Fundamentally I am calling for the removal of left wing nutters. The left are calling for the removal of right wing traitors. Both groups want the party to split.
So lets split. The Leader and the right wing traitors can stay as the Labour Party and win elections. The true left socialists can be real Labour or whatever and lose whatever deposits they can crowdfund. Everyone wins.
That works except that in 2017 the left wing nutters did better than the right wing traitors had in 2015 or 2010. Maybe we should take another look at the audacity theory someone posted the other day.
This is what I find so depressing. No-one seems interested in explaining why Labour did so well in 2017 and so badly in 2019 under the same leader, except in terms of their own preferences and prejudices. The leisurely leadership election produced more of the same and so has this new leaked report. It was all the fault of the other lot; my side was perfect.
Looking at the OBR stuff, it's nowhere near as bad as I'd feared.
The deficit would spike but fall back really quickly. Public Debt would max out at 95% of GDP and then start to fall again.
We do, however, have to make sure we play this right. If we relax too soon and end up having to tighten up again for longer than otherwise necessary in response to further waves, the disruption lasts longer in the end and "the longer the period of economic disruption lasts, the more likely it is that the economy’s future potential output will be ‘scarred’ (thanks to business failures, cancelled investments and the unemployed becoming disconnected from the labour market). "
Labour staff were dragging their feet and deliberately not dealing with AS to make Corbyn get the blame.
KL for example a very clear whatsapp exchange shows Corbyn wanted him expelled Watson got NEC to extend his suspension instead so Corbyn got the blame
No, absolutely not true. The conversation is the people DISCUSSING A CONSPIRACY THEORY about that. They absolutely did not say that is what they were doing.
Their conversation has been edited for the consumption of Twitter to make it seem like they were doing it. If you had actually read the full exchange you would know that was not true.
Don't spread fake news.
I have read all 800 pages and they were not dealing with cases of AS with the speed they should have or using the expulsion from the Party of Anti Semites tool, if it could damage Corbyn, or the culprit was on the correct side of the party. The number one priority should have been to rid the party of proven Anti Semites the Party staff deliberately dragged heels.
Look at the number of expulsions under McNicholl compared to once he had gone.
You are trying to spin the report in a fake way Alistair
Personally I haven't read a report which contains actionable libel and actionable data protection breeches which was both leaked as and is being used as a political tool to exonerate the Jeremy and sink the traitors. Nor will I.
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
Germany's death rate is increasing every time they release figures. It's only lower because so far more younger people have been infected and there is a lag in mortality.
How would this have caused more PPE to be manufactured?
If, as looks highly likely, less PPE is available in Britain in a couple of weeks’ time than would have been the case if the government had not refused to join this scheme because of Europhobic dogma, it is almost certain that people will die as a result. The people responsible for that decision should be prosecuted.
You'd be the one squealing loudest of all when it was civil servants who get prosecuted...
Not at all. Anyone responsible for this decision needs to face the consequences of it.
Not noticing too many Leavers speaking up for the need to secure whatever PPE Britain can by whatever means it can. Here’s your opportunity.
But perhaps the visceral hatred of the EU extends to the point of refusing PPE from it even if it would save lives.
More a complete lack of belief that any product would actually have come the UK's way. The only evidence I have seen so far is of countries looking after their own. Where you see hatred, others might see cynicism, maybe realism - that the EU would say "They've left - fuck 'em. Give the kit to our people."
Ah, the deranged paranoia of the true Europhobe. When that’s all you’ve got left, the padded cell awaits you.
It is an entirely sensible strategy to use Uk based resources to kick start new sources of PPE, tests, ventilators etc.
a) Smaller logistics chains. b) Lower risk from transportation "issues" c) Higher level of oversight d) Patriotic boost to productivity. e) Complete control over supply once established.
A far better use of resources in the long battle ahead than getting a small slice of a one off delivery from China via the EU.
An alternative explanation is that Britain actually has a comparatively strong capacity to manufacture PPE and ventilators, and the 'EU procurement scheme' was a means of allowing smaller countries who lacked this capacity to share in its fruits. It would explain why the EU was so keen to allow Britain to join the scheme, despite their previous inflexible stances on cherry-picking aspects of EU membership, and why the government has provided so many contradictory reasons as to why it chose not to. If this proves to be true, no doubt Alistair will switch from blaming the government for letting British subjects die due to Europhobic dogma to blaming the government for letting EU subjects die due to Europhobic dogma.
AM believed that there were no strawberries in the supermarkets in the summer of 2018.
He has a long standing derangement on this subject.
I’m afraid a citation is needed for that claim.
(Spoiler: you won’t find it.)
Yet you know its true.
There was a reason I gave a daily Tesco strawberry score in 2018.
Go looking. You won’t find a citation for what you claimed.
It’s not my fault if you misread what I actually wrote.
I'm enjoying the seamless transition of the Brexit extremists from "fruit picking problems are fake news" to "hurrah that we have no strawberries".
I fear you have become the mirror image of the ideologues you condemn - whereas they might oppose any connections with the EU you oppose anything they do and so support joining any EU scheme.
Whereas to my mind the sensible strategy is one of help and co-operation where possible but detachment if necessary.
I would also somewhat doubt whether there are that many ideologues in government and whether they have much effect on the great inertial mass of statist bureaucracy in any case.
That's Emilie Oldknow level of quoting.
Thanks for the compliment
But my last point is something which I am concerned about - how much is bureaucratic inertia damaging action.
I suspect it has played a part re PPE, testing, border control and perhaps also for new ventilator suppliers.
The story related in the book Piece of Cake, about an RAF fighter squadron being denied spares at the start of the Battle of Britain, was based on true story.
They didn't have the paperwork to request spares, because the'd lost that in France. Along with the paperwork to get more paperwork.
Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few... "He must be talking about our back-pay, then."
I was watching a documentary about the Spanish Armada the other day.
They mentioned that after the Armada the government didn't pay the navy's wages. When the sailors complained they were dying of starvation, Cecil (I think) said that "at least if they starve to death we won't have to pay them"... by the end of 1588 about half of them were dead of sickness or hunger.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot...
There has been some interesting preliminary research that is starting to theorise that there are in fact two different types of serious "responses". One that is like your typical ARDs and one that in layman's terms more akin to those that have suffered terrible altitude sickness.
Sticking people with the later "type" on a ventilator results in worsen of their condition.
The OBR forecasts just published make good reading for Sunak.
35% shrinkage in GDP in 2Q
2m extra unemployed.
and just the GBP218bn in extra debt this year.
That GBP218bn will hang like an albatross around this government neck. It will ensure they can do nothing for the rest of this parliament but try to steal money from conservative voters when they are not looking.
Well, its their call!
No. They create a separate facility in the Bank of England to monetise the debt (it's not unbearable in the context of the £2.5 trillion M4 supply in the UK as of October 19).
Over time it would be ideal to sterilise that additional supply. In my view the easiest way to do that would be to create a specific "Coronavirus Recovery Contribution", payable over 10 years. I'd base that on property as it's easy to attach a specific liability to it and a reasonable proxy for wealth.
Savills says the value of residential housing is £7.3 trillion. So let's say that you ask people to pay 3% of the value of their house at a rate of 0.3% per year (0.1% = £73bn). If you don't have the cash it can be rolled up for 10 years with an interest rate equal to the 10 year government bond rate.
To put it in perspective, that means someone with an average UK house (£233K) is being asked to contribute £700 per year or £7,000 upfront. The average Londoner would be asked to pay about £2,000 per year or £20,000 over 10 years. The average house owner in Kensington and Chelsea (£2m) would be paying £6,000 per year or £60,000 over 10 years.
At the end of 2030 the Corona debt is fully sterilised.
I'd need to check but I think killing viruses is always difficult. The whole 'sun will burn it away' line is based around an increase in temperature (which can damage virus and reduce its effectiveness sat on a surface etc), an increase in sunlight (which breaks bonds) and also changes in human behaviour.
I would expect that, for most viruses, you need much higher temperatures to kill but smaller temperatures will interfere with its reproductive system significantly enough.
So, let's see if I have got this right. Corbyn and his cronies were vile scum bags but the fact that they were anti-Semitic scumbags was used to make them look even more vile to all right thinking people than those scumbags think is fair?
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
Germany's death rate is increasing every time they release figures. It's only lower because so far more younger people have been infected and there is a lag in mortality.
Germany should have most cases and deaths in Europe as the biggest population in Europe but it is only 4th on cases amd 5th in terms of deaths.
Mass testing and tracing has made the difference for Germany
OBR: Britain faces biggest budget deficit since WW2 The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that borrowing could surge to £273bn this year, equivalent to 14pc of GDP – far outstripping the peak deficit of 10pc in the financial crisis.
The complacency at yesterday's presser was breathtaking. I hope journalists will start to pick up on this and start asking questions.
OBR: Britain faces biggest budget deficit since WW2 The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that borrowing could surge to £273bn this year, equivalent to 14pc of GDP – far outstripping the peak deficit of 10pc in the financial crisis.
The complacency at yesterday's presser was breathtaking. I hope journalists will start to pick up on this and start asking questions.
They've been asking for it to end the moment it began.
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
Germany's death rate is increasing every time they release figures. It's only lower because so far more younger people have been infected and there is a lag in mortality.
Germany should have most cases and deaths in Europe as the biggest population in Europe but it is only 4th on cases amd 5th in terms of deaths.
Mass testing and tracing has made the difference for Germany
There has been some interesting preliminary research that is starting to theorise that there are in fact two different types of serious "responses". One that is like your typical ARDs and one that in layman's terms more akin to those that have suffered terrible altitude sickness.
Sticking people with the later "type" on a ventilator results in worsening of their condition.
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
Germany's death rate is increasing every time they release figures. It's only lower because so far more younger people have been infected and there is a lag in mortality.
Germany should have most cases and deaths in Europe as the biggest population in Europe but it is only 4th on cases amd 5th in terms of deaths.
Mass testing and tracing has made the difference for Germany
Fundamentally I am calling for the removal of left wing nutters. The left are calling for the removal of right wing traitors. Both groups want the party to split.
So lets split. The Leader and the right wing traitors can stay as the Labour Party and win elections. The true left socialists can be real Labour or whatever and lose whatever deposits they can crowdfund. Everyone wins.
That works except that in 2017 the left wing nutters did better than the right wing traitors had in 2015 or 2010. Maybe we should take another look at the audacity theory someone posted the other day.
This is what I find so depressing. No-one seems interested in explaining why Labour did so well in 2017 and so badly in 2019 under the same leader, except in terms of their own preferences and prejudices. The leisurely leadership election produced more of the same and so has this new leaked report. It was all the fault of the other lot; my side was perfect.
Turnout?
Brexit policy
In your Brexit obsessed fantasy perhaps. The only relevance for most voters of Corbyn's Brexit "policy" was his lack of leadership on that subject and many others. I don't know whether there have been many or any polls on why previous Labour voters were repelled by Corbyn, but I suspect that his muddled Brexit policy might account for a few votes with a few obsessives, but not many.
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
Germany's death rate is increasing every time they release figures. It's only lower because so far more younger people have been infected and there is a lag in mortality.
Germany should have most cases and deaths in Europe as the biggest population in Europe but it is only 4th on cases amd 5th in terms of deaths.
Mass testing and tracing has made the difference for Germany
Why is Germany on a lockdown then?
Lockdown just provides extra security
Germany wouldn't be on a lockdown if testing and tracing were sufficient to contain the epidemic.
The OBR forecasts just published make good reading for Sunak.
35% shrinkage in GDP in 2Q
2m extra unemployed.
and just the GBP218bn in extra debt this year.
That GBP218bn will hang like an albatross around this government neck. It will ensure they can do nothing for the rest of this parliament but try to steal money from conservative voters when they are not looking.
Well, its their call!
No. They create a separate facility in the Bank of England to monetise the debt (it's not unbearable in the context of the £2.5 trillion M4 supply in the UK as of October 19).
Over time it would be ideal to sterilise that additional supply. In my view the easiest way to do that would be to create a specific "Coronavirus Recovery Contribution", payable over 10 years. I'd base that on property as it's easy to attach a specific liability to it and a reasonable proxy for wealth.
Savills says the value of residential housing is £7.3 trillion. So let's say that you ask people to pay 3% of the value of their house at a rate of 0.3% per year (0.1% = £73bn). If you don't have the cash it can be rolled up for 10 years with an interest rate equal to the 10 year government bond rate.
To put it in perspective, that means someone with an average UK house (£233K) is being asked to contribute £700 per year or £7,000 upfront. The average Londoner would be asked to pay about £2,000 per year or £20,000 over 10 years. The average house owner in Kensington and Chelsea (£2m) would be paying £6,000 per year or £60,000 over 10 years.
At the end of 2030 the Corona debt is fully sterilised.
Would this be just for those in work? I can’t see how most pensioners could contribute anything when their income is compared to the value of their house.
There has been some interesting preliminary research that is starting to theorise that there are in fact two different types of serious "responses". One that is like your typical ARDs and one that in layman's terms more akin to those that have suffered terrible altitude sickness.
Sticking people with the later "type" on a ventilator results in worsening of their condition.
If it didn't look like that, you really would be asking about the need for the lockdown...
As the ONS pointed out on Twitter, they have records back to the early 1800s... so perhaps not 2005 as regularly claimed.
I suspect the Somme was worse. But would that be UK mortality or French mortality?
Or even German?
I was thinking of the 60,000 British casualties on the first day. Don't know the German numbers. (My British/French comment was whether mortality statistics are by nationality or by location of death).
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Where is the money going that’s being raised ‘for the NHS’? Is it just going into the overall accounts? Money for NHS isn’t an issue shouldn’t it go to defendants of NHS staff who have died?
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
If it’s a lie it needs to be nailed promptly. If it’s not and it’s some attempt at national coordination it looks like a communications cock up.
Certainly not a nationalist lie - something of the sort is happening as is clear from the circumstantial details, and the fact it did come up from the press side not the gmt side in the press conference.
There was something going on a few weeks back where the English [for health service purposes] Gmt or its agencies claimed the right to deal with buying and the company in question had to break its discussions with devolved gmts - if that was messed up then this may be the consequence.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
There has been some interesting preliminary research that is starting to theorise that there are in fact two different types of serious "responses". One that is like your typical ARDs and one that in layman's terms more akin to those that have suffered terrible altitude sickness.
Sticking people with the later "type" on a ventilator results in worsen of their condition.
Fundamentally I am calling for the removal of left wing nutters. The left are calling for the removal of right wing traitors. Both groups want the party to split.
So lets split. The Leader and the right wing traitors can stay as the Labour Party and win elections. The true left socialists can be real Labour or whatever and lose whatever deposits they can crowdfund. Everyone wins.
That works except that in 2017 the left wing nutters did better than the right wing traitors had in 2015 or 2010. Maybe we should take another look at the audacity theory someone posted the other day.
This is what I find so depressing. No-one seems interested in explaining why Labour did so well in 2017 and so badly in 2019 under the same leader, except in terms of their own preferences and prejudices. The leisurely leadership election produced more of the same and so has this new leaked report. It was all the fault of the other lot; my side was perfect.
Turnout?
Brexit policy
In your Brexit obsessed fantasy perhaps. The only relevance for most voters of Corbyn's Brexit "policy" was his lack of leadership on that subject and many others. I don't know whether there have been many or any polls on why previous Labour voters were repelled by Corbyn, but I suspect that his muddled Brexit policy might account for a few votes with a few obsessives, but not many.
Always angry!
The only major variable between the Labour Party that got 40% in 2017 and that who was thrashed in 2019 was their commitment to respecting the referendum result in the former and their refusal to do so in the latter.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Had business management discussions on this over lunchtime. Suggestion that having to furlough some workers because one of their cohort went sick would encourage others to claim sickness to also go off. Being 80% of wages for 0% of efforts has appeal - unless your employer will fold as you sit on your arse in which case wages drop to £0.
People need to remember that furlough wages are paid to the employee by the employer, not the government. If the employer folds, there goes your pay packet.
So having lost my American holiday, which frankly I always knew was going to happen, we can see the benefits both for travellers and travel companies of being in the EU. This is from the ABTA site re the new EU rules because of the virus:
"These new measures (EU ones) will help protect customer rights and provide clear guidance, while ensuring travel companies have a chance of surviving beyond the current crisis.
We are still waiting for action and guidance from the UK Government."
So the 'taking back control' mantra means doing nothing in this case. A few simple procedures that the EU has put in place will stop travel companies going bust and travellers from losing money by putting everything on hold. Whereas in the UK we are in free for all territory (relying on travellers behaving sensibly like they did in the supermarkets) with travellers demanding refunds (as they are entitled to do) which will bankrupt travel companies leading to many not getting their money and those with ATOL cover probably breaking ATOL.
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
Germany's death rate is increasing every time they release figures. It's only lower because so far more younger people have been infected and there is a lag in mortality.
Germany should have most cases and deaths in Europe as the biggest population in Europe but it is only 4th on cases amd 5th in terms of deaths.
Mass testing and tracing has made the difference for Germany
Why is Germany on a lockdown then?
Lockdown just provides extra security
Germany would be on a lockdown if testing and tracing were sufficient to contain the epidemic.
It is mass testing and tracing from an early stage added onto lockdown and plenty of ventilators per head which has given Germany only the 6th lowest number of deaths in Europe despite having the biggest population in Europe
The OBR forecasts just published make good reading for Sunak.
35% shrinkage in GDP in 2Q
2m extra unemployed.
and just the GBP218bn in extra debt this year.
That GBP218bn will hang like an albatross around this government neck. It will ensure they can do nothing for the rest of this parliament but try to steal money from conservative voters when they are not looking.
Well, its their call!
No. They create a separate facility in the Bank of England to monetise the debt (it's not unbearable in the context of the £2.5 trillion M4 supply in the UK as of October 19).
Over time it would be ideal to sterilise that additional supply. In my view the easiest way to do that would be to create a specific "Coronavirus Recovery Contribution", payable over 10 years. I'd base that on property as it's easy to attach a specific liability to it and a reasonable proxy for wealth.
Savills says the value of residential housing is £7.3 trillion. So let's say that you ask people to pay 3% of the value of their house at a rate of 0.3% per year (0.1% = £73bn). If you don't have the cash it can be rolled up for 10 years with an interest rate equal to the 10 year government bond rate.
To put it in perspective, that means someone with an average UK house (£233K) is being asked to contribute £700 per year or £7,000 upfront. The average Londoner would be asked to pay about £2,000 per year or £20,000 over 10 years. The average house owner in Kensington and Chelsea (£2m) would be paying £6,000 per year or £60,000 over 10 years.
At the end of 2030 the Corona debt is fully sterilised.
Would this be just for those in work? I can’t see how most pensioners could contribute anything when their income is compared to the value of their house.
So they roll up for the 10 years set against the value of their property. After that they would need to realise assets to pay it off
It would not be a good look if relatively wealthy pensioners (by virtual of the fact they own their house - I haven't dug out the stats but I suspect most will be mortgage free at this point) are perceived as not making a contribution to national recovery.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
You can stop the furlough scheme.
Yes, and I hope they do, but you know what the media is like. There will be pressure on government to give people the option to "come out" or stay in hiding - you see.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
I don't believe workers get a choice on being furloughed?
If your employer says come back to work then you come back or resign.
This is quite something twitter.com/SP_Duckworth/status/1250036384200634368?s=20
The article does rather reinforce the question I have had for a while now. Our NHS appears to have done a remarkable job expanding capacity and not becoming overloaded / crashed like Italy, Spain or NY.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
Germany's death rate is increasing every time they release figures. It's only lower because so far more younger people have been infected and there is a lag in mortality.
Germany should have most cases and deaths in Europe as the biggest population in Europe but it is only 4th on cases amd 5th in terms of deaths.
Mass testing and tracing has made the difference for Germany
Why is Germany on a lockdown then?
Lockdown just provides extra security
Germany would be on a lockdown if testing and tracing were sufficient to contain the epidemic.
It is mass testing and tracing from an early stage added onto lockdown and plenty of ventilators per head which has given Germany only the 6th lowest number of deaths in Europe despite having the biggest population in Europe
The pandemic didn't hit every country at the same time in the same way. It's not meaningful to compare death rates at this stage.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Simple answer, test everyone who is going into the school and those that they are in immediate contact with. The school makes any track and trace app compulsory and anyone not doing so will be suspended. PPE made available to all staff and social distancing enforced for all pupils and staff. That would be enough, I think.
just read the OBR. A decent first stab. Hugely optimistic though. As they acknowledge is ignores medium term impact. Everything is assumed to be tickety boo business as usual after 6 months. It ignores.
1 - Business Behaviour response. Companies are deperate to hang onto cash. Investment in people, plant etc. is frozen and will remain so. 2 - Consumer Behavioural Response. It assumes everyone just goes back to normal. No impact on spending, investment or transaction levels. 3 - Far as I can see there is no account of asset revaluations (especially property). 4 - There are no lag factors, rolling over losses to reduce CG and CT in latter years. 5 - No (!) impact on trade balances 6 - No hit to secondary taxes (council tax, stamp duty)
To be fair this is a good start and this 'best case' shows just how bad the medium and worst case scenarios are.
I think he probably will choose Harris, but I'm not totally convinced by the logic.
Biden is VERY strongly placed with black voters already. A key reason neither Harris nor Booker got traction is that, despite being black, they didn't make a compelling case to black voters to peel away from Biden given his close association with Obama. Harris unsettled him on bussing... but ultimately it wasn't enough and faded away.
It is true that turnout matters, but Biden doesn't have a problem that Harris or Abrams address - it'd instead play to an existing strength.
Biden has more issues with Hispanic voters, which would speak to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, or Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
If I were him, though, I'd go for Amy Klobuchar. This is primarily because his biggest problem is probably his age - simply in actuarial terms, a 78 year old might very well not last four years in good health, let alone eight. Klobuchar is a two-term Senator who been tested on the national campaign trail, and came out of it with he stock decidedly higher. Other than a foreign policy wobble over Mexico (and all candidates have a wobble at some point), she's been solidly on top of her brief and is a very sturdy debater. She's not that exciting a VP choice. But an old man doesn't need exciting - he needs a pick who is ready to be President in a heartbeat.
The government didn`t expect lockdown to be observed so well, and it intended more people to carry on working than has proved to be the case. That, plus the excess NHS capacity, argues for an easing of lockdown. That is, if you agree that the purpose of lockdown was to stop the NHS from "falling over" whilst building up as much immunity in the population as possible.
The other argument, of course, is that the government should be containing the virus as much as possible, whatever this takes. But those advocating this approach fail to appreciate that the virus will still be present when we come out of lockdown eventually and fewer will be immune under this approach, and the economy and our freedoms will have been trashed even further.
Where is the money going that’s being raised ‘for the NHS’? Is it just going into the overall accounts? Money for NHS isn’t an issue shouldn’t it go to defendants of NHS staff who have died?
The money is going to the government. Thats always how these things work out - we raise cash for something that government should be funding, our money replaces government money, so in effect we allow the government to keep the money.
The government didn`t expect lockdown to be observed so well, and it intended more people to carry on working than has proved to be the case. That, plus the excess NHS capacity, argues for an easing of lockdown. That is, if you agree that the purpose of lockdown was to stop the NHS from "falling over" whilst building up as much immunity in the population as possible.
The other argument, of course, is that the government should be containing the virus as much as possible, whatever this takes. But those advocating this approach fail to appreciate that the virus will still be present when we come out of lockdown eventually and fewer will be immune under this approach, and the economy and our freedoms will have been trashed even further.
The quicker the lockdown is ended then the less has to be spent on furlough schemes.
And Universal Credit etc.
Schools back after the May bank holiday would be a good start - keep the wrinklies in their hutch for while.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
I don't believe workers get a choice on being furloughed?
If your employer says come back to work then you come back or resign.
The OBR forecasts just published make good reading for Sunak.
35% shrinkage in GDP in 2Q
2m extra unemployed.
and just the GBP218bn in extra debt this year.
That GBP218bn will hang like an albatross around this government neck. It will ensure they can do nothing for the rest of this parliament but try to steal money from conservative voters when they are not looking.
Well, its their call!
No. They create a separate facility in the Bank of England to monetise the debt (it's not unbearable in the context of the £2.5 trillion M4 supply in the UK as of October 19).
Over time it would be ideal to sterilise that additional supply. In my view the easiest way to do that would be to create a specific "Coronavirus Recovery Contribution", payable over 10 years. I'd base that on property as it's easy to attach a specific liability to it and a reasonable proxy for wealth.
Savills says the value of residential housing is £7.3 trillion. So let's say that you ask people to pay 3% of the value of their house at a rate of 0.3% per year (0.1% = £73bn). If you don't have the cash it can be rolled up for 10 years with an interest rate equal to the 10 year government bond rate.
To put it in perspective, that means someone with an average UK house (£233K) is being asked to contribute £700 per year or £7,000 upfront. The average Londoner would be asked to pay about £2,000 per year or £20,000 over 10 years. The average house owner in Kensington and Chelsea (£2m) would be paying £6,000 per year or £60,000 over 10 years.
At the end of 2030 the Corona debt is fully sterilised.
Would this be just for those in work? I can’t see how most pensioners could contribute anything when their income is compared to the value of their house.
So they roll up for the 10 years set against the value of their property. After that they would need to realise assets to pay it off
It would not be a good look if relatively wealthy pensioners (by virtual of the fact they own their house - I haven't dug out the stats but I suspect most will be mortgage free at this point) are perceived as not making a contribution to national recovery.
Poor pensioners, though, would be in dire trouble. Maybe if they could sign away a percentage of the property instead, to be realised on their death or if they sell it.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Simple answer, test everyone who is going into the school and those that they are in immediate contact with. The school makes any track and trace app compulsory and anyone not doing so will be suspended. PPE made available to all staff and social distancing enforced for all pupils and staff. That would be enough, I think.
Where do we get the tests for 10-20m people? How often will they be repeated? If a teacher is in PPE why arent the kids? So we will also need 10m sets of PPE, train them and deliver fresh PPE regularly.
The government didn`t expect lockdown to be observed so well, and it intended more people to carry on working than has proved to be the case. That, plus the excess NHS capacity, argues for an easing of lockdown. That is, if you agree that the purpose of lockdown was to stop the NHS from "falling over" whilst building up as much immunity in the population as possible.
The other argument, of course, is that the government should be containing the virus as much as possible, whatever this takes. But those advocating this approach fail to appreciate that the virus will still be present when we come out of lockdown eventually and fewer will be immune under this approach, and the economy and our freedoms will have been trashed even further.
The quicker the lockdown is ended then the less has to be spent on furlough schemes.
And Universal Credit etc.
Schools back after the May bank holiday would be a good start - keep the wrinklies in their hutch for while.
I agree. Though the older and more vulnerable people should have a choice. My father in law said today that he should be able to face possible infection if he chooses. If he lives he lives, if he dies he dies. I`ve heard this fatalistic view said by most of the older generation that I`ve spoken to. They believe, and I agree, that we have to live our lives, which involves facing risks.
There was a time when the left was often more libertarian than the right. The 1960s and 1970s for example, when people like Mary Whitehouse were trying to shut things down from a conservative/Christian standpoint.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Simple answer, test everyone who is going into the school and those that they are in immediate contact with. The school makes any track and trace app compulsory and anyone not doing so will be suspended. PPE made available to all staff and social distancing enforced for all pupils and staff. That would be enough, I think.
Why would you do all that for teachers and not other workforces?
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
I don't believe workers get a choice on being furloughed?
If your employer says come back to work then you come back or resign.
I hope you are right.
Legally, employees cant unilaterally choose to be furloughed.
If a furlough has already been agreed for a specified period, Id expect an employee might have a right to stay furloughed for that duration (so could resist an early call back to work).
In practice unions would play a part in something like teaching. They might sympathise with teachers wanting to stay furloughed if they were living with vulnerable relatives for example and could put significant pressure on the employer.
There has been some interesting preliminary research that is starting to theorise that there are in fact two different types of serious "responses". One that is like your typical ARDs and one that in layman's terms more akin to those that have suffered terrible altitude sickness.
Sticking people with the later "type" on a ventilator results in worsen of their condition.
That's a great explanation of the current theory of what might underlie the syndrome, btw., and easily understandable even by me. Thanks for posting it.
The government didn`t expect lockdown to be observed so well, and it intended more people to carry on working than has proved to be the case. That, plus the excess NHS capacity, argues for an easing of lockdown. That is, if you agree that the purpose of lockdown was to stop the NHS from "falling over" whilst building up as much immunity in the population as possible.
The other argument, of course, is that the government should be containing the virus as much as possible, whatever this takes. But those advocating this approach fail to appreciate that the virus will still be present when we come out of lockdown eventually and fewer will be immune under this approach, and the economy and our freedoms will have been trashed even further.
I get the impression a lot of people in government don't trust ordinary people: they think if they ask people to do D, they'll actually do E or F, so they have to ask them to do B or C instead.
I think he probably will choose Harris, but I'm not totally convinced by the logic.
Biden is VERY strongly placed with black voters already. A key reason neither Harris nor Booker got traction is that, despite being black, they didn't make a compelling case to black voters to peel away from Biden given his close association with Obama. Harris unsettled him on bussing... but ultimately it wasn't enough and faded away.
It is true that turnout matters, but Biden doesn't have a problem that Harris or Abrams address - it'd instead play to an existing strength.
Biden has more issues with Hispanic voters, which would speak to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, or Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
If I were him, though, I'd go for Amy Klobuchar. This is primarily because his biggest problem is probably his age - simply in actuarial terms, a 78 year old might very well not last four years in good health, let alone eight. Klobuchar is a two-term Senator who been tested on the national campaign trail, and came out of it with he stock decidedly higher. Other than a foreign policy wobble over Mexico (and all candidates have a wobble at some point), she's been solidly on top of her brief and is a very sturdy debater. She's not that exciting a VP choice. But an old man doesn't need exciting - he needs a pick who is ready to be President in a heartbeat.
Whitmer as Michigan governor, a must win Trump 2016 swing state, is who I would pick
This is quite something twitter.com/SP_Duckworth/status/1250036384200634368?s=20
The article does rather reinforce the question I have had for a while now. Our NHS appears to have done a remarkable job expanding capacity and not becoming overloaded / crashed like Italy, Spain or NY.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
Perhaps Brits are less fit on average than Italians and Spaniards and hence more likely to die if they get Coronavirus, even with adequate medical treatment?
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
You can stop the furlough scheme.
When that happens it will be very political. The right moment will be tough.
This is quite something twitter.com/SP_Duckworth/status/1250036384200634368?s=20
The article does rather reinforce the question I have had for a while now. Our NHS appears to have done a remarkable job expanding capacity and not becoming overloaded / crashed like Italy, Spain or NY.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
Perhaps Brits are less fit on average than Swedes and hence more likely to die if they get Coronavirus, even with adequate medical treatment?
More likely Sweden has a far lower population density than the UK does
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Simple answer, test everyone who is going into the school and those that they are in immediate contact with. The school makes any track and trace app compulsory and anyone not doing so will be suspended. PPE made available to all staff and social distancing enforced for all pupils and staff. That would be enough, I think.
Where do we get the tests for 10-20m people? How often will they be repeated? If a teacher is in PPE why arent the kids? So we will also need 10m sets of PPE, train them and deliver fresh PPE regularly.
Simple? Really?
Until there is mass testing, tracking and tracing and/or a vaccine, then 'duty of care' comes before anything else. Schools cannot do this and open whilst it is plausible that it will infect students, parents and staff. Sort out the testing and such, provide PPE and it becames more plausible. Independent schools, for example, could be in for massive legal bills if we don't provide this sort of thing.
Testing, tracking and tracing (compulsory) is the name of the game, here.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Simple answer, test everyone who is going into the school and those that they are in immediate contact with. The school makes any track and trace app compulsory and anyone not doing so will be suspended. PPE made available to all staff and social distancing enforced for all pupils and staff. That would be enough, I think.
Where do we get the tests for 10-20m people? How often will they be repeated? If a teacher is in PPE why arent the kids? So we will also need 10m sets of PPE, train them and deliver fresh PPE regularly.
Simple? Really?
That is the big problem with ending the lockdown. It's little to do with the precise timing, and far more related to the development of the capacity to test - both for track & trace, and to monitor much closer to real time how quickly things are going downhill again.
This is quite something twitter.com/SP_Duckworth/status/1250036384200634368?s=20
The article does rather reinforce the question I have had for a while now. Our NHS appears to have done a remarkable job expanding capacity and not becoming overloaded / crashed like Italy, Spain or NY.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
Perhaps Brits are less fit on average than Swedes and hence more likely to die if they get Coronavirus, even with adequate medical treatment?
More likely Sweden has a far lower population density than the UK does
The Netherlands has a higher population density even than us, pursued herd immunity for a while and now has a higher number of deaths per head than most of Europe
I think he probably will choose Harris, but I'm not totally convinced by the logic.
Biden is VERY strongly placed with black voters already. A key reason neither Harris nor Booker got traction is that, despite being black, they didn't make a compelling case to black voters to peel away from Biden given his close association with Obama. Harris unsettled him on bussing... but ultimately it wasn't enough and faded away.
It is true that turnout matters, but Biden doesn't have a problem that Harris or Abrams address - it'd instead play to an existing strength.
Biden has more issues with Hispanic voters, which would speak to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, or Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
If I were him, though, I'd go for Amy Klobuchar. This is primarily because his biggest problem is probably his age - simply in actuarial terms, a 78 year old might very well not last four years in good health, let alone eight. Klobuchar is a two-term Senator who been tested on the national campaign trail, and came out of it with he stock decidedly higher. Other than a foreign policy wobble over Mexico (and all candidates have a wobble at some point), she's been solidly on top of her brief and is a very sturdy debater. She's not that exciting a VP choice. But an old man doesn't need exciting - he needs a pick who is ready to be President in a heartbeat.
Whitmer as Michigan governor, a must win Trump 2016 swing state, is who I would pick
The theory of picking VPs to deliver a particular state has been tested and found wanting on numerous occasions.
This is quite something twitter.com/SP_Duckworth/status/1250036384200634368?s=20
The article does rather reinforce the question I have had for a while now. Our NHS appears to have done a remarkable job expanding capacity and not becoming overloaded / crashed like Italy, Spain or NY.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
Many nurses increase their money by doing "bank" shifts, which are basically overtime to cover sickness and holidays. At the hospitals my wife and daughter work at, these have been banned as they are not required. Basically these hospitals are now overstaffed.
This is quite something twitter.com/SP_Duckworth/status/1250036384200634368?s=20
The article does rather reinforce the question I have had for a while now. Our NHS appears to have done a remarkable job expanding capacity and not becoming overloaded / crashed like Italy, Spain or NY.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
My guess is that, when the dust settles and we review the handling, a few issues will come out.
1. The UK was relatively slow to lock down. I understand some of the reasons for that (long haul, fatigue risk, economy) but an internal debate over herd immunity also delayed it - it was sub-optimal.
2. We've not done well on testing, which is unhelpful on spread. I suspect (and it's only a suspicion) we have quite a high infection rate relative to others.
3. The benefit of the NHS is enough command and control to give a genuinely national service (so less problem than Italy with insufficient resource for local clusters). But there are also drawbacks - historical resourcing means I suspect there are overall fewer staff per patient and we're slower to put into intensive care (i.e. the average resource received is slightly lower but the range is less - almost everyone has decent but not amazing care). Some procurement decisions early on were also problematic in this respect.
4. I think the media shield us from some of the worst news to avoid panic. It's rather different showing scenes at an Italian hospital in terms of fear, to be blunt. The health service has coped pretty well compared with similar countries, but probably not quite as well as current news reports indicate.
5. Possibly we have more underlying at-risk groups - relatively poor general health compared with southern Europe, and an older population than NY. But I'm far from sure on that.
There has been some interesting preliminary research that is starting to theorise that there are in fact two different types of serious "responses". One that is like your typical ARDs and one that in layman's terms more akin to those that have suffered terrible altitude sickness.
Sticking people with the later "type" on a ventilator results in worsen of their condition.
That's a great explanation of the current theory of what might underlie the syndrome, btw., and easily understandable even by me. Thanks for posting it.
There has been some great YouTube content put out by people during this crisis from mathematical modelling to the explaining the latest research to vlogging from the front line.
Just shows again how the world is changing, while the numpties asking the questions at the press conference clearly don't read the academic papers and asking things like why isn't the ONS publishing something they already are....while on the YouTube's you can become really informed about this subject.
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
If it’s a lie it needs to be nailed promptly. If it’s not and it’s some attempt at national coordination it looks like a communications cock up.
Certainly not a nationalist lie - something of the sort is happening as is clear from the circumstantial details, and the fact it did come up from the press side not the gmt side in the press conference.
There was something going on a few weeks back where the English [for health service purposes] Gmt or its agencies claimed the right to deal with buying and the company in question had to break its discussions with devolved gmts - if that was messed up then this may be the consequence.
Sturgeon did raise it in the Press Conference as something that needed to be investigated/clarified.
The Gompels website does have an "England only" order restriction which it says is at the request of PHE (not "the Westminster government" as the Nat Onal claims) - so I suspect the usual - some form of "cock up" - certainly in communication:
Slight point of order....I might be wrong, but I believe the % of front line staff from BAME is much higher. That 17% figure includes things like admin etc. I think the Guardian said it is closer to 40%.
What is the age profile of those who have died? How many of those we asked to come back to the NHS from retirement are those who have given ther life? Was it a mistake to ask them? Questions that need answers.
This is quite something twitter.com/SP_Duckworth/status/1250036384200634368?s=20
The article does rather reinforce the question I have had for a while now. Our NHS appears to have done a remarkable job expanding capacity and not becoming overloaded / crashed like Italy, Spain or NY.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
Perhaps Brits are less fit on average than Swedes and hence more likely to die if they get Coronavirus, even with adequate medical treatment?
More likely Sweden has a far lower population density than the UK does
Sorry, I meant Brits may be less fit than Italians! Got my countries mixed up. This was in response to the question why similar numbers of Brits are dying as Italians, despite the fact that our NHS has not been as overwhelmed as their health system.
I think he probably will choose Harris, but I'm not totally convinced by the logic.
Biden is VERY strongly placed with black voters already. A key reason neither Harris nor Booker got traction is that, despite being black, they didn't make a compelling case to black voters to peel away from Biden given his close association with Obama. Harris unsettled him on bussing... but ultimately it wasn't enough and faded away.
It is true that turnout matters, but Biden doesn't have a problem that Harris or Abrams address - it'd instead play to an existing strength.
Biden has more issues with Hispanic voters, which would speak to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, or Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
If I were him, though, I'd go for Amy Klobuchar. This is primarily because his biggest problem is probably his age - simply in actuarial terms, a 78 year old might very well not last four years in good health, let alone eight. Klobuchar is a two-term Senator who been tested on the national campaign trail, and came out of it with he stock decidedly higher. Other than a foreign policy wobble over Mexico (and all candidates have a wobble at some point), she's been solidly on top of her brief and is a very sturdy debater. She's not that exciting a VP choice. But an old man doesn't need exciting - he needs a pick who is ready to be President in a heartbeat.
Whitmer as Michigan governor, a must win Trump 2016 swing state, is who I would pick
The theory of picking VPs to deliver a particular state has been tested and found wanting on numerous occasions.
Slight point of order....I might be wrong, but I believe the % of front line staff from BAME is much higher. That 17% figure includes things like admin etc. I think the Guardian said it is closer to 40%.
Around 40-45% of covid-19 deaths are in London and the West Midlands, compared to about 18% of the population of the UK. The majority of BAME people live in those two areas.
Slight point of order....I might be wrong, but I believe the % of front line staff from BAME is much higher. That 17% figure includes things like admin etc. I think the Guardian said it is closer to 40%.
That would make it considerably less strange. No doubt there are also significant local/regional differences, and the number of deaths varies considerably by region, of course.
Slight point of order....I might be wrong, but I believe the % of front line staff from BAME is much higher. That 17% figure includes things like admin etc. I think the Guardian said it is closer to 40%.
I suspect that's right. Nevertheless, the disparity remains notable.
You could argue this is a class thing - BAME patients are likely to be poorer - but it isn't. The richer BAME surgeons and doctors are also dying in disproportionate numbers.
You could argue this is a genetic thing - if this was just happening to people of, say, African origin. But it isn't. It is hitting BAME patients from all ethnicities - Middle east, south Asian, Latin American.
It is very strange and I have yet to see a satisfying explanation. Maybe there isn't one, and it is just a cruel combination of factors.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Simple answer, test everyone who is going into the school and those that they are in immediate contact with. The school makes any track and trace app compulsory and anyone not doing so will be suspended. PPE made available to all staff and social distancing enforced for all pupils and staff. That would be enough, I think.
Where do we get the tests for 10-20m people? How often will they be repeated? If a teacher is in PPE why arent the kids? So we will also need 10m sets of PPE, train them and deliver fresh PPE regularly.
Simple? Really?
Until there is mass testing, tracking and tracing and/or a vaccine, then 'duty of care' comes before anything else. Schools cannot do this and open whilst it is plausible that it will infect students, parents and staff. Sort out the testing and such, provide PPE and it becames more plausible. Independent schools, for example, could be in for massive legal bills if we don't provide this sort of thing.
Testing, tracking and tracing (compulsory) is the name of the game, here.
It has always been plausible for students, parents and staff to be infected with a deadly disease and it always will be.
Risks have to be balanced. Do we deny a generation of students 3 years education if that is how long a vaccine takes? I would consider that a far greater risk than a slow release of lockdown with imperfect mitigation.
You could argue this is a class thing - BAME patients are likely to be poorer - but it isn't. The richer BAME surgeons and doctors are also dying in disproportionate numbers.
You could argue this is a genetic thing - if this was just happening to people of, say, African origin. But it isn't. It is hitting BAME patients from all ethnicities - Middle east, south Asian, Latin American.
It is very strange and I have yet to see a satisfying explanation. Maybe there isn't one, and it is just a cruel combination of factors.
It is big odds on that a known unknown will be the answer to a lot of the questions we have now
Another hint that Remdesivir might be an effective drug, as a study sets out a specific MOA:
Remdesivir is a direct-acting antiviral that inhibits RNA-dependent RNA polymerase from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 with high potency https://www.jbc.org/content/early/2020/04/13/jbc.RA120.013679.abstract Effective treatments for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are urgently needed to control this current pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Replication of SARS-CoV-2 depends on the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), which is the likely target of the investigational nucleotide analogue remdesivir (RDV). RDV shows broad-spectrum antiviral activity against RNA viruses, and previous studies with RdRps from Ebola virus (EBOV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have revealed that delayed chain-termination is RDV’s plausible mechanism of action. Here, we expressed and purified active SARS-CoV-2 RdRp composed of the non-structural proteins nsp8 and nsp12. Enzyme kinetics indicated that this RdRp efficiently incorporates the active triphosphate form of RDV (RDV-TP) into RNA. Incorporation of RDV-TP at position i caused termination of RNA synthesis at position i+3. We obtained almost identical results with SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 RdRps. A unique property of RDV-TP is its high selectivity over incorporation of its natural nucleotide counterpart ATP. In this regard, the triphosphate forms of 2’-C–methylated compounds, including sofosbuvir, approved for the management of hepatitis C virus infection, and the broad-acting antivirals favipiravir and ribavirin, exhibited significant deficits. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the target specificity of RDV, as RDV-TP was less efficiently incorporated by the distantly related Lassa virus RdRp, and termination of RNA synthesis was not observed. These results collectively provide a unifying, refined mechanism of RDV-mediated RNA synthesis inhibition in coronaviruses and define this nucleotide analogue as a direct-acting antiviral (DAA)....
The OBR forecasts just published make good reading for Sunak.
35% shrinkage in GDP in 2Q
2m extra unemployed.
and just the GBP218bn in extra debt this year.
That GBP218bn will hang like an albatross around this government neck. It will ensure they can do nothing for the rest of this parliament but try to steal money from conservative voters when they are not looking.
Well, its their call!
No. They create a separate facility in the Bank of England to monetise the debt (it's not unbearable in the context of the £2.5 trillion M4 supply in the UK as of October 19).
Over time it would be ideal to sterilise that additional supply. In my view the easiest way to do that would be to create a specific "Coronavirus Recovery Contribution", payable over 10 years. I'd base that on property as it's easy to attach a specific liability to it and a reasonable proxy for wealth.
Savills says the value of residential housing is £7.3 trillion. So let's say that you ask people to pay 3% of the value of their house at a rate of 0.3% per year (0.1% = £73bn). If you don't have the cash it can be rolled up for 10 years with an interest rate equal to the 10 year government bond rate.
To put it in perspective, that means someone with an average UK house (£233K) is being asked to contribute £700 per year or £7,000 upfront. The average Londoner would be asked to pay about £2,000 per year or £20,000 over 10 years. The average house owner in Kensington and Chelsea (£2m) would be paying £6,000 per year or £60,000 over 10 years.
At the end of 2030 the Corona debt is fully sterilised.
That 0.3% per annum is a hell of a lot more swallowable than the 1% you previously suggested. When you're multiplying by such high property values, each decimal point makes a big difference.
I'd also hope that any such tax applied only to the net equity, not to the gross total of equity plus mortgage, as I've seen some lefties suggest.
The South West of England has one of the lowest rates despite having a relatively older population. Maybe proximity from large urban centres is the explanation.
Usual nationalist divisive lies. How long before Brexiteers try to excuse our terrible death rate compared to Germany by some similarly mendacious story about Germans/EU/foreigners?
If it’s a lie it needs to be nailed promptly. If it’s not and it’s some attempt at national coordination it looks like a communications cock up.
Certainly not a nationalist lie - something of the sort is happening as is clear from the circumstantial details, and the fact it did come up from the press side not the gmt side in the press conference.
There was something going on a few weeks back where the English [for health service purposes] Gmt or its agencies claimed the right to deal with buying and the company in question had to break its discussions with devolved gmts - if that was messed up then this may be the consequence.
Sturgeon did raise it in the Press Conference as something that needed to be investigated/clarified.
The Gompels website does have an "England only" order restriction which it says is at the request of PHE (not "the Westminster government" as the Nat Onal claims) - so I suspect the usual - some form of "cock up" - certainly in communication:
It's certainly very unfortunate - whether deliberate or not. From the Graun it seems that Mr Hancock had cancelled/refused a phone meeting with his Scots opposite number, again not a good look.
I think he probably will choose Harris, but I'm not totally convinced by the logic.
Biden is VERY strongly placed with black voters already. A key reason neither Harris nor Booker got traction is that, despite being black, they didn't make a compelling case to black voters to peel away from Biden given his close association with Obama. Harris unsettled him on bussing... but ultimately it wasn't enough and faded away.
It is true that turnout matters, but Biden doesn't have a problem that Harris or Abrams address - it'd instead play to an existing strength.
Biden has more issues with Hispanic voters, which would speak to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, or Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
If I were him, though, I'd go for Amy Klobuchar. This is primarily because his biggest problem is probably his age - simply in actuarial terms, a 78 year old might very well not last four years in good health, let alone eight. Klobuchar is a two-term Senator who been tested on the national campaign trail, and came out of it with he stock decidedly higher. Other than a foreign policy wobble over Mexico (and all candidates have a wobble at some point), she's been solidly on top of her brief and is a very sturdy debater. She's not that exciting a VP choice. But an old man doesn't need exciting - he needs a pick who is ready to be President in a heartbeat.
Whitmer as Michigan governor, a must win Trump 2016 swing state, is who I would pick
I'm much more cautious on Whitmer.
She's been a Governor for one year, and was state legislature prior to that. Will people see that as "heartbeat from the Presidency" material? Possibly (Buttigieg was as serious candidate for the nomination as Klobuchar on less), but it's not a weighty CV and people will need persuading.
She's perceived to have done well in this crisis, but didn't have great approval ratings prior to that. She won the Governorship in a good year for the Democrats against a lacklustre GOP candidate, so hasn't really been through the national spotlight or debate with big beasts.
Feels like flavour of the month more than a pick for November.
I'd also note that VP candidates don't have a fantastic record of swinging their own state. It's a plus to have a rust belt candidate, but doesn't guarantee Michigan, let alone neighbours.
The South West of England has one of the lowest rates despite having a relatively older population. Maybe proximity from large urban centres is the explanation.
Of course. Look at Northern Ireland's data compared to England. Same conditions.
As I pointed out the other day, this is going to be a very big issue - and will worsen the longer the lockdown is in place. As Peston says in a key sentence: "We've all acquired precautionary habits that will prove hard to break".
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
Simple answer, test everyone who is going into the school and those that they are in immediate contact with. The school makes any track and trace app compulsory and anyone not doing so will be suspended. PPE made available to all staff and social distancing enforced for all pupils and staff. That would be enough, I think.
Where do we get the tests for 10-20m people? How often will they be repeated? If a teacher is in PPE why arent the kids? So we will also need 10m sets of PPE, train them and deliver fresh PPE regularly.
Simple? Really?
The one thing that is in major short supply in the UK is not only PPE but also a basic understanding of the complexity and technical nature of the manufacture and supply chain of medical products. As someone who has been involved in the healthcare industry for most of my life I find some of the comments on here vary between being amusing and downright infuriating. That said, such levels of ignorance are understandable when we have governments ministers suggesting JCB make ventilators! Next up it is James Dyson who, it was wrongly claimed would be able to make them in weeks. Who next? Anyone spotting a pattern here? Tim Martin? Can he make ventilators, or maybe PPE? How much time is being wasted providing PR for Brexiteers and Tory donors?
Comments
The deficit would spike but fall back really quickly.
Public Debt would max out at 95% of GDP and then start to fall again.
We do, however, have to make sure we play this right. If we relax too soon and end up having to tighten up again for longer than otherwise necessary in response to further waves, the disruption lasts longer in the end and "the longer the period of economic disruption lasts, the more likely it is that the economy’s future potential output will be ‘scarred’ (thanks to business failures, cancelled investments and the unemployed becoming disconnected from the labour market). "
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/14/poll-biden-black-vp-185043
https://twitter.com/Mike_Pence/status/1249864491736629248?s=20
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot...
Sticking people with the later "type" on a ventilator results in worsen of their condition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8aG63yigjA
Over time it would be ideal to sterilise that additional supply. In my view the easiest way to do that would be to create a specific "Coronavirus Recovery Contribution", payable over 10 years. I'd base that on property as it's easy to attach a specific liability to it and a reasonable proxy for wealth.
Savills says the value of residential housing is £7.3 trillion. So let's say that you ask people to pay 3% of the value of their house at a rate of 0.3% per year (0.1% = £73bn). If you don't have the cash it can be rolled up for 10 years with an interest rate equal to the 10 year government bond rate.
https://www.savills.com/blog/article/274512/residential-property/value-of-uk-housing-stock-hits-record-high.aspx
To put it in perspective, that means someone with an average UK house (£233K) is being asked to contribute £700 per year or £7,000 upfront. The average Londoner would be asked to pay about £2,000 per year or £20,000 over 10 years. The average house owner in Kensington and Chelsea (£2m) would be paying £6,000 per year or £60,000 over 10 years.
At the end of 2030 the Corona debt is fully sterilised.
I would expect that, for most viruses, you need much higher temperatures to kill but smaller temperatures will interfere with its reproductive system significantly enough.
But that hardly invalidates the point about the 45-64 category.
I am not finding a sympathy well here.
Mass testing and tracing has made the difference for Germany
(cf 'real Americans' etc.)
No one ever thought the virus would be physically killed by the heat of an English Summer!
Could one of the medical types here give a full description, for all our benefit?
No mate, no.
YOUR RESPONSE to it will have a very significant impact. You are the government. You have agency, you have choice.
You chose lock down and you must accept the implications of your choices.
See the distinction?
For example, there will be a push to get schools reopened - the problem will be getting the teachers back not the children. If a teacher is being paid 100% (state) 80-100% (private) of salary why would that teacher want to return to school and take risks rather than remain in isolation for longer?
There was something going on a few weeks back where the English [for health service purposes] Gmt or its agencies claimed the right to deal with buying and the company in question had to break its discussions with devolved gmts - if that was messed up then this may be the consequence.
https://www.esicm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/684_author-proof.pdf
The only major variable between the Labour Party that got 40% in 2017 and that who was thrashed in 2019 was their commitment to respecting the referendum result in the former and their refusal to do so in the latter.
Because Boris is crap obvs
People need to remember that furlough wages are paid to the employee by the employer, not the government. If the employer folds, there goes your pay packet.
"These new measures (EU ones) will help protect customer rights and provide clear guidance, while ensuring travel companies have a chance of surviving beyond the current crisis.
We are still waiting for action and guidance from the UK Government."
So the 'taking back control' mantra means doing nothing in this case. A few simple procedures that the EU has put in place will stop travel companies going bust and travellers from losing money by putting everything on hold. Whereas in the UK we are in free for all territory (relying on travellers behaving sensibly like they did in the supermarkets) with travellers demanding refunds (as they are entitled to do) which will bankrupt travel companies leading to many not getting their money and those with ATOL cover probably breaking ATOL.
It is not as if this requires a penny in funding.
Advisers to the scientific group who are reviewing the lockdown are alarmed at police closing parks and threatening to arrest sunbathers" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/13/government-should-calling-dogs-relaxing-lockdown-rules-scientific
It would not be a good look if relatively wealthy pensioners (by virtual of the fact they own their house - I haven't dug out the stats but I suspect most will be mortgage free at this point) are perceived as not making a contribution to national recovery.
If your employer says come back to work then you come back or resign.
From the media footage, there is no signs of the chaos, busy yes, but not beds in hallways, sick people sleeping on coats on floors and doctors working 18hrs a day 7 days a week and having to sleep in their offices, because of being totally overwhelmed.
But....the number of people dying is on par with all these. I wonder why?
1 - Business Behaviour response. Companies are deperate to hang onto cash. Investment in people, plant etc. is frozen and will remain so.
2 - Consumer Behavioural Response. It assumes everyone just goes back to normal. No impact on spending, investment or transaction levels.
3 - Far as I can see there is no account of asset revaluations (especially property).
4 - There are no lag factors, rolling over losses to reduce CG and CT in latter years.
5 - No (!) impact on trade balances
6 - No hit to secondary taxes (council tax, stamp duty)
To be fair this is a good start and this 'best case' shows just how bad the medium and worst case scenarios are.
Biden is VERY strongly placed with black voters already. A key reason neither Harris nor Booker got traction is that, despite being black, they didn't make a compelling case to black voters to peel away from Biden given his close association with Obama. Harris unsettled him on bussing... but ultimately it wasn't enough and faded away.
It is true that turnout matters, but Biden doesn't have a problem that Harris or Abrams address - it'd instead play to an existing strength.
Biden has more issues with Hispanic voters, which would speak to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, or Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
If I were him, though, I'd go for Amy Klobuchar. This is primarily because his biggest problem is probably his age - simply in actuarial terms, a 78 year old might very well not last four years in good health, let alone eight. Klobuchar is a two-term Senator who been tested on the national campaign trail, and came out of it with he stock decidedly higher. Other than a foreign policy wobble over Mexico (and all candidates have a wobble at some point), she's been solidly on top of her brief and is a very sturdy debater. She's not that exciting a VP choice. But an old man doesn't need exciting - he needs a pick who is ready to be President in a heartbeat.
The other argument, of course, is that the government should be containing the virus as much as possible, whatever this takes. But those advocating this approach fail to appreciate that the virus will still be present when we come out of lockdown eventually and fewer will be immune under this approach, and the economy and our freedoms will have been trashed even further.
All for "charity"
https://twitter.com/sid_lambert/status/1249950349630353408?s=21
https://twitter.com/goal/status/1250039403688402952?s=21
And Universal Credit etc.
Schools back after the May bank holiday would be a good start - keep the wrinklies in their hutch for while.
Simple? Really?
If a furlough has already been agreed for a specified period, Id expect an employee might have a right to stay furloughed for that duration (so could resist an early call back to work).
In practice unions would play a part in something like teaching. They might sympathise with teachers wanting to stay furloughed if they were living with vulnerable relatives for example and could put significant pressure on the employer.
Thanks for posting it.
Testing, tracking and tracing (compulsory) is the name of the game, here.
It's little to do with the precise timing, and far more related to the development of the capacity to test - both for track & trace, and to monitor much closer to real time how quickly things are going downhill again.
1. The UK was relatively slow to lock down. I understand some of the reasons for that (long haul, fatigue risk, economy) but an internal debate over herd immunity also delayed it - it was sub-optimal.
2. We've not done well on testing, which is unhelpful on spread. I suspect (and it's only a suspicion) we have quite a high infection rate relative to others.
3. The benefit of the NHS is enough command and control to give a genuinely national service (so less problem than Italy with insufficient resource for local clusters). But there are also drawbacks - historical resourcing means I suspect there are overall fewer staff per patient and we're slower to put into intensive care (i.e. the average resource received is slightly lower but the range is less - almost everyone has decent but not amazing care). Some procurement decisions early on were also problematic in this respect.
4. I think the media shield us from some of the worst news to avoid panic. It's rather different showing scenes at an Italian hospital in terms of fear, to be blunt. The health service has coped pretty well compared with similar countries, but probably not quite as well as current news reports indicate.
5. Possibly we have more underlying at-risk groups - relatively poor general health compared with southern Europe, and an older population than NY. But I'm far from sure on that.
Just shows again how the world is changing, while the numpties asking the questions at the press conference clearly don't read the academic papers and asking things like why isn't the ONS publishing something they already are....while on the YouTube's you can become really informed about this subject.
The Gompels website does have an "England only" order restriction which it says is at the request of PHE (not "the Westminster government" as the Nat Onal claims) - so I suspect the usual - some form of "cock up" - certainly in communication:
https://www.gompels.co.uk/phe-type-iir-fluid-repellant-surgical-mask-blue-300-pack.html?filter=infection-control-type:face-mask&sort=p.sort_order&order=ASC
No doubt there are also significant local/regional differences, and the number of deaths varies considerably by region, of course.
For an existing example of apparently differing risk across groups.
It is unlikely that NHS consultants (for example) could be considered poor or down trodden by management.
Risks have to be balanced. Do we deny a generation of students 3 years education if that is how long a vaccine takes? I would consider that a far greater risk than a slow release of lockdown with imperfect mitigation.
Remdesivir is a direct-acting antiviral that inhibits RNA-dependent RNA polymerase from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 with high potency
https://www.jbc.org/content/early/2020/04/13/jbc.RA120.013679.abstract
Effective treatments for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are urgently needed to control this current pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Replication of SARS-CoV-2 depends on the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), which is the likely target of the investigational nucleotide analogue remdesivir (RDV). RDV shows broad-spectrum antiviral activity against RNA viruses, and previous studies with RdRps from Ebola virus (EBOV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have revealed that delayed chain-termination is RDV’s plausible mechanism of action. Here, we expressed and purified active SARS-CoV-2 RdRp composed of the non-structural proteins nsp8 and nsp12. Enzyme kinetics indicated that this RdRp efficiently incorporates the active triphosphate form of RDV (RDV-TP) into RNA. Incorporation of RDV-TP at position i caused termination of RNA synthesis at position i+3. We obtained almost identical results with SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 RdRps. A unique property of RDV-TP is its high selectivity over incorporation of its natural nucleotide counterpart ATP. In this regard, the triphosphate forms of 2’-C–methylated compounds, including sofosbuvir, approved for the management of hepatitis C virus infection, and the broad-acting antivirals favipiravir and ribavirin, exhibited significant deficits. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the target specificity of RDV, as RDV-TP was less efficiently incorporated by the distantly related Lassa virus RdRp, and termination of RNA synthesis was not observed. These results collectively provide a unifying, refined mechanism of RDV-mediated RNA synthesis inhibition in coronaviruses and define this nucleotide analogue as a direct-acting antiviral (DAA)....
I'd also hope that any such tax applied only to the net equity, not to the gross total of equity plus mortgage, as I've seen some lefties suggest.
She's been a Governor for one year, and was state legislature prior to that. Will people see that as "heartbeat from the Presidency" material? Possibly (Buttigieg was as serious candidate for the nomination as Klobuchar on less), but it's not a weighty CV and people will need persuading.
She's perceived to have done well in this crisis, but didn't have great approval ratings prior to that. She won the Governorship in a good year for the Democrats against a lacklustre GOP candidate, so hasn't really been through the national spotlight or debate with big beasts.
Feels like flavour of the month more than a pick for November.
I'd also note that VP candidates don't have a fantastic record of swinging their own state. It's a plus to have a rust belt candidate, but doesn't guarantee Michigan, let alone neighbours.