life. Others in her home - and the staff - may have had a different opinion.
My own view over this whole awful tragedy has remained pretty much the same throughout: there are no 'right' answers about what to do, only varying levels of 'wrong' answers. And I am blooming glad I wasn't the one having to make these decisions.
no the majority of those dying were very old people with underlying conditions, Many of these people didnt have a great quality of life before the pandemic. And in an attempt to save some of these old people we destroyed kids education, let people die alone , isolated the elderly in care homes, terrorised the population to death and destroyed many peoples mental health. A healthy society doesnt prioritise the old and sick over the young thats not how things work. But of course we are not a healthy society.
These old people you refer to were in most cases much loved mothers or fathers, grandparents or even great grandparents and you dismiss their lives as if they were an inconvenience
Try telling that to their children, grandchildren or great grandchildren and see the reaction you get
It is a sad day when society fails to respect the elderly and those in their later years
And the main trigger on and off was the level of impact on hospitals. Those hospitalised were not overwhelmingly old. The average age of those in ICU at one point in the winter overload of 2020 was in their fifties, which is not what I'd term "very old."
Underlying conditions? Pretty common:
But all of this can be easily realised by simple common sense: the number of people in the JVCI categories 1-9 was about 32 million.
Couple of unrelated thoughts about mask-wearing. I have carers coming in twice a day to ‘assist with personal care’ since I’m pretty well disabled since my operation and they all wear masks. Sometimes they even wear them properly! My brother- and sister-law, who haven’t worn masks for ages both went down with Covid last week. Neither of them have been within 200 miles of us!
And in my first year studying pharmacy, before most pb-ers were born, we were taught about constructing sterile rooms, and air-filters were part of the fixtures.
AFAIK the latest scientific study showed that masks don't make any difference, with the exception of the industrial-style masks which hardly anyone was wearing.
The Cochrane review?
It found that they couldn't be sure either way for widespread mask mandates (not masking itself; that wasn't controversial. The mask mandate element was to cover such things as level of compliance and using them correctly).
Unless you limited it to only mask studies around covid (ie deleted all the ones other than the covid ones), where there was a significant if modest benefit to mask mandates.
When you say there was a significant if modest benefit to mask mandates, do you mean NET benefit - I mean, after adjusting for the many disadvantages? I suspect you are just talking about virus transmission. Pros and cons surely.
Well, they were measuring viral transmission, yes.
If, say, it's a 15% reduction in infectivity nationwide and closing schools was about 15% reduction, then yes, pros and cons would have to be weighed up.
If we'd ever managed to get something like an infectivity reduction budget for the various methods then we could weigh things up like that. If we needed a final push to get from a little over 1 to a little under, I'd personally go for the mask mandate over the schools closure.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
DavidL. I see you are claiming the Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh has been struck off. I doubt that is true, though I would be willing to review your evidence. If she has not been struck off, then yours is a "brave" comment :-)
‘‘Twas only 10 days ago he was suggesting that Mi-Voice might be complicit in a corrupted electoral process. DavidL as the Giuliani of Unionism is an unexpected development.
Mi-Voice seems to be a set of tools to run elections/polls rather than a company that takes responsibility for the electoral probity of those who use its tools. It is clear that they offer a dashboard to view voting - suggesting that SNP insiders may have used the dashboard has nothing to do with Mi-voice.
Afaik Mi-Voice was entirely responsible for sending out ballot papers, online ballots papers and the counting. In that context what would you say 'an independent body needs to audit and vouch for the ballots sent out and an independent body needs to do the counting' implies?
I did enjoy the instant pivot from those saying there was going to be a massive over counting of votes compared to the membership, to 'look, only 69.9% of the membership voted' (considerably higher than the turnout for the leadership election that selected Starmer as it happens).
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Anyway, an aside, if I may, and one that shows how wonderful PB can be.
Two or three years ago, some peeps on here were talking about books they used to learn Latin, and mentioned 'Ecce Romani' series. Since my son was into things Roman, I bought the first book and put it on his bookshelf.
And there it remained. He would occasionally get it down and look at it, and copy phrases, but last year he asked to learn it on Duolingo. Now, I know Duolingo is in some ways a flawed way of learning a language, but he has worked at it solidly, and has reached a 180-day streak without a break.
And he has learnt much more about English in the process, and has loved recognising Latin roots in English words - e.g. 'Urbs' and 'urban' (though cities and towns). Not bad for an 8-year old.
So thanks to those on PB who talked about it.
#
I remember this from my youth - though note the disconnect between readng ages in Eng and Latin:
What might be worth a look sometime is Asterix and the Britons in Latin, though IIRC this might be well in the future for him (unless you can translate the difficult bits).
I still have my copy of Winnie ille Pu; it sits with Frederick Crew's 'The Pooh perplex' his fabulous spoof Eng. Lit critical essays on the Pooh stories. There is also a more recent one, 'Postmodern Pooh' - less funny because what he is spoofing is less literate and more or less worthless.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
It’s silly - but goes back to BLiar as I recall
Milk Snatcher for Thatcher?
Herr Brickendrop for Joachim von Ribbentrop?
Yes its as old as language and names of course. All that is changed is silly people have more chance of their silliness being read by those interested in politics. Suits me!
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
It’s silly - but goes back to BLiar as I recall
Milk Snatcher for Thatcher?
Herr Brickendrop for Joachim von Ribbentrop?
Longshanks? Æthelred the Unready (note alliteration)?
I think from here the SNP's support is going to drop mightily. Does anyone disagree?
Is Alba any sort of alternative for erstwhile SNP voters?
SNP will have a fairly high floor due to the inescapable fact that Scottish politics has become so based on identity. But if anyone can drive SNP numbers through the floor then that man's Humza for sure.
Alba is really just a vehicle for Salmond and has been a big flop. Last time I saw ratings for Eck he was about as popular as Boris in Scotland. Having said that, he has been popping up in the media so maybe there is a slow process of rehabilitation going on. But, no, Alba is not a realistic alternative.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
It’s silly - but goes back to BLiar as I recall
Milk Snatcher for Thatcher?
Herr Brickendrop for Joachim von Ribbentrop?
Longshanks? Æthelred the Unready (note alliteration)?
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
It’s silly - but goes back to BLiar as I recall
Unfortunately for Humza, the "Useless Yousaf" tag is indelibly attached to him. Several weeks ago, an elderly neighbour, apropos of nothing, referred to "Useless" obviously in the expectation that I would know who she was talking about. Yousaf's bed was made for him well before he got to lie in it and there is very little he can do about it. May well be unfair but that's politics.
I think from here the SNP's support is going to drop mightily. Does anyone disagree?
Is Alba any sort of alternative for erstwhile SNP voters?
SNP will have a fairly high floor due to the inescapable fact that Scottish politics has become so based on identity. But if anyone can drive SNP numbers through the floor then that man's Humza for sure.
Alba is really just a vehicle for Salmond and has been a big flop. Last time I saw ratings for Eck he was about as popular as Boris in Scotland. Having said that, he has been popping up in the media so maybe there is a slow process of rehabilitation going on. But, no, Alba is not a realistic alternative.
Move along, nothing to see. Did anyone see last week's Deltapoll?
True, though the odd thing is that last week saw quite a few weekly pollsters post a biggish Lab to Con shift, and this week they seem to be flipping back.
It could all be noise, and we don't know how good the newbie's panels or processing are. But if several of them do a jump to the right then a step to the left at the same time...
1 It's politically interesting to ask if there is a real reason
2: Don't book them for the chorus line in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I would just say that over the last week there has been a modest drop in the conservative poll ratings and of course it follows Johnson's appearance before the privileges committee that remained everyone of just how arrogant and insensitive he was
The direction of travel is very favourable for labour and it would be very unexpected if Starmer does not achieve a working majority in October 24
However, there is always a caveat such as a week is a long time in politics and unpredictable events happen, not least as we are seeing in Scotland just now when a couple of months ago Sturgeon seemed immovable
These things tend to happen to parties in Government
DavidL. I see you are claiming the Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh has been struck off. I doubt that is true, though I would be willing to review your evidence. If she has not been struck off, then yours is a "brave" comment :-)
‘‘Twas only 10 days ago he was suggesting that Mi-Voice might be complicit in a corrupted electoral process. DavidL as the Giuliani of Unionism is an unexpected development.
Mi-Voice seems to be a set of tools to run elections/polls rather than a company that takes responsibility for the electoral probity of those who use its tools. It is clear that they offer a dashboard to view voting - suggesting that SNP insiders may have used the dashboard has nothing to do with Mi-voice.
Afaik Mi-Voice was entirely responsible for sending out ballot papers, online ballots papers and the counting. In that context what would you say 'an independent body needs to audit and vouch for the ballots sent out and an independent body needs to do the counting' implies?
I did enjoy the instant pivot from those saying there was going to be a massive over counting of votes compared to the membership, to 'look, only 69.9% of the membership voted' (considerably higher than the turnout for the leadership election that selected Starmer as it happens).
I'd say it implies distrust of the SNP party hierarchy who were the client hiring the apparatus of Mi-Voice. Peter Murrell etc.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
I don't like it when PBers disappear. It's very strange how you can become attached to someone you haven't met.
I really miss Isam - though I do sometimes wonder whether he is posting under another name. Is this possible when you are banned?
No
How could they be stopped? Even Robert would struggle with that.
I do worry that it may be a bit too difficult for newbies. Most of us have been on here for donkey's years and a new poster is treated with suspicion.
There’s new posters and then there’s new posters. Probably helps if they’ve followed the site for a while and understand the ‘rules’. And not starting two footed challenges about the vaccine, BA pilots etc helps.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
No, it goes back to Roman times.
The Emperor with hay fever: Julius Sneezer.
Caligula? Who indeed proved tooooooooo big for his boooooooots!
The 2015 SNP cohort has some really roasters in them.
That’s what 2/3 ended up in jail/criminal records.
At least one is a pervert.
Some fecked off to other parties.
There’s some that make Richard Burgon look like Einstein.
2/3 of the 2015 SNP cohort ended up in jail/with criminal records? That seems rather a lot.
I presume it as meant as 2 or 3.
Just in terms of who was elected in 2019, we’ve had:
Margaret Ferrier Neale Hanvey: suspended for antisemitism, re-admitted, defected to Alba Kenny MacAskill: defected to Alba Patrick Grady: suspended for sexual harassment, re-admitted
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. If every day at 5pm the PM and the CMO and whoever the other guy was had come into the room and opined upon the dangers of rock climbing, within the week rock climbing would have been banned. Or cigarettes. Or cycling. Or being driven by @Dura_Ace. But they didn't and those things remain legal subject to sensible, voluntary precautions. Or advice.
I don't for one minute blame the modellers. But then don't say "modellers wanted an earlier lockdown" as though a politician wouldn't take note of that. Modellers, together with the CMO, for some time were running the country and I blame the politicians for that.
Modellers were never running the country. That's a fantasy. I was closer to all this than you. I saw Ministers, civil servants and outside advisers coming together to try and solve the myriad of problems caused by the pandemic. But it was always clear that the politicians retained power.
I'm amazed the myth still survives. There was clearly a lot of pressure to 'follow the science' etc, but we did hear about debates, we heard of disagreements, and we even saw the goverment willing (albeit later than many would have liked) to go against further measures even though that would have been perfectly popular with the views of the public.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
Yes, tend to agree.
I was slightly surprised on Eurostar to Brussels yesterday to see that masks are still officially mandatory. Compliance (both on the train and in Brussels) was patchy, but much more than on the Tube, where they are now a rarity. I'm not sure the situation has really changed all that much, but in the UK we've got to a "shrug, let's risk it" stage faster than some countries.
Omnisis looking a little frothy on the Labour VI. It’s the first 50% Labour score since Deltapoll three weeks ago and Omnisis themselves returned a Labour score of 50% just before that poll.
Omnisis only started polling last year and are apparently a Manchester based family owned firm but they said the same about the Mafia so what do I know?
Bulgaria votes on Sunday - it looks like a very similar result to last time so presumably the political deadlock continues. The Revival Party is going to make small gains and Yanev’s party might miss the 4% threshold and lose their 12 seats.
I'm sure we are all up to speed with the State of Florida trying to remove "run yourself as a mini fiefdom" powers from Disney.
It seems they have involved King Charles as a blocking tactic - a thing called a Royal Clause.
Why did Disney invoke King Charles III? What is a 'royal clause'?
Some areas have rules against contracts that last forever, and since the late 17th century "royal clauses" have been used in contracts to establish an end date that likely will never arrive. The British royal family is used since information about them and their bloodlines is readily available. Royal clauses are most often used in the UK, not the U.S.
Disney and the Reedy Creek District declared the agreement effective immediately and in perpetuity. If the agreement violates any rules against perpetuity, the contract is in effect "until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration."
I'm sure we are all up to speed with the State of Florida trying to remove "run yourself as a mini fiefdom" powers from Disney.
It seems they have involved King Charles as a blocking tactic - a thing called a Royal Clause.
Why did Disney invoke King Charles III? What is a 'royal clause'?
Some areas have rules against contracts that last forever, and since the late 17th century "royal clauses" have been used in contracts to establish an end date that likely will never arrive. The British royal family is used since information about them and their bloodlines is readily available. Royal clauses are most often used in the UK, not the U.S.
Disney and the Reedy Creek District declared the agreement effective immediately and in perpetuity. If the agreement violates any rules against perpetuity, the contract is in effect "until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration."
I'm sure we are all up to speed with the State of Florida trying to remove "run yourself as a mini fiefdom" powers from Disney.
It seems they have involved King Charles as a blocking tactic - a thing called a Royal Clause.
Why did Disney invoke King Charles III? What is a 'royal clause'?
Some areas have rules against contracts that last forever, and since the late 17th century "royal clauses" have been used in contracts to establish an end date that likely will never arrive. The British royal family is used since information about them and their bloodlines is readily available. Royal clauses are most often used in the UK, not the U.S.
Disney and the Reedy Creek District declared the agreement effective immediately and in perpetuity. If the agreement violates any rules against perpetuity, the contract is in effect "until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration."
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
Started with Bliar, I think.
Richard Cromwell was known as Queen Dick.....
Also Thatcher milk snatcher, paddy pantsdown, harriet harperson etc. So not that recent.
I had entirely forgotten about 'pantsdown'. And indeed paddy. And the libdems. Like most voters.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
I must say that I intensely dislike the fashion for mocking a person's name like this. Yousaf becomes Useless, Kama-Kwasi for Kwasi Kwarteng, Cruella for Suella.
Seems a recent trait.
It’s silly - but goes back to BLiar as I recall
Milk Snatcher for Thatcher?
Herr Brickendrop for Joachim von Ribbentrop?
Longshanks? Æthelred the Unready (note alliteration)?
Caligula would be going even further back...
You took the high road, and I took the low road - but you got there before me!
Apologies to all Scots for this unwarranted (and unwanted) cultural appropriation.
Comments
How can your colleagues know from whom they caught it (you say "were shown").
No mention here? Fined first time, got off most of the second time. Edit: specifically says she wasn't. Don't think there was anything more?
I don't expect SNP to hold this, but it will be relatively easy (despite apocalyptic nonsense from the Brit Nat unionist media) for them to claim special circumstances caused the loss.
If the SNP were actually to hold....
LAB 50% (+6)
CON 27% (-2)
LDEM 9% (-1)
REFORM 6%
GREENS 4% (-1)
SNP 3%
+/- vs. 24 Mar
Fieldwork: 28-29 March 2023
Sample size: 1,344
https://twitter.com/europeelects/status/1641491065558511616?s=46
Sneezing & coughing are of course very effective means of creating aerosols but they are not required.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17590200.tribunal-releases-full-findings-former-snp-mp-tasmina-ahmed-sheikh/
https://www.epa.gov/coronavirus/indoor-air-and-coronavirus-covid-19#:~:text=They can also be exposed,distances greater than six feet.
Is Alba any sort of alternative for erstwhile SNP voters?
I would add that Yousaf may have quite a short time in office
Move along, nothing to see. Did anyone see last week's Deltapoll?
Simply put, we didn't get clusters of people who were working together come down with it, nor of staff who were taking breaks together, but rather would have households come down with it and the staff to get it last in the household. I think the lack of spread was mostly due to ventilation in our workplace break room and proper mask discipline.
We did have ward outbreaks between patients though.
For those who want independence, then the SNP is probably still the best bet, although the hardcore might go Alba.
for those who want a Scottish-focused party governing them (in the Scottish parliament), then again, the SNP is probably the best bet.
For those who have 'brand loyalty' with the SNP; well, you can excuse away what's just happened.
For those fed up with Scottish Labour and Scottish Cons: the latest SNP farrago might send them back there.
But to my English eyes, Alba seem just as much a mess as the SNP. Although that might be very unfair.
It could all be noise, and we don't know how good the newbie's panels or processing are. But if several of them do a jump to the right then a step to the left at the same time...
1 It's politically interesting to ask if there is a real reason
2: Don't book them for the chorus line in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I really miss Isam - though I do sometimes wonder whether he is posting under another name. Is this possible when you are banned?
The direction of travel is very favourable for labour and it would be very unexpected if Starmer does not achieve a working majority in October 24
However, there is always a caveat such as a week is a long time in politics and unpredictable events happen, not least as we are seeing in Scotland just now when a couple of months ago Sturgeon seemed immovable
Two or three years ago, some peeps on here were talking about books they used to learn Latin, and mentioned 'Ecce Romani' series. Since my son was into things Roman, I bought the first book and put it on his bookshelf.
And there it remained. He would occasionally get it down and look at it, and copy phrases, but last year he asked to learn it on Duolingo. Now, I know Duolingo is in some ways a flawed way of learning a language, but he has worked at it solidly, and has reached a 180-day streak without a break.
And he has learnt much more about English in the process, and has loved recognising Latin roots in English words - e.g. 'Urbs' and 'urban' (though cities and towns). Not bad for an 8-year old.
So thanks to those on PB who talked about it.
edit: and just this moment, he got a 'legend' trophy. Not that I know what that means: he does it with Mrs J. And yes, I am proud of him.
The peak IFR occurred over winter 2020-21.
And people were put onto ventilators when they otherwise couldn't breathe. Yes, it was about a fifty-fifty chance if put onto a ventilator that you weren't coming out the other side. This is because people put onto ventilators were so seriously ill with ARDS that they were otherwise near-certain to die. I
I remember this from my youth - though note the disconnect between readng ages in Eng and Latin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie_ille_Pu
What might be worth a look sometime is Asterix and the Britons in Latin, though IIRC this might be well in the future for him (unless you can translate the difficult bits).
Which would, of course, have led to that being even more the case
It found that they couldn't be sure either way for widespread mask mandates (not masking itself; that wasn't controversial. The mask mandate element was to cover such things as level of compliance and using them correctly).
Unless you limited it to only mask studies around covid (ie deleted all the ones other than the covid ones), where there was a significant if modest benefit to mask mandates.
Those hospitalised were not overwhelmingly old. The average age of those in ICU at one point in the winter overload of 2020 was in their fifties, which is not what I'd term "very old."
Underlying conditions? Pretty common:
But all of this can be easily realised by simple common sense: the number of people in the JVCI categories 1-9 was about 32 million.
If, say, it's a 15% reduction in infectivity nationwide and closing schools was about 15% reduction, then yes, pros and cons would have to be weighed up.
If we'd ever managed to get something like an infectivity reduction budget for the various methods then we could weigh things up like that. If we needed a final push to get from a little over 1 to a little under, I'd personally go for the mask mandate over the schools closure.
I did enjoy the instant pivot from those saying there was going to be a massive over counting of votes compared to the membership, to 'look, only 69.9% of the membership voted' (considerably higher than the turnout for the leadership election that selected Starmer as it happens).
Still plays in the PB Fantasy Football League. One place above me too!
Herr Brickendrop for Joachim von Ribbentrop?
Almost as though they were all from the same place and had the same aim...
Alba is really just a vehicle for Salmond and has been a big flop. Last time I saw ratings for Eck he was about as popular as Boris in Scotland. Having said that, he has been popping up in the media so maybe there is a slow process of rehabilitation going on. But, no, Alba is not a realistic alternative.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23376049.tommy-sheridan-ash-regan-victory-tempt-join-snp/
Eg
Remainer, Remoaner, Remainiac
Brexiter, Brexiteer, Brexitard
I do worry that it may be a bit too difficult for newbies. Most of us have been on here for donkey's years and a new poster is treated with suspicion.
Someone I somewhat knew, as a kid, who did some serious damage to a young girl while in his late teens.
Well, 10 years on, he got out of prison and… This time, a teenage girl on a train.
Some people don’t change, it seems.
I’m not quite “throw away the key” but I do now see how life has a tendency to grind down liberals into full on right wingers.
I recon it’s evens I’ll be a kipper by the time I retire…
The Emperor with hay fever: Julius Sneezer.
Very sorry to read about his loss.
(Why was there a bomb during the game? Who can say).
Omnisis looking a little frothy on the Labour VI. It’s the first 50% Labour score since Deltapoll three weeks ago and Omnisis themselves returned a Labour score of 50% just before that poll.
Omnisis only started polling last year and are apparently a Manchester based family owned firm but they said the same about the Mafia so what do I know?
Bulgaria votes on Sunday - it looks like a very similar result to last time so presumably the political deadlock continues. The Revival Party is going to make small gains and Yanev’s party might miss the 4% threshold and lose their 12 seats.
I'm sure we are all up to speed with the State of Florida trying to remove "run yourself as a mini fiefdom" powers from Disney.
It seems they have involved King Charles as a blocking tactic - a thing called a Royal Clause.
Why did Disney invoke King Charles III? What is a 'royal clause'?
Some areas have rules against contracts that last forever, and since the late 17th century "royal clauses" have been used in contracts to establish an end date that likely will never arrive. The British royal family is used since information about them and their bloodlines is readily available. Royal clauses are most often used in the UK, not the U.S.
Disney and the Reedy Creek District declared the agreement effective immediately and in perpetuity. If the agreement violates any rules against perpetuity, the contract is in effect "until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration."
https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/30/desantis-florida-disney-world-board-stripped-of-power-royal-clause-king-charles/70063336007/
Apologies to all Scots for this unwarranted (and unwanted) cultural appropriation.