It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
Well done to him, but desperate that medics need to be crowdfunding for PPE gear.
#jamesmcavoy has donated £257,000 to NHS medics' PPE crowdfunding appeal A fantastic gesture from the actor. But also points to further evidence of NHS under funding from Westminster
Its a nice gesture but as @Foxy told us yesterday money is not currently the problem. Anything with CV on it is approved against a blank cheque. Supply is.
Not true. Not guilty simply means the prosecution failed to reach the requisite standard of proof. That’s as true in Scotland as it is in England. OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Archer were both found not guilty in criminal trials, but few would describe them as innocent. In Scotland Angus Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 of the Edinburgh Worlds End murders, but he was not innocent, as a subsequent change to he double jeopardy laws and his conviction in 2014 shows.
Let’s put this in way that even you could understand. Say “beyond reasonable doubt” means a 90% probability of guilt. If the prosecution, in the jury’s mind, gets to 60% probability then the individual is not guilty. But that doesn’t equal innocence. It just means there was enough doubt.
There's a necessary doublethink, is how I look at it.
You are correct on the process. If a jury assesses the probability of guilt at (say) 75% then they must return a verdict of Not Guilty. Therefore a person can be (and should be) acquitted even if the evidence is that they likely did it.
But then malcolm is correct on the outcome. The one and only legal meaning of a Not Guilty verdict is that the person did NOT do it. They did not do it and they are therefore innocent. Whether they did it or not (which they didn't) is irrelevant, they are innocent.
The system relies on this doublethink. It can't work any other way.
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
Thank you for this post. I meant to respond to AndyJS`s astonishing post yesterday. How I envy you two - so much truly excellent stuff to watch.
I offer below top-tier must-watch series (in no particular order):
The Sopranos The Wire Breaking Bad Deadwood Godless Unbelievable Fargo
Folks, don`t bother arguing with me - you`ll be wrong.
Of course this might be a good time for me to write my long-planned thinly disguised drama about a City investigator ....... (copyright claimed).
So this is not just self-indulgence but work.
Do you, I mean does your protagonist investigator, have a catchy nickname to serve as the title of this work? Something like 'The Financial Terminator'?
Oh yes - we had two.
I'm going to guess it was 'The Poltergeist'. Because they found themselves hounded for their misdeeds by an implacable foe they could barely see coming
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
I highly recommend Narcos, followed by Narcos Mexico, on Netflix. It’s about S. American drug cartels, how they grew in the 70s/80s with the cocaine trade. Bit violent at times but not gratuitously so. Very easily binge-able.
In the words of his own counsel - “If in some ways the former first minister had been a better man, I wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t be here, none of us would be here.
“I’m not here to suggest he always behaved well or couldn’t have been a better man on occasions. That would be a waste of my time.”
“You have to be satisfied to that very high standard. There’s only to be guilt in these matters, not because someone could have been a better man.
“There can only be guilt in these matters because of that standard of proof.”
Just because the prosecution failed to reach the required standard of proof (i.e. beyond reasonable doubt) does not mean the witnesses were lying, just that the requisite standard of proof was not reached by the prosecution. Indeed if they were prosecuted for perjury, as you absurdly suggest, and cleared, where would that leave Salmond? Indeed what if they brought civil claims (not suggesting they will or at this even could at this point) a la in the OJ Simpson matter and won on the lower standard or proof (i.e the balance of probabilities) and won? The verdicts were “not guilty” and “not proven”. He was not found “innocent”
If perjury prosecutions were brought it would be an international disgrace and would dissuade any sexual assault complainant in Scotland from ever coming forward for fear that if the prosecution ballsed up the case, as here, they would end up in prison themselves. It won’t happen.
You supposedly call yourself a lawyer , 12 NOT guilty verdicts and 1 not proven. The disgrace is that any case was brought in the first place given the total lack of evidence and obvious collusion of the complainants with SNP help before they finally years later went to police , only after as they had previously agreed if Salmond planned a political comeback. They may have kangaroo courts in your area but Scottish justice is still alive and working. When tried by your peers and found innocent it means just that. There will be no civil cases as they know even that low bar would not be reached for sure.
There is nothing in my post which is legally or factually wrong. He was not found “innocent”. As you say, he was found not guilty on 12 counts, and not proven on 1. None of the verdicts however, were “innocent”. His counsel managed to squeeze him under the bar of reasonable doubt, as was clearly set out in his closing, so good for him, the prosecution clearly failed to do its job, but there was no finding of “innocence”. If Scotland decides to prosecute for perjury that will be an utter disgrace.
I’ll not rise to the professional or personal insults.
Your arse , NOT guilty means INNOCENT, NOT proven means it was just bollox between two of them( ie no evidence) so again innocent. Hopefully I never end up with you representing anyone I know. WTF part of NOT guilty does not equal innocent in English Law.
Wait - Salmond was tried under English law?!!!!!
Tut Tut , as you well know I was referring to fact that Dougseal seems ignorant of even English Law. In Scotland NOT guilty means innocent , I assumed same applied in England but apparently not , just means jury are idiots and the innocent person is actually guilty.
I didn’t read it that way, although I assumed you must have meant something like that.
In American law of course it is different, and you can be ‘not guilty’ in a criminal sense and still guilty in civil courts (ask OJ Simpson).
In English law of course there is no verdict of ‘not proven’ which basically means ‘we know you did it but the prosecutors are totally incompetent.’ So it is technically a simple distinction - if you are not guilty, you are innocent.
Not proven does not mean that the Crown are incompetent. The example I usually give is a trial where my late father was on the jury. Sexual abuse, 2 complainers. The first is completely credible, the jury has no doubt she is telling the truth. The second has had a very hard life, possibly caused by abuse, with drug addiction etc. She is all over the place and is not a reliable witness. In Scotland a charge requires to be corroborated. The correct verdict of the jury was not proven in charge 1 and not guilty in charge 2.
it says "It is simply one of two possible acquittal verdicts and the standard text on Scottish criminal procedure states that juries should not be told anything about its meaning."
Is that right? If so how on earth do the juries know what you are suggesting?
What Juries are told is that there are 2 verdicts of acquittal and that they both have the same effect, which they do. Salmond has been every bit as much acquitted of the charge of which he was found not proven as those of which he was found not guilty. But the words have a self evident meaning and juries sometimes apprise themselves of them as they did in the case where my late father was on the jury. There is a strong move to abolish not proven. Its probably right in that it is an unnecessary confusion.
Thanks, so we can take an educated guess what the jury thinks was the difference, but little more.
If you have three verdicts it would surely make sense to have innocent, not proven and guilty, with innocent having a similar threshold to guilty.
Some have suggested that it is the not guilty verdict that should be abolished leaving not proven. I can see the logic of that. The onus is on the Crown to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. If they don't they have not proven their case.
That's surprising. To me "not proven" sounds like "we think they are guilty, but there wasn't quite enough evidence to prove it".
Well done to him, but desperate that medics need to be crowdfunding for PPE gear.
#jamesmcavoy has donated £257,000 to NHS medics' PPE crowdfunding appeal A fantastic gesture from the actor. But also points to further evidence of NHS under funding from Westminster
There is no shortage of money. There is a shortage of masks.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
I have been watching BFIplayer, via their subscription streaming service. £4.95 a month, with a free 2 week trial, and can cancel any time. Some great fare away from the usual Netflix stuff.
I watched Walkabout (1971) yesterday, and what a beautiful and elegiac film it was. Aniara (2019) too, a very thoughtful Sci Fi in Swedish. There are some great French, German and Italian classics too.
I am very tempted by BFI must admit
Not all of it is of equal interest, and some stuff I abandon, but there are some gems. I prefer films centering around character rather than special effects, and appreciate the distillation of ideas found in a film to the bloated ramblings of mini-series.
Their pay per view films are good too.
I dislike films too where violence is seen as the solution rather than the problem. That doesn't mean that films need avoid violence, but too much American mainstream cinema is about killing people to resolve the plot. That famous Christmas movie, for example.
"With the UK Debt Management Office having to resort to almost daily auctions to satisfy the Government’s needs, it late last week took the unprecedented step of consulting investors on what maturities might sell, rather than as usual dictating the maturity that best suits the Government. To many it looked like a sign of desperation. The risks of a classic liquidity/ sovereign debt crisis grow by the day."
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
I highly recommend Narcos, followed by Narcos Mexico, on Netflix. It’s about S. American drug cartels, how they grew in the 70s/80s with the cocaine trade. Bit violent at times but not gratuitously so. Very easily binge-able.
Oh, and to echo other posters, The Wire is superb, if you can get your hands on it.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
And runs the risk of losing Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Torfaen, Newport East, Newport West and Gower in Wales alone unless it can attract back Brexit Party voters.*
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
Quite. At 202 seats, Labour already looks more like a regional power than a national one. Oh, to have a GE on yesterday's polling numbers...
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
The first is probably Homeland? Its good fun but does get sillier the more series you watch, which is true of most high action series.
The latest and final series of Homeland is excellent. I'll be watching it tonight.
Simón, asked about which autonomous communities are saturated in intensive care units, has declined to specify which ones. "There are mechanisms that allow some resources to pass from one community to another, so that the situation of some can be improved," he said.
The first season is a bit of a slog but needed to set up the rest, which is transcendent. The premise is that 2% of the world’s population suddenly, without any reason, disappear. As it goes on it turns out to be a series about faith and how we cope with loss.
"With the UK Debt Management Office having to resort to almost daily auctions to satisfy the Government’s needs, it late last week took the unprecedented step of consulting investors on what maturities might sell, rather than as usual dictating the maturity that best suits the Government. To many it looked like a sign of desperation. The risks of a classic liquidity/ sovereign debt crisis grow by the day."
Not true. Not guilty simply means the prosecution failed to reach the requisite standard of proof. That’s as true in Scotland as it is in England. OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Archer were both found not guilty in criminal trials, but few would describe them as innocent. In Scotland Angus Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 of the Edinburgh Worlds End murders, but he was not innocent, as a subsequent change to he double jeopardy laws and his conviction in 2014 shows.
Let’s put this in way that even you could understand. Say “beyond reasonable doubt” means a 90% probability of guilt. If the prosecution, in the jury’s mind, gets to 60% probability then the individual is not guilty. But that doesn’t equal innocence. It just means there was enough doubt.
There's a necessary doublethink, is how I look at it.
You are correct on the process. If a jury assesses the probability of guilt at (say) 75% then they must return a verdict of Not Guilty. Therefore a person can be (and should be) acquitted even if the evidence is that they likely did it.
But then malcolm is correct on the outcome. The one and only legal meaning of a Not Guilty verdict is that the person did NOT do it. They did not do it and they are therefore innocent. Whether they did it or not (which they didn't) is irrelevant, they are innocent.
The system relies on this doublethink. It can't work any other way.
That's a very acute way of putting it. Since the way our justice system works is by giving unambiguous binary verdicts in a world that is often both ambiguous and non-binary, the outcome of a case not only reflects the reality of what acts were actually committed, it also retrospectively _creates_ the reality or otherwise of such acts, at least as far as the law is concerned.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, that is the problem.
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, perhaps 100 times more likely to put you in hospital than the flu. It's that, rather the bare death toll, which is the problem. Health services, even good ones, would crash if it is not checked.
In the words of his own counsel - “If in some ways the former first minister had been a better man, I wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t be here, none of us would be here.
“I’m not here to suggest he always behaved well or couldn’t have been a better man on occasions. That would be a waste of my time.”
“You have to be satisfied to that very high standard. There’s only to be guilt in these matters, not because someone could have been a better man.
“There can only be guilt in these matters because of that standard of proof.”
Just because the prosecution failed to reach the required standard of proof (i.e. beyond reasonable doubt) does not mean the witnesses were lying, just that the requisite standard of proof was not reached by the prosecution. Indeed if they were prosecuted for perjury, as you absurdly suggest, and cleared, where would that leave Salmond? Indeed what if they brought civil claims (not suggesting they will or at this even could at this point) a la in the OJ Simpson matter and won on the lower standard or proof (i.e the balance of probabilities) and won? The verdicts were “not guilty” and “not proven”. He was not found “innocent”
If perjury prosecutions were brought it would be an international disgrace and would dissuade any sexual assault complainant in Scotland from ever coming forward for fear that if the prosecution ballsed up the case, as here, they would end up in prison themselves. It won’t happen.
You supposedly call yourself a lawyer , 12 NOT guilty verdicts and 1 not proven. The disgrace is that any case was brought in the first place given the total lack of evidence and obvious collusion of the complainants with SNP help before they finally years later went to police , only after as they had previously agreed if Salmond planned a political comeback. They may have kangaroo courts in your area but Scottish justice is still alive and working. When tried by your peers and found innocent it means just that. There will be no civil cases as they know even that low bar would not be reached for sure.
There is nothing in my post which is legally or factually wrong. He was not found “innocent”. As you say, he was found not guilty on 12 counts, and not proven on 1. None of the verdicts however, were “innocent”. His counsel managed to squeeze him under the bar of reasonable doubt, as was clearly set out in his closing, so good for him, the prosecution clearly failed to do its job, but there was no finding of “innocence”. If Scotland decides to prosecute for perjury that will be an utter disgrace.
I’ll not rise to the professional or personal insults.
Your arse , NOT guilty means INNOCENT, NOT proven means it was just bollox between two of them( ie no evidence) so again innocent. Hopefully I never end up with you representing anyone I know. WTF part of NOT guilty does not equal innocent in English Law.
Not true. Not guilty simply means the prosecution failed to reach the requisite standard of proof. That’s as true in Scotland as it is in England. OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Archer were both found not guilty in criminal trials, but few would describe them as innocent. In Scotland Angus Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 of the Edinburgh Worlds End murders, but he was not innocent, as a subsequent change to he double jeopardy laws and his conviction in 2014 shows.
Let’s put this in way that even you could understand. Say “beyond reasonable doubt” means a 90% probability of guilt. If the prosecution, in the jury’s mind, gets to 60% probability then the individual is not guilty. But that doesn’t equal innocence. It just means there was enough doubt.
Quite a statement on the global judicial system I must say. What would your suggestion be to improve it?
Hope he never makes judge or there will be mass hangings. A lawyer that thinks those proven innocent are all guilty, you could not make it up. Hopefully he is a conveyancing lawyer and unable to wreck any lives.
Mac, leave it mate. You're out on a limb with this, and in danger of sawing bewteen you and the tree. I agree that Salmond isn't guilty of any offence, but I wouldn't want my wife, daughter or neice to work in his office if there was much danger of it being just him and her there.
I am afraid not, the man is innocent and on a personal note if any of my family worked with him I would hope they would have acted professionally , and if he did anything vaguely inappropriate that they would have read him his horoscope or kicked him in the nuts.
Wow, Malc. I had no idea professional standards in the pensions industry included that
On a serious note, hope your wife is continuing to recover and that you’re both keeping safe.
ydoethur, She is better than she was but not clearing as Doctor expected and unable to get treatment at present , they still have no clue what pneumonia type she had, and cannot do bronchoscopy to try and find out. Also the heart flutter caused by it is also in limbo , private hospital also seems to be not doing treatments either. However happy to just stay in house till the worst is over and hope for no relapses in interim, glad she is not still in hospital. Thanks for asking.
Aren’t private hospitals currently under NHS auspices for this emergency? That might be why.
Best wishes to you both, she’s clearly a lot safer at home with you than in hospital right now.
It was only NHS England deal announced. I have not seen anything similar announced in Scotland but assume they will be ready for it. My pet hate with Consultants is that they never keep you in the loop, just ignore and hard to get in touch with. hard to know at times what is happening. PS : as ever BBC don't seem to know that NHS England is not UK, they are pretty dire and report everything as UK.
Not all - the consultant my father saw for some pretty important stuff is very reachable, even though he is incredibly busy. Following up years down the line... Zero technical language, no attempting to bury a diagnosis in verbal manure.
I have always found the more eminent the specialist in any field, the less they use technical and pseudo-technical language to bluff outsiders.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
I disagree there. A 5% swing from Con to Lab would be likely to produce circa 40 Labour gains from the Tories in the North , Midlands and Wales alone. I also suggest it is a serious mistake to assume that seats such as Workington, Leigh Don Valley, Blyth Valley, Redcar et al which went Tory in 2019 are likely to remain Tory.Most of the Labour citadels lost in the 1931 rout were recaptured in 1935, and it is likely that the Corbyn and Brexit factors will have skewed the outcome in such seats in 2019.Even seats with nominally big Tory majorities such as Grimsby and Bassetlaw in reality could return to Labour.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
Quite. At 202 seats, Labour already looks more like a regional power than a national one. Oh, to have a GE on yesterday's polling numbers...
That would be really bad. Every Govt ..good or bad... needs a good opposition to hold it to account.. have you not taken heed 6if Blair and Thatcher's massive majorities and what happened afterwards...
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
I disagree there. A 5% swing from Con to Lab would be likely to produce circa 40 Labour gains from the Tories in the North , Midlands and Wales alone. I also suggest it is a serious mistake to assume that seats such as Workington, Leigh Don Valley, Blyth Valley, Redcar et al which went Tory in 2019 are likely to remain Tory.Most of the Labour citadels lost in the 1931 rout were recaptured in 1935, and it is likely that the Corbyn and Brexit factors will have skewed the outcome in such seats in 2019.Even seats with nominally big Tory majorities such as Grimsby and Bassetlaw in reality could return to Labour.
In 1931 Labour lost 235 seats (222 even if we include Macdonald’s rump as Labour). In 1935 they regained 102 of them. That is not ‘most.’ Admittedly, 1935 was comparable to 1924 in terms of the overall result, but you really do seem to be indulging in wishful thinking here.
Edit - in any case, your first point is roughly what I said - a 5% swing for a hung parliament!
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
And runs the risk of losing Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Torfaen, Newport East, Newport West and Gower in Wales alone unless it can attract back Brexit Party voters.*
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
*assuming current boundaries.
Not in a neck and neck year. It is a bit like pointing to the seats narrowly held by the Tories in the Blair 1997 landslide and suggesting that such seats were likely to fall to Labour in 2001 or 2002. In reality, Labour only picked up Dorset South.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
I disagree there. A 5% swing from Con to Lab would be likely to produce circa 40 Labour gains from the Tories in the North , Midlands and Wales alone. I also suggest it is a serious mistake to assume that seats such as Workington, Leigh Don Valley, Blyth Valley, Redcar et al which went Tory in 2019 are likely to remain Tory.Most of the Labour citadels lost in the 1931 rout were recaptured in 1935, and it is likely that the Corbyn and Brexit factors will have skewed the outcome in such seats in 2019.Even seats with nominally big Tory majorities such as Grimsby and Bassetlaw in reality could return to Labour.
What we don’t know yet is whether these places have shifted purely on the basis of Brexit (ie the votes have been “lent”) or whether it is part of a wider shift that Brexit helped along. Whilst it is wrong to assume these places are going to continue to remain stubbornly Tory, at the same time I think it is too early to say that those voters will come flocking back. Labour made the same mistake in Scotland.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
And runs the risk of losing Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Torfaen, Newport East, Newport West and Gower in Wales alone unless it can attract back Brexit Party voters.*
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
*assuming current boundaries.
Not in a neck and neck year. It is a bit like pointing to the seats narrowly held by the Tories in the Blair 1997 landslide and suggesting that such seats were likely to fall to Labour in 2001 or 2002. In reality, Labour only picked up Dorset South.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
Quite. At 202 seats, Labour already looks more like a regional power than a national one. Oh, to have a GE on yesterday's polling numbers...
Why? Don’t you want effective, scrutinized government. One with a majority of 20 men’s that the government are kept on their toes and can’t ride roughshod over alternative views. This obsession wit Tory absolute dominance Is really rather sad.
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
The first is probably Homeland? Its good fun but does get sillier the more series you watch, which is true of most high action series.
The latest and final series of Homeland is excellent. I'll be watching it tonight.
Homeland was ludicrous from start to finish, watchable at the start but not by the later series. I haven’t seen the final one.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
I disagree there. A 5% swing from Con to Lab would be likely to produce circa 40 Labour gains from the Tories in the North , Midlands and Wales alone. I also suggest it is a serious mistake to assume that seats such as Workington, Leigh Don Valley, Blyth Valley, Redcar et al which went Tory in 2019 are likely to remain Tory.Most of the Labour citadels lost in the 1931 rout were recaptured in 1935, and it is likely that the Corbyn and Brexit factors will have skewed the outcome in such seats in 2019.Even seats with nominally big Tory majorities such as Grimsby and Bassetlaw in reality could return to Labour.
In 1931 Labour lost 235 seats (222 even if we include Macdonald’s rump as Labour). In 1935 they regained 102 of them. That is not ‘most.’ Admittedly, 1935 was comparable to 1924 in terms of the overall result, but you really do seem to be indulging in wishful thinking here.
Edit - in any case, your first point is roughly what I said - a 5% swing for a hung parliament!
I referred to the citadel seats. Not all Labour seats were citadels - ie seats expected to be Labour 95% of the time. Edit - My first point did not include further gains made in London , the South and Scotland.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
Quite. At 202 seats, Labour already looks more like a regional power than a national one. Oh, to have a GE on yesterday's polling numbers...
Why? Don’t you want effective, scrutinized government. One with a majority of 20 men’s that the government are kept on their toes and can’t ride roughshod over alternative views. This obsession wit Tory absolute dominance Is really rather sad.
In the words of his own counsel - “If in some ways the former first minister had been a better man, I wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t be here, none of us would be here.
“I’m not here to suggest he always behaved well or couldn’t have been a better man on occasions. That would be a waste of my time.”
“You have to be satisfied to that very high standard. There’s only to be guilt in these matters, not because someone could have been a better man.
“There can only be guilt in these matters because of that standard of proof.”
Just because the prosecution failed to reach the required standard of proof (i.e. beyond reasonable doubt) does not mean the witnesses were lying, just that the requisite standard of proof was not reached by the prosecution. Indeed if they were prosecuted for perjury, as you absurdly suggest, and cleared, where would that leave Salmond? Indeed what if they brought civil claims (not suggesting they will or at this even could at this point) a la in the OJ Simpson matter and won on the lower standard or proof (i.e the balance of probabilities) and won? The verdicts were “not guilty” and “not proven”. He was not found “innocent”
If perjury prosecutions were brought it would be an international disgrace and would dissuade any sexual assault complainant in Scotland from ever coming forward for fear that if the prosecution ballsed up the case, as here, they would end up in prison themselves. It won’t happen.
You supposedly call yourself a lawyer , 12 NOT guilty verdicts and 1 not proven. The disgrace is that any case was brought in the first place given the total lack of evidence and obvious collusion of the complainants with SNP help before they finally years later went to police , only after as they had previously agreed if Salmond planned a political comeback. They may have kangaroo courts in your area but Scottish justice is still alive and working. When tried by your peers and found innocent it means just that. There will be no civil cases as they know even that low bar would not be reached for sure.
There is nothing in my post which is legally or factually wrong. He was not found “innocent”. As you say, he was found not guilty on 12 counts, and not proven on 1. None of the verdicts however, were “innocent”. His counsel managed to squeeze him under the bar of reasonable doubt, as was clearly set out in his closing, so good for him, the prosecution clearly failed to do its job, but there was no finding of “innocence”. If Scotland decides to prosecute for perjury that will be an utter disgrace.
I’ll not rise to the professional or personal insults.
Your arse , NOT guilty means INNOCENT, NOT proven means it was just bollox between two of them( ie no evidence) so again innocent. Hopefully I never end up with you representing anyone I know. WTF part of NOT guilty does not equal innocent in English Law.
Not true. Not guilty simply means the prosecution failed to reach the requisite standard of proof. That’s as true in Scotland as it is in England. OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Archer were both found not guilty in criminal trials, but few would describe them as innocent. In Scotland Angus Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 of the Edinburgh Worlds End murders, but he was not innocent, as a subsequent change to he double jeopardy laws and his conviction in 2014 shows.
Let’s put this in way that even you could understand. Say “beyond reasonable doubt” means a 90% probability of guilt. If the prosecution, in the jury’s mind, gets to 60% probability then the individual is not guilty. But that doesn’t equal innocence. It just means there was enough doubt.
Not a fan of Salmond, but he entered court an innocent man and it was the job of the prosecution to prove to a Jury otherwise. They failed. He left the court an innocent man.
Whether he was innocent or not now is immaterial. In the eyes of the law he is innocent, that is how it works.
I have heard it mooted by someone, potentially the CMO, that our current molecular diagnostic, called a PCR test, is only 75% sensitive for Covid19. That means out of all those who actually have Covid19 we are giving 1 in 4 a negative test result, that is incorrect. That is not great in a clinical setting if you are a front line worker because you could act as a super spreader whilst believing you are clear. Reasons for the low sensitivity are likely to be the timing of when the test is done wrt to the symptoms of the condition and the swab process failing.
Therefore whilst there was *some* excess capacity in staff and within the earlier stages of the pandemic the strategy was probably *by design* to get clinicians to self-isolate for the 7/14 days. That's because self-isolation for front line workers was likely to be close to 100% sensitive for catching those with Covid19. However, it also has low specificity, i.e. there will be lots of people sat home unnecessarily - the false positives. But on balance, it was probably deemed to be better to be ultra cautious.
However, as we move close to the peak of the pandemic, then sensitivity becomes less important whilst the specificity does. This is because we crucially need the staff in the system. So the focus switches to testing all front-line workers and accepting some of those false-negatives. We might also have a better understanding now on the optimal timing of tests versus symptom onset and so the sensitivity/specificity improves anyway.
Perhaps these are the reasons for the strange and seemingly nonsensical strategy of not testing front-line workers that has been observed. If true it is probably something that cannot really be explained by policy-makers without confusing people/causing unnecessary panic and so they have basically swerved this question despite being asked multiple times.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
And runs the risk of losing Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Torfaen, Newport East, Newport West and Gower in Wales alone unless it can attract back Brexit Party voters.*
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
*assuming current boundaries.
Not in a neck and neck year. It is a bit like pointing to the seats narrowly held by the Tories in the Blair 1997 landslide and suggesting that such seats were likely to fall to Labour in 2001 or 2002. In reality, Labour only picked up Dorset South.
Political volatility seems particularly high in recent years, and party allegiance more fluid. I don't expect a lot of 2019 Tory voters to stick with them for long. That is just the way it is now.
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
I have been watching BFIplayer, via their subscription streaming service. £4.95 a month, with a free 2 week trial, and can cancel any time. Some great fare away from the usual Netflix stuff.
I watched Walkabout (1971) yesterday, and what a beautiful and elegiac film it was. Aniara (2019) too, a very thoughtful Sci Fi in Swedish. There are some great French, German and Italian classics too.
I am very tempted by BFI must admit
Not all of it is of equal interest, and some stuff I abandon, but there are some gems. I prefer films centering around character rather than special effects, and appreciate the distillation of ideas found in a film to the bloated ramblings of mini-series.
Their pay per view films are good too.
I dislike films too where violence is seen as the solution rather than the problem. That doesn't mean that films need avoid violence, but too much American mainstream cinema is about killing people to resolve the plot. That famous Christmas movie, for example.
Old films with lots of dialogue and no special effects are my favourite, I might sign up.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
Quite. At 202 seats, Labour already looks more like a regional power than a national one. Oh, to have a GE on yesterday's polling numbers...
Why? Don’t you want effective, scrutinized government. One with a majority of 20 men’s that the government are kept on their toes and can’t ride roughshod over alternative views. This obsession wit Tory absolute dominance Is really rather sad.
Alcohol is the only thing keeping me moderately (in)sane at this moment in time. I understand why they’re doing it but goodness, there’s no way they could manage that in the UK. There’d be riots.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, that is the problem.
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
Also they are being told to self-isolate only for a week, as far as I'm aware. Is there any evidence that that is long enough? I suspect it's a hangover from the crazy policy of allowing everyone to get it so that we could develop "herd immunity".
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
I have been watching BFIplayer, via their subscription streaming service. £4.95 a month, with a free 2 week trial, and can cancel any time. Some great fare away from the usual Netflix stuff.
I watched Walkabout (1971) yesterday, and what a beautiful and elegiac film it was. Aniara (2019) too, a very thoughtful Sci Fi in Swedish. There are some great French, German and Italian classics too.
I am very tempted by BFI must admit
Not all of it is of equal interest, and some stuff I abandon, but there are some gems. I prefer films centering around character rather than special effects, and appreciate the distillation of ideas found in a film to the bloated ramblings of mini-series.
Their pay per view films are good too.
I dislike films too where violence is seen as the solution rather than the problem. That doesn't mean that films need avoid violence, but too much American mainstream cinema is about killing people to resolve the plot. That famous Christmas movie, for example.
Old films with lots of dialogue and no special effects are my favourite, I might sign up.
Though Aniara had good special effects, and Walkabout famously little dialogue!
The problem is that it is not a choice between lockdown or business as usual. You cannot consider only the economic cost of lockdown, and not consider that in an unchecked pandemic, that people will behave differently. People will not shop, eat out or go drinking as if nothing is happening, while their partner or parents are gasping their last in a hospital carpark.
Of course that's right. The realistic choice will be more at the margins. How long should this first lockdown last, how many should there be, what frequency, and how selective as to people and places covered.
I'm not a "this is an overreaction" person. Certainly not yet anyway.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
And runs the risk of losing Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Torfaen, Newport East, Newport West and Gower in Wales alone unless it can attract back Brexit Party voters.*
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
*assuming current boundaries.
Not in a neck and neck year. It is a bit like pointing to the seats narrowly held by the Tories in the Blair 1997 landslide and suggesting that such seats were likely to fall to Labour in 2001 or 2002. In reality, Labour only picked up Dorset South.
Political volatility seems particularly high in recent years, and party allegiance more fluid. I don't expect a lot of 2019 Tory voters to stick with them for long. That is just the way it is now.
I would agree with that. But the question is whether they go back to Labour. That’s not at all a given. And if Labour’s own voters in their former heartlands continue to drift away, which as Alastair notes is an ongoing phenomenon, their struggles will get worse.
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, perhaps 100 times more likely to put you in hospital than the flu. It's that, rather the bare death toll, which is the problem. Health services, even good ones, would crash if it is not checked.
It is the combination of the 100x more in hospital with a long, slow recovery for some that is the problem. If everyone in hospital who survived was out of critical care in a day or 2 then there wouldn't be much of a problem.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, that is the problem.
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
Also they are being told to self-isolate only for a week, as far as I'm aware. Is there any evidence that that is long enough? I suspect it's a hangover from the crazy policy of allowing everyone to get it so that we could develop "herd immunity".
It's a week from developing symptoms? If you still have symptoms after that, common sense suggests you continue to stay away.
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
A Place called Home , Australian series , is very good , six series of it, the Rake was also good.
Narcos is utterly compelling but its shooting and violence. Equally Peaky Blinders if you get into it but again, it's gangsters. So as good as crime dramas of the likes of The Wire, Mindhunter (or British counterpart Line of Duty are), personally I think at times like now what we need is escapism.
If you get the 7day free trial of Disney Plus, you'll get the updated version of Carl Sagan's Cosmos in the National Geog section. Best factual programme of the decade for me. And a new series is coming soon.
Netflix:
For slow sumptious 1960s US nostalgia, then Mad Men. The British equivalent the Crown is popular for good reason.
For 1980s Spielberg/Stephen King nostalgia then Stranger Things.
Master of None, story of Millennial immigrant life in NYC is easy watching and utterly charming and in the second season at times starts to approach something resembling art.
Cooking: Chef's Table is good wallpaper telly but I'm a big plugger of Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat (and the accompanying book).
Amazon:
I don't have this but I gather it has Vikings. Has its detractors in later seasons but is a rollicking good ride in the most part.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
And runs the risk of losing Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Torfaen, Newport East, Newport West and Gower in Wales alone unless it can attract back Brexit Party voters.*
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
*assuming current boundaries.
Not in a neck and neck year. It is a bit like pointing to the seats narrowly held by the Tories in the Blair 1997 landslide and suggesting that such seats were likely to fall to Labour in 2001 or 2002. In reality, Labour only picked up Dorset South.
There was a near 2% UNS to the Conservatives in 2001 yet an almost identical result to 1997.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, that is the problem.
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
Also they are being told to self-isolate only for a week, as far as I'm aware. Is there any evidence that that is long enough? I suspect it's a hangover from the crazy policy of allowing everyone to get it so that we could develop "herd immunity".
The 14 days relates to being infected, getting the disease asymptomatically, having the disease symptomatically and becoming virus free.
If you are at the stage of having symptoms, your are part way through the above - so less time to the point of not shedding virus.
The problem is that it is not a choice between lockdown or business as usual. You cannot consider only the economic cost of lockdown, and not consider that in an unchecked pandemic, that people will behave differently. People will not shop, eat out or go drinking as if nothing is happening, while their partner or parents are gasping their last in a hospital carpark.
Of course that's right. The realistic choice will be more at the margins. How long should this first lockdown last, how many should there be, what frequency, and how selective as to people and places covered.
I'm not a "this is an overreaction" person. Certainly not yet anyway.
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
For gritty Middle East drama, Fauda is better than Homeland. I agree with The Bridge; excellent TV.
For periods of history that don’t often get dramatised, the White Queen/White Princess (wars of the roses) series and Ekaterina (Catherine the great) are worth a look, although the first series of the latter seems to have disappeared from Amazon. It’s surely still on YouTube.
Two French series are definitely worth a look - The Bureau (Homeland with realism; when it was shown to the French secret service it got a standing ovation) and Spiral (crime/legal drama with lots of personality)
Monk (think autistic Colombo) is worth a look for light relief.
Outlander is well made, if you can cope with the premise, as are the early seasons of Vikings, before it went ridiculous.
The Ambassador is now on Amazon and is good drama, as well as an insight into Anglo-irish relations twenty years back.
What do people think about Jeremy Hunt at 66-1 for next PM?
He's been leading the criticism of the government for not testing enough. If, god forbid, the situation in the UK deteriorates beyond expectations, and the government is seen to have failed, might he be the obvious choice to lead a change in policy?
In a cruel twist of fate for Johnson, Hunt might be the pandemic's Churchill to Johnson's Chamberlain.
Trouble is, it is on Hunt's watch that the warnings were ignored and the preparations not made. Of course, it was the failure of Churchill's Norway Campaign that brought down Chamberlain.
To put it bluntly, if Covid-19 forces out Boris one way or another then it is a good price but if not, you are left waiting for five or ten years with no obvious route back to power for Hunt.
Churchill was also of course totally unprepared for war in the Far East, having ignored the threat from Japan to hammer Hitler. Although he had been PM and indeed Conservative leader for some time before it kicked off properly.
We've seen fiction or alternative histories based on Hitler being replaced; it might be more interesting to know what might have been different had Churchill stood down after the tide of the war turned in 1942 or 43.
It is unlikely that Eden would have done anything very differently, although he might have dithered a bit more.
Eden might not have had the same enthusiasm for grabbing various bits of Axis land then being routed because there was no support or supply.
The other thing that Churchill got wrong in the far East was to let down Australia. My Australian relatives took a very poor view of how Australian forces were tied up in the Middle East and Singapore, rather than released for home defence. At the same time the US Navy was in the Coral sea. That was the point that Australia pivoted to America, and the Empire was doomed.
Most formal links between the UK and Australia had been ended by the 1931 Statute of Westminster anyway
You must be too young to remember "Kerr's cur" in 1975 when the Governor-General sacked the Australian PM.
Queen Elizabeth II is still Head of State of Australia, as Australians confirmed in the 1999 referendum on the monarchy but that is not the same as Westminster still having any power to legislate for Australia
Well I managed to motivate myself to do some exercise this morning - 30 minutes on the cross-trainer. I then took a stroll to the gate and saw 3 people in the lane: one jogging, one walking a dog and one just walking. A few snow flurries here today, but the tulips are starting to emerge.
On the subject of what to watch, I would recommend political shows such as Borgen, Spin and of course The West Wing.
Plenty of interesting dramas on Walter Presents - not all dark crime series either.
What do people think about Jeremy Hunt at 66-1 for next PM?
He's been leading the criticism of the government for not testing enough. If, god forbid, the situation in the UK deteriorates beyond expectations, and the government is seen to have failed, might he be the obvious choice to lead a change in policy?
In a cruel twist of fate for Johnson, Hunt might be the pandemic's Churchill to Johnson's Chamberlain.
Trouble is, it is on Hunt's watch that the warnings were ignored and the preparations not made. Of course, it was the failure of Churchill's Norway Campaign that brought down Chamberlain.
To put it bluntly, if Covid-19 forces out Boris one way or another then it is a good price but if not, you are left waiting for five or ten years with no obvious route back to power for Hunt.
Churchill was also of course totally unprepared for war in the Far East, having ignored the threat from Japan to hammer Hitler. Although he had been PM and indeed Conservative leader for some time before it kicked off properly.
We've seen fiction or alternative histories based on Hitler being replaced; it might be more interesting to know what might have been different had Churchill stood down after the tide of the war turned in 1942 or 43.
It is unlikely that Eden would have done anything very differently, although he might have dithered a bit more.
Eden might not have had the same enthusiasm for grabbing various bits of Axis land then being routed because there was no support or supply.
The other thing that Churchill got wrong in the far East was to let down Australia. My Australian relatives took a very poor view of how Australian forces were tied up in the Middle East and Singapore, rather than released for home defence. At the same time the US Navy was in the Coral sea. That was the point that Australia pivoted to America, and the Empire was doomed.
Most formal links between the UK and Australia had been ended by the 1931 Statute of Westminster anyway
You must be too young to remember "Kerr's cur" in 1975 when the Governor-General sacked the Australian PM.
Queen Elizabeth II is still Head of State of Australia, as Australians confirmed in the 1999 referendum on the monarchy but that is not the same as Westminster still having any power to legislate for Australia
That was ended in 1986 with the Australia Act, two acts passed simultaneously by Westminster and Canberra because the experts weren't sure if the Australian parliament had sufficient authority to pass it on its own.
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
Yes, but I dont think it will en masse next time. Many red wall seats had been trending toward Con for some time, since Cameron or earlier, before Brexit and Corbyn ramped things up under May and particularly Boris. A lot of those southern seats might be right for a non threatening labour figure but require huge swings.
The worry for labour is how permanent the switches are. Some people are just generally the switching kind. Others find it very hard, they resist it for ages, but once it happens theres relief as though a chord is severed, and they become committed to another side.
Labour is already better placed in Watford,Wycombe and both Milton Keynes seats than was the case in 2010 and 2015.
And runs the risk of losing Alyn and Deeside, Llanelli, Torfaen, Newport East, Newport West and Gower in Wales alone unless it can attract back Brexit Party voters.*
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
*assuming current boundaries.
Not in a neck and neck year. It is a bit like pointing to the seats narrowly held by the Tories in the Blair 1997 landslide and suggesting that such seats were likely to fall to Labour in 2001 or 2002. In reality, Labour only picked up Dorset South.
Political volatility seems particularly high in recent years, and party allegiance more fluid. I don't expect a lot of 2019 Tory voters to stick with them for long. That is just the way it is now.
I would agree with that. But the question is whether they go back to Labour. That’s not at all a given. And if Labour’s own voters in their former heartlands continue to drift away, which as Alastair notes is an ongoing phenomenon, their struggles will get worse.
If Corbyn was still at the helm - and with Brexit the central issue , I would not dissent too much. On the other hand, if those factors were anything like as poisonous for Labour as their own campaign insiders have suggested, it is not unreasonable to expect much - if not all - of the related adverse swing to be reversed when they cease to be present.
You have frequently said you would have voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016 and would vote Trump against Bernie Sanders which I understand.
Would you vote for Trump against Biden or would the VP nominee make a difference so for instance would you support Trump/Pence over Biden/Warren or Biden/Harris?
I would probably vote for Biden/Harris over Trump/Pence but not Biden/Warren yes. I would have voted for Bloomberg with some enthusiasm but none of the other Democrats did anything much for me, however I am not American so it does not really matter
Thanks - actually pretty much what I expected. As you say, it doesn't much matter - just Sunday lunchtime speculation.
I think the VP picks will have more significance than usual this time. Trump needs Pence to keep the traditional GOP on side and I suspect Pence has had much more influence and involvement in decision making than some VPs.
Pence could well run himself in 2024 (he'd only be 65) but it's not easy for the incumbent VP to succeed a two-term President - I know Harry Truman and George HW Bush did but Gore failed in 2000 and Nixon in 1960 and to be fair Truman didn't contest 1952 and George H W Bush lost in 1992.
Yes, while most Presidents normally get re elected, especially after only 1 term of their party in the White House, most Vice Presidents lose when they try to win the Presidency themselves. Hubert Humphrey in 1968 is another example of that.
According to data provided by the Basque Department of Health, the mortality rate among those over 90 years of age is 20.6%, with 57 deaths out of a total of 277 patients. For their part, those infected between 80 and 89 years of age have a mortality rate of 16.5%, with 117 deaths of 707 patients. The mortality rate falls between 70 and 79 years (5.9%), having died 55 of the 932 cases detected. The case fatality rate in the age group between 60 and 69 years falls to 2.3% and drops to 0.5% in the age group between 50 and 59 years.
Clearly the key to beating boredom is the production of a PB miniseries recreating epic moments of political debate. Who has a good webcam and would like the role of Mike Smithson to kick things off?
What do people think about Jeremy Hunt at 66-1 for next PM?
He's been leading the criticism of the government for not testing enough. If, god forbid, the situation in the UK deteriorates beyond expectations, and the government is seen to have failed, might he be the obvious choice to lead a change in policy?
In a cruel twist of fate for Johnson, Hunt might be the pandemic's Churchill to Johnson's Chamberlain.
Trouble is, it is on Hunt's watch that the warnings were ignored and the preparations not made. Of course, it was the failure of Churchill's Norway Campaign that brought down Chamberlain.
To put it bluntly, if Covid-19 forces out Boris one way or another then it is a good price but if not, you are left waiting for five or ten years with no obvious route back to power for Hunt.
Churchill was also of course totally unprepared for war in the Far East, having ignored the threat from Japan to hammer Hitler. Although he had been PM and indeed Conservative leader for some time before it kicked off properly.
We've seen fiction or alternative histories based on Hitler being replaced; it might be more interesting to know what might have been different had Churchill stood down after the tide of the war turned in 1942 or 43.
It is unlikely that Eden would have done anything very differently, although he might have dithered a bit more.
Eden might not have had the same enthusiasm for grabbing various bits of Axis land then being routed because there was no support or supply.
The other thing that Churchill got wrong in the far East was to let down Australia. My Australian relatives took a very poor view of how Australian forces were tied up in the Middle East and Singapore, rather than released for home defence. At the same time the US Navy was in the Coral sea. That was the point that Australia pivoted to America, and the Empire was doomed.
Most formal links between the UK and Australia had been ended by the 1931 Statute of Westminster anyway
You must be too young to remember "Kerr's cur" in 1975 when the Governor-General sacked the Australian PM.
Queen Elizabeth II is still Head of State of Australia, as Australians confirmed in the 1999 referendum on the monarchy but that is not the same as Westminster still having any power to legislate for Australia
I know that, and Australia truly became "independent" in the 1980s. It was your assertion that this happened in 1931 was what I was challenging.
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
The first is probably Homeland? Its good fun but does get sillier the more series you watch, which is true of most high action series.
Homeland (US) is very good (first season only) but not as good as the original Israeli version, Prisoners of War.
You have frequently said you would have voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016 and would vote Trump against Bernie Sanders which I understand.
Would you vote for Trump against Biden or would the VP nominee make a difference so for instance would you support Trump/Pence over Biden/Warren or Biden/Harris?
I would probably vote for Biden/Harris over Trump/Pence but not Biden/Warren yes. I would have voted for Bloomberg with some enthusiasm but none of the other Democrats did anything much for me, however I am not American so it does not really matter
Thanks - actually pretty much what I expected. As you say, it doesn't much matter - just Sunday lunchtime speculation.
I think the VP picks will have more significance than usual this time. Trump needs Pence to keep the traditional GOP on side and I suspect Pence has had much more influence and involvement in decision making than some VPs.
Pence could well run himself in 2024 (he'd only be 65) but it's not easy for the incumbent VP to succeed a two-term President - I know Harry Truman and George HW Bush did but Gore failed in 2000 and Nixon in 1960 and to be fair Truman didn't contest 1952 and George H W Bush lost in 1992.
Yes, while most Presidents normally get re elected, especially after only 1 term of their party in the White House, most Vice Presidents lose when they try to win the Presidency themselves. Hubert Humphrey in 1968 is another example of that.
But then, that’s also true of Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and John McCain in 2008, neither of whom were vice-president. And of course Clinton in 2016...
It is easy to forget, but before Jeremy Corbyn turned up Ed Miliband was the worst leader Labour had ever had. One undoubted positive about the current leadership election is that Labour members almost certainly haven’t chosen the worst possible candidate. From little acorns ...
Haven't they? We'll see. Starmer is probably the least charismatic of those who stood, is a paid-up member of London's metropolitan elite, and devised the Brexit policy.
At the risk of pre-empting Alastair's second piece, one could argue that parts of the South East might be happy to vote Labour so long as they aren't led by someone like Jeremy Corbyn. How many seats like Watford, Wycombe and the Milton Keynes seats could Labour flip with a leader who isn't perceived as a threat to their standard of living?
We've seen a realignment in one part of the country, could the same happen in traditionally safe Tory areas?
To some extent that has already happened. Former Tory strongholds now held by Labour include - Enfield Southgate - Putney - Battersea - Croydon Central - Warwick & Leamington - Canterbury - Portsmouth South - Hove - Brighton Kemptown - Reading East - Bedford - Cardiff North - Bristol Northwest . Until the 1990s Cambridge, Leeds Nothwest, Leeds Northeast, Tynemouth and Sheffield Hallam were normally Tory seats. The traffic has not been one way!
True, but sadly for Labour, to compensate for Mansfield et al, they need to start winning in non-metropolitan areas that are relatively affluent.
You are absolutely correct to say that , but it also has to be significant that Labour now holds these former reliably Tory seats - often by comfortable margins - in a year when the Tories enjoyed a vote share lead of circa 11.5% and a Parliamentary majority of 80. In a neck and neck year , quite a few additional seats would be likely to fall.
The flaw in that logic is that these seats are quite few in number, and even if they fell the Tories have the potential to capture many more seats in the North and even in Wales by mining the Brexit Party vote.
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
I disagree there. A 5% swing from Con to Lab would be likely to produce circa 40 Labour gains from the Tories in the North , Midlands and Wales alone. I also suggest it is a serious mistake to assume that seats such as Workington, Leigh Don Valley, Blyth Valley, Redcar et al which went Tory in 2019 are likely to remain Tory.Most of the Labour citadels lost in the 1931 rout were recaptured in 1935, and it is likely that the Corbyn and Brexit factors will have skewed the outcome in such seats in 2019.Even seats with nominally big Tory majorities such as Grimsby and Bassetlaw in reality could return to Labour.
What we don’t know yet is whether these places have shifted purely on the basis of Brexit (ie the votes have been “lent”) or whether it is part of a wider shift that Brexit helped along. Whilst it is wrong to assume these places are going to continue to remain stubbornly Tory, at the same time I think it is too early to say that those voters will come flocking back. Labour made the same mistake in Scotland.
There was a fear in many who had been in forever-voted-Labour families that the sky would fall in when they voted Tory. Perhaps some will see CV-19 as a judgment upon them for doing so. Most however will not, and wonder what all the fuss was about....
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
For gritty Middle East drama, Fauda is better than Homeland. I agree with The Bridge; excellent TV.
For periods of history that don’t often get dramatised, the White Queen/White Princess (wars of the roses) series and Ekaterina (Catherine the great) are worth a look, although the first series of the latter seems to have disappeared from Amazon. It’s surely still on YouTube.
Two French series are definitely worth a look - The Bureau (Homeland with realism; when it was shown to the French secret service it got a standing ovation) and Spiral (crime/legal drama with lots of personality)
Monk (think autistic Colombo) is worth a look for light relief.
Outlander is well made, if you can cope with the premise, as are the early seasons of Vikings, before it went ridiculous.
The Ambassador is now on Amazon and is good drama, as well as an insight into Anglo-irish relations twenty years back.
What do people think about Jeremy Hunt at 66-1 for next PM?
He's been leading the criticism of the government for not testing enough. If, god forbid, the situation in the UK deteriorates beyond expectations, and the government is seen to have failed, might he be the obvious choice to lead a change in policy?
In a cruel twist of fate for Johnson, Hunt might be the pandemic's Churchill to Johnson's Chamberlain.
Trouble is, it is on Hunt's watch that the warnings were ignored and the preparations not made. Of course, it was the failure of Churchill's Norway Campaign that brought down Chamberlain.
To put it bluntly, if Covid-19 forces out Boris one way or another then it is a good price but if not, you are left waiting for five or ten years with no obvious route back to power for Hunt.
Churchill was also of course totally unprepared for war in the Far East, having ignored the threat from Japan to hammer Hitler. Although he had been PM and indeed Conservative leader for some time before it kicked off properly.
We've seen fiction or alternative histories based on Hitler being replaced; it might be more interesting to know what might have been different had Churchill stood down after the tide of the war turned in 1942 or 43.
It is unlikely that Eden would have done anything very differently, although he might have dithered a bit more.
Eden might not have had the same enthusiasm for grabbing various bits of Axis land then being routed because there was no support or supply.
The other thing that Churchill got wrong in the far East was to let down Australia. My Australian relatives took a very poor view of how Australian forces were tied up in the Middle East and Singapore, rather than released for home defence. At the same time the US Navy was in the Coral sea. That was the point that Australia pivoted to America, and the Empire was doomed.
Most formal links between the UK and Australia had been ended by the 1931 Statute of Westminster anyway
You must be too young to remember "Kerr's cur" in 1975 when the Governor-General sacked the Australian PM.
Queen Elizabeth II is still Head of State of Australia, as Australians confirmed in the 1999 referendum on the monarchy but that is not the same as Westminster still having any power to legislate for Australia
I know that, and Australia truly became "independent" in the 1980s. It was your assertion that this happened in 1931 was what I was challenging.
I said 'Most formal links' between the UK and Australia had been ended by the 1931 Statute of Westminster. That was correct, that process was simply completed for the remainder of Westminster's legislative power over Australia via the 1986 Australia Act
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
For gritty Middle East drama, Fauda is better than Homeland. I agree with The Bridge; excellent TV.
For periods of history that don’t often get dramatised, the White Queen/White Princess (wars of the roses) series and Ekaterina (Catherine the great) are worth a look, although the first series of the latter seems to have disappeared from Amazon. It’s surely still on YouTube.
Two French series are definitely worth a look - The Bureau (Homeland with realism; when it was shown to the French secret service it got a standing ovation) and Spiral (crime/legal drama with lots of personality)
Monk (think autistic Colombo) is worth a look for light relief.
Outlander is well made, if you can cope with the premise, as are the early seasons of Vikings, before it went ridiculous.
The Ambassador is now on Amazon and is good drama, as well as an insight into Anglo-irish relations twenty years back.
Somebody I know in the shadowy spooky word says The Bureau is the most life-like TV series he has seen.
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
I have been watching BFIplayer, via their subscription streaming service. £4.95 a month, with a free 2 week trial, and can cancel any time. Some great fare away from the usual Netflix stuff.
I watched Walkabout (1971) yesterday, and what a beautiful and elegiac film it was. Aniara (2019) too, a very thoughtful Sci Fi in Swedish. There are some great French, German and Italian classics too.
I am very tempted by BFI must admit
Not all of it is of equal interest, and some stuff I abandon, but there are some gems. I prefer films centering around character rather than special effects, and appreciate the distillation of ideas found in a film to the bloated ramblings of mini-series.
Their pay per view films are good too.
I dislike films too where violence is seen as the solution rather than the problem. That doesn't mean that films need avoid violence, but too much American mainstream cinema is about killing people to resolve the plot. That famous Christmas movie, for example.
Old films with lots of dialogue and no special effects are my favourite, I might sign up.
Though Aniara had good special effects, and Walkabout famously little dialogue!
Watching Walkabout when I was at school it definitely wasn't the dialogue that made an impression!
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, that is the problem.
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
Also they are being told to self-isolate only for a week, as far as I'm aware. Is there any evidence that that is long enough? I suspect it's a hangover from the crazy policy of allowing everyone to get it so that we could develop "herd immunity".
The 14 days relates to being infected, getting the disease asymptomatically, having the disease symptomatically and becoming virus free.
If you are at the stage of having symptoms, your are part way through the above - so less time to the point of not shedding virus.
I'm talking about the advice to self-isolate for 7 days if you have symptoms
I checked, and that is still the advice. After 7 days you can stop, unless you still have a temperature. But then you can stop as soon as the temperature goes away. Even while you are self-isolating you can go out to take exercise (?!?). https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/
What I'm asking is whether there is any scientific basis for this. Given the gradual rise of the "recovered" percentage in other countries, I am presuming that where people are being tested, it is taking longer than a week for them to test negative. I note that the UK advice is that it's OK to stop self-isolating even if you still have a cough. (And I doubt people need much encouragement to assume from the advice that they aren't infectious any more after 7 days!)
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
The first is probably Homeland? Its good fun but does get sillier the more series you watch, which is true of most high action series.
The latest and final series of Homeland is excellent. I'll be watching it tonight.
I like it but it is quite obviously filmed somewhere that is conspicuously not Afghanistan though.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, that is the problem.
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
Also they are being told to self-isolate only for a week, as far as I'm aware. Is there any evidence that that is long enough? I suspect it's a hangover from the crazy policy of allowing everyone to get it so that we could develop "herd immunity".
The 14 days relates to being infected, getting the disease asymptomatically, having the disease symptomatically and becoming virus free.
If you are at the stage of having symptoms, your are part way through the above - so less time to the point of not shedding virus.
I'm talking about the advice to self-isolate for 7 days if you have symptoms
I checked, and that is still the advice. After 7 days you can stop, unless you still have a temperature. But then you can stop as soon as the temperature goes away. Even while you are self-isolating you can go out to take exercise (?!?). https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/
What I'm asking is whether there is any scientific basis for this. Given the gradual rise of the "recovered" percentage in other countries, I am presuming that where people are being tested, it is taking longer than a week for them to test negative. I note that the UK advice is that it's OK to stop self-isolating even if you still have a cough. (And I doubt people need much encouragement to assume from the advice that they aren't infectious any more after 7 days!)
That's the advice I went by. It did seems a bit lax.
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
The first is probably Homeland? Its good fun but does get sillier the more series you watch, which is true of most high action series.
The latest and final series of Homeland is excellent. I'll be watching it tonight.
I like it but it is quite obviously filmed somewhere that is conspicuously not Afghanistan though.
We all project our own tastes! I'd second The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) series 1 and 2, and the Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge are just as good as nearly everyone said (iplayer, I think) - all three recommended for depth of characters as much as plot. Fleabag was good amoral fun if you're not too shocked by the first 10 minutes.
Two whose names escape me but others will remember (help!) were the US series on a returning American prisoner of Islamic State (has he been brainwashed?) and the one about a woman who falls for a much younger man. The former requires a certain amount of idientification with the CIA as basically good guys, the latter is loved by many (including me) but younger viewers tended to despise it - but the plot in the former is great and the latter is much more subtle than the simple thesis suggests.
For gritty Middle East drama, Fauda is better than Homeland. I agree with The Bridge; excellent TV.
For periods of history that don’t often get dramatised, the White Queen/White Princess (wars of the roses) series and Ekaterina (Catherine the great) are worth a look, although the first series of the latter seems to have disappeared from Amazon. It’s surely still on YouTube.
Two French series are definitely worth a look - The Bureau (Homeland with realism; when it was shown to the French secret service it got a standing ovation) and Spiral (crime/legal drama with lots of personality)
Monk (think autistic Colombo) is worth a look for light relief.
Outlander is well made, if you can cope with the premise, as are the early seasons of Vikings, before it went ridiculous.
The Ambassador is now on Amazon and is good drama, as well as an insight into Anglo-irish relations twenty years back.
According to data provided by the Basque Department of Health, the mortality rate among those over 90 years of age is 20.6%, with 57 deaths out of a total of 277 patients. For their part, those infected between 80 and 89 years of age have a mortality rate of 16.5%, with 117 deaths of 707 patients. The mortality rate falls between 70 and 79 years (5.9%), having died 55 of the 932 cases detected. The case fatality rate in the age group between 60 and 69 years falls to 2.3% and drops to 0.5% in the age group between 50 and 59 years.
And that compares how with the figures for 2019? And/or 2018? How many people over 90 would be expected to die in the Basque region in a normal year.
Sober posts for sober times, TOPPING. And, gee, a blush and a genuine thanks. You know how much it means to me to hear nice things.
And my tip for @Cyclefree. The Spanish drama below. "I Know Who You Are". Soapy and lurid but INCREDIBLY addictive. Features much bonking by lawyers both in and out of their offices - which I sense might appeal.
Does anyone have a clear picture on number of people recovered in the UK. I'm not sure if that stat is being released every day, only the total number infected and number who didn't make it. It is very important data in judging the severity of cases each nation is testing for IMO.
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
This is the problem with the particular disease -
1) It hits a small number very hard. 2) A minority of that number die. 3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
Yes, that is the problem.
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
Also they are being told to self-isolate only for a week, as far as I'm aware. Is there any evidence that that is long enough? I suspect it's a hangover from the crazy policy of allowing everyone to get it so that we could develop "herd immunity".
The 14 days relates to being infected, getting the disease asymptomatically, having the disease symptomatically and becoming virus free.
If you are at the stage of having symptoms, your are part way through the above - so less time to the point of not shedding virus.
I'm talking about the advice to self-isolate for 7 days if you have symptoms
I checked, and that is still the advice. After 7 days you can stop, unless you still have a temperature. But then you can stop as soon as the temperature goes away. Even while you are self-isolating you can go out to take exercise (?!?). https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/
What I'm asking is whether there is any scientific basis for this. Given the gradual rise of the "recovered" percentage in other countries, I am presuming that where people are being tested, it is taking longer than a week for them to test negative. I note that the UK advice is that it's OK to stop self-isolating even if you still have a cough. (And I doubt people need much encouragement to assume from the advice that they aren't infectious any more after 7 days!)
That's the advice I went by. It did seems a bit lax.
The cough associated with this disease can go on for months - long after virus shedding stops.
You have frequently said you would have voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016 and would vote Trump against Bernie Sanders which I understand.
Would you vote for Trump against Biden or would the VP nominee make a difference so for instance would you support Trump/Pence over Biden/Warren or Biden/Harris?
I would probably vote for Biden/Harris over Trump/Pence but not Biden/Warren yes. I would have voted for Bloomberg with some enthusiasm but none of the other Democrats did anything much for me, however I am not American so it does not really matter
Thanks - actually pretty much what I expected. As you say, it doesn't much matter - just Sunday lunchtime speculation.
I think the VP picks will have more significance than usual this time. Trump needs Pence to keep the traditional GOP on side and I suspect Pence has had much more influence and involvement in decision making than some VPs.
Pence could well run himself in 2024 (he'd only be 65) but it's not easy for the incumbent VP to succeed a two-term President - I know Harry Truman and George HW Bush did but Gore failed in 2000 and Nixon in 1960 and to be fair Truman didn't contest 1952 and George H W Bush lost in 1992.
Yes, while most Presidents normally get re elected, especially after only 1 term of their party in the White House, most Vice Presidents lose when they try to win the Presidency themselves. Hubert Humphrey in 1968 is another example of that.
But then, that’s also true of Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and John McCain in 2008, neither of whom were vice-president. And of course Clinton in 2016...
True, it just happens that Vice Presidents almost always run after 8 years of their party in the White House when the President cannot run again due to term limits and the mood is for change. The exception being Mondale who ran in 1984 after Carter lost to Reagan after just 1 term (Mondale still lost and Reagan was re elected anyway) and Biden who decided not to run in 2016 but is now challenging Trump as likely Democratic nominee
On the telly stuff, Baghdad Central is still I think available on All 4 and definitely worth a watch. I'm slightly ashamed that it forcibly reminded me that millions of Iraqis had their own stories and hopes and tragedies.
It's helped by the charismatic lead actor and the end is a bit mawkishly unlikely, but it takes several episodes before the good guys and bad guys and somewhere inbetween guys are identifiable.
Off topic - like @Andy_JS I have watched very little TV over the past few years so have missed out on pretty much all the dramas that people praise.
A girl cannot live on Midsomer Murder repeats alone. I’ve just started on Broadchuch, which is very good - though not exactly cheering.
Now, of course, is the perfect time for all that catching up.
A list of PB’ers Top 10 / 20 dramas / films / documentary series would be much appreciated. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Thanks very much.
I have been watching BFIplayer, via their subscription streaming service. £4.95 a month, with a free 2 week trial, and can cancel any time. Some great fare away from the usual Netflix stuff.
I watched Walkabout (1971) yesterday, and what a beautiful and elegiac film it was. Aniara (2019) too, a very thoughtful Sci Fi in Swedish. There are some great French, German and Italian classics too.
I am very tempted by BFI must admit
Not all of it is of equal interest, and some stuff I abandon, but there are some gems. I prefer films centering around character rather than special effects, and appreciate the distillation of ideas found in a film to the bloated ramblings of mini-series.
Their pay per view films are good too.
I dislike films too where violence is seen as the solution rather than the problem. That doesn't mean that films need avoid violence, but too much American mainstream cinema is about killing people to resolve the plot. That famous Christmas movie, for example.
Old films with lots of dialogue and no special effects are my favourite, I might sign up.
Though Aniara had good special effects, and Walkabout famously little dialogue!
Watching Walkabout when I was at school it definitely wasn't the dialogue that made an impression!
I once went out with a dead ringer for Jenny Agutter in her prime. Think American Werewolf in London, nurses uniform period....
Comments
Labour need a Thatcher style UNS just to force a hung parliament. Any more losses in the North and they face a gargantuan task.
You are correct on the process. If a jury assesses the probability of guilt at (say) 75% then they must return a verdict of Not Guilty. Therefore a person can be (and should be) acquitted even if the evidence is that they likely did it.
But then malcolm is correct on the outcome. The one and only legal meaning of a Not Guilty verdict is that the person did NOT do it. They did not do it and they are therefore innocent. Whether they did it or not (which they didn't) is irrelevant, they are innocent.
The system relies on this doublethink. It can't work any other way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Eye_(TV_series)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMQTXewb2nc
There is a shortage of masks.
Their pay per view films are good too.
I dislike films too where violence is seen as the solution rather than the problem. That doesn't mean that films need avoid violence, but too much American mainstream cinema is about killing people to resolve the plot. That famous Christmas movie, for example.
Telegraph:
"With the UK Debt Management Office having to resort to almost daily auctions to satisfy the Government’s needs, it late last week took the unprecedented step of consulting investors on what maturities might sell, rather than as usual dictating the maturity that best suits the Government. To many it looked like a sign of desperation. The risks of a classic liquidity/ sovereign debt crisis grow by the day."
and they are truly staggering. At the moment 88% of the cases concluded in the UK of recorded cases are ending in death. This cannot possibly be right, not even close, but presumably it reflects the relatively long period of the illness for those that have sufficiently serious symptoms to be tested so that the deaths come early and the recoveries later.
That’s even before we talk about Wansbeck, Normanton, Hemsworth, Coventry North West, Coventry South, Stockton North...
*assuming current boundaries.
Perhaps the silent notion is that "not proven" still has some merit - in implying be careful in future dealings with said person?
1) It hits a small number very hard.
2) A minority of that number die.
3) But a substantial number of those hit hard need serious medical care over a long period of time.
*This* is what causes the medical systems to backup and be overwhelmed.
The Leftovers.
The first season is a bit of a slog but needed to set up the rest, which is transcendent. The premise is that 2% of the world’s population suddenly, without any reason, disappear. As it goes on it turns out to be a series about faith and how we cope with loss.
Gilt rates at 0.36%...
In Britain we are as a policy not testing less severe cases, telling them to self isolate. Neither are we testing people who recover to ensure that they are clear and no longer a risk to others. As such it is hard to report the recovered as other countries have.
I have always found the more eminent the specialist in any field, the less they use technical and pseudo-technical language to bluff outsiders.
Edit - in any case, your first point is roughly what I said - a 5% swing for a hung parliament!
Edit - My first point did not include further gains made in London , the South and Scotland.
Therefore whilst there was *some* excess capacity in staff and within the earlier stages of the pandemic the strategy was probably *by design* to get clinicians to self-isolate for the 7/14 days. That's because self-isolation for front line workers was likely to be close to 100% sensitive for catching those with Covid19. However, it also has low specificity, i.e. there will be lots of people sat home unnecessarily - the false positives. But on balance, it was probably deemed to be better to be ultra cautious.
However, as we move close to the peak of the pandemic, then sensitivity becomes less important whilst the specificity does. This is because we crucially need the staff in the system. So the focus switches to testing all front-line workers and accepting some of those false-negatives. We might also have a better understanding now on the optimal timing of tests versus symptom onset and so the sensitivity/specificity improves anyway.
Perhaps these are the reasons for the strange and seemingly nonsensical strategy of not testing front-line workers that has been observed. If true it is probably something that cannot really be explained by policy-makers without confusing people/causing unnecessary panic and so they have basically swerved this question despite being asked multiple times.
The Wire #1.
I'm not a "this is an overreaction" person. Certainly not yet anyway.
Narcos is utterly compelling but its shooting and violence. Equally Peaky Blinders if you get into it but again, it's gangsters. So as good as crime dramas of the likes of The Wire, Mindhunter (or British counterpart Line of Duty are), personally I think at times like now what we need is escapism.
If you get the 7day free trial of Disney Plus, you'll get the updated version of Carl Sagan's Cosmos in the National Geog section. Best factual programme of the decade for me. And a new series is coming soon.
Netflix:
For slow sumptious 1960s US nostalgia, then Mad Men. The British equivalent the Crown is popular for good reason.
For 1980s Spielberg/Stephen King nostalgia then Stranger Things.
Master of None, story of Millennial immigrant life in NYC is easy watching and utterly charming and in the second season at times starts to approach something resembling art.
Cooking: Chef's Table is good wallpaper telly but I'm a big plugger of Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat (and the accompanying book).
Amazon:
I don't have this but I gather it has Vikings. Has its detractors in later seasons but is a rollicking good ride in the most part.
The West Wing (especially for us lot)
Southland
Top Boy
This Is Us
When They See Us
24 (if dated now)
If you are at the stage of having symptoms, your are part way through the above - so less time to the point of not shedding virus.
All good posts this morning.
For periods of history that don’t often get dramatised, the White Queen/White Princess (wars of the roses) series and Ekaterina (Catherine the great) are worth a look, although the first series of the latter seems to have disappeared from Amazon. It’s surely still on YouTube.
Two French series are definitely worth a look - The Bureau (Homeland with realism; when it was shown to the French secret service it got a standing ovation) and Spiral (crime/legal drama with lots of personality)
Monk (think autistic Colombo) is worth a look for light relief.
Outlander is well made, if you can cope with the premise, as are the early seasons of Vikings, before it went ridiculous.
The Ambassador is now on Amazon and is good drama, as well as an insight into Anglo-irish relations twenty years back.
On the subject of what to watch, I would recommend political shows such as Borgen, Spin and of course The West Wing.
Plenty of interesting dramas on Walter Presents - not all dark crime series either.
On Netflix, Money Heist.
On the BBC, Montalbano.
The Wire is probably the best TV show ever made, even if it does get a bit messy towards the end.
Personally, I'd also recommend DS9, it's a great character drama if you can stand star trek. It's not very much like the rest of them.
According to data provided by the Basque Department of Health, the mortality rate among those over 90 years of age is 20.6%, with 57 deaths out of a total of 277 patients. For their part, those infected between 80 and 89 years of age have a mortality rate of 16.5%, with 117 deaths of 707 patients. The mortality rate falls between 70 and 79 years (5.9%), having died 55 of the 932 cases detected. The case fatality rate in the age group between 60 and 69 years falls to 2.3% and drops to 0.5% in the age group between 50 and 59 years.
Really?!
I checked, and that is still the advice. After 7 days you can stop, unless you still have a temperature. But then you can stop as soon as the temperature goes away. Even while you are self-isolating you can go out to take exercise (?!?).
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/
What I'm asking is whether there is any scientific basis for this. Given the gradual rise of the "recovered" percentage in other countries, I am presuming that where people are being tested, it is taking longer than a week for them to test negative. I note that the UK advice is that it's OK to stop self-isolating even if you still have a cough. (And I doubt people need much encouragement to assume from the advice that they aren't infectious any more after 7 days!)
2nd tier choices include:
Six Feet Under
The West Wing
Prisoners of War
Spiral
The Shield
True Detective
The Good Wife
Rectify
Perhaps... Battlestar Gallactica?
How many people over 90 would be expected to die in the Basque region in a normal year.
And my tip for @Cyclefree. The Spanish drama below. "I Know Who You Are". Soapy and lurid but INCREDIBLY addictive. Features much bonking by lawyers both in and out of their offices - which I sense might appeal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08yrc3v
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1244248001868111874?s=20
Then we can talk.
It's helped by the charismatic lead actor and the end is a bit mawkishly unlikely, but it takes several episodes before the good guys and bad guys and somewhere inbetween guys are identifiable.