The Chines realised very early that a lot of transmission was happening within households, so even mild cases were admitted to these lightly staffed and equipped hospitals. There was some treatment and monitoring, but the main purpose was to test and quarantine, with discharges only with consecutive negative swabs.
This is broadly how I would ease the lock down, by having massively expanded testing and compulsory admission to Nightingale quarantine hospitals.
Do you have any views as to why increased testing still isn't happening in this country ?
"To pay for [social care in old age], Burnham tells me we should tap the wealth of the older generation, so everyone contributes 15% of their assets on retirement, usually through equity release on their property: the state pays for those without assets. Every family keeps 85%, so no family risks losing everything after paying for years of care: with risk fairly shared, inheritances are secured, with better free care for all. Who owns care homes is secondary once all staff are NHS/care employees. Gordon Brown so liked the plan he sent Burnham a framed front page of the 1948 NHS act on his 40th birthday, writing that he would be “the new Bevan”. It didn’t work out that way – or not yet."
Why oh why did AB side with YC and L4%K and come out for austerity lite in 2015 leaders election. He would have beaten Corbyn if he hadnt and would have been LOTO in 2015 and maybe PM in 2017
If he had been leader of the Opposition in 2017, it is unlikely there would have been an election. It was Corbyn’s appalling electoral performance, specifically the Copeland by-election, that inspired May to call one.
He might of course have become Prime Minister in a 2019 election.
Better get their fingers out and let @gompelshc ('one of the biggest suppliers to Scottish care homes') know then, they seemed to gave got the wrong end of the stick.
'We didn't decide these restrictions. The criteria was given to us by Public Health England @PHE_uk. Please don't think we're discriminating against our lovely, loyal Welsh/Scottish customers.'
“The fact is Public Health England got their finger out and organised these distribution channels and are getting pilloried for it because public health Scotland, or whatever the equivalent is, have not necessarily organised the same and that’s probably the nub of it.”
Mr Gompels explained that the PPE in question had come from Public Health England’s own stocks which were stockpiled in case of a flu pandemic. Much of the kit was in storage and past sell by date, but has been retested so safe to use in coronavirus.
“I somehow can’t imagine Scottish health authorities supplying English care homes to be perfectly blunt.” Sam Gompels, MD of Gompels HealthCare
One of the things about the asymmetry between the nations of the UK is that Public Health England is a very different beast in size and scope to Public Health Wales, the new Public Health Scotland and the Public Health Agency in NI.
In certain respects PHE effectively works as Public Health UK, in other respects it doesn't. Because of that split, and particularly because of its association with national government, it wouldn't seem unreasonable to many people if PHE released its own stockpile to access by the other nations... and indeed it will seem unreasonable, particularly to some of those who live outside England, if they didn't! If we had, say, very strong regional "Public Health Yorkshire", "Public Health London" type agencies, then it might seem less unfair for them to release their stockpiles only to local users (though it would still seem messy and uncoordinated, at least it wouldn't seem like Scotland, Wales and NI were being discriminated against).
This is purely a comment on the optics. What is actually a sensible way of dealing with the agencies' stockpiles, goodness only knows - I suspect if Scotland or Wales were at the heart of the outbreak and their stockpiles were running low, efforts would be being made to transfer more stuff to them. Obviously there's a moral hazard issue if smaller agencies didn't "need" to keep a stockpile because the other agencies would always bail them out, but I don't think this is the time or place to worry about moral hazard (cf the banking crisis).
Great post. Regardless of optics and moral hazard and politics, the most effective overall approach is simply to pool resources and to apply them to where they are most needed and will be most effective, albeit within the other constraint of having to manage these resources not just in the moment, but over the duration of the crisis.
Yes, the over the duration bit is important and obviously it's harder because we don't know with certainty how long that will be or how badly different parts of the country will be affected! I think it's what the Operational Research guys call a hierarchical dynamic stochastic programming problem... the maths is complicated but the intuition is pretty obvious, the more constraints you apply (eg stockpile X can only be used in place Y), the more suboptimal your overall solution becomes.
I don't see why English systems should be made poorer just because the Scottish system isn't up to snuff (yet?) or due to SNP / Nationalist politicking.
Perhaps we need to consider undevolving some things instead as well as devolving some extra things, when we eventually get around to a careful review of the Curate's Egg that is devolution.
But it will all need a long, careful process.
Fundamentally, as per @TimT, the "best" thing to do in terms of overall outcomes is pool and distribute as needed. Any region hoarding is suboptimal, and regions focusing on their own needs first are suboptimal if the need is greater elsewhere. Now you might say regional bodies have a remit to do what's best for their individual region, and they aren't tasked to worry about "the whole", but ultimately if we're in a United Kingdom - and particularly if the government of the UK wants to keep things that way - then frankly someone at the top ought to just put their foot down and say "we're taking care of the whole country, no squabbling, pool your kit and do what's best for everyone".
The political angle is that the asymmetry between Public Health England and its counterpart matters - in reality, it's unlikely that the stockpiles in Scotland or Wales or NI would have enough surplus to bail England out if England were worst hit, but England's stockpile ought to be an order of magnitude bigger than the rest of them combined and would be relevant if the others were in trouble. Moreover, the English stockpile is effectively under the control of UK central government, whereas the others are under the devolved administrations. It's really not a good look for the UK government to be seen to be denying vital PPE to sectors in desperate need in the devolved nations, regardless of whether those users "ought", in your view, to be looking at the devolved stockpile first. Neither is it a good look for the devolved and Westminster governments to be rowing about who's cocked up or blocking what.
What would be really interesting from a political point of view, though I cross my fingers it never comes to this, is if England were hardest-hit, stocks were running low, and Westminster was facing the issue of "should we demand some of the Scottish and Welsh inventories be released for English use to at least alleviate the disaster?" As per @TimT that would almost certainly be the optimal solution in terms of health outcomes. But the optics of that would look absolutely awful. That's a suggestion Westminster should really be seeking to avoid.
I suggest the different administrations should get their thinking hats on and (maybe quietly) come together to agree on a resource pooling strategy.
I thought that purchasing was combined across the 4 nations several weeks ago - when there was the clash between the Welsh order and the English order?
Usage guidance was certainly made common when updated a few days ago.
Andrew Neil yet again showing that his Europhobia leads him into ludicrous error and he doesn’t have the self-respect to admit he got it wrong. He has still left his incorrect tweet up to keep swirling round Death Cult Twitter.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
"To pay for [social care in old age], Burnham tells me we should tap the wealth of the older generation, so everyone contributes 15% of their assets on retirement, usually through equity release on their property: the state pays for those without assets. Every family keeps 85%, so no family risks losing everything after paying for years of care: with risk fairly shared, inheritances are secured, with better free care for all. Who owns care homes is secondary once all staff are NHS/care employees. Gordon Brown so liked the plan he sent Burnham a framed front page of the 1948 NHS act on his 40th birthday, writing that he would be “the new Bevan”. It didn’t work out that way – or not yet."
Why oh why did AB side with YC and L4%K and come out for austerity lite in 2015 leaders election. He would have beaten Corbyn if he hadnt and would have been LOTO in 2015 and maybe PM in 2017
Retirement seems a strange point to select - perhaps at death would be more reasonable?
The Chines realised very early that a lot of transmission was happening within households, so even mild cases were admitted to these lightly staffed and equipped hospitals. There was some treatment and monitoring, but the main purpose was to test and quarantine, with discharges only with consecutive negative swabs.
This is broadly how I would ease the lock down, by having massively expanded testing and compulsory admission to Nightingale quarantine hospitals.
Do you have any views as to why increased testing still isn't happening in this country ?
And what can be done to make sure it does so ?
It seems to be a problem with lab capacity, and the results are taking too long too.
Why other countries, even those without diagnostics industries, have managed so much better at ramping up testing is unclear. It is essential for the post lock down phase.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
"To pay for [social care in old age], Burnham tells me we should tap the wealth of the older generation, so everyone contributes 15% of their assets on retirement, usually through equity release on their property: the state pays for those without assets. Every family keeps 85%, so no family risks losing everything after paying for years of care: with risk fairly shared, inheritances are secured, with better free care for all. Who owns care homes is secondary once all staff are NHS/care employees. Gordon Brown so liked the plan he sent Burnham a framed front page of the 1948 NHS act on his 40th birthday, writing that he would be “the new Bevan”. It didn’t work out that way – or not yet."
Andrew Neil yet again showing that his Europhobia leads him into ludicrous error and he doesn’t have the self-respect to admit he got it wrong. He has still left his incorrect tweet up to keep swirling round Death Cult Twitter.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
Spin the table and he's you Alistair.
You've simply described yourself.
For what it's worth I regard your, and AN's thoughts as essential listening.
Corbynism may be going down in flames. It looks like the Corbynistas are attempting to take the mother ship down with them. Every last man (and woman) jack of them are scoundrels to the core.
Try to spin this as much as you like it is not Corbyn or his supporters who are at fault here. Try reading the 800 pages.
Some staffers let AS people off if they were on the right of the party, wanted the Tories to win and adopted abusive and racist language as part of their roles.
They should be expelled
You ready to quote the section of the report that shows Tom Watson intervened to ensure Ken Livingston was only suspended?
Andrew Neil yet again showing that his Europhobia leads him into ludicrous error and he doesn’t have the self-respect to admit he got it wrong. He has still left his incorrect tweet up to keep swirling round Death Cult Twitter.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
Spin the table and he's you Alistair.
You've simply described yourself.
For what it's worth I regard your, and AN's thoughts as essential listening.
I have no idea what point you have about me. I drew attention to the fact Andrew Neil had made a stupid error that he hasn’t properly corrected today, yet he is demanding the National retracts a story.
"To pay for [social care in old age], Burnham tells me we should tap the wealth of the older generation, so everyone contributes 15% of their assets on retirement, usually through equity release on their property: the state pays for those without assets. Every family keeps 85%, so no family risks losing everything after paying for years of care: with risk fairly shared, inheritances are secured, with better free care for all. Who owns care homes is secondary once all staff are NHS/care employees. Gordon Brown so liked the plan he sent Burnham a framed front page of the 1948 NHS act on his 40th birthday, writing that he would be “the new Bevan”. It didn’t work out that way – or not yet."
Why oh why did AB side with YC and L4%K and come out for austerity lite in 2015 leaders election. He would have beaten Corbyn if he hadnt and would have been LOTO in 2015 and maybe PM in 2017
Retirement seems a strange point to select - perhaps at death would be more reasonable?
Retirement is a movable feast these days.
It was Ed Davey in the coalition government who abolished compulsory retirement, so after Burnhams proposal.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
"To pay for [social care in old age], Burnham tells me we should tap the wealth of the older generation, so everyone contributes 15% of their assets on retirement, usually through equity release on their property: the state pays for those without assets. Every family keeps 85%, so no family risks losing everything after paying for years of care: with risk fairly shared, inheritances are secured, with better free care for all. Who owns care homes is secondary once all staff are NHS/care employees. Gordon Brown so liked the plan he sent Burnham a framed front page of the 1948 NHS act on his 40th birthday, writing that he would be “the new Bevan”. It didn’t work out that way – or not yet."
Why oh why did AB side with YC and L4%K and come out for austerity lite in 2015 leaders election. He would have beaten Corbyn if he hadnt and would have been LOTO in 2015 and maybe PM in 2017
If he had been leader of the Opposition in 2017, it is unlikely there would have been an election. It was Corbyn’s appalling electoral performance, specifically the Copeland by-election, that inspired May to call one.
He might of course have become Prime Minister in a 2019 election.
This is the pivotal bit in the whining from the Corbynites - had the Tories not had a Corbyn-induced 25 point lead, there would have been no 2017 election. Burnham as LOTO wouldn't have had that chance. Who knows where we would be. A reasonable assumption would be that we were due a general election in a very short time. Which would be *fun*
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
The Chines realised very early that a lot of transmission was happening within households, so even mild cases were admitted to these lightly staffed and equipped hospitals. There was some treatment and monitoring, but the main purpose was to test and quarantine, with discharges only with consecutive negative swabs.
This is broadly how I would ease the lock down, by having massively expanded testing and compulsory admission to Nightingale quarantine hospitals.
Do you have any views as to why increased testing still isn't happening in this country ?
And what can be done to make sure it does so ?
It seems to be a problem with lab capacity, and the results are taking too long too.
Why other countries, even those without diagnostics industries, have managed so much better at ramping up testing is unclear. It is essential for the post lock down phase.
Andrew Neil yet again showing that his Europhobia leads him into ludicrous error and he doesn’t have the self-respect to admit he got it wrong. He has still left his incorrect tweet up to keep swirling round Death Cult Twitter.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
(Regardless of my own leanings on Brexit or other issues, I don't really have a dog in the fight here. Please take the following just as pondering on the medium of twitter, which I don't claim to understand the ways of.)
What is best twitter etiquette regarding errors in earlier tweets? Because they can be accessed (and will commonly be shared) as standalone pieces, it seems to me to be a disadvantage of the platform that a correction or clarification can't be directly appended to it.
It does annoy me when certain other journotwitterers take up the modus operandi of deleting tweets they realised were wrong without posting a correction/clarification or thanking anyone who pointed the slip out.
Deleting a tweet does look a lot like pretending you never said something, and the actual flow of Neil's tweets (he was live-tweeting Macron's speech, shortly after checked the transcript, posted a correction, gave some polite replies to people who'd called him out and acknowledged their point) works better for keeping having the incorrect tweet in. You couldn't see what they were calling him out for if he deleted it.
But the problem with this is, as you said, that the uncorrected tweet has a whole life in the ether of its own, and may not stop being reshared for some time to come.
Strikes me it's a shame twitter doesn't have a kind of "oops" button that maybe greys out your tweet and allows you to attach your correction directly to it in such a way that the original tweet cannot be displayed without the correction attached. I'm very used to the early 2000s blogosphere where it was reasonably common for bloggers to strike-through parts of their posts and write a correction after it if they received a correction in the comment, so that they transparently acknowledged the error. Again I didn't like it when text was simply changed or removed without this, partly because it often made the comment discussion about the correction impossible to follow!
@AlastairMeeks - In light of your demands for prosecutions regarding PPE and not getting involved with the EU, do you think there should have been prosecutions over this:
Women’s lives may have been cut short by a major IT error which meant 450,000 patients in England missed crucial breast cancer screenings, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said.
Corbynism may be going down in flames. It looks like the Corbynistas are attempting to take the mother ship down with them. Every last man (and woman) jack of them are scoundrels to the core.
Try to spin this as much as you like it is not Corbyn or his supporters who are at fault here. Try reading the 800 pages.
Some staffers let AS people off if they were on the right of the party, wanted the Tories to win and adopted abusive and racist language as part of their roles.
They should be expelled
Call me biased, but Formby's fingerprints are all over the dossier. In whos interests is the leaking of Jennie's dossier?
Corbynism may be going down in flames. It looks like the Corbynistas are attempting to take the mother ship down with them. Every last man (and woman) jack of them are scoundrels to the core.
To this outsider it looks more like the scene in Blazing Saddles where Cleavon Little gets out of being lynched by threatening to shoot himself.
Which side is Cleavon Little, I’ll leave up to you.
Corbynism may be going down in flames. It looks like the Corbynistas are attempting to take the mother ship down with them. Every last man (and woman) jack of them are scoundrels to the core.
The only residual issue will be why on earth Starmer served under Corbyn?
He has to argue it was for the greater good and he has to do it really soon. In doing so he'll be disposing of Momentum.
Maybe he served as a damage limitation exercise, but yes he has to purge the headbangers. Personally I would pick a massive confrontation with McCluskey in order to break Len's self-appointed King/Queenmaker status.
The Chines realised very early that a lot of transmission was happening within households, so even mild cases were admitted to these lightly staffed and equipped hospitals. There was some treatment and monitoring, but the main purpose was to test and quarantine, with discharges only with consecutive negative swabs.
This is broadly how I would ease the lock down, by having massively expanded testing and compulsory admission to Nightingale quarantine hospitals.
Do you have any views as to why increased testing still isn't happening in this country ?
And what can be done to make sure it does so ?
It seems to be a problem with lab capacity, and the results are taking too long too.
Why other countries, even those without diagnostics industries, have managed so much better at ramping up testing is unclear. It is essential for the post lock down phase.
Thanks, it is very concerning.
Public health England is simply not fit for purpose.
Andrew Neil yet again showing that his Europhobia leads him into ludicrous error and he doesn’t have the self-respect to admit he got it wrong. He has still left his incorrect tweet up to keep swirling round Death Cult Twitter.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
He posted this ten minutes after the original tweet. Seems fair enough.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
@AlastairMeeks - In light of your demands for prosecutions regarding PPE and not getting involved with the EU, do you think there should have been prosecutions over this:
Women’s lives may have been cut short by a major IT error which meant 450,000 patients in England missed crucial breast cancer screenings, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said.
I don’t know enough about computing to know whether that mistake was simple and obvious. I would not wish to get police involved unless the mistake was so screamingly obvious and the decision so obviously involving a risk to life as to amount potentially to gross negligence or recklessness.
What marks out the government’s decision on declining to work with the EU on procuring PPE is that it was apparently a conscious decision, the risk to human life of that decision would have been apparent at the time of that decision and no rationale has been offered for it.
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
I just thought if there were 10000 expected deaths, and there had been 3500 covid deaths, the the total would be less than 13500, as covid had killed some people who would have died of something else. Doesn’t seem credible that covid killed 3500 and that’s not nearly all the extra deaths.
Corbynism may be going down in flames. It looks like the Corbynistas are attempting to take the mother ship down with them. Every last man (and woman) jack of them are scoundrels to the core.
Try to spin this as much as you like it is not Corbyn or his supporters who are at fault here. Try reading the 800 pages.
Some staffers let AS people off if they were on the right of the party, wanted the Tories to win and adopted abusive and racist language as part of their roles.
They should be expelled
Its very simple - the party needs to split. Frankly that has been the case for a few years now. Your side wants to expel my side and vice versa. As my side won both 30 seats and the leadership election, and your side lost 60 seats and is led by Richard Burgon, it seems fairly clear who gets to keep the name, the party machine etc etc
You're only just back in and already wanting a split?
@AlastairMeeks - In light of your demands for prosecutions regarding PPE and not getting involved with the EU, do you think there should have been prosecutions over this:
Women’s lives may have been cut short by a major IT error which meant 450,000 patients in England missed crucial breast cancer screenings, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said.
I don’t know enough about computing to know whether that mistake was simple and obvious. I would not wish to get police involved unless the mistake was so screamingly obvious and the decision so obviously involving a risk to life as to amount potentially to gross negligence or recklessness.
What marks out the government’s decision on declining to work with the EU on procuring PPE is that it was apparently a conscious decision, the risk to human life of that decision would have been apparent at the time of that decision and no rationale has been offered for it.
You see, to my mind, a more obvious error was not shutting the borders back in February. Quite why the whole world sleep walked into this is a mystery to me.
Andrew Neil yet again showing that his Europhobia leads him into ludicrous error and he doesn’t have the self-respect to admit he got it wrong. He has still left his incorrect tweet up to keep swirling round Death Cult Twitter.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
(Regardless of my own leanings on Brexit or other issues, I don't really have a dog in the fight here. Please take the following just as pondering on the medium of twitter, which I don't claim to understand the ways of.)
What is best twitter etiquette regarding errors in earlier tweets? Because they can be accessed (and will commonly be shared) as standalone pieces, it seems to me to be a disadvantage of the platform that a correction or clarification can't be directly appended to it.
It does annoy me when certain other journotwitterers take up the modus operandi of deleting tweets they realised were wrong without posting a correction/clarification or thanking anyone who pointed the slip out.
Deleting a tweet does look a lot like pretending you never said something, and the actual flow of Neil's tweets (he was live-tweeting Macron's speech, shortly after checked the transcript, posted a correction, gave some polite replies to people who'd called him out and acknowledged their point) works better for keeping having the incorrect tweet in. You couldn't see what they were calling him out for if he deleted it.
But the problem with this is, as you said, that the uncorrected tweet has a whole life in the ether of its own, and may not stop being reshared for some time to come.
Strikes me it's a shame twitter doesn't have a kind of "oops" button that maybe greys out your tweet and allows you to attach your correction directly to it in such a way that the original tweet cannot be displayed without the correction attached. I'm very used to the early 2000s blogosphere where it was reasonably common for bloggers to strike-through parts of their posts and write a correction after it if they received a correction in the comment, so that they transparently acknowledged the error. Again I didn't like it when text was simply changed or removed without this, partly because it often made the comment discussion about the correction impossible to follow!
Interesting tweets get retweeted a lot. Boring corrections don’t. So the lie gets seen and the truth does not.
So wrong tweets should be deleted and a separate tweet sent explaining what has been done.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Probably wise. Staying on the right side of China will be economically important post Brexit, as this little graphic on manufacturing shows:
We need European and US trade deals far more than we need CHina. The mood in both has changed dramatically, with even Macron talking about more domestic supply chains. America? Forget about it.
IF Raab has realy given those assurances then he can pack his bags now., given what people are going through in our country and who the polls say they blame.
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
I just thought if there were 10000 expected deaths, and there had been 3500 covid deaths, the the total would be less than 13500, as covid had killed some people who would have died of something else. Doesn’t seem credible that covid killed 3500 and that’s not nearly all the extra deaths.
It is much the same methodology as how winter flu excess deaths are calculated.
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
I just thought if there were 10000 expected deaths, and there had been 3500 covid deaths, the the total would be less than 13500, as covid had killed some people who would have died of something else. Doesn’t seem credible that covid killed 3500 and that’s not nearly all the extra deaths.
It is much the same methodology as how winter flu excess deaths are calculated.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
I am generally amenable to moderate Labour politicians and I am not remotely enthusiastic about a Boris branded Conservative Party (well any Conservative Party for that matter). If this was ever adopted as Labour Party Policy my cross would go next to Alun Cairn's name, and I can't abide the man.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
@AlastairMeeks - In light of your demands for prosecutions regarding PPE and not getting involved with the EU, do you think there should have been prosecutions over this:
Women’s lives may have been cut short by a major IT error which meant 450,000 patients in England missed crucial breast cancer screenings, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said.
I don’t know enough about computing to know whether that mistake was simple and obvious. I would not wish to get police involved unless the mistake was so screamingly obvious and the decision so obviously involving a risk to life as to amount potentially to gross negligence or recklessness.
What marks out the government’s decision on declining to work with the EU on procuring PPE is that it was apparently a conscious decision, the risk to human life of that decision would have been apparent at the time of that decision and no rationale has been offered for it.
You see, to my mind, a more obvious error was not shutting the borders back in February. Quite why the whole world sleep walked into this is a mystery to me.
It probably was an error but not an obvious one. The impact on the economy had to be considered and the size of the threat was unclear. For contemporaneous evidence of the prevailing view, have a look at my first thread on Covid-19 in mid-February. Many posters thought it was a fuss about nothing.
A very non-political friend of mine just posted this angrily on FB:
"Copied and shared so my Friends outside Spain know the truth, not fake news!
Contrary to UK news reports Spain has not lifted it's lockdown . We are not lifting our lockdown, some construction and industrial workers can return to work. Schools are still closed, universities are still closed, all bars, restaurants and hotels are closed, all retail shops except food outlets are closed. We are only allowed out of our homes to shop for food, medical appointments and pharmacies and go to work if allowed as specified by the Decree. We are only allowed to purchase essential items.... ie food, drink We are not allowed out to exercise. Dog owners can briefly take their pets out within immediate vicinity of home. Our slightly eased lockdown is still way more strict than the UK one. Fines for disobeying the lockdown START at €600. We still have the Guardia and Army checking cars, shopping, receipts etc to ensure compliance So, having just listened to the UK news stating that Spain has lifted the lockdown, leaves me wondering why I even bother listening! The media obviously know best! 😡 Borrowed wording."
The media want gotcha headlines FACTS simply do not come into it.
fixed it for you :-)
The question at the Briefing yesterday along the lines of "when will you be following the European Example and lifting the lockdown" was a blatant in its thickitude :-D .
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Probably wise. Staying on the right side of China will be economically important post Brexit, as this little graphic on manufacturing shows:
We need European and US trade deals far more than we need CHina. The mood in both has changed dramatically, with even Macron talking about more domestic supply chains. America? Forget about it.
IF Raab has realy given those assurances then he can pack his bags now., given what people are going through in our country and who the polls say they blame.
Oh, I agree that strong economic ties with our European friends is a better approach, but having spurned those there are really only two other games in town, other than PRK type Jujuche.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
Seems to be the current game in town - "let's have a guess at some current, fuzzy, incomplete data - why wait for something actually analysable?"
At least these numbers seem rather more informative than the ones in the daily press conferences that most people here are obsessing over.
"To pay for [social care in old age], Burnham tells me we should tap the wealth of the older generation, so everyone contributes 15% of their assets on retirement, usually through equity release on their property: the state pays for those without assets. Every family keeps 85%, so no family risks losing everything after paying for years of care: with risk fairly shared, inheritances are secured, with better free care for all. Who owns care homes is secondary once all staff are NHS/care employees. Gordon Brown so liked the plan he sent Burnham a framed front page of the 1948 NHS act on his 40th birthday, writing that he would be “the new Bevan”. It didn’t work out that way – or not yet."
Why oh why did AB side with YC and L4%K and come out for austerity lite in 2015 leaders election. He would have beaten Corbyn if he hadnt and would have been LOTO in 2015 and maybe PM in 2017
If he had been leader of the Opposition in 2017, it is unlikely there would have been an election. It was Corbyn’s appalling electoral performance, specifically the Copeland by-election, that inspired May to call one.
He might of course have become Prime Minister in a 2019 election.
In a further counterfactual he is 10 points ahead of PM Osborne in the polls and the 2020 GE has just been postponed...
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
I am generally amenable to moderate Labour politicians and I am not remotely enthusiastic about a Boris branded Conservative Party (well any Conservative Party for that matter). If this was ever adopted as Labour Party Policy my cross would go next to Alun Cairn's name, and I can't abide the man.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
The second word Mr Burnham is off!
To avoid punishing those who have saved for retirement, a Social care tax needs to be on income or consumption.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Huge, if true. Massive. And not in a good way for this government.
The story is based on comments by the Chinese embassy, and we are believing this without question?
The government would neither confirm or deny, which means they obviously did give those assurances.
This is a huge, huge story.
I'm not sure I follow your logic there.
Given the lethal toxocity of what the Chinese embassy claim, any sane government would have denied it immediately.
It's probably policy not to comment on barmy stories such as this. Can't you see this is just that Chinese embassy trying to stir things up? You've swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Better get their fingers out and let @gompelshc ('one of the biggest suppliers to Scottish care homes') know then, they seemed to gave got the wrong end of the stick.
'We didn't decide these restrictions. The criteria was given to us by Public Health England @PHE_uk. Please don't think we're discriminating against our lovely, loyal Welsh/Scottish customers.'
“The fact is Public Health England got their finger out and organised these distribution channels and are getting pilloried for it because public health Scotland, or whatever the equivalent is, have not necessarily organised the same and that’s probably the nub of it.”
Mr Gompels explained that the PPE in question had come from Public Health England’s own stocks which were stockpiled in case of a flu pandemic. Much of the kit was in storage and past sell by date, but has been retested so safe to use in coronavirus.
“I somehow can’t imagine Scottish health authorities supplying English care homes to be perfectly blunt.” Sam Gompels, MD of Gompels HealthCare
One of the things about the asymmetry between the nations of the UK is that Public Health England is a very different beast in size and scope to Public Health Wales, the new Public Health Scotland and the Public Health Agency in NI.
In certain respects PHE effectively works as Public Health UK, in other respects it doesn't. Because of that split, and particularly because of its association with national government, it wouldn't seem unreasonable to many people if PHE released its own stockpile to access by the other nations... and indeed it will seem unreasonable, particularly to some of those who live outside England, if they didn't! If we had, say, very strong regional "Public Health Yorkshire", "Public Health London" type agencies, then it might seem less unfair for them to release their stockpiles only to local users (though it would still seem messy and uncoordinated, at least it wouldn't seem like Scotland, Wales and NI were being discriminated against).
This is purely a comment on the optics. What is actually a sensible way of dealing with the agencies' stockpiles, goodness only knows - I suspect if Scotland or Wales were at the heart of the outbreak and their stockpiles were running low, efforts would be being made to transfer more stuff to them. Obviously there's a moral hazard issue if smaller agencies didn't "need" to keep a stockpile because the other agencies would always bail them out, but I don't think this is the time or place to worry about moral hazard (cf the banking crisis).
Great post. Regardless of optics and moral hazard and politics, the most effective overall approach is simply to pool resources and to apply them to where they are most needed and will be most effective, albeit within the other constraint of having to manage these resources not just in the moment, but over the duration of the crisis.
Yes, the over the duration bit is important and obviously it's harder because we don't know with certainty how long that will be or how badly different parts of the country will be affected! I think it's what the Operational Research guys call a hierarchical dynamic stochastic programming problem... the maths is complicated but the intuition is pretty obvious, the more constraints you apply (eg stockpile X can only be used in place Y), the more suboptimal your overall solution becomes.
I don't see why English systems should be made poorer just because the Scottish system isn't up to snuff (yet?) or due to SNP / Nationalist politicking.
Perhaps we need to consider undevolving some things instead as well as devolving some extra things, when we eventually get around to a careful review of the Curate's Egg that is devolution.
But it will all need a long, careful process.
Fundamentally, as per @TimT, the "best" thing to do in terms of overall outcomes is pool and distribute as needed. Any region hoarding is suboptimal, and regions focusing on their own needs first are suboptimal if the need is greater elsewhere. Now you might say regional bodies have a remit to do what's best for their individual region, and they aren't tasked to worry about "the whole", but ultimately if we're in a United Kingdom - and particularly if the government of the UK wants to keep things that way - then frankly someone at the top ought to just put their foot down and say "we're taking care of the whole country, no squabbling, pool your kit and do what's best for everyone".
The political angle is that the asymmetry between Public Health England and its counterpart matters - in reality, it's unlikely that the stockpiles in Scotland or Wales or NI would have enough surplus to bail England out if England were worst hit, but England's stockpile ought to be an order of magnitude bigger than the rest of them combined and would be relevant if the others were in trouble. Moreover, the English stockpile is effectively under the control of UK central government, whereas the others are under the devolved administrations. It's really not a good look for the UK government to be seen to be denying vital PPE to sectors in desperate need in the devolved nations, regardless of whether those users "ought", in your view, to be looking at the devolved stockpile first. Neither is it a good look for the devolved and Westminster governments to be rowing about who's cocked up or blocking what.
What would be really interesting from a political point of view, though I cross my fingers it never comes to this, is if England were hardest-hit, stocks were running low, and Westminster was facing the issue of "should we demand some of the Scottish and Welsh inventories be released for English use to at least alleviate the disaster?" As per @TimT that would almost certainly be the optimal solution in terms of health outcomes. But the optics of that would look absolutely awful. That's a suggestion Westminster should really be seeking to avoid.
I suggest the different administrations should get their thinking hats on and (maybe quietly) come together to agree on a resource pooling strategy.
I thought that purchasing was combined across the 4 nations several weeks ago - when there was the clash between the Welsh order and the English order?
Usage guidance was certainly made common when updated a few days ago.
That's exactly what I thought - that something had been sorted out after the Welsh clash. If it hasn't been implemented properly, then that's not good.
@AlastairMeeks - In light of your demands for prosecutions regarding PPE and not getting involved with the EU, do you think there should have been prosecutions over this:
Women’s lives may have been cut short by a major IT error which meant 450,000 patients in England missed crucial breast cancer screenings, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said.
I don’t know enough about computing to know whether that mistake was simple and obvious. I would not wish to get police involved unless the mistake was so screamingly obvious and the decision so obviously involving a risk to life as to amount potentially to gross negligence or recklessness.
What marks out the government’s decision on declining to work with the EU on procuring PPE is that it was apparently a conscious decision, the risk to human life of that decision would have been apparent at the time of that decision and no rationale has been offered for it.
You see, to my mind, a more obvious error was not shutting the borders back in February. Quite why the whole world sleep walked into this is a mystery to me.
It probably was an error but not an obvious one. The impact on the economy had to be considered and the size of the threat was unclear. For contemporaneous evidence of the prevailing view, have a look at my first thread on Covid-19 in mid-February. Many posters thought it was a fuss about nothing.
The same was not true in late March.
BiB - Obviously we can't shutdown the international economy everytime someone sneezes, but we have now shutdown large parts of our domestic economy - which is far more damaging.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Probably wise. Staying on the right side of China will be economically important post Brexit, as this little graphic on manufacturing shows:
It's interesting, I would have expected the UK to be much further behind France than it actually is. I am also surprised just how far ahead Italy is. (Not that having all that manufacturing output has done the economy any good at all...)
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
One and two are mutually exclusive. IE. The bats and pangolins were probably in the animal market because people like to eat bats (and use pangolins for medicinal purposes) ?
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Probably wise. Staying on the right side of China will be economically important post Brexit, as this little graphic on manufacturing shows:
It's interesting, I would have expected the UK to be much further behind France than it actually is. I am also surprised just how far ahead Italy is. (Not that having all that manufacturing output has done the economy any good at all...)
The press have been misreporting this for years. It's just how they roll.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
I am generally amenable to moderate Labour politicians and I am not remotely enthusiastic about a Boris branded Conservative Party (well any Conservative Party for that matter). If this was ever adopted as Labour Party Policy my cross would go next to Alun Cairn's name, and I can't abide the man.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
The second word Mr Burnham is off!
To avoid punishing those who have saved for retirement, a Social care tax needs to be on income or consumption.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Huge, if true. Massive. And not in a good way for this government.
The story is based on comments by the Chinese embassy, and we are believing this without question?
The government would neither confirm or deny, which means they obviously did give those assurances.
This is a huge, huge story.
I'm not sure I follow your logic there.
Given the lethal toxocity of what the Chinese embassy claim, any sane government would have denied it immediately.
It's probably policy not to comment on barmy stories such as this. Can't you see this is just that Chinese embassy trying to stir things up? You've swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Well maybe I am. But if the public gets the impression ithe government intends to go back to business as usual with China after this nightmare is over. then I would suggest that is extremely toxic for the government. Extremely. Lethally.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Probably wise. Staying on the right side of China will be economically important post Brexit, as this little graphic on manufacturing shows:
It's interesting, I would have expected the UK to be much further behind France than it actually is. I am also surprised just how far ahead Italy is. (Not that having all that manufacturing output has done the economy any good at all...)
France’s economy is much more service dominated than most people think.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Huge, if true. Massive. And not in a good way for this government.
The story is based on comments by the Chinese embassy, and we are believing this without question?
The government would neither confirm or deny, which means they obviously did give those assurances.
This is a huge, huge story.
I'm not sure I follow your logic there.
Given the lethal toxocity of what the Chinese embassy claim, any sane government would have denied it immediately.
It's probably policy not to comment on barmy stories such as this. Can't you see this is just that Chinese embassy trying to stir things up? You've swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Well maybe I am. But if the public gets the impression ithe government intends to go back to business as usual with China after this nightmare is over. then I would suggest that is extremely toxic for the government. Extremely. Lethally.
Let's judge that on actions, rather than press briefings from a nameless Chinese diplomat, shall we? It's interesting how quick you were to believe them given your attitude.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Huge, if true. Massive. And not in a good way for this government.
The story is based on comments by the Chinese embassy, and we are believing this without question?
The government would neither confirm or deny, which means they obviously did give those assurances.
This is a huge, huge story.
I'm not sure I follow your logic there.
Given the lethal toxocity of what the Chinese embassy claim, any sane government would have denied it immediately.
It's probably policy not to comment on barmy stories such as this. Can't you see this is just that Chinese embassy trying to stir things up? You've swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Well maybe I am. But if the public gets the impression ithe government intends to go back to business as usual with China after this nightmare is over. then I would suggest that is extremely toxic for the government. Extremely. Lethally.
Let's judge that on actions, rather than press briefings from a nameless Chinese diplomat, shall we? It's interesting how quick you were to believe them given your attitude.
I go back to Gove openly thanking the Chinese government in a daily brieifing for a few morsels of medical equipment they threw our way a week or so back.
I cabn easily imagine after that these assurances have been given.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Huge, if true. Massive. And not in a good way for this government.
The story is based on comments by the Chinese embassy, and we are believing this without question?
The government would neither confirm or deny, which means they obviously did give those assurances.
This is a huge, huge story.
I'm not sure I follow your logic there.
Given the lethal toxocity of what the Chinese embassy claim, any sane government would have denied it immediately.
It's probably policy not to comment on barmy stories such as this. Can't you see this is just that Chinese embassy trying to stir things up? You've swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Well maybe I am. But if the public gets the impression ithe government intends to go back to business as usual with China after this nightmare is over. then I would suggest that is extremely toxic for the government. Extremely. Lethally.
Let's judge that on actions, rather than press briefings from a nameless Chinese diplomat, shall we? It's interesting how quick you were to believe them given your attitude.
I go back to Gove openly thanking the Chinese government in a daily brieifing for a few morsels of medical equipment they threw our way a week or so back.
I cabn easily imagine after that these assurances have been given.
Why wouldn't you say thanks for something like that, especially if they were donated? I don't see how being polite means you would automatically give those assurances.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Huge, if true. Massive. And not in a good way for this government.
The story is based on comments by the Chinese embassy, and we are believing this without question?
The government would neither confirm or deny, which means they obviously did give those assurances.
This is a huge, huge story.
I'm not sure I follow your logic there.
Given the lethal toxocity of what the Chinese embassy claim, any sane government would have denied it immediately.
It's probably policy not to comment on barmy stories such as this. Can't you see this is just that Chinese embassy trying to stir things up? You've swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Well maybe I am. But if the public gets the impression ithe government intends to go back to business as usual with China after this nightmare is over. then I would suggest that is extremely toxic for the government. Extremely. Lethally.
It really isn't that exciting, not even if the facts are exactly as stated. Who could disagree with any part of "the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment?"
I wonder how much of Ireland’s manufacturing output is US pharma.
In $ lots, and half the world's ventilators and stents as well, not to mention the sources of Viagra, the "gra" being Irish language for love (related to "cariad").
"To pay for [social care in old age], Burnham tells me we should tap the wealth of the older generation, so everyone contributes 15% of their assets on retirement, usually through equity release on their property: the state pays for those without assets. Every family keeps 85%, so no family risks losing everything after paying for years of care: with risk fairly shared, inheritances are secured, with better free care for all. Who owns care homes is secondary once all staff are NHS/care employees. Gordon Brown so liked the plan he sent Burnham a framed front page of the 1948 NHS act on his 40th birthday, writing that he would be “the new Bevan”. It didn’t work out that way – or not yet."
Why oh why did AB side with YC and L4%K and come out for austerity lite in 2015 leaders election. He would have beaten Corbyn if he hadnt and would have been LOTO in 2015 and maybe PM in 2017
If he had been leader of the Opposition in 2017, it is unlikely there would have been an election. It was Corbyn’s appalling electoral performance, specifically the Copeland by-election, that inspired May to call one.
He might of course have become Prime Minister in a 2019 election.
In a further counterfactual he is 10 points ahead of PM Osborne in the polls and the 2020 GE has just been postponed...
That is also a plausible scenario. Although I think under those circumstances we would be talking about a GONU.
Bluntly, I do not think the 2015 parliament could have lasted five years even if Remain had won in 2016. Ten defections to UKIP would have been enough to force an election, and I think by 2018 that would have been what had happened.
Equally under those circumstances a sane Labour leader would have ambled home with a very comfortable majority whenever it was called.
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
Seems to be the current game in town - "let's have a guess at some current, fuzzy, incomplete data - why wait for something actually analysable?"
At least these numbers seem rather more informative than the ones in the daily press conferences that most people here are obsessing over.
They seems pretty bizarre to me. Using the ONS's own data with the time lags removed you get far less excess death beyond the daily announced figures -
They also note that of those specifically mentioning Covid on the death certificate, 90% were from hospitals, so the supposed hidden iceberg of unregistered cases is not looking enormous, proportionally.
Andrew Neil yet again showing that his Europhobia leads him into ludicrous error and he doesn’t have the self-respect to admit he got it wrong. He has still left his incorrect tweet up to keep swirling round Death Cult Twitter.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
(Regardless of my own leanings on Brexit or other issues, I don't really have a dog in the fight here. Please take the following just as pondering on the medium of twitter, which I don't claim to understand the ways of.)
What is best twitter etiquette regarding errors in earlier tweets? Because they can be accessed (and will commonly be shared) as standalone pieces, it seems to me to be a disadvantage of the platform that a correction or clarification can't be directly appended to it.
It does annoy me when certain other journotwitterers take up the modus operandi of deleting tweets they realised were wrong without posting a correction/clarification or thanking anyone who pointed the slip out.
Deleting a tweet does look a lot like pretending you never said something, and the actual flow of Neil's tweets (he was live-tweeting Macron's speech, shortly after checked the transcript, posted a correction, gave some polite replies to people who'd called him out and acknowledged their point) works better for keeping having the incorrect tweet in. You couldn't see what they were calling him out for if he deleted it.
But the problem with this is, as you said, that the uncorrected tweet has a whole life in the ether of its own, and may not stop being reshared for some time to come.
Strikes me it's a shame twitter doesn't have a kind of "oops" button that maybe greys out your tweet and allows you to attach your correction directly to it in such a way that the original tweet cannot be displayed without the correction attached. I'm very used to the early 2000s blogosphere where it was reasonably common for bloggers to strike-through parts of their posts and write a correction after it if they received a correction in the comment, so that they transparently acknowledged the error. Again I didn't like it when text was simply changed or removed without this, partly because it often made the comment discussion about the correction impossible to follow!
Interesting tweets get retweeted a lot. Boring corrections don’t. So the lie gets seen and the truth does not.
So wrong tweets should be deleted and a separate tweet sent explaining what has been done.
Thanks. I think your view of what should be done is a reasonable one given the technical constraints of twitter. I don't tweet, if I did I think I might attach a greyscale photo of the old tweet to my correction with a red X through it or something.
FWIW I don't think it's likely that Neil, or other people who post corrections in a similar way to him (he isn't alone in doing this), are doing it because they perceive the tweet they later corrected as a "lie" they're somehow proud of and wish to continue to see it circulate. I think it's far more likely to be different people having divergent views about what's the correct etiquette to use on an emerging technology, and Neil perceives what he's done as sufficiently transparent - posting a correction as a reply, acknowledged people who called him out on it. In my opinion that's still somewhat deficient for the reasons discussed above, but I also view it as a failure of Twitter's management they haven't implemented a kind of self-correction feature bearing in mind the number of zombie incorrect tweets floating around from blue-ticked people and organisations. (It would presumably be technically trivial to do this, and providing an explicit solution would help end differing etiquette over how it gets done.)
On the question of Neil himself, which is the less interesting part to me, I do agree Neil's views on Brexit and the EU likely influenced what he heard in Macron's speech and certainly affected the way he tweeted about it. And I do think it's disingenuous for him to say he "clarified" when his clarification amounted more to an outright "correction" (he essentially conceded that much of his original tweet was factually incorrect, which is not just "clarifying" in my book - but then the word "clarification" does seem to take on a whole new meaning in both journospeak and politicospeak). The idea that he's still purposefully spreading a lie, though, just seems off to me - he appears to honestly believe he's acted in good faith, and I can understand why he might think, after repeated public admission of the error, he's been reasonable. I reckon someone needs to take him aside and calmly but strenuously point out problem with the afterlife of zombie tweets, though - I fear calling him a "liar" over it is not likely to prove the most artful mode of persuasion!
Corbynism may be going down in flames. It looks like the Corbynistas are attempting to take the mother ship down with them. Every last man (and woman) jack of them are scoundrels to the core.
Try to spin this as much as you like it is not Corbyn or his supporters who are at fault here. Try reading the 800 pages.
Some staffers let AS people off if they were on the right of the party, wanted the Tories to win and adopted abusive and racist language as part of their roles.
They should be expelled
Its very simple - the party needs to split. Frankly that has been the case for a few years now. Your side wants to expel my side and vice versa. As my side won both 30 seats and the leadership election, and your side lost 60 seats and is led by Richard Burgon, it seems fairly clear who gets to keep the name, the party machine etc etc
You're only just back in and already wanting a split?
Events, dear boy... When I joined the party I had no idea that the General Secretary and a few Momentum Staffers had been writing the Book of Doom. Nor that the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs would demand no less that said Book of Doom be released by the party in full unredacted, thus bringing a bankrupting wall of litigation down upon the party.
When one faction is demanding an action that will literally destroy the party are there any alternatives than a split?
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
One and two are mutually exclusive. IE. The bats and pangolins were probably in the animal market because people like to eat bats (and use pangolins for medicinal purposes) ?
*not* mutually exclusive presumably? And at least some respondents must have realised that as there is a majority believing each statement.
I wonder how much of Ireland’s manufacturing output is US pharma.
There's also a massive Intel fab just outside Dublin (currently in the middle of an $8bn upgrade). And there's a big Apple factory in Cork too, I believe.
I wonder how much of Ireland’s manufacturing output is US pharma.
There's also a massive Intel fab just outside Dublin (currently in the middle of an $8bn upgrade). And there's a big Apple factory in Cork too, I believe.
I thought that Apple’s Irish presence was mainly administrative rather than manufacturing?
I wonder how much of Ireland’s manufacturing output is US pharma.
There's also a massive Intel fab just outside Dublin (currently in the middle of an $8bn upgrade). And there's a big Apple factory in Cork too, I believe.
I thought that Apple’s Irish presence was mainly administrative rather than manufacturing?
Administrative? I had assumed it was one person in a portacabin.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
I am generally amenable to moderate Labour politicians and I am not remotely enthusiastic about a Boris branded Conservative Party (well any Conservative Party for that matter). If this was ever adopted as Labour Party Policy my cross would go next to Alun Cairn's name, and I can't abide the man.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
The second word Mr Burnham is off!
To avoid punishing those who have saved for retirement, a Social care tax needs to be on income or consumption.
Phase out CGT relief on residences .
Which massively encourages people to keep the first house when they buy their second, rent it out, and make money that way.
It's also a massive disincentive to moving for work, as you'd effectively be paying potentially a year's salary or more if you had to relocate for work. Making the workforce much less mobile is not a good idea right now.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
I am generally amenable to moderate Labour politicians and I am not remotely enthusiastic about a Boris branded Conservative Party (well any Conservative Party for that matter). If this was ever adopted as Labour Party Policy my cross would go next to Alun Cairn's name, and I can't abide the man.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
The second word Mr Burnham is off!
You have not paid any taxes on any increase in value of the land on which your house happens to sit, so Land Value Taxation would be in order.
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
Seems to be the current game in town - "let's have a guess at some current, fuzzy, incomplete data - why wait for something actually analysable?"
At least these numbers seem rather more informative than the ones in the daily press conferences that most people here are obsessing over.
They seems pretty bizarre to me. Using the ONS's own data with the time lags removed you get far less excess death beyond the daily announced figures -
They also note that of those specifically mentioning Covid on the death certificate, 90% were from hospitals, so the supposed hidden iceberg of unregistered cases is not looking enormous, proportionally.
Or more simply, many of the Death Certificates are not accurate, hence the triangulation with excess deaths, as we do with seasonal flu.
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
Seems to be the current game in town - "let's have a guess at some current, fuzzy, incomplete data - why wait for something actually analysable?"
At least these numbers seem rather more informative than the ones in the daily press conferences that most people here are obsessing over.
They seems pretty bizarre to me. Using the ONS's own data with the time lags removed you get far less excess death beyond the daily announced figures -
They also note that of those specifically mentioning Covid on the death certificate, 90% were from hospitals, so the supposed hidden iceberg of unregistered cases is not looking enormous, proportionally.
Or more simply, many of the Death Certificates are not accurate, hence the triangulation with excess deaths, as we do with seasonal flu.
Well quite - 6k excess deaths vs 5.2k in the daily announced numbers suggests the hospital figures are picking up most of the figure, so I'm left wondering what on earth this actuarial team are doing to imagine they need to double the announced figures.
The British government is refusing to confirm or deny reports it has given China assurances about the way it refers to the coronavirus pandemic and its cause.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
Huge, if true. Massive. And not in a good way for this government.
The story is based on comments by the Chinese embassy, and we are believing this without question?
The government would neither confirm or deny, which means they obviously did give those assurances.
This is a huge, huge story.
I'm not sure I follow your logic there.
Given the lethal toxocity of what the Chinese embassy claim, any sane government would have denied it immediately.
It's probably policy not to comment on barmy stories such as this. Can't you see this is just that Chinese embassy trying to stir things up? You've swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Well maybe I am. But if the public gets the impression ithe government intends to go back to business as usual with China after this nightmare is over. then I would suggest that is extremely toxic for the government. Extremely. Lethally.
Let's judge that on actions, rather than press briefings from a nameless Chinese diplomat, shall we? It's interesting how quick you were to believe them given your attitude.
I go back to Gove openly thanking the Chinese government in a daily brieifing for a few morsels of medical equipment they threw our way a week or so back.
I cabn easily imagine after that these assurances have been given.
As I understand it a plane a day with PPE is arriving in the UK from China
I wonder how much of Ireland’s manufacturing output is US pharma.
There's also a massive Intel fab just outside Dublin (currently in the middle of an $8bn upgrade). And there's a big Apple factory in Cork too, I believe.
I thought that Apple’s Irish presence was mainly administrative rather than manufacturing?
No they make some Macs there, but it's a very small part of Apple's total manufacturing, which is mostly contracted to other companies, literrally thousands compared to hundreds of thousands of people. Given the relative sales of Macs to iPhones and iPads it's still broadly true that Apple's main reason for being in Ireland is to avoid a mountain of tax.
I wonder how much of Ireland’s manufacturing output is US pharma.
There's also a massive Intel fab just outside Dublin (currently in the middle of an $8bn upgrade). And there's a big Apple factory in Cork too, I believe.
I thought that Apple’s Irish presence was mainly administrative rather than manufacturing?
I think that's about what that 6,000 figure for one week implies. That's why I thought it looked consistent with a total of 50,000 deaths for the whole wave.
Do you reckon the 2500 ‘non covid’ extra deaths are covid in care homes?
Surely trying to extrapolate from the 'total' deaths figures are wildly inaccurate and they can demonstrate nothing more than direction of travel. International comparators are almost as pointless too if we are all measuring using different scales.
Seems to be the current game in town - "let's have a guess at some current, fuzzy, incomplete data - why wait for something actually analysable?"
At least these numbers seem rather more informative than the ones in the daily press conferences that most people here are obsessing over.
They seems pretty bizarre to me. Using the ONS's own data with the time lags removed you get far less excess death beyond the daily announced figures -
They also note that of those specifically mentioning Covid on the death certificate, 90% were from hospitals, so the supposed hidden iceberg of unregistered cases is not looking enormous, proportionally.
Or more simply, many of the Death Certificates are not accurate, hence the triangulation with excess deaths, as we do with seasonal flu.
Well quite - 6k excess deaths vs 5.2k in the daily announced numbers suggests the hospital figures are picking up most of the figure, so I'm left wondering what on earth this actuarial team are doing to imagine they need to double the announced figures.
6k is not excess deaths, it is deaths identified as COVID (90% were from hospitals just means 5.2k out of 6k, so there's 800 COVID death certs for home deaths). Without the true excess death figure you can't tell what the actuarial team is up to.
FOI requests cannot include personal medical details of other people.
People can apply for their own records, but that is not a FOI request.
Won't stop him mouthing off about "state interference closing down the truth" or whatever when they tell him "no". No doubt he will try and crowd-fund some further legal action to try to overturn the decision....
I wonder how much of Ireland’s manufacturing output is US pharma.
There's also a massive Intel fab just outside Dublin (currently in the middle of an $8bn upgrade). And there's a big Apple factory in Cork too, I believe.
I thought that Apple’s Irish presence was mainly administrative rather than manufacturing?
In total, Apple employs 6,000 people in Ireland, with most of them based at its Cork facility. The team has expanded rapidly over the past five years, with Apple announcing in 2015 that it would add 1,000 to its Irish workforce. Since 2012, Apple has invested almost €220 million in the Cork campus, most recently with an expansion that provides space for 1,400 employees. It was this expansion that Cook opened this week....It is home to the company’s only wholly-owned manufacturing facility in the world, where it provides “configure-to-order” iMacs for customers across Europe, Middle East and Africa. It also hosts support and service teams for customers in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
I am generally amenable to moderate Labour politicians and I am not remotely enthusiastic about a Boris branded Conservative Party (well any Conservative Party for that matter). If this was ever adopted as Labour Party Policy my cross would go next to Alun Cairn's name, and I can't abide the man.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
The second word Mr Burnham is off!
You have not paid any taxes on any increase in value of the land on which your house happens to sit, so Land Value Taxation would be in order.
If one considers the repayment interest, which at one point was around 15%, I made to the mortgage provider over 25 years. I will have made precisely zip. Will this interest be taken into account when you impose your land valuation tax on me.
So Burnham is saying anyone who owns say a £400k house (with no other savings) will on retirement be forced to do a £60k equity release to pay that £60k to the Government.
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
I am generally amenable to moderate Labour politicians and I am not remotely enthusiastic about a Boris branded Conservative Party (well any Conservative Party for that matter). If this was ever adopted as Labour Party Policy my cross would go next to Alun Cairn's name, and I can't abide the man.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
The second word Mr Burnham is off!
To avoid punishing those who have saved for retirement, a Social care tax needs to be on income or consumption.
Phase out CGT relief on residences .
I agree with both comments of both these posts. I said the following on the last thread:
Like many people who are well off retired I am asset rich but do not have a high income as I don't need one. I have never benefited from a DB pension. Most of my asset value is in the house I live in which I will sell when I no longer need it and when I need cash and downsize and move to a smaller house.
I can't afford 1% of the property value a year or anything like it! That will apply to a lot of people.
I personally don't understand why CGT does not apply to the main residence. It has the benefit of only being charged when assets are materialised and will reduce house prices which would be a good thing. Unfortunately there would have to be some tapering as the change in house prices overnight might be dramatic.
Comments
Coronavirus: US pastor who said 'God is larger than this virus' and defied social distancing dies of COVID-19
Bishop Gerald Glenn, 66, had promised to keep preaching "unless I'm in jail or the hospital".
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-us-pastor-who-said-god-is-larger-than-this-virus-and-defied-social-distancing-dies-of-covid-19-11973094
And what can be done to make sure it does so ?
He might of course have become Prime Minister in a 2019 election.
Usage guidance was certainly made common when updated a few days ago.
And he asks for others to apologise for their mistakes?
Retirement is a movable feast these days.
Why other countries, even those without diagnostics industries, have managed so much better at ramping up testing is unclear. It is essential for the post lock down phase.
The Chinese Embassy in London says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has promised Beijing it will not "politicise" the outbreak and "fully agrees with China that the source of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional and science-based assessment".
If the UK has made such assurances it will be seen as siding with China in a growing international row over the country's handling of the fallout of the pandemic which began there.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-uk-made-promises-to-china-over-how-it-would-refer-to-covid-19-china-claims-11973178
Property ? Savings ? Pension fund ?
And would those on defined benefit pensions get charged 15% on what their equivalent pension fund be worth ?
You've simply described yourself.
For what it's worth I regard your, and AN's thoughts as essential listening.
What that has to do with me I have no idea.
What is best twitter etiquette regarding errors in earlier tweets? Because they can be accessed (and will commonly be shared) as standalone pieces, it seems to me to be a disadvantage of the platform that a correction or clarification can't be directly appended to it.
It does annoy me when certain other journotwitterers take up the modus operandi of deleting tweets they realised were wrong without posting a correction/clarification or thanking anyone who pointed the slip out.
Deleting a tweet does look a lot like pretending you never said something, and the actual flow of Neil's tweets (he was live-tweeting Macron's speech, shortly after checked the transcript, posted a correction, gave some polite replies to people who'd called him out and acknowledged their point) works better for keeping having the incorrect tweet in. You couldn't see what they were calling him out for if he deleted it.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1249769931014647815
But the problem with this is, as you said, that the uncorrected tweet has a whole life in the ether of its own, and may not stop being reshared for some time to come.
Strikes me it's a shame twitter doesn't have a kind of "oops" button that maybe greys out your tweet and allows you to attach your correction directly to it in such a way that the original tweet cannot be displayed without the correction attached. I'm very used to the early 2000s blogosphere where it was reasonably common for bloggers to strike-through parts of their posts and write a correction after it if they received a correction in the comment, so that they transparently acknowledged the error. Again I didn't like it when text was simply changed or removed without this, partly because it often made the comment discussion about the correction impossible to follow!
https://tinyurl.com/y7ubkgc3
Women’s lives may have been cut short by a major IT error which meant 450,000 patients in England missed crucial breast cancer screenings, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1249769931014647815
It sounds very high risk to me - equity release at 75 or more preferably 80 might well be OK - but at 65? Say you live to 90 - that's 25 years of compound interest rolling up on a £60k debt - goodness knows what that would come to.
I would have thought such a proposal would be electorally toxic off the scale.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1249997198886133762?s=20
As are Tory MPs
https://twitter.com/TomTugendhat/status/1250077234519564289?s=20
What marks out the government’s decision on declining to work with the EU on procuring PPE is that it was apparently a conscious decision, the risk to human life of that decision would have been apparent at the time of that decision and no rationale has been offered for it.
So wrong tweets should be deleted and a separate tweet sent explaining what has been done.
IF Raab has realy given those assurances then he can pack his bags now., given what people are going through in our country and who the polls say they blame.
I have worked hard, I have paid my taxes, I have lived frugally. My not insubstantial home is my pension!
The second word Mr Burnham is off!
The same was not true in late March.
This is a huge, huge story.
https://twitter.com/MarcusJBall/status/1250013018634756098
People can apply for their own records, but that is not a FOI request.
I cabn easily imagine after that these assurances have been given.
A rest is as good as a historical election defeat, I guess
Bluntly, I do not think the 2015 parliament could have lasted five years even if Remain had won in 2016. Ten defections to UKIP would have been enough to force an election, and I think by 2018 that would have been what had happened.
Equally under those circumstances a sane Labour leader would have ambled home with a very comfortable majority whenever it was called.
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1249980138873393154
They also note that of those specifically mentioning Covid on the death certificate, 90% were from hospitals, so the supposed hidden iceberg of unregistered cases is not looking enormous, proportionally.
FWIW I don't think it's likely that Neil, or other people who post corrections in a similar way to him (he isn't alone in doing this), are doing it because they perceive the tweet they later corrected as a "lie" they're somehow proud of and wish to continue to see it circulate. I think it's far more likely to be different people having divergent views about what's the correct etiquette to use on an emerging technology, and Neil perceives what he's done as sufficiently transparent - posting a correction as a reply, acknowledged people who called him out on it. In my opinion that's still somewhat deficient for the reasons discussed above, but I also view it as a failure of Twitter's management they haven't implemented a kind of self-correction feature bearing in mind the number of zombie incorrect tweets floating around from blue-ticked people and organisations. (It would presumably be technically trivial to do this, and providing an explicit solution would help end differing etiquette over how it gets done.)
On the question of Neil himself, which is the less interesting part to me, I do agree Neil's views on Brexit and the EU likely influenced what he heard in Macron's speech and certainly affected the way he tweeted about it. And I do think it's disingenuous for him to say he "clarified" when his clarification amounted more to an outright "correction" (he essentially conceded that much of his original tweet was factually incorrect, which is not just "clarifying" in my book - but then the word "clarification" does seem to take on a whole new meaning in both journospeak and politicospeak). The idea that he's still purposefully spreading a lie, though, just seems off to me - he appears to honestly believe he's acted in good faith, and I can understand why he might think, after repeated public admission of the error, he's been reasonable. I reckon someone needs to take him aside and calmly but strenuously point out problem with the afterlife of zombie tweets, though - I fear calling him a "liar" over it is not likely to prove the most artful mode of persuasion!
When one faction is demanding an action that will literally destroy the party are there any alternatives than a split?
I keep trying to post this and it keeps disappearing!
It's also a massive disincentive to moving for work, as you'd effectively be paying potentially a year's salary or more if you had to relocate for work. Making the workforce much less mobile is not a good idea right now.
Labour in a dumpster fire today
https://twitter.com/alextomo/status/1250093540287418368
Now is not the time to have a fight with China
There will come a time and place in due course
Since 2012, Apple has invested almost €220 million in the Cork campus, most recently with an expansion that provides space for 1,400 employees. It was this expansion that Cook opened this week....It is home to the company’s only wholly-owned manufacturing facility in the world, where it provides “configure-to-order” iMacs for customers across Europe, Middle East and Africa. It also hosts support and service teams for customers in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/tim-cook-reaffirms-apple-s-commitment-to-ireland-1.3537643
Like many people who are well off retired I am asset rich but do not have a high income as I don't need one. I have never benefited from a DB pension. Most of my asset value is in the house I live in which I will sell when I no longer need it and when I need cash and downsize and move to a smaller house.
I can't afford 1% of the property value a year or anything like it! That will apply to a lot of people.
I personally don't understand why CGT does not apply to the main residence. It has the benefit of only being charged when assets are materialised and will reduce house prices which would be a good thing. Unfortunately there would have to be some tapering as the change in house prices overnight might be dramatic.