FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
What about a nice large wealth tax? On all wealth in excess of £5m? (Definition of 'wealth' TBA). Say 2% pa. So someone with 'wealth' of £10m pays (£10m - £5m) x 2% = £100,000pa.
If it's all in property or other illiquid assets then the tax can be rolled over and paid on death.
???
I would have a small "gross assets levy" of 0.25% on all assets in excess of £1m, that would have the added (small) benefit of discouraging leveraging up.
Is this a rare case of effective MoD procurement ?
Credit where credit is due. The UK programme to upgrade and increase the M270 GMLRS fleet to 71 launchers is well on track, on time and on budget. It’s an exemplar of a well run DE&S project. Extended range rockets will hit targets at 150 km while PrSM will initially reach 499 km and later 999 km. https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1664151551718375426
A win for President Biden and Republican Speaker McCarthy however divisions in both parties.
117 Representatives voted against the Deal. 314 in favour.
149 out of 222 Republicans voted in favour.
165 Democrats out of 213 also in favour. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will vote against the Deal in the Senate, suggesting he might run against Biden again in the Democratic primaries next year https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65771669
Would Sanders "run"? Surely "hobble" would be more accurate.
How old is he? 85?
Surely to goodness even the American Left must have some vaguely plausible people* who are not older than the oldest ever British PM?
Morning all! Day 3 of my tour of England and I wake up to read top quality "bantz" where BJO instructs us all on actually how much of a winner actually Jezbollah was actually.
There is growing disquiet on social media from people reacting to Keith Donkey's piece in the Express about Brexit. How he should be telling them they are wrong and always were rather than trying to placate them and win their votes.
This is absolutism at its finest. Unless you do 100% of what I say you should do, you are a traitor and I don't want to vote for you. The Good News is that as ABC is now the option, you can vote LibDem or Green in suitable constituencies to see Sir Donkey into office.
Puritanically untainted by voting Labour, but still benefitting from binning off the corruption party.
It's pure Trumpism.
Jez won the 2017 election just like Trump won in 2020.
Id sooner vote Jez than Sir Bland, at least he had policies,
Donkey has policies - and when the Tories keep saying "they have no policies" whilst proffering their box of crayons, it just makes them look like shysters. Labour don't yet have *exciting* policies, but at this stage not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent would be a start.
LOL
Theyre only "not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent" because theyre not in government. Day one of Bland that all changes. Firstly they get scrutiny and secondly we get to realise what a bunch of talentless dorks have been elected. In Norfolk you could count the number of talented MPs on one hand and still have five fingers left over.
So you are saying that there are 8-9 talented MPs in Norfolk?
Maybe but it has 38 times the land area of the UK so has rather more room for them all
It seems slightly cheating to have places like Victoria Island which is slightly larger than GB but has a population of 2k.
Maybe Vancouver Island and Victoria as the capital !!!
32,100 km2
Yeah. All comparisons with Canada are moot. You could build forever in Saskatchewan (apart from the lakes). There's nowhere left to build in BC. But everyone wants to live in BC.
I dunno, most of Saskatchewan is sub-arctic, with brutal winters. It’s a great place to visit (Canada, I mean) but i think more appealing in principle than in practice as a place to move to.
I can see why you’d pick Vancouver over Saskatoon if you did though.
Before moving to Vancouver you might like to read up on the Cascadia subduction zone and potential for major earthquake & tsunami.....
I guess that's a mark in favour for Saskatchewan (only tornadoes and blizzards to worry about there).
I wonder if LAB will put anything in their manifesto?
Will they put anything in their manifesto? 😈
You didn't notice the housing land policy they just announced ? That is likely to be of more positive consequence than anything government has done regarding housing in well over a decade.
Morning all! Day 3 of my tour of England and I wake up to read top quality "bantz" where BJO instructs us all on actually how much of a winner actually Jezbollah was actually.
There is growing disquiet on social media from people reacting to Keith Donkey's piece in the Express about Brexit. How he should be telling them they are wrong and always were rather than trying to placate them and win their votes.
This is absolutism at its finest. Unless you do 100% of what I say you should do, you are a traitor and I don't want to vote for you. The Good News is that as ABC is now the option, you can vote LibDem or Green in suitable constituencies to see Sir Donkey into office.
Puritanically untainted by voting Labour, but still benefitting from binning off the corruption party.
Talking of donkeys. How did the firesale at Teesport go? Sturdy defence of Mayor Ben and stout criticism of McDonald from BBC WATO yesterday.
Stout defence on here too. Apparently brownfield sites need cleaning up at vast cost to the circa 90 pence per acre purchaser.
If the developers were paying for the cleanup, that would be one thing. But the public are paying for it via South Tees Development Corporation - £450m so far.
So have I got this right? A manky old steelworks was bought using taxpayer £millions, sold for around a tenner, and the taxpayer is also footing the bill for the clean up.
What was it the Who said about new bosses in "Won't Get Fooled Again"?
And a few years into the new labour govt, as was the case with new labour, it will be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
I have been highly critical of Labour corruption on these pages citing deceased historic local authority figures like T. Dan Smith and Graham Jenkins. The dismissal of decades of Labour corruption by voters in the RedWall in England and Wales should have been a moment for celebration.
As you allude, the Labour Party have form when it comes to corruption. However it turns out any incoming administration will have to put in a shift if it wants to exceed Johnsonian Conservative levels of rewarding patronage with PPE contracts and accepting political gifts from figures close to the Kremlin. Although I have no doubt with a little effort it can be done.
I remember eagerly voting in New Labour, to move away from the sleaze of the Tory years.
Within a few months they had taken a bung from F1 to exempt them from the Tobacco advertising ban !!!!
The signs were there.
Before the election Arthur Anderson (banned from government work since De Lorean) was *boasting* of donating consultants time to work (for free) for the Labour Party.
Shortly after the election, guess what?
You could also add cash for honours! The juxtaposition between Tory probity and Labour corruption has always been quite marked on the pages of the tabloids.
On wait, and then came Boris Johnson's Government. Seventy years of Labour and Tory governmental scandals exceeded at a canter in just three years.
A win for President Biden and Republican Speaker McCarthy however divisions in both parties.
117 Representatives voted against the Deal. 314 in favour.
149 out of 222 Republicans voted in favour.
165 Democrats out of 213 also in favour. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will vote against the Deal in the Senate, suggesting he might run against Biden again in the Democratic primaries next year https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65771669
Would Sanders "run"? Surely "hobble" would be more accurate.
How old is he? 85?
Surely to goodness even the American Left must have some vaguely plausible people* who are not older than the oldest ever British PM?
*so *not* AOC.
When asked previously AOC didn't rule out running as the left candidate to challenge Biden in the primaries, if Sanders didn't next year of course. AOC also voted against raising the debt ceiling with Democrat rebels last night because of too tough work requirements for welfare and program cuts.
Biden v AOC in the Democrat primaries and Trump v De Santis in the GOP primaries would be popcorn worthy certainly (plus Kennedy Jnr and Pence and Haley of course)
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
Off topic - I've just been watching a programme about the Isle of Man TT on ITV4. I don't know much about motorsport - but this was fantastic. And then, approaching the break, a mention was made of the people who had died. Six people this year, including a father-and-son in the motorbike and sidecar racing. And apparently over 200 riders have died since this started 100 years ago, along with an unspecified number of spectators and marshalls; and since 1937, there has only been one year in which races were held and no-one died. And this was alluded to by some of the riders (and indeed spectators), who were clear that they knew the risks, and were chasing a dream. This all seemed quite surprising in the 21st century. And then I remembered this was the Isle of Man. The New Hampshire of the British Isles. Live Free or Die. My own instinctive reaction was that happiness that something so dangerous is still allowed to happen. Make Britain Manx! Not least because the Isle of Man looks like an idealised version of the North, in miniature - moorland and mountain and seaside villages. Just lovely. I had an opportunity to go and work in the IoM a couple of decades back, and I often wonder how life would have turned out - but while it looks agreeable enough to me now, there's possibly less to offer the me who was in my late 20s.
The unexamined aspect of the TT is that the riders are largely has-beens and never-gonna-bes who are risking their lives to make a mortgage payment because they aren't fast enough to make in regular series like BSB, BSS, etc.
That, I would have thought, went without saying.
It's a race that anybody is allowed to enter, and therefore will attract people long on dreams and short (relatively) on experience and ability.
You need a National Competition or FIM licence to enter the TT so not just anybody can rock up and wipe themselves out.
Is "Mad Sunday" still part of it, with the course opened to spectators?
No. They use the course for competition on Sunday now so MS is over...
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
There was no subtlety in the UK government's response; no assessment of what measures added little value, while imposing enormous restrictions on personal freedoms.
In retrospect, you could probably have achieved 50% of the reductions in R by closing nightclubs/karaoke bars/live music venues and requiring masks on public transport, while letting people otherwise go about their business.
The limitations on people visiting each other in their homes, or on going outside for a walk, were absolutely indefensible.
(And in between those two there were restrictions of varying degrees of sense.)
“no assessment of what measures added little value”? Everything was considered and assessed. Some of those assessments may have been wrong and mistakes were made, but I don’t see anything to support this claim.
I think there was assessment (and I know that you were involved) but I would argue quite strongly that too many minor tinkerings in people's life took place with no attempt to justify, or show the data or explain. Not every member of the public is too stupid to understand science. Why no more than 6 people? Why is it a good idea to wear a mask when moving round a pub but not when sat down? What was the evidence for that? Why not allow people to be outside all day? There was also a marked failure to UPDATE the scientific knowledge. I think it became clear fairly early that covid spread was not primarily droplet based, yet the mitigations continued to be based on this, not on aerosols. We still have plastic screens in shops to this day - designed to stop droplets, but probably hindering air circulation. If you as a government impose the terrible restrictions on peoples lives that were imposed, I think you are beholden to show your workings. I don't think this was done enough.
Morning all! Day 3 of my tour of England and I wake up to read top quality "bantz" where BJO instructs us all on actually how much of a winner actually Jezbollah was actually.
There is growing disquiet on social media from people reacting to Keith Donkey's piece in the Express about Brexit. How he should be telling them they are wrong and always were rather than trying to placate them and win their votes.
This is absolutism at its finest. Unless you do 100% of what I say you should do, you are a traitor and I don't want to vote for you. The Good News is that as ABC is now the option, you can vote LibDem or Green in suitable constituencies to see Sir Donkey into office.
Puritanically untainted by voting Labour, but still benefitting from binning off the corruption party.
It's pure Trumpism.
Jez won the 2017 election just like Trump won in 2020.
Id sooner vote Jez than Sir Bland, at least he had policies,
Donkey has policies - and when the Tories keep saying "they have no policies" whilst proffering their box of crayons, it just makes them look like shysters. Labour don't yet have *exciting* policies, but at this stage not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent would be a start.
LOL
Theyre only "not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent" because theyre not in government. Day one of Bland that all changes. Firstly they get scrutiny and secondly we get to realise what a bunch of talentless dorks have been elected. In Norfolk you could count the number of talented MPs on one hand and still have five fingers left over.
So you are saying that there are 8-9 talented MPs in Norfolk?
I'm impressed.
Reading PB in bed (I'm on West Coast time), I just snorted so loudly I woke my wife.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
Morning all! Day 3 of my tour of England and I wake up to read top quality "bantz" where BJO instructs us all on actually how much of a winner actually Jezbollah was actually.
There is growing disquiet on social media from people reacting to Keith Donkey's piece in the Express about Brexit. How he should be telling them they are wrong and always were rather than trying to placate them and win their votes.
This is absolutism at its finest. Unless you do 100% of what I say you should do, you are a traitor and I don't want to vote for you. The Good News is that as ABC is now the option, you can vote LibDem or Green in suitable constituencies to see Sir Donkey into office.
Puritanically untainted by voting Labour, but still benefitting from binning off the corruption party.
It's pure Trumpism.
Jez won the 2017 election just like Trump won in 2020.
Id sooner vote Jez than Sir Bland, at least he had policies,
Donkey has policies - and when the Tories keep saying "they have no policies" whilst proffering their box of crayons, it just makes them look like shysters. Labour don't yet have *exciting* policies, but at this stage not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent would be a start.
LOL
Theyre only "not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent" because theyre not in government. Day one of Bland that all changes. Firstly they get scrutiny and secondly we get to realise what a bunch of talentless dorks have been elected. In Norfolk you could count the number of talented MPs on one hand and still have five fingers left over.
So you are saying that there are 8-9 talented MPs in Norfolk?
I'm impressed.
So am I.
Norfolk only has 9 MPs, and one of them is Liz Truss.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
Perpetual "True Socialist" opposition is optimal for all.
The Conservatives love it because they are always in power, Socialists love it because they can always carp and complain that the Conservatives are always in power. A win, win!
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
I think, from listening to him speaking, in videos from *before* he got into politics in a big way, that he is a socialist with a small “s”.
Think European Social Democrat. Not much dogma, more about a philosophical position.
In U.K. terms, the left hand side of New Labour under Blair.
Morning all! Day 3 of my tour of England and I wake up to read top quality "bantz" where BJO instructs us all on actually how much of a winner actually Jezbollah was actually.
There is growing disquiet on social media from people reacting to Keith Donkey's piece in the Express about Brexit. How he should be telling them they are wrong and always were rather than trying to placate them and win their votes.
This is absolutism at its finest. Unless you do 100% of what I say you should do, you are a traitor and I don't want to vote for you. The Good News is that as ABC is now the option, you can vote LibDem or Green in suitable constituencies to see Sir Donkey into office.
Puritanically untainted by voting Labour, but still benefitting from binning off the corruption party.
It's pure Trumpism.
Jez won the 2017 election just like Trump won in 2020.
Id sooner vote Jez than Sir Bland, at least he had policies,
Donkey has policies - and when the Tories keep saying "they have no policies" whilst proffering their box of crayons, it just makes them look like shysters. Labour don't yet have *exciting* policies, but at this stage not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent would be a start.
LOL
Theyre only "not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent" because theyre not in government. Day one of Bland that all changes. Firstly they get scrutiny and secondly we get to realise what a bunch of talentless dorks have been elected. In Norfolk you could count the number of talented MPs on one hand and still have five fingers left over.
So you are saying that there are 8-9 talented MPs in Norfolk?
I'm impressed.
So am I.
Norfolk only has 9 MPs, and one of them is Liz Truss.
Liz Truss is talented, I'm sure. Crashing the UK economy?
Morning all! Day 3 of my tour of England and I wake up to read top quality "bantz" where BJO instructs us all on actually how much of a winner actually Jezbollah was actually.
There is growing disquiet on social media from people reacting to Keith Donkey's piece in the Express about Brexit. How he should be telling them they are wrong and always were rather than trying to placate them and win their votes.
This is absolutism at its finest. Unless you do 100% of what I say you should do, you are a traitor and I don't want to vote for you. The Good News is that as ABC is now the option, you can vote LibDem or Green in suitable constituencies to see Sir Donkey into office.
Puritanically untainted by voting Labour, but still benefitting from binning off the corruption party.
It's pure Trumpism.
Jez won the 2017 election just like Trump won in 2020.
Id sooner vote Jez than Sir Bland, at least he had policies,
Donkey has policies - and when the Tories keep saying "they have no policies" whilst proffering their box of crayons, it just makes them look like shysters. Labour don't yet have *exciting* policies, but at this stage not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent would be a start.
LOL
Theyre only "not being openly corrupt and grossly incompetent" because theyre not in government. Day one of Bland that all changes. Firstly they get scrutiny and secondly we get to realise what a bunch of talentless dorks have been elected. In Norfolk you could count the number of talented MPs on one hand and still have five fingers left over.
So you are saying that there are 8-9 talented MPs in Norfolk?
I'm impressed.
So am I.
Norfolk only has 9 MPs, and one of them is Liz Truss.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
Perpetual "True Socialist" opposition is optimal for all.
The Conservatives love it because they are always in power, Socialists love it because they can always carp and complain that the Conservatives are always in power. A win, win!
Demanding perfect cultural and political purity is the real “Flag shagging”.
IKARRRRA!
(Fiver to charity of choice for the first person to get the above cultural reference)
A win for President Biden and Republican Speaker McCarthy however divisions in both parties.
117 Representatives voted against the Deal. 314 in favour.
149 out of 222 Republicans voted in favour.
165 Democrats out of 213 also in favour. Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will vote against the Deal in the Senate, suggesting he might run against Biden again in the Democratic primaries next year https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65771669
Would Sanders "run"? Surely "hobble" would be more accurate.
How old is he? 85?
Surely to goodness even the American Left must have some vaguely plausible people* who are not older than the oldest ever British PM?
*so *not* AOC.
It would be so funny to see her run, and have to actually debate people.
Which reminds me, I was supposed to be writing a header on the Republican runners and riders. Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and Doug Burgum, are all expected to announce next week.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Yes to this. Its been (grimly) fascinating to watch. Covid has been exploring a a vast suite of mutations and is finding it ever harder to infect people due to the increases sero positive nature of the population. Unless it drifts significantly so that immune responses fail to recognise it, it has had to become ever more infectious (or indeed change its main target to the upper respiratory tract) as has happened. Fortunately there is often a price to be paid for adaptation and so arguably, certainly amongst those with previous infection or vaccination, the latest variants are mostly less threatening than the inital covid was in a naive population.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
Britain's top civil servant helped end Liz Truss's premiership, it is claimed.
In an example of the power wielded by the Whitehall 'Blob', Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is said to have written a memo that helped seal her fate as the shortest-serving prime minister in history.
Though ‘man states facts’ is hardly the turn-up the DM thinks it is (though given their propensity for falsehood, you have to forgive them for thinking so).
Tbf ‘Simon Case gets something right’ is quite a turn up.
See the DM article in the context of today's 4pm Heather Hallett deadline.
Simon Case is right in the eye of this. How did a man so poorly qualified for the post get his current job, and not just that but younger than anybody else for more than a century? He found his way somehow on to the Privy Council too, which nobody else in his current position has done for 50 years while still in office.
He must have something. Whatever it is, nobody seems to reckon it's competence. For some reason he keeps being called a "courtier". (See following links.)
I wonder whether he'll still be in position at the end of today.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Yes to this. Its been (grimly) fascinating to watch. Covid has been exploring a a vast suite of mutations and is finding it ever harder to infect people due to the increases sero positive nature of the population. Unless it drifts significantly so that immune responses fail to recognise it, it has had to become ever more infectious (or indeed change its main target to the upper respiratory tract) as has happened. Fortunately there is often a price to be paid for adaptation and so arguably, certainly amongst those with previous infection or vaccination, the latest variants are mostly less threatening than the inital covid was in a naive population.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
Had any work been done on comparing this process of adaption to the process of adaption (For both humans and virus) for other common viruses?
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
If you keep putting commas before relative pronouns, people will start to think you're a Russian agent.
Morning all! Day 3 of my tour of England and I wake up to read top quality "bantz" where BJO instructs us all on actually how much of a winner actually Jezbollah was actually.
There is growing disquiet on social media from people reacting to Keith Donkey's piece in the Express about Brexit. How he should be telling them they are wrong and always were rather than trying to placate them and win their votes.
This is absolutism at its finest. Unless you do 100% of what I say you should do, you are a traitor and I don't want to vote for you. The Good News is that as ABC is now the option, you can vote LibDem or Green in suitable constituencies to see Sir Donkey into office.
Puritanically untainted by voting Labour, but still benefitting from binning off the corruption party.
Talking of donkeys. How did the firesale at Teesport go? Sturdy defence of Mayor Ben and stout criticism of McDonald from BBC WATO yesterday.
Stout defence on here too. Apparently brownfield sites need cleaning up at vast cost to the circa 90 pence per acre purchaser.
If the developers were paying for the cleanup, that would be one thing. But the public are paying for it via South Tees Development Corporation - £450m so far.
So have I got this right? A manky old steelworks was bought using taxpayer £millions, sold for around a tenner, and the taxpayer is also footing the bill for the clean up.
What was it the Who said about new bosses in "Won't Get Fooled Again"?
And a few years into the new labour govt, as was the case with new labour, it will be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
I have been highly critical of Labour corruption on these pages citing deceased historic local authority figures like T. Dan Smith and Graham Jenkins. The dismissal of decades of Labour corruption by voters in the RedWall in England and Wales should have been a moment for celebration.
As you allude, the Labour Party have form when it comes to corruption. However it turns out any incoming administration will have to put in a shift if it wants to exceed Johnsonian Conservative levels of rewarding patronage with PPE contracts and accepting political gifts from figures close to the Kremlin. Although I have no doubt with a little effort it can be done.
I remember eagerly voting in New Labour, to move away from the sleaze of the Tory years.
Within a few months they had taken a bung from F1 to exempt them from the Tobacco advertising ban !!!!
And pretty much got away with it because they weren't the Tories, and were newly in power.
Britain's top civil servant helped end Liz Truss's premiership, it is claimed.
In an example of the power wielded by the Whitehall 'Blob', Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is said to have written a memo that helped seal her fate as the shortest-serving prime minister in history.
Though ‘man states facts’ is hardly the turn-up the DM thinks it is (though given their propensity for falsehood, you have to forgive them for thinking so).
Tbf ‘Simon Case gets something right’ is quite a turn up.
See the DM article in the context of today's 4pm Heather Hallett deadline.
Simon Case is right in the eye of this. How did a man so poorly qualified for the post get his current job, and not just that but younger than anybody else for more than a century? He found his way somehow on to the Privy Council too, which nobody else in his current position has done for 50 years while still in office.
He must have something. Whatever it is, nobody seems to reckon it's competence. For some reason he keeps being called a "courtier". (See following links.)
I wonder whether he'll still be in position at the end of today.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
That's two cases of people who encounter some new information and are happy to believe it reinforces their preconceptions then.
Britain's top civil servant helped end Liz Truss's premiership, it is claimed.
In an example of the power wielded by the Whitehall 'Blob', Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is said to have written a memo that helped seal her fate as the shortest-serving prime minister in history.
Though ‘man states facts’ is hardly the turn-up the DM thinks it is (though given their propensity for falsehood, you have to forgive them for thinking so).
Tbf ‘Simon Case gets something right’ is quite a turn up.
See the DM article in the context of today's 4pm Heather Hallett deadline.
Simon Case is right in the eye of this. How did a man so poorly qualified for the post get his current job, and not just that but younger than anybody else for more than a century? He found his way somehow on to the Privy Council too, which nobody else in his current position has done for 50 years while still in office.
He must have something. Whatever it is, nobody seems to reckon it's competence. For some reason he keeps being called a "courtier". (See following links.)
I wonder whether he'll still be in position at the end of today.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
If you keep putting commas before relative pronouns, people will start to think you're a Russian agent.
They must be using the same dictation facility that I am!
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
If you keep putting commas before relative pronouns, people will start to think you're a Russian agent.
Britain's top civil servant helped end Liz Truss's premiership, it is claimed.
In an example of the power wielded by the Whitehall 'Blob', Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is said to have written a memo that helped seal her fate as the shortest-serving prime minister in history.
Though ‘man states facts’ is hardly the turn-up the DM thinks it is (though given their propensity for falsehood, you have to forgive them for thinking so).
Tbf ‘Simon Case gets something right’ is quite a turn up.
See the DM article in the context of today's 4pm Heather Hallett deadline.
Simon Case is right in the eye of this. How did a man so poorly qualified for the post get his current job, and not just that but younger than anybody else for more than a century? He found his way somehow on to the Privy Council too, which nobody else in his current position has done for 50 years while still in office.
He must have something. Whatever it is, nobody seems to reckon it's competence. For some reason he keeps being called a "courtier". (See following links.)
I wonder whether he'll still be in position at the end of today.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
But key in Bayes Theorem is the word probability and not certainty. These nutters are certain. Viruses mutate all the time so using the words 'mutant virus' is just emotional. Also there is history of these events from wet markets. So just as you should look at a lab leak equally you should look at a wet market.
Sensible people look at all the options and don't come down on one side until certain or near certain. These people should not be certain, but they are.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
If you keep putting commas before relative pronouns, people will start to think you're a Russian agent.
They must be using the same dictation facility that I am!
Aha! Suddenly the bots' weird approach to punctuation makes sense.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
If you keep putting commas before relative pronouns, people will start to think you're a Russian agent.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
If you keep putting commas before relative pronouns, people will start to think you're a Russian agent.
They must be using the same dictation facility that I am!
Aha! Suddenly the bots' weird approach to punctuation makes sense.
FFS, have these roasters not seen state of the public finances?
More than 50 Conservative MPs are demanding that Rishi Sunak scrap the “morally wrong” inheritance tax.
The proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Conservatives came to power, despite George Osborne, the former Chancellor, pledging to abandon the death tax for all but the most wealthy in the run up to the 2010 election.
Instead, the threshold has been frozen since 2010 and almost 40 percent of homes sold in England and Wales last year were worth more than the basic allowance.
The levy is regarded as profoundly unfair as it penalises people who have saved money throughout their lives after paying tax on their income – and is punishing middle class families who want to help children or grandchildren to own homes.
The Telegraph is launching a campaign to scrap inheritance tax – a move which should be put at the heart of the Conservatives’ next election manifesto amid growing fears that Labour is plotting to target savings and assets to fund even higher levels of state spending.
This newspaper is receiving a growing number of letters from readers facing intrusive probate investigations into their estates at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Writing in this newspaper, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi describes the death duty as “morally wrong” and warns that it is adding inflationary pressure to house prices.
Mr Zahawi writes: “Inheritance tax is that other spectre that haunts us alongside death. As well as being morally wrong to take someone’s assets on their death, it also creates all sorts of inefficient and damaging distortions in our personal finances, and the wider economy.”
They are right, even the average house in London and the SE is now hit by inheritance tax (though at least their is Osborne's exemption for family homes potentially up to £1 million).
The threshold should certainly be raised to £1 million for all estates in my view from the current £325,000
I look forward to seeing CGT applied to family homes instead of IHT.
Won't happen. It would make it pretty near impossible to move house unless you were (a) very rich or (b) renting. The first would be nice but is confined to a select few, and the second is getting more and more difficult anyway.
I suppose in theory moving from a richer area to a poorer area might help, but the reason richer areas are richer is generally to do with jobs. Difficult to move a mortgage without a job.
The money will be available at the point of sale. And there seems no other way than massively icnreased council tax/land tax to deal with unearned capital.
Good morning
I do not see any politician of any political party even suggested CGT on private homes as it would be political suicide
However, we already have effectively upto £650,000 IHT exemption and in these hard times I see no justification in increasing it
But Starmer *must* commit political suicide. This would be better than getting a majority. In fact the proof that he is a True Socialist would be in getting one vote. From the Other Corbyn.
I don’t think anybody’s ever seriously suggested that Starmer is a socialist. He’s from the Methodist wing of the coalition, which is the Labour Party.
If you keep putting commas before relative pronouns, people will start to think you're a Russian agent.
They must be using the same dictation facility that I am!
Though the Russians have, I believe, a different and less benevolent dictator....
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Yes to this. Its been (grimly) fascinating to watch. Covid has been exploring a a vast suite of mutations and is finding it ever harder to infect people due to the increases sero positive nature of the population. Unless it drifts significantly so that immune responses fail to recognise it, it has had to become ever more infectious (or indeed change its main target to the upper respiratory tract) as has happened. Fortunately there is often a price to be paid for adaptation and so arguably, certainly amongst those with previous infection or vaccination, the latest variants are mostly less threatening than the inital covid was in a naive population.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
The shift with Omicron to infecting upper airways rather than lower is key to both its greater transmission and to its reduced pathogenicity.
I think that between previous exposure and mass vaccination the number of immune naive individuals is becoming a very small pool, but on the other hand re-infection seems common, albeit generally mild. There are now only 30 covid positive patients in my hospital, the lowest for 3 years.
It is the micro vascular long term complications that I think may be most damaging in the long term. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events do seem to rise for six months after infection, though most of the data is on the pre-omicron variants.
Britain's top civil servant helped end Liz Truss's premiership, it is claimed.
In an example of the power wielded by the Whitehall 'Blob', Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is said to have written a memo that helped seal her fate as the shortest-serving prime minister in history.
Though ‘man states facts’ is hardly the turn-up the DM thinks it is (though given their propensity for falsehood, you have to forgive them for thinking so).
Tbf ‘Simon Case gets something right’ is quite a turn up.
See the DM article in the context of today's 4pm Heather Hallett deadline.
Simon Case is right in the eye of this. How did a man so poorly qualified for the post get his current job, and not just that but younger than anybody else for more than a century? He found his way somehow on to the Privy Council too, which nobody else in his current position has done for 50 years while still in office.
He must have something. Whatever it is, nobody seems to reckon it's competence. For some reason he keeps being called a "courtier". (See following links.)
I wonder whether he'll still be in position at the end of today.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Yes to this. Its been (grimly) fascinating to watch. Covid has been exploring a a vast suite of mutations and is finding it ever harder to infect people due to the increases sero positive nature of the population. Unless it drifts significantly so that immune responses fail to recognise it, it has had to become ever more infectious (or indeed change its main target to the upper respiratory tract) as has happened. Fortunately there is often a price to be paid for adaptation and so arguably, certainly amongst those with previous infection or vaccination, the latest variants are mostly less threatening than the inital covid was in a naive population.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
The shift with Omicron to infecting upper airways rather than lower is key to both its greater transmission and to its reduced pathogenicity.
I think that between previous exposure and mass vaccination the number of immune naive individuals is becoming a very small pool, but on the other hand re-infection seems common, albeit generally mild. There are now only 30 covid positive patients in my hospital, the lowest for 3 years.
It is the micro vascular long term complications that I think may be most damaging in the long term. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events do seem to rise for six months after infection, though most of the data is on the pre-omicron variants.
I don't know about reduced pathogenicity, but it mucked up my lungs for a couple of months. If that was what Covid was like with vaccinations, I'm glad I didn't get it before I'd had several doses.
It's a nasty little bugger. My lungs still aren't 100%.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Yes to this. Its been (grimly) fascinating to watch. Covid has been exploring a a vast suite of mutations and is finding it ever harder to infect people due to the increases sero positive nature of the population. Unless it drifts significantly so that immune responses fail to recognise it, it has had to become ever more infectious (or indeed change its main target to the upper respiratory tract) as has happened. Fortunately there is often a price to be paid for adaptation and so arguably, certainly amongst those with previous infection or vaccination, the latest variants are mostly less threatening than the inital covid was in a naive population.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
The shift with Omicron to infecting upper airways rather than lower is key to both its greater transmission and to its reduced pathogenicity.
I think that between previous exposure and mass vaccination the number of immune naive individuals is becoming a very small pool, but on the other hand re-infection seems common, albeit generally mild. There are now only 30 covid positive patients in my hospital, the lowest for 3 years.
It is the micro vascular long term complications that I think may be most damaging in the long term. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events do seem to rise for six months after infection, though most of the data is on the pre-omicron variants.
I don't know about reduced pathogenicity, but it mucked up my lungs for a couple of months. If that was what Covid was like with vaccinations, I'm glad I didn't get it before I'd had several doses.
It's a nasty little bugger. My lungs still aren't 100%.
Oh, I agree. Lower pathogenicity certainly doesn't mean no pathogenicity.
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
I would agree - with the caveat that we have more and more "professional politicians". Who are crap at everything apart from tactical politics. And often crap at that as well.
The moral behaviour is probably identical with those in the past.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
So the start of the test summer, not just any summer, an Ashes summer.
I reckon England win the Ashes 4 nil, maybe 5 nil if the weather holds.
You had to do that, didn't you ? Series defeat now nailed on.
Series defeat was always nailed on.
What’s even worse is when will we next win an ashes series? We don’t have world class bowlers to replace Anderson and Broad.
It’s like politics. You just have to be better than the other team. Granted the Australians always up their game for the ashes and we almost always lower ours, but they are not the world beaters of the 90s anymore.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
But it should never be a criminal offence to ‘cause anxiety’ to a random online activist.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
On the contrary, I think it makes the case for the intelligence and moral value of this group perfectly.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
Agreed. It’s offensive and more than a little juvenile, but, frankly, so what? Is it a crime? I hope not.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
The swastika is a function of the “improved” pride flag which was originally just the rainbow - as that covered everybody.
But some decided to “improve” it by adding a black stripe for black people, brown stripe for brown people and baby blue and baby pink stripes for trans people, as they evidently didn’t fall under “everybody”.
There have been further iterations with a red umbrella for sex workers…and a pi symbol for “minor attracted persons” (paedophiles in old money). This has not been met with universal approval - and this push back is part of that.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Yes to this. Its been (grimly) fascinating to watch. Covid has been exploring a a vast suite of mutations and is finding it ever harder to infect people due to the increases sero positive nature of the population. Unless it drifts significantly so that immune responses fail to recognise it, it has had to become ever more infectious (or indeed change its main target to the upper respiratory tract) as has happened. Fortunately there is often a price to be paid for adaptation and so arguably, certainly amongst those with previous infection or vaccination, the latest variants are mostly less threatening than the inital covid was in a naive population.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
The shift with Omicron to infecting upper airways rather than lower is key to both its greater transmission and to its reduced pathogenicity.
I think that between previous exposure and mass vaccination the number of immune naive individuals is becoming a very small pool, but on the other hand re-infection seems common, albeit generally mild. There are now only 30 covid positive patients in my hospital, the lowest for 3 years.
It is the micro vascular long term complications that I think may be most damaging in the long term. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events do seem to rise for six months after infection, though most of the data is on the pre-omicron variants.
Pre-omicron and potentially mostly in unvaccinated patients?
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
Neither PM not LOTO fit your caricature of professional politicians, indeed neither does Johnson.
I am not convinced that "professional politicians" have lower standards than those with previous careers. Indeed the opposite may be true, with the ambitious not wanting to have skeletons in their closets.
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
So just like contributors on PB then?
Well, good point. Complaining that things are happening online is just complaining about contemporary technology - it's not clear that a professional communicator should be primarily doing things offline like the SWP.
I see that Nadhim Zahawi is leading the charge by those Tory MPs who are seeking the abolition of IHT. The same chap who was sacked for, er, being evasive about his tax affairs. Given his tax record, I'm pretty confident that he'd find a way of not paying any IHT under existing rules.
The Tory right, and their cheerleaders in the DT/DM and elsewhere, seem to be increasingly deranged.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Yes to this. Its been (grimly) fascinating to watch. Covid has been exploring a a vast suite of mutations and is finding it ever harder to infect people due to the increases sero positive nature of the population. Unless it drifts significantly so that immune responses fail to recognise it, it has had to become ever more infectious (or indeed change its main target to the upper respiratory tract) as has happened. Fortunately there is often a price to be paid for adaptation and so arguably, certainly amongst those with previous infection or vaccination, the latest variants are mostly less threatening than the inital covid was in a naive population.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
The shift with Omicron to infecting upper airways rather than lower is key to both its greater transmission and to its reduced pathogenicity.
I think that between previous exposure and mass vaccination the number of immune naive individuals is becoming a very small pool, but on the other hand re-infection seems common, albeit generally mild. There are now only 30 covid positive patients in my hospital, the lowest for 3 years.
It is the micro vascular long term complications that I think may be most damaging in the long term. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events do seem to rise for six months after infection, though most of the data is on the pre-omicron variants.
Pre-omicron and potentially mostly in unvaccinated patients?
Yes, there is a lot of work to do on this, though we do know that microvascular complications are much more frequent after infection than vaccination.
(Waits wearily for the troll onslaught at that suggestion)
So the start of the test summer, not just any summer, an Ashes summer.
I reckon England win the Ashes 4 nil, maybe 5 nil if the weather holds.
You had to do that, didn't you ? Series defeat now nailed on.
Series defeat was always nailed on.
What’s even worse is when will we next win an ashes series? We don’t have world class bowlers to replace Anderson and Broad.
It’s like politics. You just have to be better than the other team. Granted the Australians always up their game for the ashes and we almost always lower ours, but they are not the world beaters of the 90s anymore.
In Ollie Robinson we have found a bowler to build an attack around for the next decade. He could be a McGrath type figure. If we could only keep a couple of the quicks fit too we would be ok.
Its always going to be hard to replace great players. They do two things - you become used to their greatness in the side and they can stifle promotion of new talent. But all things come to an end.
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
Neither PM not LOTO fit your caricature of professional politicians, indeed neither does Johnson.
I am not convinced that "professional politicians" have lower standards than those with previous careers. Indeed the opposite may be true, with the ambitious not wanting to have skeletons in their closets.
The concern is that you have a professional political class, increasingly disconnected from the reality of daily life.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
You do know that coincidences occur, right?
Yes. it is quite possible that someone died of a heart attack during the fighting at Waterloo. But for a randomly chosen corpse on the battlefield, that is not where the smart money is.
Britain's top civil servant helped end Liz Truss's premiership, it is claimed.
In an example of the power wielded by the Whitehall 'Blob', Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is said to have written a memo that helped seal her fate as the shortest-serving prime minister in history.
Though ‘man states facts’ is hardly the turn-up the DM thinks it is (though given their propensity for falsehood, you have to forgive them for thinking so).
Tbf ‘Simon Case gets something right’ is quite a turn up.
See the DM article in the context of today's 4pm Heather Hallett deadline.
Simon Case is right in the eye of this. How did a man so poorly qualified for the post get his current job, and not just that but younger than anybody else for more than a century? He found his way somehow on to the Privy Council too, which nobody else in his current position has done for 50 years while still in office.
He must have something. Whatever it is, nobody seems to reckon it's competence. For some reason he keeps being called a "courtier". (See following links.)
I wonder whether he'll still be in position at the end of today.
I wonder what people thought was a typical career path for an MP in yon olden days. My impression was Tories were farmers or barristers, or the younger sons of the aristocracy, or sons of the high local professions who went to Oxbridge and got spotted in the Conservative Union. Labour MPs often came up through political or organiser jobs in the unions or the socialist societies or were men who made their mark in the War, or indeed were spotted at Oxbridge like the Tories. Most of these aren't so different to today and most of the different ones aren't so promising.
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
Neither PM not LOTO fit your caricature of professional politicians, indeed neither does Johnson.
I am not convinced that "professional politicians" have lower standards than those with previous careers. Indeed the opposite may be true, with the ambitious not wanting to have skeletons in their closets.
The concern is that you have a professional political class, increasingly disconnected from the reality of daily life.
Is that true? I don't think it fits many on the front benches, nor my local MPs of whichever party.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
You do know that coincidences occur, right?
Yes. it is quite possible that someone died of a heart attack during the fighting at Waterloo. But for a randomly chosen corpse on the battlefield, that is not where the smart money is.
I'm pretty sure I read an account of someone dropping dead on a Napoleonic battlefield - everyone assumed etc. But it was "apoplexy".
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
Nonsense. See my other post. Bayes theorem deals with the increased probability, not certainty.
By deciding it must be from the lab because a lab is nearby when we know that there are other examples that have nothing to do with a lab is just as daft.
It would be equally as daft to ignore the lab theory.
The difference between the two groups of people is that some are open minded and others are certain it came for a lab.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
Agreed. It’s offensive and more than a little juvenile, but, frankly, so what? Is it a crime? I hope not.
Two sets of idiots here - those who posted the images, and those who think they're criminals rather than idiots.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
But key in Bayes Theorem is the word probability and not certainty. These nutters are certain. Viruses mutate all the time so using the words 'mutant virus' is just emotional. Also there is history of these events from wet markets. So just as you should look at a lab leak equally you should look at a wet market.
Sensible people look at all the options and don't come down on one side until certain or near certain. These people should not be certain, but they are.
It didn’t just emerge in the same city as an important lab, this weird new bat coronavirus with alterations at the furin cleavage site making it nastier, emerged in the one city in the world with a weak biosecurity lab doing work on new bat coronaviruses by altering the furin cleavage site to make them nastier. And the weakest branch of all these labs was 300 yards from the wet market, which everyone accepts was a super spreader site
At this point, if you still don’t believe the lab leak hypothesis is by far the most likely you are a freaking idiot. Or a desperately embarrassed virologist
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
Neither PM not LOTO fit your caricature of professional politicians, indeed neither does Johnson.
I am not convinced that "professional politicians" have lower standards than those with previous careers. Indeed the opposite may be true, with the ambitious not wanting to have skeletons in their closets.
The concern is that you have a professional political class, increasingly disconnected from the reality of daily life.
It would be nice to have a few competent professionals, rather than the bunch of incompetents we've had for the last decade.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
Nonsense. See my other post. Bayes theorem deals with the increased probability, not certainty.
By deciding it must be from the lab because a lab is nearby when we know that there are other examples that have nothing to do with a lab is just as daft.
It would be equally as daft to ignore the lab theory.
The difference between the two groups of people is that some are open minded and others are certain it came for a lab.
Sure. Anyone with a 100% belief here, is an idiot. But your criticism doesn't touch anyone who thinks that lab escape is the most likely of the competing theories.
I see that Nadhim Zahawi is leading the charge by those Tory MPs who are seeking the abolition of IHT. The same chap who was sacked for, er, being evasive about his tax affairs. Given his tax record, I'm pretty confident that he'd find a way of not paying any IHT under existing rules.
The Tory right, and their cheerleaders in the DT/DM and elsewhere, seem to be increasingly deranged.
More cut off in their bubble.
About the only people still reliably reading the Telegraph and voting Conservative are people old enough and wealthy enough that IHT is an issue for them.
The mistake they're making is not noticing how rare they are, but bubbles do that.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
Agreed. It’s offensive and more than a little juvenile, but, frankly, so what? Is it a crime? I hope not.
Two sets of idiots here - those who posted the images, and those who think they're criminals rather than idiots.
The ones who think they are criminals are the police…..which is the bigger problem.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
The swastika is a function of the “improved” pride flag which was originally just the rainbow - as that covered everybody.
But some decided to “improve” it by adding a black stripe for black people, brown stripe for brown people and baby blue and baby pink stripes for trans people, as they evidently didn’t fall under “everybody”.
There have been further iterations with a red umbrella for sex workers…and a pi symbol for “minor attracted persons” (paedophiles in old money). This has not been met with universal approval - and this push back is part of that.
I know you thought that what you were doing was
"CarlottaVance posted a swastika to demonstrate pushback against inclusion of trans/black/brown people in Pride and futher iterations"
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
I don't think you can pin that one on Blair. Allegations of war criminality, fair enough.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
Nonsense. See my other post. Bayes theorem deals with the increased probability, not certainty.
By deciding it must be from the lab because a lab is nearby when we know that there are other examples that have nothing to do with a lab is just as daft.
It would be equally as daft to ignore the lab theory.
The difference between the two groups of people is that some are open minded and others are certain it came for a lab.
Sure. Anyone with a 100% belief here, is an idiot. But your criticism doesn't touch anyone who thinks that lab escape is the most likely of the competing theories.
I'm only critical of those who are absolutely certain when it isn't. The discussion came out of a post by another who was commenting upon the anti evolutionists who can't accept something can evolve and therefore must be a lab leak i.e. nutters.
I wonder what people thought was a typical career path for an MP in yon olden days. My impression was Tories were farmers or barristers, or the younger sons of the aristocracy, or sons of the high local professions who went to Oxbridge and got spotted in the Conservative Union. Labour MPs often came up through political or organiser jobs in the unions or the socialist societies or were men who made their mark in the War, or indeed were spotted at Oxbridge like the Tories. Most of these aren't so different to today and most of the different ones aren't so promising.
I see that Nadhim Zahawi is leading the charge by those Tory MPs who are seeking the abolition of IHT. The same chap who was sacked for, er, being evasive about his tax affairs. Given his tax record, I'm pretty confident that he'd find a way of not paying any IHT under existing rules.
The Tory right, and their cheerleaders in the DT/DM and elsewhere, seem to be increasingly deranged.
More cut off in their bubble.
About the only people still reliably reading the Telegraph and voting Conservative are people old enough and wealthy enough that IHT is an issue for them.
The mistake they're making is not noticing how rare they are, but bubbles do that.
Probably the greatest problem of this part of the 21st Century is the number of people who are seeing limited news via an echo chamber that continually reinforces their viewpoint and utterly ignores the rest of the world / population.
Both had covid and the effects of the Ukraine war .
I wonder why the UK is an outlier !
It isn't.
Hungary 24% Latvia 15.1% Lithuania 14.5% Slovakia 13.8 14.8% Estonia 13.5% Poland 13% Czech Republic 12.7% Sweden 10.5% Austria 8.8%
I see you omitted France , Germany , Italy and Spain . I thought the UK liked to be compared with larger economies . Ignoring the effects of Brexit on the UK economy is akin to believing the earth is flat !
On topic: I just ran some numbers that have completely challenged my assumptions about current polling.
Taking the last 10 polls in that series in the header, I compared the Lab-Con lead with the LLG-RefCon gap. The former ranges from 12 to 19 and the latter from 23 to 32, with standard deviations of 2.3% and 2.9% respectively. So there is more variance in the bloc scores than in the individual scores for the two main parties. That was a big surprise. I had thought based on eyeballing that there was much more volatility between say Green and Labour or Ref and Tory than there was between the two big parties.
Maths geeks will of course tell me I should expect a higher range when comparing higher absolute figures, which LLG vs RefCon obviously are. Still, this does suggest that house effects are not all about the minor parties vs the big ones.
Notably though, the last 3 polls have the highest LLG lead over RefCon for some time and I think that's in part because RefUK support has subsided a little and come back home to the Tories.
Comments
Credit where credit is due. The UK programme to upgrade and increase the M270 GMLRS fleet to 71 launchers is well on track, on time and on budget. It’s an exemplar of a well run DE&S project. Extended range rockets will hit targets at 150 km while PrSM will initially reach 499 km and later 999 km.
https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1664151551718375426
Surely to goodness even the American Left must have some vaguely plausible people* who are not older than the oldest ever British PM?
*so *not* AOC.
I'm impressed.
That is likely to be of more positive consequence than anything government has done regarding housing in well over a decade.
#MagicTouch
On wait, and then came Boris Johnson's Government. Seventy years of Labour and Tory governmental scandals exceeded at a canter in just three years.
Biden v AOC in the Democrat primaries and Trump v De Santis in the GOP primaries would be popcorn worthy certainly (plus Kennedy Jnr and Pence and Haley of course)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UFc1CFOwas
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/31/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-vote-against-us-debt-ceiling-deal
There was also a marked failure to UPDATE the scientific knowledge. I think it became clear fairly early that covid spread was not primarily droplet based, yet the mitigations continued to be based on this, not on aerosols. We still have plastic screens in shops to this day - designed to stop droplets, but probably hindering air circulation.
If you as a government impose the terrible restrictions on peoples lives that were imposed, I think you are beholden to show your workings. I don't think this was done enough.
Should she meet you, you're in big trouble.
Norfolk only has 9 MPs, and one of them is Liz Truss.
The Conservatives love it because they are always in power, Socialists love it because they can always carp and complain that the Conservatives are always in power. A win, win!
Think European Social Democrat. Not much dogma, more about a philosophical position.
In U.K. terms, the left hand side of New Labour under Blair.
IKARRRRA!
(Fiver to charity of choice for the first person to get the above cultural reference)
Which reminds me, I was supposed to be writing a header on the Republican runners and riders. Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and Doug Burgum, are all expected to announce next week.
I came across an interesting story in UTI's. Essentially bacteria that cause persistent/recurrent UTI's are often treated with prophylactic antibiotics. Which raises the spectre of inducing anti-bacterial resistance. Indeed bacteria can develop resistance to nitrofurantoin, but in order to do so, the mutations required render the bacteria much less able to proliferate, and thus outbreaks are rare, and self limit to be very mild.
This is not to say that covid would so the same (its a virus, not a bacteria) and the idea that ALL viruses tend to become less severe is contested, but it does show that an organism cannot simply change without consequence.
Happy Pride Month!
The last Labour government did more to advance LGBT+ equality than any other in British history.
My Labour government will build on the positive legacy of the last to advance LGBT+ rights.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1664169396309303296?s=20
Simon Case is right in the eye of this. How did a man so poorly qualified for the post get his current job, and not just that but younger than anybody else for more than a century? He found his way somehow on to the Privy Council too, which nobody else in his current position has done for 50 years while still in office.
He must have something. Whatever it is, nobody seems to reckon it's competence. For some reason he keeps being called a "courtier". (See following links.)
I wonder whether he'll still be in position at the end of today.
https://www.politico.eu/article/cabinet-secretary-simon-case-british-civil-service-spy-chief-prince-harry-william-royals-spare/
https://macemagazine.com/the-courtier-olenka-hamilton-2/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/26/the-guardian-view-on-civil-service-chiefs-be-champions-not-courtiers
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2023/05/when-will-simon-case-finally-resign
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12036779/Fresh-pressure-Cabinet-Secretary-Simon-Case-historian-demands-quits.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/31/stop-hiring-useless-white-male-pilots-raf-told/
See SARS, MERS etc.
(BSE too, though a prion, not a virus)
Sensible people look at all the options and don't come down on one side until certain or near certain. These people should not be certain, but they are.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65774184
I think that between previous exposure and mass vaccination the number of immune naive individuals is becoming a very small pool, but on the other hand re-infection seems common, albeit generally mild. There are now only 30 covid positive patients in my hospital, the lowest for 3 years.
It is the micro vascular long term complications that I think may be most damaging in the long term. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events do seem to rise for six months after infection, though most of the data is on the pre-omicron variants.
https://twitter.com/mike_blackley/status/1664169187600678912
Who’d have thought that Gordon The Gopher’s handler would be a groomer of teenagers?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
It's a nasty little bugger. My lungs still aren't 100%.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The moral behaviour is probably identical with those in the past.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
https://twitter.com/wearefaircop/status/1664178763280658432
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
What’s even worse is when will we next win an ashes series? We don’t have world class bowlers to replace Anderson and Broad.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
But some decided to “improve” it by adding a black stripe for black people, brown stripe for brown people and baby blue and baby pink stripes for trans people, as they evidently didn’t fall under “everybody”.
There have been further iterations with a red umbrella for sex workers…and a pi symbol for “minor attracted persons” (paedophiles in old money). This has not been met with universal approval - and this push back is part of that.
I am not convinced that "professional politicians" have lower standards than those with previous careers. Indeed the opposite may be true, with the ambitious not wanting to have skeletons in their closets.
The Tory right, and their cheerleaders in the DT/DM and elsewhere, seem to be increasingly deranged.
(Waits wearily for the troll onslaught at that suggestion)
Its always going to be hard to replace great players. They do two things - you become used to their greatness in the side and they can stifle promotion of new talent. But all things come to an end.
With 20/20 hindsight all the signposts were clearly in view.
By deciding it must be from the lab because a lab is nearby when we know that there are other examples that have nothing to do with a lab is just as daft.
It would be equally as daft to ignore the lab theory.
The difference between the two groups of people is that some are open minded and others are certain it came for a lab.
which everyone accepts was a super spreader site
At this point, if you still don’t believe the lab leak hypothesis is by far the most likely you are a freaking idiot. Or a desperately embarrassed virologist
UK inflation 8.7% .
Both had covid and the effects of the Ukraine war .
I wonder why the UK is an outlier !
About the only people still reliably reading the Telegraph and voting Conservative are people old enough and wealthy enough that IHT is an issue for them.
The mistake they're making is not noticing how rare they are, but bubbles do that.
"CarlottaVance posted a swastika to demonstrate pushback against inclusion of trans/black/brown people in Pride and futher iterations"
But what it came across as was
"CarlottaVance posted a swastika..."
https://www.thejc.com/news/news/laurence-fox-36condemned-by-holocaust-charities-over-rainbow-flag-swastika-post-7LPEkIJW8JzWfVdipZS1as
Hungary 24%
Latvia 15.1%
Lithuania 14.5%
Slovakia 13.8 14.8%
Estonia 13.5%
Poland 13%
Czech Republic 12.7%
Sweden 10.5%
Austria 8.8%
England cricket team delayed on way to Lord’s by Just Stop Oil protesters
England team’s journey to first day of the Test match against Ireland were delayed by activists in the road in North Kensington
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2023/06/01/england-cricket-team-delayed-lords-just-stop-oil-protesters/
Taking the last 10 polls in that series in the header, I compared the Lab-Con lead with the LLG-RefCon gap. The former ranges from 12 to 19 and the latter from 23 to 32, with standard deviations of 2.3% and 2.9% respectively. So there is more variance in the bloc scores than in the individual scores for the two main parties. That was a big surprise. I had thought based on eyeballing that there was much more volatility between say Green and Labour or Ref and Tory than there was between the two big parties.
Maths geeks will of course tell me I should expect a higher range when comparing higher absolute figures, which LLG vs RefCon obviously are. Still, this does suggest that house effects are not all about the minor parties vs the big ones.
Notably though, the last 3 polls have the highest LLG lead over RefCon for some time and I think that's in part because RefUK support has subsided a little and come back home to the Tories.
https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-06-01/labour-mp-suspended-on-allegations-of-unacceptable-behaviour