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This is all getting very tight. A new working day starts and there are just 23 to go before the article 50 deadline comes into being with the UK either leaving the EU or a further extension is agreed to.
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And I may be the first first today.
https://twitter.com/BBCNormanS/status/1181470697740292096?s=20
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1181469363758620679?s=20
Sit calmly back in your seats and let our experienced pilot handle things from here...
This piece makes a number of good points. Most salient for me was pointing out the hypocrisy of Brexiteers prioritising questions of English identity and nationhood over economics or technocratic ease, but expecting the Irish to be amenable to a technocratic solution to the border question and simply accept the re-eraction of borders across their country.
After breast cancer surgery, where there is no more evidence of cancer in the body, a woman has an 82% chance of surviving 10 years or more without any further treatment.
Radiotherapy adds another 5% to that.
Hormone treatment adds another 2% to that.
Chemotherapy adds another 5% to that.
What do these figures really show?
The question is, knowing the risks and side effects of chemotherapy, would you decline or accept it in this instance?
E.g. if there's a 20% chance of something, adding 5% makes it 21%, but adding 5 percentage points makes it 25%
If these treatments are additive - then adding say radiotherapy would reduce this to 13%.
If they are multiplicative - then adding radiotherapy would reduce this to only about 17%.
It was presented in a barchart form (very Lib Dem!). The first segment was the big 82%, with the other figures on top.
By which I mean I've booked a holiday in Europe, returning on 1st November. To a provincial airport, at least, not Heathrow.
You are looking for good outcome X, and not bad outcome Y.
Without mitigation Z, X is an 82% probability and Y is 18%.
With mitigation Z, X becomes an 87% probability, and Y 13%.
If you look at the numbers of Y only, the change from 18% to 13% is roughly 30%.
So mitigation Z makes your undesired outcome Y 30% less likely to happen, and it’s on this basis that you need to evaluate the costs (financial and intangible) of the mitigation.
It is not as simple as you suggest - there are many other factors including tumour type, lymph node involvement, age at diagnosis, tumour size, whether screening-dtetected or not. General all-cause survival at 10 years is about 50% for surgery-only for my wife. A variety of adjuvant therapies increase this significantly. Remember, survival to 10 years does not mean disease-free survival.
In my own humble view, you take everything that is available to increase survival rates. You also need to do your own research as there are a range of studies ongoing that are not included in standard breast regimes that will be in the future. Some of them are as simple as taking aspirin and statins
https://breast.predict.nhs.uk/ is a great resource.
But the data is complex, and many of the survival rates out to 15 years are predictive models and not based upon 15 years of real-world data. Otherwise how do you predict the survival impact of novel treatments today?
If I wasn't personally affected, this would be a very interesting area.
They now appear to be without any political philosophy other than clinging on. Most will not hold their seats, meaning the LibDems will have to make ever more gains to make it look like they are not going backwards come election night.
Even if it didn't though we would probably be talking a softer Brexit which would come some way between the ditch Brexit and Conservative Brexit in terms of financial impact.
Imagine if instead of talking about cancer we spoke about driving. If we say there is an 82% chance you wouldn't be involved in a fatal car crash in the next decade if you don't wear a seat belt, but that increases by 5% if seat belts are warn then that would mean seat belts are preventing 5/18 of what would otherwise be fatal accidents.
Chemotherapy is more complicated than wearing a seat belt of course and you and your wife have my best wishes.
MrsW (who is a GP so well understands the clinical context) found chemo grim - but it is much more bearable after the first cycle when you know what to expect, duration of symptoms, etc. It is a personal decision - but our/her experience is that the side-effects are marginal compared to the benefit of additional survivability.
Best wishes to you and your wife.
The promising thing for the future is in some stuff on it I've seen the biggest supporter of socialism In the US are the youngest and the reverse for capitalism. Given a generation or so and these people will be deciding the countries direction.
If you thought that it meant only people living in the south, you have failed to understand the very basics of Northern Irish politics.
The reputation of all of them is in the sewer. We know they all lie and many fail to contain the impulse to physically express their pent up randiness with multiple partners of most available sexes.
In a crowded field who will play the liar card?
Jeremy Corbyn, he who was present but not involved has a colourful history of miss speaking and matrimonial partners. At least (as far as we know) Johnson didn't invite his mates home to show them his latest conquest as some allege Mr Corbyn did.
Not fertile ground for our Jeremy
How about Tom Watson, the relentless scourge of Westminster paedophiles campaigner who bullied police into a botched investigation? I can see an issue there.
John MacDonald? He would do it very well, but there are far too many options in the John is a radical wild card pack.
Phil Hammond? Not an issue that transfers easily to a spreadsheet, so we may have a wooden plank of an attack.
Amber Rudd? We know she won't share a taxi, so that is a bit dull.
Jo or Rachel Johnson? They may be better than average
Unknown ex conquests? They will reduce credibility by timing revelations in a election campaign.
The media? It is less effective than it was, and it is very much priced in.
Social Media will indeed go crazy. I'm not sure what happens with Social Media advertising in an election campaign, but it is probably the most useful outlet. However much of Twitter / Facebook will be outrage in an echo chamber.
In the same way many of the Corbyn personal attacks were useless last time, the Johnson ones are likely to be equally ineffective.
I think if you rely on personal attacks you loose the election.
PB can be quite good in those circumstances as a place to take out frustration over events that are out of your control.
OGH wasn't interested, which is entirely his prerogative - he who runs the site makes the rules. But rereading it now it's actually quite prescient. TIG never did articulate what they were for, other than remain with a side order of reheated Blairism. You could argue that by the time Allen was appointed leader, one month in, it was already too late.
I'm not saying she isn't interested in holding on to a Parliamentary seat, but it is unfair to suggest that the landscape hasn't shifted considerably since then.
Good to see the youth still have a heart.
Additive % points in an analysis like this are very strong. 5% to 82% could be spun out as a 28% increased survival rate,
2% to 87% as 15%
& the final 5% as 45%.
The voters of the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, that is a fact.
The voters of Northern Ireland have not voted for a United Ireland.
So the latter is subservient to the former. Brexit is more important than aspirations for a united Ireland.
Since we aren’t leaving on 31st Oct - will Labour now support a GE ?
No second referendum, grasp the opportunity of Brexit, we must respect the ‘will of the people’ or else live in a banana republic etc etc
https://youtu.be/B9yl3_EprVI
Best wishes.
The ‘known unknown’ from the above scenario is the change in technology over the time period studied - there’s no reason to suggest that the incredible rate of change in medical technology of the last century won’t continue into the future - look at AIDS medication for a good example of this.
(And obviously the best of luck to anyone affected by, or with their family affected by disease).
Even without those figures it seems obvious that the future looks brighter for the left in the USA than it has for a very long time.
Whither the American Dream?
People will support whatever “system” they think will deliver the goods for them. If capitalism ceases to do so consistently, or at least shows up some doing much better than them, then they will start to look at alternatives even if they make the situation worse.
A GE is high risk and could return a Boris majority, and lose them their seats. By contrast, they might be able to engineer a second referendum without a GE if it continues.
Therefore, I expect the actions of the opposition to be focussed on the latter.
The untenability I referred to was the U.K. trying to maintain the whole of Ireland in the Union against the will of the people. Many years ago I wrote a header on here about that and the parallels with Scottish independence.
The issue is one of competing rights: do you define the demos in Ireland as the whole of the island or do you say that the majority in the six counties has the right to pursue an independent future? It’s the same argument as to whether Scotland should vote alone on independence or independence can only be granted as a result of a majority vote in the UK as a whole.
There are strong arguments that for historical reasons - right or wrong - dating back hundreds of years the Protestant community in North Ireland is a different demos to Southern Ireland and hence partition was the equitable solution. (Even if Craig et al salted the ground thereafter)
If this is the case I don’t see how you can justify (a) independence against their will and (b) a forced merger with a neighbouring state with a different religion. It would be as successful as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Suggests they don’t care for a referendum that much.
It's when they're older, working tax payers, with a mortgage, that they need to keep the faith and many don't. Hence that quote.
Actually no, don't bother. I don't even care.
I see Varadkar is being set up as a scapegoat but Cummings et al.
The far scarier question is whether western democracy can survive the opposite: an environment where people start to become relatively poorer and less influential, as they start to reach out to anything or anyone who promises (incorrectly) they can stop or reverse it, rather than mitigate it.
“I was a Remainer, but, the minute we start ignoring the democratic will of the people in this country, we are slipping, very quickly, towards the kind of banana republic I don’t want to live in.
So we have to accept the result.”
I have no qualms with a border poll in Ireland if that's what the voters want. But failing that we should respect democracy and the whole United Kingdom should leave. That's not unreasonable its democracy.
As the generations move on what is acceptable or what people believe shifts based on the people that are still there, you can kid yourself that inside every young Labour and Democrat voter there is a Johnson or Trump waiting to pop out but you are likely to be very disappointed.
All the bar charts etc depend on all other factors being equal, but of course do remember that they're all 'just' averages.
As I say, all the best to both of you.
In terms of changes to income distribution, the US has experienced a period not entirely dissimilar to the Gilded Age, and that saw similar developments (the rise of trades unions, for example).
I expect Irish voters will hold the Irish government to account. I expect UK voters will do the same. If there's a conflict between the two I want my government on my side.
In the early 20th century despite a majority of the people of Ireland wishing to become independent the UK kept (annexed if you prefer) 6 counties of Ireland in order to create a Protestant statelet for a Protestant people. The interests and wishes of the very substantial Catholic nationalist minority were ignored. As was the will of the people of Ireland.
Some Wills of the People are more important than others I guess.
(a) agreement between virtually all of Lab, LD, SNP and Con rebels on a leader.
(b) agreement between virtually all of Lab, LD, SNP and Con rebels on a 6+ month programme for government.
or (c) forcing Boris (at the point of a sharpened Supreme Court) to a second referendum through more Benn-style Acts.
I just don't see that happening. (a) might possibly, but only if needed to thwart a last-minute BJ wheeze (and even for that, the SC seems the more likely tool now).
I think the Rebel Alliance will have achieved (on extension day) the outer limit of what it can realistically do. And, risky or not, that surely means a GE is next? Their collective support can only dwindle if they extend for 3 or 6 months with no purpose except more pointless spaffing from Bozza and the EU looking on in bemusement.
Hopefully they'll put up signs with out of office autoreplies LOL!