But I am against the cancel culture - and liking it just for your opponents it what feeds it.
I think her losing her political job was right, and inevitable as Starmer wants to take back control (Ha!) of the Labour party.
But to lose her actual job at a time like this? I can understand the position of a legal practise - they have the PR aspect of this to consider. But still...
Would you want to take legal advice from somebody whose outpourings are as ill-judged as this?
Her employers were within their rights to act as they have. Starmer was right to expel her. He'd be better advised to tell every member of the Labour Party to close down their Twitter account and come off Facebook.
The Corbyn Years will be looked upon in future years by the Hard Left as a Golden Age of Free Speech, when you could get away without sanction for posting your innermost anti-semitic, deeply unpleasant hate thoughts. The rest of us will just say thank God that they STFU.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Yesterday PB-ers were ridiculing the media for asking who's in charge. Downing Street went from we'll look at it when the PM returns to we're looking at it today.
Do you honestly think that given the chance and with no scrutiny they wouldn't have deferred to next week?
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nobody is going to ignore the media. There are plenty on here who claim to despise Sky News and would glass Kay Burley given the chance but spend every day ragewatching it.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Raab is the de facto PM and has the authority to make decisions
The media tried to make a constitutional crisis out of nothing but that is par for the course for them
The grown up position is simply COBRA are the arbiters in all of this and of course they include all the experts plus the devolved nations first ministers and London mayor. They will make the recommendations, the cabinet will rubber stamp it, and Raab will implement it
It is all so clear and simple, but of course the media do not like an easy understood process and make themselves look ever so foolish by obscuring something that is easy to understand
Simples.........
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it..."
But I am against the cancel culture - and liking it just for your opponents it what feeds it.
I think her losing her political job was right, and inevitable as Starmer wants to take back control (Ha!) of the Labour party.
But to lose her actual job at a time like this? I can understand the position of a legal practise - they have the PR aspect of this to consider. But still...
Would you want to take legal advice from somebody whose outpourings are as ill-judged as this?
Her employers were within their rights to act as they have. Starmer was right to expel her. He'd be better advised to tell every member of the Labour Party to close down their Twitter account and come off Facebook.
The Corbyn Years will be looked upon in future years by the Hard Left as a Golden Age of Free Speech, when you could get away without sanction for posting your innermost anti-semitic, deeply unpleasant hate thoughts. The rest of us will just say thank God that they STFU.
Bring the company into disrupt is probably a suitable offence to justify gross misconduct. Sees unlucky but surely after 10 years of social media people know it's not the same as talking down the pub.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
If i was in a flat with a wife and kids and not allowed out.. i think i woild be seriously stressed in a v short time....
Totally agree. I was on here arguing it is madness to lockdown too soon because people wont stick it and indeed there will be massive mental health implications.
As a full time carer I know what spending vast amounts of time stuck at home is like, and I am lucky enough to have a garden and a huge book collection.
Yes, someone should write a book about the dynamics of lockdown (I'm sure they will). Living on my own, I find it fairly easy to adjust - I live in a small rented place, but there's plenty to do and, er, nobody telling me to do something else. Friends with partners and kids feel both more supported and more frustrated - the shared experience brings them closer together, yet the small irritations in almost any partnership assume much bigger importance. Mostly they say they're philosophical about it in the circs ("I'd rather be irritated than dead"), so I don't detect any great demand for restrictions to be lifted.
I think if you have space, are financially secure and have sufficient education to philosophise (in the positive sense) on the situation, then things are not bad. Not having COVID19 is also a bonus...
Sadly, there are many who do not have those things. One friend, for example, lives on her emotions - quite literally, and proud of it - she processes the world around her on feelings. Regards those who live by reasoning as "cold". She is having a terrible time of it.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
So completely does the death cult have journalists on ignore that they spend about 6 hours a day wailing about them.
If ever there was a more inapporpriate time to splash about your derogatory term "death cult"....
Maybe try using it humourously in South Korea. See how well it goes down there.
If there’s one good thing about Covid-19 as opposed to Brexit it’s that the risks of death, pain and suffering are quite evenly distributed. The death cult were entirely happy to risk the lives of other people to secure carcrash Brexit. They still are: witness how mute they are in the face of the government’s continued insistence that the transition period should end, deal or no deal, on 31 December.
Somehow when their own lives are at risk, they aren’t so nonchalant about the risks being run. Funny that.
Still making stuff up I see Alastair. Some things really do never change.
Is it me, or is it WAY too soon for Italy or Spain to even think about relaxing the lockdown. China was in lockdown for months and months.
Isn't this thing just going to pick up again in case numbers?
Spain's proposed relaxation of their lockdown looks like it might make it similiar to our currently. There isn't much restriction on travel to work unless you're customer facing here.
It’s what they introduced two or three weeks ago I think it will be tighter than the UK but now far more difficult to enforce with more traffic on the road.
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
But I am against the cancel culture - and liking it just for your opponents it what feeds it.
I think her losing her political job was right, and inevitable as Starmer wants to take back control (Ha!) of the Labour party.
But to lose her actual job at a time like this? I can understand the position of a legal practise - they have the PR aspect of this to consider. But still...
Would you want to take legal advice from somebody whose outpourings are as ill-judged as this?
Her employers were within their rights to act as they have. Starmer was right to expel her. He'd be better advised to tell every member of the Labour Party to close down their Twitter account and come off Facebook.
The Corbyn Years will be looked upon in future years by the Hard Left as a Golden Age of Free Speech, when you could get away without sanction for posting your innermost anti-semitic, deeply unpleasant hate thoughts. The rest of us will just say thank God that they STFU.
Bring the company into disrupt is probably a suitable offence to justify gross misconduct. Sees unlucky but surely after 10 years of social media people know it's not the same as talking down the pub.
I agree that her from were probably within their rights to fire her. I would probably agree that they had to.
I object to the cancel culture, root and branch, though.
It comes back to my position of trying to understand people, I think.
Understanding doesn't equal agreement. It doesn't even equal liking. But I think it is important.
I don't want or expect a GNU but I can see the appeal. It's the Starmer effect. I sense that many people deep down - including Conservative supporters - would rather he was in charge right now instead of Boris Johnson. Not because Boris is ailing, if anything that has shored up his position, but because Starmer makes you feel safe, which is what people are craving as the virus stalks the land. They do not want to be stimulated, either positively or negatively, they want to feel secure and looked after. I'm sure they realize - since people are not fools - that Starmer could only be Deputy PM in the GNU, with Boris staying nominally in charge, but that would probably suffice.
The other (more technical) point to note in favour of a GNU is that the GE mandate from Dec 12th last year has been effectively nullified. The Conservative majority was derived from two things - distaste for Jeremy Corbyn and a weariness with the Brexit debate. Both are now redundant. There is no Jeremy Corbyn and there is no Brexit debate. Indeed there is no Brexit and precious little appetite for that to change. So we have a government with no mandate but no practical possibility of a new election. A GNU does seem an elegant solution to this impasse. Combat the virus, that is the one and only task and it suits a GNU better than it does any one party. But anyway, whatever, it's not happening.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
If i was in a flat with a wife and kids and not allowed out.. i think i woild be seriously stressed in a v short time....
Totally agree. I was on here arguing it is madness to lockdown too soon because people wont stick it and indeed there will be massive mental health implications.
As a full time carer I know what spending vast amounts of time stuck at home is like, and I am lucky enough to have a garden and a huge book collection.
Yes, someone should write a book about the dynamics of lockdown (I'm sure they will). Living on my own, I find it fairly easy to adjust - I live in a small rented place, but there's plenty to do and, er, nobody telling me to do something else. Friends with partners and kids feel both more supported and more frustrated - the shared experience brings them closer together, yet the small irritations in almost any partnership assume much bigger importance. Mostly they say they're philosophical about it in the circs ("I'd rather be irritated than dead"), so I don't detect any great demand for restrictions to be lifted.
I think if you have space, are financially secure and have sufficient education to philosophise (in the positive sense) on the situation, then things are not bad. Not having COVID19 is also a bonus...
Sadly, there are many who do not have those things. One friend, for example, lives on her emotions - quite literally, and proud of it - she processes the world around her on feelings. Regards those who live by reasoning as "cold". She is having a terrible time of it.
The people for whom I am sorry are the teenagers. It's a time when they should be out experimenting socially, learning things about themselves and indeed pairing up, whether or not that pairing is permanent. I know it's probably (I sincerely hope) only going to be for a short time but a couple of months is eternity then. That's the case in my family, anyway.
I suppose the vaguely interesting element of some PB-ers' vitriolic and lunatic rantings against the BBC and "the media" is that just such rantings are being expressed word for word by Continuity Momentum in whatever forum they congregate in.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nobody is going to ignore the media. There are plenty on here who claim to despise Sky News and would glass Kay Burley given the chance but spend every day ragewatching it.
There's also plenty of us who have simply given up watching the utter inanity of the likes of Burley and Peston. We'll tune back in when they start using scientists to ask scientific questions of those in charge.
But I am against the cancel culture - and liking it just for your opponents it what feeds it.
I think her losing her political job was right, and inevitable as Starmer wants to take back control (Ha!) of the Labour party.
But to lose her actual job at a time like this? I can understand the position of a legal practise - they have the PR aspect of this to consider. But still...
Would you want to take legal advice from somebody whose outpourings are as ill-judged as this?
Her employers were within their rights to act as they have. Starmer was right to expel her. He'd be better advised to tell every member of the Labour Party to close down their Twitter account and come off Facebook.
The Corbyn Years will be looked upon in future years by the Hard Left as a Golden Age of Free Speech, when you could get away without sanction for posting your innermost anti-semitic, deeply unpleasant hate thoughts. The rest of us will just say thank God that they STFU.
you could see them trying to mythologise 2017 straight away
"had the campaign run another week, we would have won"
The other (more technical) point to note in favour of a GNU is that the GE mandate from Dec 12th last year has been effectively nullified.
That's rather a stupid argument, as it would imply that any time a government does really well at a GE, and the Opposition Leader resigns, they lose their mandate.
Why not have a dictated GE every time there's a new LOTO on that basis?
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Also, the shutdown remains a tightrope - the moment its authority is perceived to be over, people will ignore it. At that point, the choices the government have are much starker and, if they want to keep the shutdown going, it will have to get more severe in enforcement and punishment.
This weekend is important, just for how well things hold up when we really have 2, maybe 3 more weeks to this to go.
EDIT: I still can't see beyond that first May bank holiday.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
All sensible questions from the media.
perhaps, but timing is everything
They should all keep quiet until the govt says it's ok to ask questions?
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
24hrs to save the NHS might be replaced with 24 hrs to save the BBC by Labour .
The unstated assumption that Labour will support the BBC says a great deal...
The question is not supporting the BBC - it is that, in the age of trivial digital encryption, is the TV license still acceptable as a solution?
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
But I am against the cancel culture - and liking it just for your opponents it what feeds it.
I think her losing her political job was right, and inevitable as Starmer wants to take back control (Ha!) of the Labour party.
But to lose her actual job at a time like this? I can understand the position of a legal practise - they have the PR aspect of this to consider. But still...
Would you want to take legal advice from somebody whose outpourings are as ill-judged as this?
Her employers were within their rights to act as they have. Starmer was right to expel her. He'd be better advised to tell every member of the Labour Party to close down their Twitter account and come off Facebook.
The Corbyn Years will be looked upon in future years by the Hard Left as a Golden Age of Free Speech, when you could get away without sanction for posting your innermost anti-semitic, deeply unpleasant hate thoughts. The rest of us will just say thank God that they STFU.
you could see them trying to mythologise 2017 straight away
"had the campaign run another week, we would have won"
but it never was going to run another week … ?
Before dismissing 2017, reflect on 2019 which was won by Boris on Labour's 2017 platform. Boris is not a better version of Theresa May, he is a better Jeremy Corbyn.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nobody is going to ignore the media. There are plenty on here who claim to despise Sky News and would glass Kay Burley given the chance but spend every day ragewatching it.
You are just nasty.
I do not like Kay Burley but 'glass her'.
You are repulsive, an attention seeker, and too full of your own invective
Also, the shutdown remains a tightrope - the moment its authority is perceived to be over, people will ignore it. At that point, the choices the government have are much starker and, if they want to keep the shutdown going, it will have to get more severe in enforcement and punishment.
This weekend is important, just for how well things hold up when we really have 2, maybe 3 more weeks to this to go.
EDIT: I still can't see beyond that first May bank holiday.
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
But I am against the cancel culture - and liking it just for your opponents it what feeds it.
I think her losing her political job was right, and inevitable as Starmer wants to take back control (Ha!) of the Labour party.
But to lose her actual job at a time like this? I can understand the position of a legal practise - they have the PR aspect of this to consider. But still...
Would you want to take legal advice from somebody whose outpourings are as ill-judged as this?
Her employers were within their rights to act as they have. Starmer was right to expel her. He'd be better advised to tell every member of the Labour Party to close down their Twitter account and come off Facebook.
The Corbyn Years will be looked upon in future years by the Hard Left as a Golden Age of Free Speech, when you could get away without sanction for posting your innermost anti-semitic, deeply unpleasant hate thoughts. The rest of us will just say thank God that they STFU.
you could see them trying to mythologise 2017 straight away
"had the campaign run another week, we would have won"
but it never was going to run another week … ?
Before dismissing 2017, reflect on 2019 which was won by Boris on Labour's 2017 platform. Boris is not a better version of Theresa May, he is a better Jeremy Corbyn.
I don't think anyone is disputing that take out Corbyn and there is much to recommend Labour.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nobody is going to ignore the media. There are plenty on here who claim to despise Sky News and would glass Kay Burley given the chance but spend every day ragewatching it.
There's also plenty of us who have simply given up watching the utter inanity of the likes of Burley and Peston. We'll tune back in when they start using scientists to ask scientific questions of those in charge.
Why aren't the major networks using their science/maths journalists rather than the political bods.
I don't even think we can come out of lockdown before testing is ramped up massively. Even the USA seems to be scores ahead of us on that point.
The other (more technical) point to note in favour of a GNU is that the GE mandate from Dec 12th last year has been effectively nullified.
That's rather a stupid argument, as it would imply that any time a government does really well at a GE, and the Opposition Leader resigns, they lose their mandate.
Why not have a dictated GE every time there's a new LOTO on that basis?
Is it me, or is it WAY too soon for Italy or Spain to even think about relaxing the lockdown. China was in lockdown for months and months.
Isn't this thing just going to pick up again in case numbers?
I don't think it's really clear which aspects of the lockdown are effective. It's entirely possible that everyone could be locking themselves away in their flats to no useful purpose, and they could merrily shop and resume most jobs with no meaningful difference in virus spread, provided they stay away from crowded bars and places with shared equipment or poor ventilation. I don't think anyone really knows - hopefully as the lockdowns get relaxed or crumble of their own accord we'll see a bunch of different approaches, and enough testing to know which ones are working and which ones aren't before too many people are killed by the ones that aren't.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Raab is the de facto PM and has the authority to make decisions
The media tried to make a constitutional crisis out of nothing but that is par for the course for them
The grown up position is simply COBRA are the arbiters in all of this and of course they include all the experts plus the devolved nations first ministers and London mayor. They will make the recommendations, the cabinet will rubber stamp it, and Raab will implement it
It is all so clear and simple, but of course the media do not like an easy understood process and make themselves look ever so foolish by obscuring something that is easy to understand
Simples.........
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it..."
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
All sensible questions from the media.
perhaps, but timing is everything
They should all keep quiet until the govt says it's ok to ask questions?
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nobody is going to ignore the media. There are plenty on here who claim to despise Sky News and would glass Kay Burley given the chance but spend every day ragewatching it.
There's also plenty of us who have simply given up watching the utter inanity of the likes of Burley and Peston. We'll tune back in when they start using scientists to ask scientific questions of those in charge.
Why aren't the major networks using their science/maths journalists rather than the political bods.
I don't even think we can come out of lockdown before testing is ramped up massively. Even the USA seems to be scores ahead of us on that point.
The same reason that Jon Sopel was paid more than Carrie Gracie. For the media it is all about status.
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
I appreciate we would all do much better than these so-called "journalists" but whereas in our minds we would ask one, incisive, data-driven multi-variate regression model-relevant question that would so floor the politicians that they would have no option other than to collapse and answer with tearful gratitude at our perspicacity, in reality, the politicians can be devious little shits and often need the Route One treatment, loud and often.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Raab is the de facto PM and has the authority to make decisions
The media tried to make a constitutional crisis out of nothing but that is par for the course for them
The grown up position is simply COBRA are the arbiters in all of this and of course they include all the experts plus the devolved nations first ministers and London mayor. They will make the recommendations, the cabinet will rubber stamp it, and Raab will implement it
It is all so clear and simple, but of course the media do not like an easy understood process and make themselves look ever so foolish by obscuring something that is easy to understand
Simples.........
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it..."
I don't want or expect a GNU but I can see the appeal. It's the Starmer effect. I sense that many people deep down - including Conservative supporters - would rather he was in charge right now instead of Boris Johnson. Not because Boris is ailing, if anything that has shored up his position, but because Starmer makes you feel safe, which is what people are craving as the virus stalks the land. They do not want to be stimulated, either positively or negatively, they want to feel secure and looked after. I'm sure they realize - since people are not fools - that Starmer could only be Deputy PM in the GNU, with Boris staying nominally in charge, but that would probably suffice.
The other (more technical) point to note in favour of a GNU is that the GE mandate from Dec 12th last year has been effectively nullified. The Conservative majority was derived from two things - distaste for Jeremy Corbyn and a weariness with the Brexit debate. Both are now redundant. There is no Jeremy Corbyn and there is no Brexit debate. Indeed there is no Brexit and precious little appetite for that to change. So we have a government with no mandate but no practical possibility of a new election. A GNU does seem an elegant solution to this impasse. Combat the virus, that is the one and only task and it suits a GNU better than it does any one party. But anyway, whatever, it's not happening.
I suppose the vaguely interesting element of some PB-ers' vitriolic and lunatic rantings against the BBC and "the media" is that just such rantings are being expressed word for word by Continuity Momentum in whatever forum they congregate in.
Current critics of the media fall into two camps,
1) Those on the right who think we should have a loyal North Korean style media supportive of the government and uncritical of our dear leaders at this difficult time. 2) Those on the left who think that has already happened.
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
24hrs to save the NHS might be replaced with 24 hrs to save the BBC by Labour .
The unstated assumption that Labour will support the BBC says a great deal...
The question is not supporting the BBC - it is that, in the age of trivial digital encryption, is the TV license still acceptable as a solution?
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
Now *that* would have been a grand vision.
The amazing thing is that there's a huge market for the BBC's output in other countries, yet most of it is either not available at all, condensed onto one satellite channel or accessed through 'other' means in various expat communities. The occasional programme (Top Gear, Bake Off) makes it onto a local channel.
There would be a need to block out a few programmes (mostly live sport), but there's a global market of seven billion people for the iPlayer if they have the balls to offer it to everyone.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Raab is the de facto PM and has the authority to make decisions
The media tried to make a constitutional crisis out of nothing but that is par for the course for them
The grown up position is simply COBRA are the arbiters in all of this and of course they include all the experts plus the devolved nations first ministers and London mayor. They will make the recommendations, the cabinet will rubber stamp it, and Raab will implement it
It is all so clear and simple, but of course the media do not like an easy understood process and make themselves look ever so foolish by obscuring something that is easy to understand
Simples.........
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it..."
Do you agree that is the position or not
I agree that the vast majority of those criticising "the media" are doing so because they are frightened and clueless and want it all to go away without causing any trouble and please don't upset those in power because they are in power and therefore they are in power.
First relaxation in Spain on Tuesday next week with a range of workers being allowed to start work. Including construction and some domestic services I think.
Good for them - but their cases and deaths are dropping - the govt here just have to sit tight until that happens here - hopefully next week.
And don't get carried away. Spain may remain closed to tourists all summer, with the lockdown to contin ue for many months longer in many parts of the country and for those over 70. The clamour in the UK for those wanting an 'exit strategy' is largely based on a desire for 'news' and from some a desire to sow disunity. Exactly the same is happening here in Spain and I'm sure elsewhere.
I suppose the vaguely interesting element of some PB-ers' vitriolic and lunatic rantings against the BBC and "the media" is that just such rantings are being expressed word for word by Continuity Momentum in whatever forum they congregate in.
Current critics of the media fall into two camps,
1) Those on the right who think we should have a loyal North Korean style media supportive of the government and uncritical of our dear leaders at this difficult time. 2) Those on the left who think that has already happened.
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
I appreciate we would all do much better than these so-called "journalists" but whereas in our minds we would ask one, incisive, data-driven multi-variate regression model-relevant question that would so floor the politicians that they would have no option other than to collapse and answer with tearful gratitude at our perspicacity, in reality, the politicians can be devious little shits and often need the Route One treatment, loud and often.
My objection to the current style is that it is an easy ride for the politicians.
Consider if I asked you to speculate when you might go to the pub next. Answer is "I can't speculate because I don't know when the pubs will be open again."
No information gained by anyone.
Instead I ask - "Have you made any plans to go to the pub, when the lockdown lifts?" Answers "No", "Yes..." etc
So, for schools -
Soft question - "Can you speculate on whether schools may or may not open next term?"
Harder question - "If schools can't reopen for the next term - what plans have been made for remote learning / online classes?"
Completely off topic, but I don’t suppose HMQ will be anywhere near a gathering of loyal OAP’s collecting their Maundy Money today. IIRC that went on right through the War.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Raab is the de facto PM and has the authority to make decisions
The media tried to make a constitutional crisis out of nothing but that is par for the course for them
The grown up position is simply COBRA are the arbiters in all of this and of course they include all the experts plus the devolved nations first ministers and London mayor. They will make the recommendations, the cabinet will rubber stamp it, and Raab will implement it
It is all so clear and simple, but of course the media do not like an easy understood process and make themselves look ever so foolish by obscuring something that is easy to understand
Simples.........
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it..."
Do you agree that is the position or not
I agree that the vast majority of those criticising "the media" are doing so because they are frightened and clueless and want it all to go away without causing any trouble and please don't upset those in power because they are in power and therefore they are in power.
Sorry but that is nonsense and does not add to a serious issue
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
24hrs to save the NHS might be replaced with 24 hrs to save the BBC by Labour .
The unstated assumption that Labour will support the BBC says a great deal...
The question is not supporting the BBC - it is that, in the age of trivial digital encryption, is the TV license still acceptable as a solution?
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
Now *that* would have been a grand vision.
The amazing thing is that there's a huge market for the BBC's output in other countries, yet most of it is either not available at all, condensed onto one satellite channel or accessed through 'other' means in various expat communities. The occasional programme (Top Gear, Bake Off) makes it onto a local channel.
There would be a need to block out a few programmes (mostly live sport), but there's a global market of seven billion people for the iPlayer if they have the balls to offer it to everyone.
Because of cost savings the BBC when it commissions programmes cannot afford to buy the international rights. It wanted to develop its international offering, but the government stopped it. 🤷♂️
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nobody is going to ignore the media. There are plenty on here who claim to despise Sky News and would glass Kay Burley given the chance but spend every day ragewatching it.
There's also plenty of us who have simply given up watching the utter inanity of the likes of Burley and Peston. We'll tune back in when they start using scientists to ask scientific questions of those in charge.
Why aren't the major networks using their science/maths journalists rather than the political bods.
I don't even think we can come out of lockdown before testing is ramped up massively. Even the USA seems to be scores ahead of us on that point.
I've been asking that for weeks now!
There's plenty of good questions that could be asked by the journalists, that would add to our knowledge and understanding of the situation, but instead they're asking the most stupid questions and trying to 'gotcha' people.
The wider issue is that the poor media reporting risks undermining public confidence in the ongoing lockdown, with potentially disastrous consequences.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nobody is going to ignore the media. There are plenty on here who claim to despise Sky News and would glass Kay Burley given the chance but spend every day ragewatching it.
There's also plenty of us who have simply given up watching the utter inanity of the likes of Burley and Peston. We'll tune back in when they start using scientists to ask scientific questions of those in charge.
Why aren't the major networks using their science/maths journalists rather than the political bods.
I don't even think we can come out of lockdown before testing is ramped up massively. Even the USA seems to be scores ahead of us on that point.
Yeah, bring those lights out from under the bushel: out with Laura K, in with David Schukman out with Robert P, in with Tom Clarke out with Beth R, in with Thomas Moore.
Completely off topic, but I don’t suppose HMQ will be anywhere near a gathering of loyal OAP’s collecting their Maundy Money today. IIRC that went on right through the War.
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
I appreciate we would all do much better than these so-called "journalists" but whereas in our minds we would ask one, incisive, data-driven multi-variate regression model-relevant question that would so floor the politicians that they would have no option other than to collapse and answer with tearful gratitude at our perspicacity, in reality, the politicians can be devious little shits and often need the Route One treatment, loud and often.
My objection to the current style is that it is an easy ride for the politicians.
Consider if I asked you to speculate when you might go to the pub next. Answer is "I can't speculate because I don't know when the pubs will be open again."
No information gained by anyone.
Instead I ask - "Have you made any plans to go to the pub, when the lockdown lifts?" Answers "No", "Yes..." etc
So, for schools -
Soft question - "Can you speculate on whether schools may or may not open next term?"
Harder question - "If schools can't reopen for the next term - what plans have been made for remote learning / online classes?"
And this is the case on practically every front.
The answer to the first question is "yes, I wish to be one of the first through the door, supporting my local pub. repeatedly".
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
I appreciate we would all do much better than these so-called "journalists" but whereas in our minds we would ask one, incisive, data-driven multi-variate regression model-relevant question that would so floor the politicians that they would have no option other than to collapse and answer with tearful gratitude at our perspicacity, in reality, the politicians can be devious little shits and often need the Route One treatment, loud and often.
My objection to the current style is that it is an easy ride for the politicians.
Consider if I asked you to speculate when you might go to the pub next. Answer is "I can't speculate because I don't know when the pubs will be open again."
No information gained by anyone.
Instead I ask - "Have you made any plans to go to the pub, when the lockdown lifts?" Answers "No", "Yes..." etc
So, for schools -
Soft question - "Can you speculate on whether schools may or may not open next term?"
Harder question - "If schools can't reopen for the next term - what plans have been made for remote learning / online classes?"
As we all know from endless 8.10am sessions on R4 over the past thirty years, politicians are wily buggers and will obfuscate, divert, and generally not only not answer the questions, but ask themselves the questions they say you should have asked and then go on to answer those questions instead.
As to your point of the "get out of that" harder question, yes of course it would be great to have such a dialogue with the politicians, but the journalists are also aware that they need to chip away rather than go for a gotcha. The gotcha comes after plenty of chipping although that chipping may seem not like the gradual creation of a sculptural form, but just mindless and unimportant trivia.
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
24hrs to save the NHS might be replaced with 24 hrs to save the BBC by Labour .
The unstated assumption that Labour will support the BBC says a great deal...
The question is not supporting the BBC - it is that, in the age of trivial digital encryption, is the TV license still acceptable as a solution?
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
Now *that* would have been a grand vision.
The amazing thing is that there's a huge market for the BBC's output in other countries, yet most of it is either not available at all, condensed onto one satellite channel or accessed through 'other' means in various expat communities. The occasional programme (Top Gear, Bake Off) makes it onto a local channel.
There would be a need to block out a few programmes (mostly live sport), but there's a global market of seven billion people for the iPlayer if they have the balls to offer it to everyone.
There are a ton of BBC and other UK programmes shown on the Spanish networks - you just have to change the language from the Spanish dub back to English.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
24hrs to save the NHS might be replaced with 24 hrs to save the BBC by Labour .
The unstated assumption that Labour will support the BBC says a great deal...
The question is not supporting the BBC - it is that, in the age of trivial digital encryption, is the TV license still acceptable as a solution?
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
Now *that* would have been a grand vision.
The amazing thing is that there's a huge market for the BBC's output in other countries, yet most of it is either not available at all, condensed onto one satellite channel or accessed through 'other' means in various expat communities. The occasional programme (Top Gear, Bake Off) makes it onto a local channel.
There would be a need to block out a few programmes (mostly live sport), but there's a global market of seven billion people for the iPlayer if they have the balls to offer it to everyone.
Because of cost savings the BBC when it commissions programmes cannot afford to buy the international rights. It wanted to develop its international offering, but the government stopped it. 🤷♂️
What has happened for a long time is this
- The BBC commissions a program. The production company puts in a bill that covers the cost of the program, in return for the UK rights. - The BBC pays, and the company makes a small profit. - The company then flogs the program on the international market as a "BBC" program - Trebles in the boardroom - Given the incestuous nature of the arts/media "complex" - the relationships between BBC staff and the production companies seem quite... err... tangled. Not corrupt, but definitely jobs for people in The Thing. Lots of people moving backward and forward between the BBC and the commercial world.
I wonder if we can reasonably hope that Boris will be moved out of intensive care back to normal hospotal over the next day or so. The analysis of ICU outcomes, although limited only to the extreme outcomes (recovering rapidly or dying rapidly) did indicate that if you were on the less-ill end of the population moved into ICU, the median time for recovery was 4 days. We've had indications that they are being very careful and Boris is fairly likely to be in that less-ill end of those moved into ICU. Of course, their caution on the precautionary end may lead them to keep him in still longer, but there could feasibly be good news over the Easter Weekend on the Boris front, I guess.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Raab is the de facto PM and has the authority to make decisions
The media tried to make a constitutional crisis out of nothing but that is par for the course for them
The grown up position is simply COBRA are the arbiters in all of this and of course they include all the experts plus the devolved nations first ministers and London mayor. They will make the recommendations, the cabinet will rubber stamp it, and Raab will implement it
It is all so clear and simple, but of course the media do not like an easy understood process and make themselves look ever so foolish by obscuring something that is easy to understand
Simples.........
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it..."
Do you agree that is the position or not
I agree that the vast majority of those criticising "the media" are doing so because they are frightened and clueless and want it all to go away without causing any trouble and please don't upset those in power because they are in power and therefore they are in power.
Sorry but that is nonsense and does not add to a serious issue
Having read all Big G posts on the subject he is absolutely right. These daily briefings, both sides of the pond, just become political game playing by the political units in stations and organs, but we the people just want something informative.
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
24hrs to save the NHS might be replaced with 24 hrs to save the BBC by Labour .
The unstated assumption that Labour will support the BBC says a great deal...
The question is not supporting the BBC - it is that, in the age of trivial digital encryption, is the TV license still acceptable as a solution?
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
Now *that* would have been a grand vision.
The amazing thing is that there's a huge market for the BBC's output in other countries, yet most of it is either not available at all, condensed onto one satellite channel or accessed through 'other' means in various expat communities. The occasional programme (Top Gear, Bake Off) makes it onto a local channel.
There would be a need to block out a few programmes (mostly live sport), but there's a global market of seven billion people for the iPlayer if they have the balls to offer it to everyone.
There are a ton of BBC and other UK programmes shown on the Spanish networks - you just have to change the language from the Spanish dub back to English.
That's one big advantage of digital TV, that it's now possible to offer multiple audio tracks on a programme. I remember when I was in Spain a couple of decades ago chasing down V.O. (original audio, usually subtitled) movies in cinemas, to avoid the dubbed versions in most of the multiplexes.
I wonder if we can reasonably hope that Boris will be moved out of intensive care back to normal hospotal over the next day or so. The analysis of ICU outcomes, although limited only to the extreme outcomes (recovering rapidly or dying rapidly) did indicate that if you were on the less-ill end of the population moved into ICU, the median time for recovery was 4 days. We've had indications that they are being very careful and Boris is fairly likely to be in that less-ill end of those moved into ICU. Of course, their caution on the precautionary end may lead them to keep him in still longer, but there could feasibly be good news over the Easter Weekend on the Boris front, I guess.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
I appreciate we would all do much better than these so-called "journalists" but whereas in our minds we would ask one, incisive, data-driven multi-variate regression model-relevant question that would so floor the politicians that they would have no option other than to collapse and answer with tearful gratitude at our perspicacity, in reality, the politicians can be devious little shits and often need the Route One treatment, loud and often.
My objection to the current style is that it is an easy ride for the politicians.
Consider if I asked you to speculate when you might go to the pub next. Answer is "I can't speculate because I don't know when the pubs will be open again."
No information gained by anyone.
Instead I ask - "Have you made any plans to go to the pub, when the lockdown lifts?" Answers "No", "Yes..." etc
So, for schools -
Soft question - "Can you speculate on whether schools may or may not open next term?"
Harder question - "If schools can't reopen for the next term - what plans have been made for remote learning / online classes?"
As we all know from endless 8.10am sessions on R4 over the past thirty years, politicians are wily buggers and will obfuscate, divert, and generally not only not answer the questions, but ask themselves the questions they say you should have asked and then go on to answer those questions instead.
As to your point of the "get out of that" harder question, yes of course it would be great to have such a dialogue with the politicians, but the journalists are also aware that they need to chip away rather than go for a gotcha. The gotcha comes after plenty of chipping although that chipping may seem not like the gradual creation of a sculptural form, but just mindless and unimportant trivia.
To butcher a few analogies.
If they are going to chip away - simply repeating the question in the hope that someone will slip, use one word differently, and that can be the story... Not much value in that.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
In an evolving situation with known unknowns a control engineer might recommend an error correction mechanism. That is to say a feedback loop: policy -> effect -> discrepancy from target -> adjustment of policy The opposition's role is to highlight the policy error, and the government's is to adjust the policy. To be effective the opposition must be separate and critical.
I wonder if we can reasonably hope that Boris will be moved out of intensive care back to normal hospotal over the next day or so. The analysis of ICU outcomes, although limited only to the extreme outcomes (recovering rapidly or dying rapidly) did indicate that if you were on the less-ill end of the population moved into ICU, the median time for recovery was 4 days. We've had indications that they are being very careful and Boris is fairly likely to be in that less-ill end of those moved into ICU. Of course, their caution on the precautionary end may lead them to keep him in still longer, but there could feasibly be good news over the Easter Weekend on the Boris front, I guess.
Easter Sunday...he will be risen.
The prospect of a Bunny at Easter should get him out and about.
I wonder if the pandemic will prove to be what stops the BBC from being attacked by the government.
Given the shockingly poor performance by the BBC, I think it only delays the inevitable. The BBC had the choice to become a proper public service broadcaster, and flunked it.
Regardless of what people think of the BBC for many it’s more trusted than any other resource.
Anecdotally the BBC is treated no different (i.e. held in equal contempt) as any other media source. The BBC is the only one we are forced by law to pay for.
24hrs to save the NHS might be replaced with 24 hrs to save the BBC by Labour .
The unstated assumption that Labour will support the BBC says a great deal...
The question is not supporting the BBC - it is that, in the age of trivial digital encryption, is the TV license still acceptable as a solution?
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
Now *that* would have been a grand vision.
The amazing thing is that there's a huge market for the BBC's output in other countries, yet most of it is either not available at all, condensed onto one satellite channel or accessed through 'other' means in various expat communities. The occasional programme (Top Gear, Bake Off) makes it onto a local channel.
There would be a need to block out a few programmes (mostly live sport), but there's a global market of seven billion people for the iPlayer if they have the balls to offer it to everyone.
There are a ton of BBC and other UK programmes shown on the Spanish networks - you just have to change the language from the Spanish dub back to English.
That's one big advantage of digital TV, that it's now possible to offer multiple audio tracks on a programme. I remember when I was in Spain a couple of decades ago chasing down V.O. (original audio, usually subtitled) movies in cinemas, to avoid the dubbed versions in most of the multiplexes.
Fund it from taxation, like DW and our very own World Service.
That reduces the annual cost to about £100 per household because the admin costs drop to near-zero and we all pay, including those like me who only use R3 and R4.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
I thought collective responsibility wasn't about unanimity in decisions making / discussion, but agreeing to be unanimous with the *result* of the decision making?
There are plenty of accounts, over the years, of free and frank discussions around the cabinet table.
"The chief constable of Northamptonshire Police, Nick Adderley, has said the force will now ramp up the enforcement of coronavirus regulations.
Adderley said the “three-week grace period is over”, and people in the county could now face fines or a criminal record.
According to the police chief, a small number of people had been flouting the regulations - with some officers being “baited” by members of the public.
He said the force may have to resort to more extreme measures such as road blocks and searching shopping trolleys should people continue to break the rules."
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Not to mention the behavioural scientists that warned how quickly people would get fed up with lock down & were rubbished.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Media are still losing their collective minds over this, more than any other group of people they are having a terrible crisis - and still don't realise it, probably won't until this is all over and they're left talking only to each other in their little echo chamber, while the rest of us have them on ignore.
Nah the media have been instrumental at key moments. In particular, they helped turn the government away from its initial herd immunity approach.
Today the key question the government needs to answer is what is the exit strategy. The government can’t answer it, because we don’t have an exit strategy. But the media must keep pressing the question.
So lets just try and get some facts here.
Neill Ferguson has a model he created 13 years ago. It isn't really fit for purpose, but it was the best thing we had. Not just trusted by the UK, but the US as well.
Using initial data from China, it spat out some finding, which the government advisors based their initial strategy. It is fairly clear China have fiddled the figures (and the model isn't as good as is needed).
Then new data started to emerge, especially from Italy, rerunning the model, it was this updated output stated that the initial strategy would result in twice as many hospitalization and totally crash the system. That resulted in a total change of strategy by the government.
Now, ending the lockdown and our future, we can't do this without much more and improved data and far more sophisticated modelling.
1) Data
The government put a lot of faith in being able to deploy these antibody tests. They have given millions to a British company, who haven't got very far and also tried buying them from China, who yet again, have been found to be billy bullshitting. Porton Down can accurately do the antibody tests, but that is very different from doing it at scale.
Then we come to how are we going to contact trace in the future. Is this app really going to be voluntary (that seems a bad idea to me). Are we going to go the South Korea route and allow government spying? If so, to what extent? What about forced isolation and systems which prevent those affected from using public transport etc.
2) Modelling
We need much improved system to do this. There is work beginning on this, but it will take time. There are masses of questions surrounding this that could and should be raised.
The demands of minute by minute updates by the media, literally every day now asking the same numb nut question of when to the second the lockdown will end aren't doing their job at all.
If they did some reading and some research, they would know there isn't a straight answer to this. Instead, if they want to do their job, challenge the government, they should be focusing on asking questions to the two sections I raised above.
These are hugely challenging and also include many very difficult ethical decisions. If the government screw these up, it could be far worse than any decision taken so far.
On the invisibility of Priti Patel - it does look as if she is being kept away from, or avoiding, scrutiny during the crisis. Her exchange of letters with Yvette Cooper re. appearance at the Select Committee is pretty (!) extraordinary: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/publications/3/correspondence/ Her reluctance to appear before the Committee smacks of arrogance, fear that she may not perform well under detailed questioning, or both. It is also odd that she has not featured at any of the daily press conferences yet (as far as I know), although more junior ministers (Jenrick, Sharma) have. If there were a book on it, I'd have her down as the first Cabinet sacking once the crisis dies down - I don't think she's up to the job, and suspect Boris and others know this.
I wonder if we can reasonably hope that Boris will be moved out of intensive care back to normal hospotal over the next day or so. The analysis of ICU outcomes, although limited only to the extreme outcomes (recovering rapidly or dying rapidly) did indicate that if you were on the less-ill end of the population moved into ICU, the median time for recovery was 4 days. We've had indications that they are being very careful and Boris is fairly likely to be in that less-ill end of those moved into ICU. Of course, their caution on the precautionary end may lead them to keep him in still longer, but there could feasibly be good news over the Easter Weekend on the Boris front, I guess.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
Roll forward six months. Imagine the Prime Minister has neither died nor recovered sufficiently to resume his duties. Britain has neither a Prime Minister in reality nor any person taking responsibility for decisions. Who resigns if the government fails? How is that person replaced?
That is the position today. Who does the buck stop with, if that is not an obsolete idea? Because as of right now the answer is no one.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
Roll forward six months. Imagine the Prime Minister has neither died nor recovered sufficiently to resume his duties. Britain has neither a Prime Minister in reality nor any person taking responsibility for decisions. Who resigns if the government fails? How is that person replaced?
That is the position today. Who does the buck stop with, if that is not an obsolete idea? Because as of right now the answer is no one.
I thought Raab hinted that it was himself in the present circumstance, not sure why he can't just make it clear mind.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Not to mention the behavioural scientists that warned how quickly people would get fed up with lock down & were rubbished.
The media is pathetic.
Absolutely right. I struggle to think of a single journalist covering this who has been anything other than poor. It is all about the journalist themselves and all about trying to trip the government up to feed the 24 hour news cycle and the hacks ego. PPE is the latest. The article on BBC Breakfast news was appalling and merely seems to stoke up fear in our health staff. I guess the press won't be happy until everyone is in a Hazmat suit.
The bruising Peston received from the Deputy CMO was marvellous and thoroughly deserved yet from Peston's twitter feed he was the victim.
Allowing hacks, or idiots with big mouths like Piers Morgan, to drive policy is insane.
The main problem we have is this is being largely covered by political journalists not science journalists.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
Roll forward six months. Imagine the Prime Minister has neither died nor recovered sufficiently to resume his duties. Britain has neither a Prime Minister in reality nor any person taking responsibility for decisions. Who resigns if the government fails? How is that person replaced?
That is the position today. Who does the buck stop with, if that is not an obsolete idea? Because as of right now the answer is no one.
I thought Raab hinted that it was himself in the present circumstance, not sure why he can't just make it clear mind.
The country is entitled to more than a hint as to who takes responsibility just now.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
I appreciate we would all do much better than these so-called "journalists" but whereas in our minds we would ask one, incisive, data-driven multi-variate regression model-relevant question that would so floor the politicians that they would have no option other than to collapse and answer with tearful gratitude at our perspicacity, in reality, the politicians can be devious little shits and often need the Route One treatment, loud and often.
My objection to the current style is that it is an easy ride for the politicians.
Consider if I asked you to speculate when you might go to the pub next. Answer is "I can't speculate because I don't know when the pubs will be open again."
No information gained by anyone.
Instead I ask - "Have you made any plans to go to the pub, when the lockdown lifts?" Answers "No", "Yes..." etc
So, for schools -
Soft question - "Can you speculate on whether schools may or may not open next term?"
Harder question - "If schools can't reopen for the next term - what plans have been made for remote learning / online classes?"
As we all know from endless 8.10am sessions on R4 over the past thirty years, politicians are wily buggers and will obfuscate, divert, and generally not only not answer the questions, but ask themselves the questions they say you should have asked and then go on to answer those questions instead.
As to your point of the "get out of that" harder question, yes of course it would be great to have such a dialogue with the politicians, but the journalists are also aware that they need to chip away rather than go for a gotcha. The gotcha comes after plenty of chipping although that chipping may seem not like the gradual creation of a sculptural form, but just mindless and unimportant trivia.
To butcher a few analogies.
If they are going to chip away - simply repeating the question in the hope that someone will slip, use one word differently, and that can be the story... Not much value in that.
Tie people down with asking factual questions.
It's a one-shot strategy with nowhere to go when the question isn't answered. Or answered in an unsatisfactory way. Chipping = accumulating evidence that can be used to corner the politician and leave them nowhere to run. The factual gotcha questions are a maginot line.
I wonder if we can reasonably hope that Boris will be moved out of intensive care back to normal hospotal over the next day or so. The analysis of ICU outcomes, although limited only to the extreme outcomes (recovering rapidly or dying rapidly) did indicate that if you were on the less-ill end of the population moved into ICU, the median time for recovery was 4 days. We've had indications that they are being very careful and Boris is fairly likely to be in that less-ill end of those moved into ICU. Of course, their caution on the precautionary end may lead them to keep him in still longer, but there could feasibly be good news over the Easter Weekend on the Boris front, I guess.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Not to mention the behavioural scientists that warned how quickly people would get fed up with lock down & were rubbished.
The media is pathetic.
Absolutely right. I struggle to think of a single journalist covering this who has been anything other than poor. It is all about the journalist themselves and all about trying to trip the government up to feed the 24 hour news cycle and the hacks ego. PPE is the latest. The article on BBC Breakfast news was appalling and merely seems to stoke up fear in our health staff. I guess the press won't be happy until everyone is in a Hazmat suit.
The bruising Peston received from the Deputy CMO was marvellous and thoroughly deserved yet from Peston's twitter feed he was the victim.
Allowing hacks, or idiots with big mouths like Piers Morgan, to drive policy is insane.
The main problem we have is this is being largely covered by political journalists not science journalists.
The only one I would suggest who might have not disgraced himself is Andrew Neil. I was impressed with him doing his own research into the German low death results and announcing as a result that he had been wrong in his assumptions. Showed some old fashioned integrity.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
The chain of command is PM -> Defence Council -> CDS -> Armed Forces.
Finally the govt realises work must go on and Raab will be chairing a review into the lockdown.
As more sensible PB-ers advocated yesterday as others told us not to worry our pretty little heads about the democratic process.
I believe the point was that the situation is under constant review in any case in response to official advice but it was very unlikely any major decision was needed asl the lockdown is almost certainly not going to be relaxed right now, therefore it would not matter over much if a review was delayed.
Conversely I remember making the point that if an urgent decision was needed on anything Raab and the cabinet could do it, and what do you know it turns out they can when others were saying the alternative arrangements could not possibly work.
So I'm not sure what point you think you've made. You didn't need to worry about the democratic process as this decision shows it's working fine. The point about a review being delayed or not is separate and unless relaxation is imminent the point was it didnt matter if it was deferred a little, but again those saying Raab and co could make the call if needed were absolutely right and those flapping in a panic about non existent constitutional concerns were wrong.
Raab is the de facto PM and has the authority to make decisions
The media tried to make a constitutional crisis out of nothing but that is par for the course for them
The grown up position is simply COBRA are the arbiters in all of this and of course they include all the experts plus the devolved nations first ministers and London mayor. They will make the recommendations, the cabinet will rubber stamp it, and Raab will implement it
It is all so clear and simple, but of course the media do not like an easy understood process and make themselves look ever so foolish by obscuring something that is easy to understand
Simples.........
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it..."
Do you agree that is the position or not
I agree that the vast majority of those criticising "the media" are doing so because they are frightened and clueless and want it all to go away without causing any trouble and please don't upset those in power because they are in power and therefore they are in power.
Sorry but that is nonsense and does not add to a serious issue
Having read all Big G posts on the subject he is absolutely right. These daily briefings, both sides of the pond, just become political game playing by the political units in stations and organs, but we the people just want something informative.
Can I suggest those (rightly, in my view) bewailing the dire questions from journalists at the Number 10 briefings (in fairness, some of the WhiteHouse questions are pretty good, trouble is we've got loony-in-chief answering them) watch the Sturgeon briefings - the Scottish journalists in general ask simple tough questions, which even the UK's most polished political operator sometimes struggles with.
This is getting more bonkers by the day. Media now screaming: tell us how the lockdown will end, when will it end, why can't you tell us when it will end.
Two weeks ago: screaming - why are we not locked down now, why are we still allowed to go out of our houses, you must lock us all down now.
I hope it will be recalled that the experts and Johnson and co, warned that we shouldn't start it too soon, because would get fed up of it after a few weeks.
Not to mention the behavioural scientists that warned how quickly people would get fed up with lock down & were rubbished.
The media is pathetic.
Absolutely right. I struggle to think of a single journalist covering this who has been anything other than poor. It is all about the journalist themselves and all about trying to trip the government up to feed the 24 hour news cycle and the hacks ego. PPE is the latest. The article on BBC Breakfast news was appalling and merely seems to stoke up fear in our health staff. I guess the press won't be happy until everyone is in a Hazmat suit.
The bruising Peston received from the Deputy CMO was marvellous and thoroughly deserved yet from Peston's twitter feed he was the victim.
Allowing hacks, or idiots with big mouths like Piers Morgan, to drive policy is insane.
The main problem we have is this is being largely covered by political journalists not science journalists.
What we actually need is people with scientific backgrounds asking questions of the scientists. We have the egg-heads up there every day and it is always the political journalists playing the same silly political games.
What is the point of having the egg-heads take an hour out of their extremely busy and crucial schedule, if the press don't use that opportunity to gain scientific information from them.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
Roll forward six months. Imagine the Prime Minister has neither died nor recovered sufficiently to resume his duties. Britain has neither a Prime Minister in reality nor any person taking responsibility for decisions. Who resigns if the government fails? How is that person replaced?
That is the position today. Who does the buck stop with, if that is not an obsolete idea? Because as of right now the answer is no one.
I don`t think it could go on for anything like six months. I`d say a month, tops. Then there would either need to be either a temporary PM or a new Tory leader.
Hopefully we`ll see Johnson back well before this is necessary though.
I don't want or expect a GNU but I can see the appeal. It's the Starmer effect. I sense that many people deep down - including Conservative supporters - would rather he was in charge right now instead of Boris Johnson. Not because Boris is ailing, if anything that has shored up his position, but because Starmer makes you feel safe, which is what people are craving as the virus stalks the land. They do not want to be stimulated, either positively or negatively, they want to feel secure and looked after. I'm sure they realize - since people are not fools - that Starmer could only be Deputy PM in the GNU, with Boris staying nominally in charge, but that would probably suffice.
The other (more technical) point to note in favour of a GNU is that the GE mandate from Dec 12th last year has been effectively nullified. The Conservative majority was derived from two things - distaste for Jeremy Corbyn and a weariness with the Brexit debate. Both are now redundant. There is no Jeremy Corbyn and there is no Brexit debate. Indeed there is no Brexit and precious little appetite for that to change. So we have a government with no mandate but no practical possibility of a new election. A GNU does seem an elegant solution to this impasse. Combat the virus, that is the one and only task and it suits a GNU better than it does any one party. But anyway, whatever, it's not happening.
Brexit happened on January 31st if you were asleep that day
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
Because the media focused on this yesterday. Why even on PB yesterday morning we were questioning what the process was with Johnson out of action.
Otherwise nothing would have happened and to answer your question, for you yes it does seem quite difficult to understand.
I don't see the need for a unity government but the Opposition should be involved to the extent of having open access to all expert briefings and access as required to the ministers that they are shadowing. Parliament was eventually closed after a frightening number of them got the virus but the government still needs to be held to account, challenged by different points of view and made to address awkward facts. This needs to be done more one to one at the moment but it also needs to be done on an informed basis.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
The government is refusing point blank to discuss how it is even making decisions just now. The idea that different questions will elicit answers with any meaning when it is so contemptuous of being held to account and so readily supported by gullible followers is fanciful.
But they have. Cabinet are meeting and cabinet are making decisions.
Collective responsibility is a polite fiction not a decision-making process. Unless you believe that all decisions are inevitably unanimous because no other decision could be reached on the evidence.
Whose finger is on the button?
Raab through Cobra.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
Roll forward six months. Imagine the Prime Minister has neither died nor recovered sufficiently to resume his duties. Britain has neither a Prime Minister in reality nor any person taking responsibility for decisions. Who resigns if the government fails? How is that person replaced?
That is the position today. Who does the buck stop with, if that is not an obsolete idea? Because as of right now the answer is no one.
With respect Alastair this is a fast moving day by day crisis and the immediate question is over lockdown and extending it
That is a Cobra decision and will happen today or tomorrow
Of course if Boris is unable to return a new leader will be elected by the conservative party if that is required, but it is hypothetical at this moment in time
End of the lockdown has to be based on the medical situation, not the calendar.
An artificial timetable will only placate the screeching harpies for a moment before they find something else to shriek about. It would then either be met, by chance, or not, which means that they'd complain they were lied to, or somesuch nonsense.
We aren't even past the peak yet. Ending a lockdown when deaths are rising by nearly a thousand a day would be bloody stupid, and it's obvious to anyone who pauses for half a moment to think.
Comments
Her employers were within their rights to act as they have. Starmer was right to expel her. He'd be better advised to tell every member of the Labour Party to close down their Twitter account and come off Facebook.
The Corbyn Years will be looked upon in future years by the Hard Left as a Golden Age of Free Speech, when you could get away without sanction for posting your innermost anti-semitic, deeply unpleasant hate thoughts. The rest of us will just say thank God that they STFU.
Do you honestly think that given the chance and with no scrutiny they wouldn't have deferred to next week?
Bless.
Sadly, there are many who do not have those things. One friend, for example, lives on her emotions - quite literally, and proud of it - she processes the world around her on feelings. Regards those who live by reasoning as "cold". She is having a terrible time of it.
I object to the cancel culture, root and branch, though.
It comes back to my position of trying to understand people, I think.
Understanding doesn't equal agreement. It doesn't even equal liking. But I think it is important.
The other (more technical) point to note in favour of a GNU is that the GE mandate from Dec 12th last year has been effectively nullified. The Conservative majority was derived from two things - distaste for Jeremy Corbyn and a weariness with the Brexit debate. Both are now redundant. There is no Jeremy Corbyn and there is no Brexit debate. Indeed there is no Brexit and precious little appetite for that to change. So we have a government with no mandate but no practical possibility of a new election. A GNU does seem an elegant solution to this impasse. Combat the virus, that is the one and only task and it suits a GNU better than it does any one party. But anyway, whatever, it's not happening.
That's the case in my family, anyway.
No gnus is good gnus.
"had the campaign run another week, we would have won"
but it never was going to run another week … ?
Why not have a dictated GE every time there's a new LOTO on that basis?
This weekend is important, just for how well things hold up when we really have 2, maybe 3 more weeks to this to go.
EDIT: I still can't see beyond that first May bank holiday.
Did you know that scrambling BBC TV was proposed? The current system was only implemented because the scrambling technology at the time was easily breakable. That has been fixed.
When TV went digital, a chap at the BBC was very proud that he had amended the spec for digital receivers for the UK - instead of mandating that every receiver would support encryption, it allowed ones that didn't.
He was proud because that would mean that there would be some TVs/boxes that couldn't receive am encrypted broadcast. Which in turn meant that the BBC was "safe" from the lIcense fee being replaced with encryption.
The license fee is an accident of the history of technology that has become a totem. Who thinks that clogging up the courts with license fee cases makes any sense?
If the BBC has had the guts to grasp the nettle, get control of the world wide rights to the content they pay for (!), go encrypted... Studies suggested that in the US alone there would be enough paying subscribers to exceed the current license fee...
Which opens an interesting possibility - The BBC. Free to UK nationals. Paid for by foreigners - willingly.
Now *that* would have been a grand vision.
I do not like Kay Burley but 'glass her'.
You are repulsive, an attention seeker, and too full of your own invective
The issue is the quality of the questions. How do you manage forensic scrutiny when all you ask is 'Has Boris shit the bed yet?" over and over again. Or even worse, show that counting your own fingers is an intellectual mountain.
I don't even think we can come out of lockdown before testing is ramped up massively. Even the USA seems to be scores ahead of us on that point.
-_-
1) Those on the right who think we should have a loyal North Korean style media supportive of the government and uncritical of our dear leaders at this difficult time.
2) Those on the left who think that has already happened.
There would be a need to block out a few programmes (mostly live sport), but there's a global market of seven billion people for the iPlayer if they have the balls to offer it to everyone.
Italian deaths total by 25th March = 7,503, cases = 57,521
UK deaths total by 8th April = 7,097, cases = 60,733
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Consider if I asked you to speculate when you might go to the pub next. Answer is "I can't speculate because I don't know when the pubs will be open again."
No information gained by anyone.
Instead I ask - "Have you made any plans to go to the pub, when the lockdown lifts?" Answers "No", "Yes..." etc
So, for schools -
Soft question - "Can you speculate on whether schools may or may not open next term?"
Harder question - "If schools can't reopen for the next term - what plans have been made for remote learning / online classes?"
IIRC that went on right through the War.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
There's plenty of good questions that could be asked by the journalists, that would add to our knowledge and understanding of the situation, but instead they're asking the most stupid questions and trying to 'gotcha' people.
The wider issue is that the poor media reporting risks undermining public confidence in the ongoing lockdown, with potentially disastrous consequences.
out with Laura K, in with David Schukman
out with Robert P, in with Tom Clarke
out with Beth R, in with Thomas Moore.
The answer to the first question is "yes, I wish to be one of the first through the door, supporting my local pub. repeatedly".
As to your point of the "get out of that" harder question, yes of course it would be great to have such a dialogue with the politicians, but the journalists are also aware that they need to chip away rather than go for a gotcha. The gotcha comes after plenty of chipping although that chipping may seem not like the gradual creation of a sculptural form, but just mindless and unimportant trivia.
To butcher a few analogies.
This need is all the more urgent given the lamentable performance by the Westminster press pack. Why they are still giving questions to people who may (or may not) know about politics but who seem essentially innumerate and unable to grasp the clear explanations being presented by the experts is beyond me. Surely the media employ some people with science degrees?
This government has made and will continue to make mistakes. Frankly, if they are not making mistakes they are not moving nearly fast enough. The priority is to spot and correct those mistakes early. An opposition led by someone with a brain can assist with that. Its a really important role.
- The BBC commissions a program. The production company puts in a bill that covers the cost of the program, in return for the UK rights.
- The BBC pays, and the company makes a small profit.
- The company then flogs the program on the international market as a "BBC" program
- Trebles in the boardroom
- Given the incestuous nature of the arts/media "complex" - the relationships between BBC staff and the production companies seem quite... err... tangled. Not corrupt, but definitely jobs for people in The Thing. Lots of people moving backward and forward between the BBC and the commercial world.
The analysis of ICU outcomes, although limited only to the extreme outcomes (recovering rapidly or dying rapidly) did indicate that if you were on the less-ill end of the population moved into ICU, the median time for recovery was 4 days. We've had indications that they are being very careful and Boris is fairly likely to be in that less-ill end of those moved into ICU. Of course, their caution on the precautionary end may lead them to keep him in still longer, but there could feasibly be good news over the Easter Weekend on the Boris front, I guess.
https://twitter.com/AdamRutherford/status/1248166383067828226?s=20
https://twitter.com/iealondon/status/1248170773602349056?s=21
Tie people down with asking factual questions.
Whose finger is on the button?
policy -> effect -> discrepancy from target -> adjustment of policy
The opposition's role is to highlight the policy error, and the government's is to adjust the policy. To be effective the opposition must be separate and critical.
Interesting discussion in the replies
That reduces the annual cost to about £100 per household because the admin costs drop to near-zero and we all pay, including those like me who only use R3 and R4.
The BBC and the British Council: soft power.
Cobra make the decisions and the first ministers implement the same decisions more or less across the devolved nations
Just what is so difficult to understand
There are plenty of accounts, over the years, of free and frank discussions around the cabinet table.
"The chief constable of Northamptonshire Police, Nick Adderley, has said the force will now ramp up the enforcement of coronavirus regulations.
Adderley said the “three-week grace period is over”, and people in the county could now face fines or a criminal record.
According to the police chief, a small number of people had been flouting the regulations - with some officers being “baited” by members of the public.
He said the force may have to resort to more extreme measures such as road blocks and searching shopping trolleys should people continue to break the rules."
Not to mention the behavioural scientists that warned how quickly people would get fed up with lock down & were rubbished.
The media is pathetic.
Neill Ferguson has a model he created 13 years ago. It isn't really fit for purpose, but it was the best thing we had. Not just trusted by the UK, but the US as well.
Using initial data from China, it spat out some finding, which the government advisors based their initial strategy. It is fairly clear China have fiddled the figures (and the model isn't as good as is needed).
Then new data started to emerge, especially from Italy, rerunning the model, it was this updated output stated that the initial strategy would result in twice as many hospitalization and totally crash the system. That resulted in a total change of strategy by the government.
Now, ending the lockdown and our future, we can't do this without much more and improved data and far more sophisticated modelling.
1) Data
The government put a lot of faith in being able to deploy these antibody tests. They have given millions to a British company, who haven't got very far and also tried buying them from China, who yet again, have been found to be billy bullshitting. Porton Down can accurately do the antibody tests, but that is very different from doing it at scale.
Then we come to how are we going to contact trace in the future. Is this app really going to be voluntary (that seems a bad idea to me). Are we going to go the South Korea route and allow government spying? If so, to what extent? What about forced isolation and systems which prevent those affected from using public transport etc.
2) Modelling
We need much improved system to do this. There is work beginning on this, but it will take time. There are masses of questions surrounding this that could and should be raised.
The demands of minute by minute updates by the media, literally every day now asking the same numb nut question of when to the second the lockdown will end aren't doing their job at all.
If they did some reading and some research, they would know there isn't a straight answer to this. Instead, if they want to do their job, challenge the government, they should be focusing on asking questions to the two sections I raised above.
These are hugely challenging and also include many very difficult ethical decisions. If the government screw these up, it could be far worse than any decision taken so far.
Edit: Looks like most of that is Fedex now. Better late than never on that front.
Her reluctance to appear before the Committee smacks of arrogance, fear that she may not perform well under detailed questioning, or both. It is also odd that she has not featured at any of the daily press conferences yet (as far as I know), although more junior ministers (Jenrick, Sharma) have. If there were a book on it, I'd have her down as the first Cabinet sacking once the crisis dies down - I don't think she's up to the job, and suspect Boris and others know this.
That is the position today. Who does the buck stop with, if that is not an obsolete idea? Because as of right now the answer is no one.
Just think how many more active cases there would be in early May than there were in early March.
The bruising Peston received from the Deputy CMO was marvellous and thoroughly deserved yet from Peston's twitter feed he was the victim.
Allowing hacks, or idiots with big mouths like Piers Morgan, to drive policy is insane.
The main problem we have is this is being largely covered by political journalists not science journalists.
Raab and COBR are nowhere on that chain.
What is the point of having the egg-heads take an hour out of their extremely busy and crucial schedule, if the press don't use that opportunity to gain scientific information from them.
Hopefully we`ll see Johnson back well before this is necessary though.
Otherwise nothing would have happened and to answer your question, for you yes it does seem quite difficult to understand.
That is a Cobra decision and will happen today or tomorrow
Of course if Boris is unable to return a new leader will be elected by the conservative party if that is required, but it is hypothetical at this moment in time
An artificial timetable will only placate the screeching harpies for a moment before they find something else to shriek about. It would then either be met, by chance, or not, which means that they'd complain they were lied to, or somesuch nonsense.
We aren't even past the peak yet. Ending a lockdown when deaths are rising by nearly a thousand a day would be bloody stupid, and it's obvious to anyone who pauses for half a moment to think.