Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
That's not including the likes of Boots. You can already go there to get a flu shot, so must have trained staff.
Making 70 or possibly 140 million doses (if it requires more than one dose) is the big hurdle to go from approved vaccine to protected population.
True, though manufacturing is (crudely, I'm a physics teacher after all) a question of scale and hence money. The hard bit looks like the testing... Where's the line between quick and sure?
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
That's not including the likes of Boots. You can already go there to get a flu shot, so must have trained staff.
Making 70 or possibly 140 million doses (if it requires more than one dose) is the big hurdle to go from approved vaccine to protected population.
True, though manufacturing is (crudely, I'm a physics teacher after all) a question of scale and hence money. The hard bit looks like the testing... Where's the line between quick and sure?
My worry would be long-term side effects. Might only realise what those are once the entire populace has had it.
It won’t achieve much on the health front but will kill off what’s left of our travel and tourism sector.
Some countries that implemented it in mid-March are further ahead than the UK. Although notably in many cases the 14 day self quarantine was swiftly replaced by a ban on all non national arrivals and government quarantine. Guernsey ran the "self quarantine all arrivals" from mid-March and hasn't had a new case in a week. The Lancet has (possibly prematurely) declared New Zealand Covid free.
And with hotels, restaurants and attractions closed, how much travel and tourism is there currently?
How are the Collaboration day festivities going on in the Bailwick? I spent 2 miserable years stuck on that Island, and have never encountered such an obnoxious group of people in my life.
If you went around calling the locals collaborators you probably got what you deserved. Shameful post.
Lockdown is over regardless of the minor tweaks Johnson announces tomorrow. The public over the last 24 hours have shown that a sufficient enough number of them will him it off as to render it meaningless. In his usual style perhaps Johnson will by Tuesday be saying what people have decided he should have said rather than what he actually said...
That's not to say that status quo ante returns - that's gone. WFH will become a significant part of the new order, the schools aren't properly reopening until September, and it sounds like we don't get a summer holiday this year.
We have to hope herd immunity is worth something. Because that's what we're going with.
We treat "the public" too much as a homogenous body. For the reasons we've discussed, the lockdown is crumbling among parts of the public. For those of us who approve of the lockdown, that's an additional reason to adhere to it, because disease transmission will speed up. So it remains significant rather than meaningless - I wouldn't dream of breaking it because I see some idiots on TV doing a group hug. Let them kill each other if that's what they want - I wish they wouldn't but ultimately it's up to them.
It won’t achieve much on the health front but will kill off what’s left of our travel and tourism sector.
Some countries that implemented it in mid-March are further ahead than the UK. Although notably in many cases the 14 day self quarantine was swiftly replaced by a ban on all non national arrivals and government quarantine. Guernsey ran the "self quarantine all arrivals" from mid-March and hasn't had a new case in a week. The Lancet has (possibly prematurely) declared New Zealand Covid free.
And with hotels, restaurants and attractions closed, how much travel and tourism is there currently?
How are the Collaboration day festivities going on in the Bailwick? I spent 2 miserable years stuck on that Island, and have never encountered such an obnoxious group of people in my life.
Charming as ever, tyson.
Tax havens...I wouldn't recommend living in one unless you are particularly greedy....
Hopefully the international response to Covid will render these places defunct....
It won’t achieve much on the health front but will kill off what’s left of our travel and tourism sector.
Some countries that implemented it in mid-March are further ahead than the UK. Although notably in many cases the 14 day self quarantine was swiftly replaced by a ban on all non national arrivals and government quarantine. Guernsey ran the "self quarantine all arrivals" from mid-March and hasn't had a new case in a week. The Lancet has (possibly prematurely) declared New Zealand Covid free.
And with hotels, restaurants and attractions closed, how much travel and tourism is there currently?
How are the Collaboration day festivities going on in the Bailwick? I spent 2 miserable years stuck on that Island, and have never encountered such an obnoxious group of people in my life.
If you went around calling the locals collaborators you probably got what you deserved. Shameful post.
It was the in joke for people who the Bailwick brought in on licenses....
I couldn't get away from that miserable place fast enough.......
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
That's not including the likes of Boots. You can already go there to get a flu shot, so must have trained staff.
Making 70 or possibly 140 million doses (if it requires more than one dose) is the big hurdle to go from approved vaccine to protected population.
I think that distribution and administration just isn't an issue. I think "100k a day" is out by a factor of perhaps 40-50.
My GP runs flu jab appointments at a rate of 25-30 per hour (ie 2 minutes each). That's a comfortable 200 per day per nurse in a normal day, and if it had the priority they have 5 nurses, and there are also agency staff available.
Given that there are just under 25k nurses in GP practices, if geared up on this alone, they could break the back of the 'whole population' task in a fortnight.
Then there are extended hours, agency staff and hospital secondees if necessary.
Housebound etc weigh the other side, but I don't see a basic capacity problem - even if you reduce the rate by 2 or 3 times.
Stochastic has a specific technical meaning in physical science/numerical methods.
Witless probably is the mot juste, you are right. I don't mind hacks not knowing what stochastic means but it really ought to have been obvious this was a technical or jargon word. Shades of Bernard and Sir Humphrey trying to explain meta-dioxin by parsing meta as a Latin or Greek term rather than a chemical one.
that is a great example. like it.
It would help if science were bolder about naming things in some other way than finding a vaguely analogous word in ancient Greek. Gas and quark are excellent names for instance.
[though I believe "gas" is partly based on "chaos"].
Charm and strangeness aren’t helping...
hadron is Greek, charm Latin or French, strangeness Latin to French to middle English.
The word “hadron” was taken from the Greek, yes, but charm and strangeness are perfectly well known and used words in English, used in particle Physics in a fairly different way to the normal. The problem being discussed was having words which have a particular meaning in one context (stochastic was the example) and trying to work out what the technical meaning must be from the normal one (or the derivation from Latin or Greek if appropriate). How many here who don’t have a science background would be able to explain what I mean when I say that “Strangeness is not conserved in a weak interaction”?
I don't think we are disagreeing about anything, except that stochastic in its original meaning is actually a perfectly good metaphor for its meaning in statistics - as good a metaphor as monte carlo simulation, anyway - shooting an arrow at a target vs putting a stake on 17. The problem here is that Hitchens is pretending to think that just guessing is the same as having multiple guesses and testing what the consequences would be.
But of course the Monte Carlo method isn't a matter of averaging multiple "guesses". Mathematical modelling isn't the same as "guessing".
It won’t achieve much on the health front but will kill off what’s left of our travel and tourism sector.
Some countries that implemented it in mid-March are further ahead than the UK. Although notably in many cases the 14 day self quarantine was swiftly replaced by a ban on all non national arrivals and government quarantine. Guernsey ran the "self quarantine all arrivals" from mid-March and hasn't had a new case in a week. The Lancet has (possibly prematurely) declared New Zealand Covid free.
And with hotels, restaurants and attractions closed, how much travel and tourism is there currently?
How are the Collaboration day festivities going on in the Bailwick? I spent 2 miserable years stuck on that Island, and have never encountered such an obnoxious group of people in my life.
Is it okay to think that Starmer might genuinely be a very good LOTO and the best one since Blair?
What made Blair so effective was that he opposed surgically, but also that he could compellingly spell out an alternative. I am very confident Starmer can do the first, much less convinced he can do the latter. But given what Labour has offered for the last decade, I’m happy to take that. I suspect it’s not enough to win a majority, though.
By 1997 Major's government was universally detested and Major himself derided as a joke. That quite possibly might be the view of Johnson and his government by 2024. I can't envision Covid-19 and its aftershock playing well for incumbent governments across the globe.
Starmer looks and sounds the part which may be all it needs. Johnson did not offer a vision save for 'get Brexit done'. Remember Jeremy had an alternative, it was just an alternative vision no one else shared.
It can't be understated also how in 2024, the Government won't be able to play the "new and fresh" card again. 13 years of Government will be eating into them, people will be ready for a change, IMHO.
If that change isn't perceived as bats**t crazy like last time its a real risk yes.
Also, it is often forgotten, but Starmer gaining a majority is almost inconceivable without some kind of revival in Scotland.
The real constitutionally-impossible situation that is quite plausible is Tories win England but a Lab minority backed by the SNP takes Westminster, though any time SNP abstains means the Tories have a majority.
Given the SNP won't vote on England-only matters it means Labour would be incapable of properly governing England . . . and it will be in the SNP's interests to ensure Westminster is gummed up.
Plus the SNP will demand an independence referendum but them winning it would hand England back to the Tories who had won in England.
If the red wall can fall, so can the soft blue underbelly.
It can, but that doesn't change an iota of what I wrote.
Its quite plausible the result ends up with a Tory majority in England, but Lab minority government with SNP support in Westminster, in which case governing England will be nigh on impossible.
Which is why IMHO, Labour would be best to try and ensure a Lib Dem revival.
Indeed, Esher and Walton and Wokingham and Cities of London and Westminster are now more likely to be lost by the Tories to the LDs than Great Grimsby or Bishop Auckland or Harlow are to be lost to Labour.
Blair never won the former unlike the latter yet the latter have bigger Tory majorities now than the former
In reality , I suspect that is unlikely. Voters who swung massively against Labour in Grimsby and Bishop Auckland over a two and a half year period might swing back in 2024 on a similar scale post-Corbyn with Brexit no longer being an issue to many.Labour is also likely to regain second place in seats such as Cities of London & Westminster and Finchley.
Unlikely if as is probable the next general election is hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or return to the single market with free movement under Starmer.
Cities of London and Westminster is one of the wealthiest seats in the UK, it might vote LD, it will not vote Labour
Its basically a factor of 2 difference between my estimate and the flu jab, not 4, isn't it? 14 million in 3 months is 200k a day, I went with 100k a day. Brilliant.
So, yeah, months to administer fully.
Now, that doesn't rule out targeted vaccinations in certain risk groups etc
It is possible to scale up activities when they are seen as crucial. A factor of ten, perhaps? That would be a factor of 20 between your "over a year" estimate and what could be possible. If it could be done in, say, three weeks, the administering of the shots wouldn't be the holdup. Looking at our local district, we'd have to have 90 people per day per parish immunised to get it done in three weeks. With military support (as we do have in the Local Resilience Forums), I don't see that as being excessively improbable.
Lockdown is over regardless of the minor tweaks Johnson announces tomorrow. The public over the last 24 hours have shown that a sufficient enough number of them will him it off as to render it meaningless. In his usual style perhaps Johnson will by Tuesday be saying what people have decided he should have said rather than what he actually said...
That's not to say that status quo ante returns - that's gone. WFH will become a significant part of the new order, the schools aren't properly reopening until September, and it sounds like we don't get a summer holiday this year.
We have to hope herd immunity is worth something. Because that's what we're going with.
We treat "the public" too much as a homogenous body. For the reasons we've discussed, the lockdown is crumbling among parts of the public. For those of us who approve of the lockdown, that's an additional reason to adhere to it, because disease transmission will speed up. So it remains significant rather than meaningless - I wouldn't dream of breaking it because I see some idiots on TV doing a group hug. Let them kill each other if that's what they want - I wish they wouldn't but ultimately it's up to them.
I think Johnson's PMQ winning teaser on Wednesday has got us to this position. The press read it as lockdown will be over on Monday.
Sturgeon and Drakeford are trying to back the PM into a corner and Raab has already said nothing much will change, but if Boris sees his popularity slipping away from him, by the time of the announcement it may all change to fill your boots with street parties, music festivals and foreign holidays.
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
Its basically a factor of 2 difference between my estimate and the flu jab, not 4, isn't it? 14 million in 3 months is 200k a day, I went with 100k a day. Brilliant.
So, yeah, months to administer fully.
Now, that doesn't rule out targeted vaccinations in certain risk groups etc
It is possible to scale up activities when they are seen as crucial. A factor of ten, perhaps? That would be a factor of 20 between your "over a year" estimate and what could be possible. If it could be done in, say, three weeks, the administering of the shots wouldn't be the holdup. Looking at our local district, we'd have to have 90 people per day per parish immunised to get it done in three weeks. With military support (as we do have in the Local Resilience Forums), I don't see that as being excessively improbable.
@BiP you seem to be assuming that flu jab is done at the emergency capacity that could apply to Corona; it is not.
I've done some crude calculations in a previous post.
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
It won’t achieve much on the health front but will kill off what’s left of our travel and tourism sector.
Some countries that implemented it in mid-March are further ahead than the UK. Although notably in many cases the 14 day self quarantine was swiftly replaced by a ban on all non national arrivals and government quarantine. Guernsey ran the "self quarantine all arrivals" from mid-March and hasn't had a new case in a week. The Lancet has (possibly prematurely) declared New Zealand Covid free.
And with hotels, restaurants and attractions closed, how much travel and tourism is there currently?
How are the Collaboration day festivities going on in the Bailwick? I spent 2 miserable years stuck on that Island, and have never encountered such an obnoxious group of people in my life.
You don't own a mirror then?
I think Islands can be quiet insular.....
Our property landlord stole thousands off us...and dug up our garden....he was a prominent politician at St Saviours....he was really rude and uncouth.....but sadly he has scarred us to this day....
But we moved out and found ourselves a decent bloke
That said, it is a stunningly beautiful part of the world...and the west coast sunsets are incredible....
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
The vast majority of 'flu jabs are administered over a three and a half month period, from early September until mid December of each year.
The Tories deserve some element of blame. There's no reason we can't do what Germany has done - and yet we have not.
Implying they are identical countries. Wasn't the reason they had a head start on testing is the size of that industry there?
Its not so much Germany had a head start as the UK was behind. and teh reason is that the UKs centralised heath cares system, Public Heath England (PHE) band anybody except themselves form doing testing, universalitys, charatys and for profit labs where all needlessly blocked and the leaders of the central health althoratys tried to make themselves look important and failed.
Its basically a factor of 2 difference between my estimate and the flu jab, not 4, isn't it? 14 million in 3 months is 200k a day, I went with 100k a day. Brilliant.
So, yeah, months to administer fully.
Now, that doesn't rule out targeted vaccinations in certain risk groups etc
It is possible to scale up activities when they are seen as crucial. A factor of ten, perhaps? That would be a factor of 20 between your "over a year" estimate and what could be possible. If it could be done in, say, three weeks, the administering of the shots wouldn't be the holdup. Looking at our local district, we'd have to have 90 people per day per parish immunised to get it done in three weeks. With military support (as we do have in the Local Resilience Forums), I don't see that as being excessively improbable.
@BiP you seem to be assuming that flu jab is done at the emergency capacity that could apply to Corona; it is not.
I've done some crude calculations in a previous post.
When I was involved in running meningitis vaccination campaigns three or four nurses could do a secondary school in a day.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
That's not including the likes of Boots. You can already go there to get a flu shot, so must have trained staff.
Making 70 or possibly 140 million doses (if it requires more than one dose) is the big hurdle to go from approved vaccine to protected population.
True, though manufacturing is (crudely, I'm a physics teacher after all) a question of scale and hence money. The hard bit looks like the testing... Where's the line between quick and sure?
My worry would be long-term side effects. Might only realise what those are once the entire populace has had it.
This in spades. I'm at almost no risk from CV19 (healthy youngish person), they will be getting me to take a vaccine developed in a rush with no long term trials over my dead body. The risk of long term side effects to someone like me is almost certainly greater than my risk from CV19.
I'd feel differently about the risks / rewards trade off if I was old and/or vulnerable, and probably have it.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
The vast majority of 'flu jabs are administered over a three and a half month period, from early September until mid December of each year.
Presumably, as is presently the case with 'flu jabs, priority wold be given first and foremost to the elderly and to those with health problems, making them more vulnerable.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
The vast majority of 'flu jabs are administered over a three and a half month period, from early September until mid December of each year.
Presumably, as is presently the case with 'flu jabs, priority wold be given first and foremost to the elderly and to those with health problems, making them more vulnerable.
I'd imagine front line workers and people who are working with vulnerable people will get it first. While there is limited production capacity it will be about stopping the spread.
It's not going to be very meaningful until people feel confident to go out.
Isn't this the best of all worlds?
Imagine that the government said tomorrow "lockdown is formally over, up to you what to do, look up your personal risk category, make sensible decisions".
Those of us who are low risk could and probably would go back to normal. Those who are a bit higher risk could manage things appropriately - maybe risk seeing a few friends outdoors, probably not prop up the bar of the local weatherspoons. The high risk could continue at home with everything delivered.
If there is a an uptick in cases, it will mostly be in the least vulnerable groups, exactly where we want them.
Yes, this does leave some tricky issues like public transport and schools, but again if people don't rush to venture out, how much of a problem really is this?
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
There was a very good documentary series about 5 US film directors - including George Stevens who shot this - and how the war affected them. John Ford of Western fame was on Midway when it was attacked and carried on filming.
The Tories deserve some element of blame. There's no reason we can't do what Germany has done - and yet we have not.
You would be better to lay off the blame game until it is all over. At present lobbing grenades at the Tories looks like partisanship for the sake of being partisan. Exploiting the pandemic isn't a good look.
That is one of the features of Starmer's leadership I like. He is supportive of government by and large, but every now and again throws in a pertinent question about why a specific issue isn't being handled better.
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
The quick way is to genetically modify the virus so it is extremely virulent doubling every three days but almost harmless so it becomes the vaccine. Let it rip. Don't need any professionals to administer it.
One similarity between Starmer path to power and Smith/Blair’s In he 90s is that the Lib Dem’s are starting fro an anaemic position and some recovery there is useful to chip away soft Tory votes in places Labour cannot reach. The LDs need to find a decent leader who can work with Labour and create a bit of anti Tory momentum.
The key difference is Scotland. Unless Starmer can find a way to attack the flabby soft blue underbelly in the south (which is entirely possible) he has to fight two fronts.
Or just give up on Scotland and let the SNP stop the Tories?
He doesn't need to get Sturgeon in the cabinet, just dare her to vote down a Labour budget and explain to her country why she let the Tories back in.
Literally giving up on Scotland and supporting independence might be a good strategy to win over England.
I'm not advocating supporting Independence, my point is that trying to actively try to win seats in Scotland seems like a waste of resources. They can repeat publicly the views they are pro-Unionism, etc. I just think whether they lose in Scotland or not is really irrelevant at this point.
Being pro-union while going soft on the SNP means they will look like a poor imitation of the Tories. Actively changing their position on the union would allow them to position themselves as a patriotic people's party for England and make them a much harder target.
What about a policy of offering a tripartite referendum on FFA, Indy, Status Quo, and campaigning for FFA?
It's wonkish and unconvincing.
It's not merely unconvincing. It's laughable. We always come back to the same problem: without an English Parliament, any workable solution other than the break-up of Britain is impossible, because WLQ.
Not really, English votes for English laws is fine but England never had the demand for its own Parliament Scotland did or its own Assembly Northern Ireland did (nor did Wales really either, 49% of Welsh voters opposing devolution in 1997)
Problem is what we have now is English votes for UK, we get to take it or leave it, we are a subjugated colony of England at present.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
The quick way is to genetically modify the virus so it is extremely virulent doubling every three days but almost harmless so it becomes the vaccine. Let it rip. Don't need any professionals to administer it.
There is no way this plan could backfire. None at all.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
The quick way is to genetically modify the virus so it is extremely virulent doubling every three days but almost harmless so it becomes the vaccine. Let it rip. Don't need any professionals to administer it.
There is no way this plan could backfire. None at all.
Two obvious ways -
- crossbreed in patients also infected with the 'wild' strain ('recombination' is the technical term) to produce, say, something deadly AND even more contagious
- change the Darwinian natural selection pressures on the wild virus in perhaps deleterious ways e.g. selecting for increased viorulence (to compete with the new virus)
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
Why the pessimism on a vaccine?
He doesn't say. But my guess would be the thought that all this talk of Autumn isn't realistic, and if you start talking a year before you have done full trials, safety, government green light, then still talking 6-12 months to vaccine the population. So that 2 years.
6-12 months just to administer it? If supplies weren't an issue it should/could be done much quicker than that.
let's say we get to a point where we can deliver 100k a day, a tally I have chosen for a special significance. It would take almost 22 months to administer to the whole population. That is assuming working Sat and Sun. It is almost 31 months with weekends off.
They do something like 14 million flu shots per year in the UK.
OK, so 100k a day, 52 weeks a year, 5 days a week. 26 million a year. Comparable number, wouldn't you agree?
The limiting factor will be production not administering it. The new facility being built that can make 10s millions of doses a week won't be ready for another year.
I think Oxford at talking of the plan being to have about 1 million doses ready for start of Autumn.
Its still going to be months, regardless of a factor of 4 here or there.
Naturally, but you could imagine them easily doubling the rate relative to the seasonal flu, which would be 28 million in three months.
Let's take the extreme case. Suppose the nation went all in on this, throwing money at the quick production of working vaccines. There are about 350k NHS nurses and 150k NHS doctors. So there are about 500k people with medical training to administer a vaccine.
So that's 140 vaccinations per medical professional, which doesn't take long. Note, I'm not saying we should do it that way, or that there aren't other factors. But getting the vaccine into people isn't ha much of a rate limiting step.
The quick way is to genetically modify the virus so it is extremely virulent doubling every three days but almost harmless so it becomes the vaccine. Let it rip. Don't need any professionals to administer it.
Pharmacists administer vaccines. So that's about another 12,000 sites for adminstration.
You have to laugh at the innumeracy of journalists sometimes. This from the BBC: "At 0.5% per 100,000 people, the death rate in Slovakia is the lowest in the EU ..."
Is it okay to think that Starmer might genuinely be a very good LOTO and the best one since Blair?
What made Blair so effective was that he opposed surgically, but also that he could compellingly spell out an alternative. I am very confident Starmer can do the first, much less convinced he can do the latter. But given what Labour has offered for the last decade, I’m happy to take that. I suspect it’s not enough to win a majority, though.
By 1997 Major's government was universally detested and Major himself derided as a joke. That quite possibly might be the view of Johnson and his government by 2024. I can't envision Covid-19 and its aftershock playing well for incumbent governments across the globe.
Starmer looks and sounds the part which may be all it needs. Johnson did not offer a vision save for 'get Brexit done'. Remember Jeremy had an alternative, it was just an alternative vision no one else shared.
It can't be understated also how in 2024, the Government won't be able to play the "new and fresh" card again. 13 years of Government will be eating into them, people will be ready for a change, IMHO.
If that change isn't perceived as bats**t crazy like last time its a real risk yes.
Also, it is often forgotten, but Starmer gaining a majority is almost inconceivable without some kind of revival in Scotland.
The real constitutionally-impossible situation that is quite plausible is Tories win England but a Lab minority backed by the SNP takes Westminster, though any time SNP abstains means the Tories have a majority.
Given the SNP won't vote on England-only matters it means Labour would be incapable of properly governing England . . . and it will be in the SNP's interests to ensure Westminster is gummed up.
Plus the SNP will demand an independence referendum but them winning it would hand England back to the Tories who had won in England.
If the red wall can fall, so can the soft blue underbelly.
It can, but that doesn't change an iota of what I wrote.
Its quite plausible the result ends up with a Tory majority in England, but Lab minority government with SNP support in Westminster, in which case governing England will be nigh on impossible.
Which is why IMHO, Labour would be best to try and ensure a Lib Dem revival.
Indeed, Esher and Walton and Wokingham and Cities of London and Westminster are now more likely to be lost by the Tories to the LDs than Great Grimsby or Bishop Auckland or Harlow are to be lost to Labour.
Blair never won the former unlike the latter yet the latter have bigger Tory majorities now than the former
In reality , I suspect that is unlikely. Voters who swung massively against Labour in Grimsby and Bishop Auckland over a two and a half year period might swing back in 2024 on a similar scale post-Corbyn with Brexit no longer being an issue to many.Labour is also likely to regain second place in seats such as Cities of London & Westminster and Finchley.
Unlikely if as is probable the next general election is hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or return to the single market with free movement under Starmer.
Cities of London and Westminster is one of the wealthiest seats in the UK, it might vote LD, it will not vote Labour
Much more likelt that Brexit is a distant minor issue - as was the case in 2010.For most people it will have no more resonance than the Iraq War.
Labour was in contention in Cities of London & Westminster in 2017.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
It's not going to be very meaningful until people feel confident to go out.
Isn't this the best of all worlds?
Imagine that the government said tomorrow "lockdown is formally over, up to you what to do, look up your personal risk category, make sensible decisions".
Those of us who are low risk could and probably would go back to normal. Those who are a bit higher risk could manage things appropriately - maybe risk seeing a few friends outdoors, probably not prop up the bar of the local weatherspoons. The high risk could continue at home with everything delivered.
If there is a an uptick in cases, it will mostly be in the least vulnerable groups, exactly where we want them.
Yes, this does leave some tricky issues like public transport and schools, but again if people don't rush to venture out, how much of a problem really is this?
And all the high-risk people who depend on low-risk people for care could just catch it and die, presumably.
Is it okay to think that Starmer might genuinely be a very good LOTO and the best one since Blair?
What made Blair so effective was that he opposed surgically, but also that he could compellingly spell out an alternative. I am very confident Starmer can do the first, much less convinced he can do the latter. But given what Labour has offered for the last decade, I’m happy to take that. I suspect it’s not enough to win a majority, though.
By 1997 Major's government was universally detested and Major himself derided as a joke. That quite possibly might be the view of Johnson and his government by 2024. I can't envision Covid-19 and its aftershock playing well for incumbent governments across the globe.
Starmer looks and sounds the part which may be all it needs. Johnson did not offer a vision save for 'get Brexit done'. Remember Jeremy had an alternative, it was just an alternative vision no one else shared.
It can't be understated also how in 2024, the Government won't be able to play the "new and fresh" card again. 13 years of Government will be eating into them, people will be ready for a change, IMHO.
If that change isn't perceived as bats**t crazy like last time its a real risk yes.
Also, it is often forgotten, but Starmer gaining a majority is almost inconceivable without some kind of revival in Scotland.
The real constitutionally-impossible situation that is quite plausible is Tories win England but a Lab minority backed by the SNP takes Westminster, though any time SNP abstains means the Tories have a majority.
Given the SNP won't vote on England-only matters it means Labour would be incapable of properly governing England . . . and it will be in the SNP's interests to ensure Westminster is gummed up.
Plus the SNP will demand an independence referendum but them winning it would hand England back to the Tories who had won in England.
If the red wall can fall, so can the soft blue underbelly.
It can, but that doesn't change an iota of what I wrote.
Its quite plausible the result ends up with a Tory majority in England, but Lab minority government with SNP support in Westminster, in which case governing England will be nigh on impossible.
Which is why IMHO, Labour would be best to try and ensure a Lib Dem revival.
Indeed, Esher and Walton and Wokingham and Cities of London and Westminster are now more likely to be lost by the Tories to the LDs than Great Grimsby or Bishop Auckland or Harlow are to be lost to Labour.
Blair never won the former unlike the latter yet the latter have bigger Tory majorities now than the former
In reality , I suspect that is unlikely. Voters who swung massively against Labour in Grimsby and Bishop Auckland over a two and a half year period might swing back in 2024 on a similar scale post-Corbyn with Brexit no longer being an issue to many.Labour is also likely to regain second place in seats such as Cities of London & Westminster and Finchley.
The latter is far more likely than the former. Many of those northern seats are switching due to values shifts and won't be going back in a hurry.
If I were the Tories I'd be most worried about 20-30 southern seats going LD.
First, you need to be worried about the LibDems. They are going backwards.
This is true but I wonder how much their leader really matters.
Is it okay to think that Starmer might genuinely be a very good LOTO and the best one since Blair?
What made Blair so effective was that he opposed surgically, but also that he could compellingly spell out an alternative. I am very confident Starmer can do the first, much less convinced he can do the latter. But given what Labour has offered for the last decade, I’m happy to take that. I suspect it’s not enough to win a majority, though.
By 1997 Major's government was universally detested and Major himself derided as a joke. That quite possibly might be the view of Johnson and his government by 2024. I can't envision Covid-19 and its aftershock playing well for incumbent governments across the globe.
Starmer looks and sounds the part which may be all it needs. Johnson did not offer a vision save for 'get Brexit done'. Remember Jeremy had an alternative, it was just an alternative vision no one else shared.
It can't be understated also how in 2024, the Government won't be able to play the "new and fresh" card again. 13 years of Government will be eating into them, people will be ready for a change, IMHO.
If that change isn't perceived as bats**t crazy like last time its a real risk yes.
Also, it is often forgotten, but Starmer gaining a majority is almost inconceivable without some kind of revival in Scotland.
The real constitutionally-impossible situation that is quite plausible is Tories win England but a Lab minority backed by the SNP takes Westminster, though any time SNP abstains means the Tories have a majority.
Given the SNP won't vote on England-only matters it means Labour would be incapable of properly governing England . . . and it will be in the SNP's interests to ensure Westminster is gummed up.
Plus the SNP will demand an independence referendum but them winning it would hand England back to the Tories who had won in England.
If the red wall can fall, so can the soft blue underbelly.
It can, but that doesn't change an iota of what I wrote.
Its quite plausible the result ends up with a Tory majority in England, but Lab minority government with SNP support in Westminster, in which case governing England will be nigh on impossible.
Which is why IMHO, Labour would be best to try and ensure a Lib Dem revival.
Indeed, Esher and Walton and Wokingham and Cities of London and Westminster are now more likely to be lost by the Tories to the LDs than Great Grimsby or Bishop Auckland or Harlow are to be lost to Labour.
Blair never won the former unlike the latter yet the latter have bigger Tory majorities now than the former
In reality , I suspect that is unlikely. Voters who swung massively against Labour in Grimsby and Bishop Auckland over a two and a half year period might swing back in 2024 on a similar scale post-Corbyn with Brexit no longer being an issue to many.Labour is also likely to regain second place in seats such as Cities of London & Westminster and Finchley.
The latter is far more likely than the former. Many of those northern seats are switching due to values shifts and won't be going back in a hurry.
If I were the Tories I'd be most worried about 20-30 southern seats going LD.
Values do not shift dramatically over such a short period of 2.5 years though. Why were those voters so much more prepared to vote Tory in December 2019 compared with June 2017? Demographic trends in such areas are likely to favour the Tories , but such a dramatic change would suggest that specific issues were at work - ie Corbyn and Brexit. When those issues cease to be relevant , the dramatic shift should be largely reversible notwithstanding the longterm trend.
They were trending that way for years, and it accelerated following the Brexit vote.
It just showed up in the electoral results in 2019.
Is it okay to think that Starmer might genuinely be a very good LOTO and the best one since Blair?
What made Blair so effective was that he opposed surgically, but also that he could compellingly spell out an alternative. I am very confident Starmer can do the first, much less convinced he can do the latter. But given what Labour has offered for the last decade, I’m happy to take that. I suspect it’s not enough to win a majority, though.
By 1997 Major's government was universally detested and Major himself derided as a joke. That quite possibly might be the view of Johnson and his government by 2024. I can't envision Covid-19 and its aftershock playing well for incumbent governments across the globe.
Starmer looks and sounds the part which may be all it needs. Johnson did not offer a vision save for 'get Brexit done'. Remember Jeremy had an alternative, it was just an alternative vision no one else shared.
It can't be understated also how in 2024, the Government won't be able to play the "new and fresh" card again. 13 years of Government will be eating into them, people will be ready for a change, IMHO.
If that change isn't perceived as bats**t crazy like last time its a real risk yes.
Also, it is often forgotten, but Starmer gaining a majority is almost inconceivable without some kind of revival in Scotland.
The real constitutionally-impossible situation that is quite plausible is Tories win England but a Lab minority backed by the SNP takes Westminster, though any time SNP abstains means the Tories have a majority.
Given the SNP won't vote on England-only matters it means Labour would be incapable of properly governing England . . . and it will be in the SNP's interests to ensure Westminster is gummed up.
Plus the SNP will demand an independence referendum but them winning it would hand England back to the Tories who had won in England.
If the red wall can fall, so can the soft blue underbelly.
It can, but that doesn't change an iota of what I wrote.
Its quite plausible the result ends up with a Tory majority in England, but Lab minority government with SNP support in Westminster, in which case governing England will be nigh on impossible.
Which is why IMHO, Labour would be best to try and ensure a Lib Dem revival.
Indeed, Esher and Walton and Wokingham and Cities of London and Westminster are now more likely to be lost by the Tories to the LDs than Great Grimsby or Bishop Auckland or Harlow are to be lost to Labour.
Blair never won the former unlike the latter yet the latter have bigger Tory majorities now than the former
In reality , I suspect that is unlikely. Voters who swung massively against Labour in Grimsby and Bishop Auckland over a two and a half year period might swing back in 2024 on a similar scale post-Corbyn with Brexit no longer being an issue to many.Labour is also likely to regain second place in seats such as Cities of London & Westminster and Finchley.
The latter is far more likely than the former. Many of those northern seats are switching due to values shifts and won't be going back in a hurry.
If I were the Tories I'd be most worried about 20-30 southern seats going LD.
Values do not shift dramatically over such a short period of 2.5 years though. Why were those voters so much more prepared to vote Tory in December 2019 compared with June 2017? Demographic trends in such areas are likely to favour the Tories , but such a dramatic change would suggest that specific issues were at work - ie Corbyn and Brexit. When those issues cease to be relevant , the dramatic shift should be largely reversible notwithstanding the longterm trend.
They were trending that way for years, and it accelerated following the Brexit vote.
It just showed up in the electoral results in 2019.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
The Tories are currently on 365 seats, Labour 202, Lib Dems 11.
On a 5.5% swing in 2024, Labour would make 61 gains, 56 of which would be Tory seats, putting the Tories on 309. Labour would be on 263.
5 of the 61 gains are SNP seats, so likely Labour won't take those. But really that's net negative for Labour since the SNP would presumably support them.
If the SNP therefore hold around 40 seats, that is Labour + SNP = 303. Lib Dems hold 11 say and that's 314.
Green MP is one more.
SDLP is two more.
So that's Labour alliance thingy on 317, Tories + DUP on 316.
Imagine how buggered a Parliament that would be!
Why would the DUP support the Tories now that Corbyn has ceased to be Labour leader?
Because they are a right-wing party.
But the Conservative and Unionist Party put a border down the Irish Sea.
The DUP will never forgive or forget that betrayal.
Did Boris intend betraying the DUP over the Irish Sea border or did he just not understand the complexities of his own so-called oven-ready deal? That has never been clear.
The Tories are currently on 365 seats, Labour 202, Lib Dems 11.
On a 5.5% swing in 2024, Labour would make 61 gains, 56 of which would be Tory seats, putting the Tories on 309. Labour would be on 263.
5 of the 61 gains are SNP seats, so likely Labour won't take those. But really that's net negative for Labour since the SNP would presumably support them.
If the SNP therefore hold around 40 seats, that is Labour + SNP = 303. Lib Dems hold 11 say and that's 314.
Green MP is one more.
SDLP is two more.
So that's Labour alliance thingy on 317, Tories + DUP on 316.
Imagine how buggered a Parliament that would be!
Why would the DUP support the Tories now that Corbyn has ceased to be Labour leader?
Because they are a right-wing party.
But the Conservative and Unionist Party put a border down the Irish Sea.
The DUP will never forgive or forget that betrayal.
Did Boris intend betraying the DUP over the Irish Sea border or did he just not understand the complexities of his own so-called oven-ready deal? That has never been clear.
You can guarantee betrayal and not caring a jot.
Don't think that's fair, TBH, Malc. It was detail and he doesn't do detail. Any of his staff who said 'but' were waved away. Looked OK at his quick reading and that was that.
Lockdown is over regardless of the minor tweaks Johnson announces tomorrow. The public over the last 24 hours have shown that a sufficient enough number of them will him it off as to render it meaningless. In his usual style perhaps Johnson will by Tuesday be saying what people have decided he should have said rather than what he actually said...
That's not to say that status quo ante returns - that's gone. WFH will become a significant part of the new order, the schools aren't properly reopening until September, and it sounds like we don't get a summer holiday this year.
We have to hope herd immunity is worth something. Because that's what we're going with.
We treat "the public" too much as a homogenous body. For the reasons we've discussed, the lockdown is crumbling among parts of the public. For those of us who approve of the lockdown, that's an additional reason to adhere to it, because disease transmission will speed up. So it remains significant rather than meaningless - I wouldn't dream of breaking it because I see some idiots on TV doing a group hug. Let them kill each other if that's what they want - I wish they wouldn't but ultimately it's up to them.
I think Johnson's PMQ winning teaser on Wednesday has got us to this position. The press read it as lockdown will be over on Monday.
Sturgeon and Drakeford are trying to back the PM into a corner and Raab has already said nothing much will change, but if Boris sees his popularity slipping away from him, by the time of the announcement it may all change to fill your boots with street parties, music festivals and foreign holidays.
What crap, The devolved nations are just stating that they will not be led down the garden path because Bozo could not shut his mouth and is desperate to get back to his preferred herd immunity model. If he is as stupid as what he leaked to newspapers then England is on its own.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
That's not true because the Swedish strategy is to avoid further waves of the virus. You can't compare the number/rate of deaths at the moment when all countries are still in the first wave.
It is true because you are ignoring basic human nature. If we had 150,000 deaths in 3 or 4 months then forget about elections, they would be dragging the politicians out of Westminster at the head of a torch lit parade.
You have to laugh at the innumeracy of journalists sometimes. This from the BBC: "At 0.5% per 100,000 people, the death rate in Slovakia is the lowest in the EU ..."
However, they're every bit as illiterate. The BBC also reports a question at the press conference asked by someone in "Country Durham".
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
How does 20% give herd immunity, all the experts said 80% so it appears they are avoiding nothing.
Is it okay to think that Starmer might genuinely be a very good LOTO and the best one since Blair?
What made Blair so effective was that he opposed surgically, but also that he could compellingly spell out an alternative. I am very confident Starmer can do the first, much less convinced he can do the latter. But given what Labour has offered for the last decade, I’m happy to take that. I suspect it’s not enough to win a majority, though.
By 1997 Major's government was universally detested and Major himself derided as a joke. That quite possibly might be the view of Johnson and his government by 2024. I can't envision Covid-19 and its aftershock playing well for incumbent governments across the globe.
Starmer looks and sounds the part which may be all it needs. Johnson did not offer a vision save for 'get Brexit done'. Remember Jeremy had an alternative, it was just an alternative vision no one else shared.
It can't be understated also how in 2024, the Government won't be able to play the "new and fresh" card again. 13 years of Government will be eating into them, people will be ready for a change, IMHO.
If that change isn't perceived as bats**t crazy like last time its a real risk yes.
Also, it is often forgotten, but Starmer gaining a majority is almost inconceivable without some kind of revival in Scotland.
The real constitutionally-impossible situation that is quite plausible is Tories win England but a Lab minority backed by the SNP takes Westminster, though any time SNP abstains means the Tories have a majority.
Given the SNP won't vote on England-only matters it means Labour would be incapable of properly governing England . . . and it will be in the SNP's interests to ensure Westminster is gummed up.
Plus the SNP will demand an independence referendum but them winning it would hand England back to the Tories who had won in England.
If the red wall can fall, so can the soft blue underbelly.
It can, but that doesn't change an iota of what I wrote.
Its quite plausible the result ends up with a Tory majority in England, but Lab minority government with SNP support in Westminster, in which case governing England will be nigh on impossible.
Which is why IMHO, Labour would be best to try and ensure a Lib Dem revival.
Indeed, Esher and Walton and Wokingham and Cities of London and Westminster are now more likely to be lost by the Tories to the LDs than Great Grimsby or Bishop Auckland or Harlow are to be lost to Labour.
Blair never won the former unlike the latter yet the latter have bigger Tory majorities now than the former
In reality , I suspect that is unlikely. Voters who swung massively against Labour in Grimsby and Bishop Auckland over a two and a half year period might swing back in 2024 on a similar scale post-Corbyn with Brexit no longer being an issue to many.Labour is also likely to regain second place in seats such as Cities of London & Westminster and Finchley.
The latter is far more likely than the former. Many of those northern seats are switching due to values shifts and won't be going back in a hurry.
If I were the Tories I'd be most worried about 20-30 southern seats going LD.
Values do not shift dramatically over such a short period of 2.5 years though. Why were those voters so much more prepared to vote Tory in December 2019 compared with June 2017? Demographic trends in such areas are likely to favour the Tories , but such a dramatic change would suggest that specific issues were at work - ie Corbyn and Brexit. When those issues cease to be relevant , the dramatic shift should be largely reversible notwithstanding the longterm trend.
They were trending that way for years, and it accelerated following the Brexit vote.
It just showed up in the electoral results in 2019.
It's always worth looking at turnout, too.
Edit. Vanilla strikes again.
I accept the reality of the demographic trend - and that is likely to continue. It is the dramatic shift over a short period which I am not persuaded is permanent.I find it reminiscent of the big swings to Labour in Kent and Essex in the elections of 1997 & 2001. Seats such as Siitingbourne, Thanet South,Bexleyheath, Medway and Harwich have reverted to being safely Tory. Also worth pointing out that some areas which had returned Tories within living memory in the North East failed to do so in 2019. Sunderland South was Tory-held until 1964 and Tynemouth only fell in 1997 for the first time.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
That's not true because the Swedish strategy is to avoid further waves of the virus. You can't compare the number/rate of deaths at the moment when all countries are still in the first wave.
It is true because you are ignoring basic human nature. If we had 150,000 deaths in 3 or 4 months then forget about elections, they would be dragging the politicians out of Westminster at the head of a torch lit parade.
Im not sure that’s true. Arguably that should be happening now and I don’t get the sense that there is all that much anger.
The Tories are currently on 365 seats, Labour 202, Lib Dems 11.
On a 5.5% swing in 2024, Labour would make 61 gains, 56 of which would be Tory seats, putting the Tories on 309. Labour would be on 263.
5 of the 61 gains are SNP seats, so likely Labour won't take those. But really that's net negative for Labour since the SNP would presumably support them.
If the SNP therefore hold around 40 seats, that is Labour + SNP = 303. Lib Dems hold 11 say and that's 314.
Green MP is one more.
SDLP is two more.
So that's Labour alliance thingy on 317, Tories + DUP on 316.
Imagine how buggered a Parliament that would be!
Why would the DUP support the Tories now that Corbyn has ceased to be Labour leader?
Because they are a right-wing party.
But the Conservative and Unionist Party put a border down the Irish Sea.
The DUP will never forgive or forget that betrayal.
Did Boris intend betraying the DUP over the Irish Sea border or did he just not understand the complexities of his own so-called oven-ready deal? That has never been clear.
You can guarantee betrayal and not caring a jot.
Don't think that's fair, TBH, Malc. It was detail and he doesn't do detail. Any of his staff who said 'but' were waved away. Looked OK at his quick reading and that was that.
OKC, same thing then , the lazy barsteward never even gave it a thought or a crae so betrayal seems very appropriate, unacceptable to try to excuse him as not being a detail man.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
They don't have herd immunity. They are on the way down from the peak and have 25% infection rates at very best. If they wanted herd immunity they would not have told people to socially distance and work from home.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
How does 20% give herd immunity, all the experts said 80% so it appears they are avoiding nothing.
More to the point, why should Sweden have more immunity than the UK, when the UK has had more deaths as a percentage of population (on the official figures)?
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
No, I just disagree with you.
There is disagreeing and there is advocating a policy which you accept will kill 150,000 people. That was the premise of my comment and that was what you agreed was acceptable. That is what is insane.
The Tories are currently on 365 seats, Labour 202, Lib Dems 11.
On a 5.5% swing in 2024, Labour would make 61 gains, 56 of which would be Tory seats, putting the Tories on 309. Labour would be on 263.
5 of the 61 gains are SNP seats, so likely Labour won't take those. But really that's net negative for Labour since the SNP would presumably support them.
If the SNP therefore hold around 40 seats, that is Labour + SNP = 303. Lib Dems hold 11 say and that's 314.
Green MP is one more.
SDLP is two more.
So that's Labour alliance thingy on 317, Tories + DUP on 316.
Imagine how buggered a Parliament that would be!
Why would the DUP support the Tories now that Corbyn has ceased to be Labour leader?
Because they are a right-wing party.
But the Conservative and Unionist Party put a border down the Irish Sea.
The DUP will never forgive or forget that betrayal.
Did Boris intend betraying the DUP over the Irish Sea border or did he just not understand the complexities of his own so-called oven-ready deal? That has never been clear.
You can guarantee betrayal and not caring a jot.
The DUP were holding the government to ransome. I see no reason why a calculated stab in the back shouldn't be regarded as acceptable politics. All's fair in love and war, etc. I am not sure GB people are particularly interested in people who claim to be British but behave in such a damned un-British manner. We have already expended too much blood and treasure on Ireland.
Stochastic has a specific technical meaning in physical science/numerical methods.
Witless probably is the mot juste, you are right. I don't mind hacks not knowing what stochastic means but it really ought to have been obvious this was a technical or jargon word. Shades of Bernard and Sir Humphrey trying to explain meta-dioxin by parsing meta as a Latin or Greek term rather than a chemical one.
that is a great example. like it.
It would help if science were bolder about naming things in some other way than finding a vaguely analogous word in ancient Greek. Gas and quark are excellent names for instance.
[though I believe "gas" is partly based on "chaos"].
Charm and strangeness aren’t helping...
hadron is Greek, charm Latin or French, strangeness Latin to French to middle English.
The word “hadron” was taken from the Greek, yes, but charm and strangeness are perfectly well known and used words in English, used in particle Physics in a fairly different way to the normal. The problem being discussed was having words which have a particular meaning in one context (stochastic was the example) and trying to work out what the technical meaning must be from the normal one (or the derivation from Latin or Greek if appropriate). How many here who don’t have a science background would be able to explain what I mean when I say that “Strangeness is not conserved in a weak interaction”?
I don't think we are disagreeing about anything, except that stochastic in its original meaning is actually a perfectly good metaphor for its meaning in statistics - as good a metaphor as monte carlo simulation, anyway - shooting an arrow at a target vs putting a stake on 17. The problem here is that Hitchens is pretending to think that just guessing is the same as having multiple guesses and testing what the consequences would be.
But of course the Monte Carlo method isn't a matter of averaging multiple "guesses". Mathematical modelling isn't the same as "guessing".
Sure. But random or pseudo random inputs are probably, from the Hitchens pov, even worse than guessing.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
That's not true because the Swedish strategy is to avoid further waves of the virus. You can't compare the number/rate of deaths at the moment when all countries are still in the first wave.
It is true because you are ignoring basic human nature. If we had 150,000 deaths in 3 or 4 months then forget about elections, they would be dragging the politicians out of Westminster at the head of a torch lit parade.
Im not sure that’s true. Arguably that should be happening now and I don’t get the sense that there is all that much anger.
Because the public know that the mistakes that have been made are just that - mistakes. The advice was that even with lockdown we would lose 20,000 people. We have exceeded that because of errors by the Government as well as the basic difficulty in predicting these things precisely but no one has seriously suggested the Government set out on a policy to kill those people deliberately. A policy of herd immunity such as is supposedly being advocated by those supporting the Swedish plan would be exactly that. The deliberate killing of 150,000 people - all of them someone's loved one - for the 'greater good'. And all against the background of other countries having a 10th of that number of deaths by following a different policy.
You honestly think people would sit back and just let that happen?
I accept the reality of the demographic trend - and that is likely to continue. It is the dramatic shift over a short period which I am not persuaded is permanent.I find it reminiscent of the big swings to Labour in Kent and Essex in the elections of 1997 & 2001. Seats such as Siitingbourne, Thanet South,Bexleyheath, Medway and Harwich have reverted to being safely Tory. Also worth pointing out that some areas which had returned Tories within living memory in the North East failed to do so in 2019. Sunderland South was Tory-held until 1964 and Tynemouth only fell in 1997 for the first time.
Urban areas have trended leftwards while conurbation sprawl areas have trended rightwards.
Which is why Doncaster was Conservative in the 1950s and Don Valley Labour while the opposite happened in 2019.
The Tories are currently on 365 seats, Labour 202, Lib Dems 11.
On a 5.5% swing in 2024, Labour would make 61 gains, 56 of which would be Tory seats, putting the Tories on 309. Labour would be on 263.
5 of the 61 gains are SNP seats, so likely Labour won't take those. But really that's net negative for Labour since the SNP would presumably support them.
If the SNP therefore hold around 40 seats, that is Labour + SNP = 303. Lib Dems hold 11 say and that's 314.
Green MP is one more.
SDLP is two more.
So that's Labour alliance thingy on 317, Tories + DUP on 316.
Imagine how buggered a Parliament that would be!
Why would the DUP support the Tories now that Corbyn has ceased to be Labour leader?
Because they are a right-wing party.
But the Conservative and Unionist Party put a border down the Irish Sea.
The DUP will never forgive or forget that betrayal.
Did Boris intend betraying the DUP over the Irish Sea border or did he just not understand the complexities of his own so-called oven-ready deal? That has never been clear.
You can guarantee betrayal and not caring a jot.
Don't think that's fair, TBH, Malc. It was detail and he doesn't do detail. Any of his staff who said 'but' were waved away. Looked OK at his quick reading and that was that.
OKC, same thing then , the lazy barsteward never even gave it a thought or a crae so betrayal seems very appropriate, unacceptable to try to excuse him as not being a detail man.
I suspect few Conservatives care about the DUP after they betrayed May.
Is it okay to think that Starmer might genuinely be a very good LOTO and the best one since Blair?
What made Blair so effective was that he opposed surgically, but also that he could compellingly spell out an alternative. I am very confident Starmer can do the first, much less convinced he can do the latter. But given what Labour has offered for the last decade, I’m happy to take that. I suspect it’s not enough to win a majority, though.
By 1997 Major's government was universally detested and Major himself derided as a joke. That quite possibly might be the view of Johnson and his government by 2024. I can't envision Covid-19 and its aftershock playing well for incumbent governments across the globe.
Starmer looks and sounds the part which may be all it needs. Johnson did not offer a vision save for 'get Brexit done'. Remember Jeremy had an alternative, it was just an alternative vision no one else shared.
It can't be understated also how in 2024, the Government won't be able to play the "new and fresh" card again. 13 years of Government will be eating into them, people will be ready for a change, IMHO.
If that change isn't perceived as bats**t crazy like last time its a real risk yes.
Also, it is often forgotten, but Starmer gaining a majority is almost inconceivable without some kind of revival in Scotland.
The real constitutionally-impossible situation that is quite plausible is Tories win England but a Lab minority backed by the SNP takes Westminster, though any time SNP abstains means the Tories have a majority.
Given the SNP won't vote on England-only matters it means Labour would be incapable of properly governing England . . . and it will be in the SNP's interests to ensure Westminster is gummed up.
Plus the SNP will demand an independence referendum but them winning it would hand England back to the Tories who had won in England.
If the red wall can fall, so can the soft blue underbelly.
It can, but that doesn't change an iota of what I wrote.
Its quite plausible the result ends up with a Tory majority in England, but Lab minority government with SNP support in Westminster, in which case governing England will be nigh on impossible.
Which is why IMHO, Labour would be best to try and ensure a Lib Dem revival.
Indeed, Esher and Walton and Wokingham and Cities of London and Westminster are now more likely to be lost by the Tories to the LDs than Great Grimsby or Bishop Auckland or Harlow are to be lost to Labour.
Blair never won the former unlike the latter yet the latter have bigger Tory majorities now than the former
In reality , I suspect that is unlikely. Voters who swung massively against Labour in Grimsby and Bishop Auckland over a two and a half year period might swing back in 2024 on a similar scale post-Corbyn with Brexit no longer being an issue to many.Labour is also likely to regain second place in seats such as Cities of London & Westminster and Finchley.
Unlikely if as is probable the next general election is hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or return to the single market with free movement under Starmer.
Cities of London and Westminster is one of the wealthiest seats in the UK, it might vote LD, it will not vote Labour
It has pockets of unbelievable poverty - and one of the highest proportions of kids on free school meals
Stochastic has a specific technical meaning in physical science/numerical methods.
Witless probably is the mot juste, you are right. I don't mind hacks not knowing what stochastic means but it really ought to have been obvious this was a technical or jargon word. Shades of Bernard and Sir Humphrey trying to explain meta-dioxin by parsing meta as a Latin or Greek term rather than a chemical one.
that is a great example. like it.
It would help if science were bolder about naming things in some other way than finding a vaguely analogous word in ancient Greek. Gas and quark are excellent names for instance.
[though I believe "gas" is partly based on "chaos"].
Charm and strangeness aren’t helping...
hadron is Greek, charm Latin or French, strangeness Latin to French to middle English.
The word “hadron” was taken from the Greek, yes, but charm and strangeness are perfectly well known and used words in English, used in particle Physics in a fairly different way to the normal. The problem being discussed was having words which have a particular meaning in one context (stochastic was the example) and trying to work out what the technical meaning must be from the normal one (or the derivation from Latin or Greek if appropriate). How many here who don’t have a science background would be able to explain what I mean when I say that “Strangeness is not conserved in a weak interaction”?
I don't think we are disagreeing about anything, except that stochastic in its original meaning is actually a perfectly good metaphor for its meaning in statistics - as good a metaphor as monte carlo simulation, anyway - shooting an arrow at a target vs putting a stake on 17. The problem here is that Hitchens is pretending to think that just guessing is the same as having multiple guesses and testing what the consequences would be.
But of course the Monte Carlo method isn't a matter of averaging multiple "guesses". Mathematical modelling isn't the same as "guessing".
Sure. But random or pseudo random inputs are probably, from the Hitchens pov, even worse than guessing.
I think trying to plumb the depths of Hitchens's ignorance about mathematical modelling is probably a fruitless task.
The Tories are currently on 365 seats, Labour 202, Lib Dems 11.
On a 5.5% swing in 2024, Labour would make 61 gains, 56 of which would be Tory seats, putting the Tories on 309. Labour would be on 263.
5 of the 61 gains are SNP seats, so likely Labour won't take those. But really that's net negative for Labour since the SNP would presumably support them.
If the SNP therefore hold around 40 seats, that is Labour + SNP = 303. Lib Dems hold 11 say and that's 314.
Green MP is one more.
SDLP is two more.
So that's Labour alliance thingy on 317, Tories + DUP on 316.
Imagine how buggered a Parliament that would be!
Why would the DUP support the Tories now that Corbyn has ceased to be Labour leader?
Because they are a right-wing party.
But the Conservative and Unionist Party put a border down the Irish Sea.
The DUP will never forgive or forget that betrayal.
Did Boris intend betraying the DUP over the Irish Sea border or did he just not understand the complexities of his own so-called oven-ready deal? That has never been clear.
You can guarantee betrayal and not caring a jot.
Don't think that's fair, TBH, Malc. It was detail and he doesn't do detail. Any of his staff who said 'but' were waved away. Looked OK at his quick reading and that was that.
OKC, same thing then , the lazy barsteward never even gave it a thought or a crae so betrayal seems very appropriate, unacceptable to try to excuse him as not being a detail man.
I accept the reality of the demographic trend - and that is likely to continue. It is the dramatic shift over a short period which I am not persuaded is permanent.I find it reminiscent of the big swings to Labour in Kent and Essex in the elections of 1997 & 2001. Seats such as Siitingbourne, Thanet South,Bexleyheath, Medway and Harwich have reverted to being safely Tory. Also worth pointing out that some areas which had returned Tories within living memory in the North East failed to do so in 2019. Sunderland South was Tory-held until 1964 and Tynemouth only fell in 1997 for the first time.
Urban areas have trended leftwards while conurbation sprawl areas have trended rightwards.
Which is why Doncaster was Conservative in the 1950s and Don Valley Labour while the opposite happened in 2019.
Doncaster was a single seat represented by Anthony Barber until 1964 - but the boundaries were very different.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
How does 20% give herd immunity, all the experts said 80% so it appears they are avoiding nothing.
More to the point, why should Sweden have more immunity than the UK, when the UK has had more deaths as a percentage of population (on the official figures)?
Unless you can target the virus at low risk groups the price of immunity by infection rather than vaccine is approximately 3,000 deaths per million of population.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
There was a very good documentary series about 5 US film directors - including George Stevens who shot this - and how the war affected them. John Ford of Western fame was on Midway when it was attacked and carried on filming.
Holywood had a pretty good war, with an apparent bias to the USAAF (Stewart, Gable & Palance off the top of my head). Always a disappointment to me that the Duke was a bit of chickenhawk.
I accept the reality of the demographic trend - and that is likely to continue. It is the dramatic shift over a short period which I am not persuaded is permanent.I find it reminiscent of the big swings to Labour in Kent and Essex in the elections of 1997 & 2001. Seats such as Siitingbourne, Thanet South,Bexleyheath, Medway and Harwich have reverted to being safely Tory. Also worth pointing out that some areas which had returned Tories within living memory in the North East failed to do so in 2019. Sunderland South was Tory-held until 1964 and Tynemouth only fell in 1997 for the first time.
Urban areas have trended leftwards while conurbation sprawl areas have trended rightwards.
Which is why Doncaster was Conservative in the 1950s and Don Valley Labour while the opposite happened in 2019.
Doncaster was a single seat represented by Anthony Barber until 1964 - but the boundaries were very different.
Barber's Doncaster constituency was very similar to the current Doncaster Central.
The factors which have shifted the constituency leftwards can be seen in urban areas across the country - public sector middle classes shifting leftwards, private sector middle classes moving out, big houses being turned into bedsits, increasing non-white population, increasing students.
Who could have forecast that today given the government's mixed messaging?
Well the behavioural scientists also said the public will quickly become bored of this and you won't be able to continue it for months on end.
I think that would be true regardless of what somebody briefed to the media, VE day bank holiday + lovely weather, I think we would have seen people bursting out regardless.
The Tories are currently on 365 seats, Labour 202, Lib Dems 11.
On a 5.5% swing in 2024, Labour would make 61 gains, 56 of which would be Tory seats, putting the Tories on 309. Labour would be on 263.
5 of the 61 gains are SNP seats, so likely Labour won't take those. But really that's net negative for Labour since the SNP would presumably support them.
If the SNP therefore hold around 40 seats, that is Labour + SNP = 303. Lib Dems hold 11 say and that's 314.
Green MP is one more.
SDLP is two more.
So that's Labour alliance thingy on 317, Tories + DUP on 316.
Imagine how buggered a Parliament that would be!
Why would the DUP support the Tories now that Corbyn has ceased to be Labour leader?
Because they are a right-wing party.
But the Conservative and Unionist Party put a border down the Irish Sea.
The DUP will never forgive or forget that betrayal.
Did Boris intend betraying the DUP over the Irish Sea border or did he just not understand the complexities of his own so-called oven-ready deal? That has never been clear.
You can guarantee betrayal and not caring a jot.
The DUP were holding the government to ransome. I see no reason why a calculated stab in the back shouldn't be regarded as acceptable politics. All's fair in love and war, etc. I am not sure GB people are particularly interested in people who claim to be British but behave in such a damned un-British manner. We have already expended too much blood and treasure on Ireland.
Tories and DUP are two cheeks of the same arse as far as I am concerned PS: Though I would say the DUP are the biggest cheek.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
How does 20% give herd immunity, all the experts said 80% so it appears they are avoiding nothing.
More to the point, why should Sweden have more immunity than the UK, when the UK has had more deaths as a percentage of population (on the official figures)?
The UK has had so many deaths, because of the mind blowingly stupid policy of moving old people of of hospitals and in to care homes, bringing the virus with them.
Sweden has more heard immunity because of the policy of letting schools and businesses stay open so the the healthy chaldran and working age people who very very relay die form the virus get it and become immune.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
I have no idea if that is a correct figure (we need accurate serum antibody testing for that), but:
A ) 26% is too low for herd immunity unless R<1.25, which requires considerable social distancing.
B ) The rate outside Stockholm County is much lower than 26%.
The whole "Swedish experiment" is so politicised, both by Swedes who have waged their careers on it, and non-Swedes who want to justify their own position, that I think it unlikely to give a clear outcome. Not until reviewed in the history books anyway.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
That's not true because the Swedish strategy is to avoid further waves of the virus. You can't compare the number/rate of deaths at the moment when all countries are still in the first wave.
It is true because you are ignoring basic human nature. If we had 150,000 deaths in 3 or 4 months then forget about elections, they would be dragging the politicians out of Westminster at the head of a torch lit parade.
Im not sure that’s true. Arguably that should be happening now and I don’t get the sense that there is all that much anger.
Because the public know that the mistakes that have been made are just that - mistakes. The advice was that even with lockdown we would lose 20,000 people. We have exceeded that because of errors by the Government as well as the basic difficulty in predicting these things precisely but no one has seriously suggested the Government set out on a policy to kill those people deliberately. A policy of herd immunity such as is supposedly being advocated by those supporting the Swedish plan would be exactly that. The deliberate killing of 150,000 people - all of them someone's loved one - for the 'greater good'. And all against the background of other countries having a 10th of that number of deaths by following a different policy.
You honestly think people would sit back and just let that happen?
Who could have forecast that today given the government's mixed messaging?
Maybe it's just the weather. Tomorrow will be freezing by comparison with today: it'll be interesting to see if the number of people venturing outside is much smaller.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
Yup. Unless Swedish exceptionalism extends to the disease itself. That it is less deadly in Sweden than elsewhere.
We're wasting our time talking about Sweden. It has had a poor response to the virus. The only to be said in its favour is that the UK response was even worse.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
Isn't the point rather you need infection rates of around 80% to achieve herd immunity?
Infection rate of 26% will not achieve herd immunity, in fact you'll end up with the worst of all worlds?
He did't say herd immunity. That is obviously when you have so many people immune that even when a new carrier arrives it can't spread properly. That isn't what he was saying.
He was saying there is a level of community immunity, such that new infections won't overwhelm the system. His outlook is that this thing will be here without a vaccine for years, and so it is better to have a background level of it where you manage month after month, rather than hard lockdown, restart, rinse and repeat.
He said he thought that there was now ~20% of Swedes had had it, compared to 1-2% of most other Nordic countries. And thus, the Swedish strategy could continue unchanged indefinitely, where as other countries that wasn't any option.
The big mistake he said Sweden made was again not shielding people in care homes.
His opinion is ultimately basically everybody will be exposed to this, it is just over what period of time.
Anxious About the Virus, Older Voters Grow More Wary of Trump Surveys show the president’s standing with seniors, the group most vulnerable to the coronavirus, has fallen as he pushes to reopen the country.
Stochastic has a specific technical meaning in physical science/numerical methods.
Witless probably is the mot juste, you are right. I don't mind hacks not knowing what stochastic means but it really ought to have been obvious this was a technical or jargon word. Shades of Bernard and Sir Humphrey trying to explain meta-dioxin by parsing meta as a Latin or Greek term rather than a chemical one.
that is a great example. like it.
It would help if science were bolder about naming things in some other way than finding a vaguely analogous word in ancient Greek. Gas and quark are excellent names for instance.
[though I believe "gas" is partly based on "chaos"].
Charm and strangeness aren’t helping...
hadron is Greek, charm Latin or French, strangeness Latin to French to middle English.
The word “hadron” was taken from the Greek, yes, but charm and strangeness are perfectly well known and used words in English, used in particle Physics in a fairly different way to the normal. The problem being discussed was having words which have a particular meaning in one context (stochastic was the example) and trying to work out what the technical meaning must be from the normal one (or the derivation from Latin or Greek if appropriate). How many here who don’t have a science background would be able to explain what I mean when I say that “Strangeness is not conserved in a weak interaction”?
I don't think we are disagreeing about anything, except that stochastic in its original meaning is actually a perfectly good metaphor for its meaning in statistics - as good a metaphor as monte carlo simulation, anyway - shooting an arrow at a target vs putting a stake on 17. The problem here is that Hitchens is pretending to think that just guessing is the same as having multiple guesses and testing what the consequences would be.
But of course the Monte Carlo method isn't a matter of averaging multiple "guesses". Mathematical modelling isn't the same as "guessing".
Sure. But random or pseudo random inputs are probably, from the Hitchens pov, even worse than guessing.
I think trying to plumb the depths of Hitchens's ignorance about mathematical modelling is probably a fruitless task.
I first learnt the term "stochastic" in my teens from a Desmond Bagley Thriller - "The Tightrope Men" iirc, then on my engineering course. Hitchens needs to read more widely (made to stop being quite such a pillock).
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
There was a very good documentary series about 5 US film directors - including George Stevens who shot this - and how the war affected them. John Ford of Western fame was on Midway when it was attacked and carried on filming.
Holywood had a pretty good war, with an apparent bias to the USAAF (Stewart, Gable & Palance off the top of my head). Always a disappointment to me that the Duke was a bit of chickenhawk.
David Niven always impressed me on that score. He was safely ensconced in Hollywood when the war broke out in 1939 but immediately went back to Britain and joined the Commandos serving with their special reconnaissance unit in command of A Squadron.
He took time off to make two films during the war, both designed to help the war effort including The First of the Few which is a brilliant film. After filming he returned to the front lines and served in Normandy with his unit often operating behind enemy lines.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
How does 20% give herd immunity, all the experts said 80% so it appears they are avoiding nothing.
It depends on the R0 number - at a low enough R0 number 26% would be very significant.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
25% is no where near even half what you need for herd immunity.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
How does 20% give herd immunity, all the experts said 80% so it appears they are avoiding nothing.
More to the point, why should Sweden have more immunity than the UK, when the UK has had more deaths as a percentage of population (on the official figures)?
The UK has had so many deaths, because of the mind blowingly stupid policy of moving old people of of hospitals and in to care homes, bringing the virus with them.
Sweden has more heard immunity because of the policy of letting schools and businesses stay open so the the healthy chaldran and working age people who very very relay die form the virus get it and become immune.
If that is the Swedish plan, then they have failed both at getting enough young people infected to gain herd immunity, and at protecting their elderly.
I think Sweden may well show that social control measures have only a modest effect on the size of an epidemic peak. I think that is what the redacted bits of the SAGE documents said.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
25% is no where near even half what you need for herd immunity.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
Isn't the point rather you need infection rates of around 80% to achieve herd immunity?
Infection rate of 26% will not achieve herd immunity, in fact you'll end up with the worst of all worlds?
I disagree,
the higher the level of infection the lower the rate of transition, yes 80%+ would be required if there was no change in people behaviour at all, but 26% (or whatever Stockholm has, does appear to be sufficient to bring Stockholm to a R number of less than 1, given the behaviour in Stockholm at them moment.
As more people start to go to bars and so on the transition rate will increase, but that will be balanced to some extent by the increasing immunity, there is no guarantee that theses will exactly balance, but I would suggest, less risk of a spike, than suddenly changing the rules in a contrary that has been on lock down.
As to worst of both woulds, no I think the opposite, the death rate is relay a proportion of the very old and ill who have got it, and not real replanted to the general transition in population.
Therefor is the old and ill do there best to stay safe, while the rest of the population gradually take more risks and get infected gradually then Sweden can/will:
1) Get to heard immunity and be safe from a new wave of infections. 2) Have a lower overall death rate then other nations. 3) Not have trashed there economy to any where like the extent it has elsewhere.
Time will tell, but I think they have the right approach.
I accept the reality of the demographic trend - and that is likely to continue. It is the dramatic shift over a short period which I am not persuaded is permanent.I find it reminiscent of the big swings to Labour in Kent and Essex in the elections of 1997 & 2001. Seats such as Siitingbourne, Thanet South,Bexleyheath, Medway and Harwich have reverted to being safely Tory. Also worth pointing out that some areas which had returned Tories within living memory in the North East failed to do so in 2019. Sunderland South was Tory-held until 1964 and Tynemouth only fell in 1997 for the first time.
Urban areas have trended leftwards while conurbation sprawl areas have trended rightwards.
Which is why Doncaster was Conservative in the 1950s and Don Valley Labour while the opposite happened in 2019.
Doncaster was a single seat represented by Anthony Barber until 1964 - but the boundaries were very different.
Barber's Doncaster constituency was very similar to the current Doncaster Central.
The factors which have shifted the constituency leftwards can be seen in urban areas across the country - public sector middle classes shifting leftwards, private sector middle classes moving out, big houses being turned into bedsits, increasing non-white population, increasing students.
I am not sure that explains what has happened in seats such as Battersea and Wandsworth where gentrification in the 80s and 90s was said to be driving those seats away from Labour. Nor am I sure that Reading East , Bristol NW , Warwick & Leamington, Enfield Southgate , Portsmouth South fit that pattern either. More generally, I am not denying the trend in many Red Wall areas , which can indeed be seen over an extended period, but rather questioning why a sudden anti-Labour pro -Tory swing should happen on such a massive scale in 2019 . Why were those former Labour voters so more alienated in 2019 compared with 2017 or 2015?
For anyone interested in that sort of thing, some remarkable colour footage of Germany at the end if the war. Probably a consequence of the very muted dubbed on sound, but everyone looks like their tiptoeing around for fear of waking something or someone up.
There was a very good documentary series about 5 US film directors - including George Stevens who shot this - and how the war affected them. John Ford of Western fame was on Midway when it was attacked and carried on filming.
Holywood had a pretty good war, with an apparent bias to the USAAF (Stewart, Gable & Palance off the top of my head). Always a disappointment to me that the Duke was a bit of chickenhawk.
David Niven always impressed me on that score. He was safely ensconced in Hollywood when the war broke out in 1939 but immediately went back to Britain and joined the Commandos serving with their special reconnaissance unit in command of A Squadron.
He took time off to make two films during the war, both designed to help the war effort including The First of the Few which is a brilliant film. After filming he returned to the front lines and served in Normandy with his unit often operating behind enemy lines.
And he was also in one of the greatest films set in WWII!*
Always liked Niven, he's one of those people who I'd be hugely disappointed to find out that he was a shit, which hasn't happened so far (don't spoil it for me if anyone has evidence to support this proposition).
*It's not The Guns of Navarone though that's perfectly decent.
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
25% is no where near even half what you need for herd immunity.
So why are infection rates in Stockholm going down?
Swedish egghead - ours is a workable long term strategy. Lockdown isn't feasible. Working vaccine for so far in the future, need a sustainable strategy to be maintained over the course of years.
IF they are right, I really fear for our media class. They will have a mental breakdown in trying to come to terms with the horrible reality of the situation.
If they are right it would unfortunately still not have been a course we could have followed. They have had death rates probably 5 times of what they would have had with lockdown and there is no way that the Government would have survived 150,000+ deaths. We would simply have ended up in lockdown much later but with many more dead.
I really really hope the Swedes are right that this was the best way for their country. But it needs a small population and the willingness to have significant 'necessary' deaths to make it work as an experiment.
I would have taken those terms.
In that case you are genuinely insane.
I repeat: the point of the Swedish approach is to avoid further waves of the virus. All other countries are likely to have further peaks whereas Sweden is not thanks to herd immunity.
At current rates of infection, there is no way that Sweden has any more herd immunity than us. Depending on the amount of asymptomatc disease, we either both have it or neither do.
So you dismiss the Swedish government clams that 26% of people in Stockholm have had the virus at some point?
25% is no where near even half what you need for herd immunity.
That depends upon R.
And it will reduce the risk.
We know that the R of covid-19 is somewhere near 3 in normal situations, only dropping significantly with social distancing measures, or test and isolate policies.
I don't believe that Sweden has an infection rate 10 times its neighbours. If it did it would have had many more deaths.
Comments
Hopefully the international response to Covid will render these places defunct....
2 years in Guernsey gives me PTSD flashbacks....
I couldn't get away from that miserable place fast enough.......
https://youtu.be/Hwy8SzVmWGc
My GP runs flu jab appointments at a rate of 25-30 per hour (ie 2 minutes each). That's a comfortable 200 per day per nurse in a normal day, and if it had the priority they have 5 nurses, and there are also agency staff available.
Given that there are just under 25k nurses in GP practices, if geared up on this alone, they could break the back of the 'whole population' task in a fortnight.
Then there are extended hours, agency staff and hospital secondees if necessary.
Housebound etc weigh the other side, but I don't see a basic capacity problem - even if you reduce the rate by 2 or 3 times.
https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/1259115923442675712?s=20
Cities of London and Westminster is one of the wealthiest seats in the UK, it might vote LD, it will not vote Labour
A factor of ten, perhaps? That would be a factor of 20 between your "over a year" estimate and what could be possible.
If it could be done in, say, three weeks, the administering of the shots wouldn't be the holdup.
Looking at our local district, we'd have to have 90 people per day per parish immunised to get it done in three weeks. With military support (as we do have in the Local Resilience Forums), I don't see that as being excessively improbable.
Sturgeon and Drakeford are trying to back the PM into a corner and Raab has already said nothing much will change, but if Boris sees his popularity slipping away from him, by the time of the announcement it may all change to fill your boots with street parties, music festivals and foreign holidays.
I can't remember the reasons why but I think Germany still has Woolworth's stores.
I've done some crude calculations in a previous post.
I think Islands can be quiet insular.....
Our property landlord stole thousands off us...and dug up our garden....he was a prominent politician at St Saviours....he was really rude and uncouth.....but sadly he has scarred us to this day....
But we moved out and found ourselves a decent bloke
That said, it is a stunningly beautiful part of the world...and the west coast sunsets are incredible....
For a short break...I recommend Guernsey.....
Germany, so efficient they can make Woolworth's a going concern.
I'd feel differently about the risks / rewards trade off if I was old and/or vulnerable, and probably have it.
Imagine that the government said tomorrow "lockdown is formally over, up to you what to do, look up your personal risk category, make sensible decisions".
Those of us who are low risk could and probably would go back to normal.
Those who are a bit higher risk could manage things appropriately - maybe risk seeing a few friends outdoors, probably not prop up the bar of the local weatherspoons. The high risk could continue at home with everything delivered.
If there is a an uptick in cases, it will mostly be in the least vulnerable groups, exactly where we want them.
Yes, this does leave some tricky issues like public transport and schools, but again if people don't rush to venture out, how much of a problem really is this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Came_Back_(TV_series)
That is one of the features of Starmer's leadership I like. He is supportive of government by and large, but every now and again throws in a pertinent question about why a specific issue isn't being handled better.
Does that say something about a less competitive retail environment, or customer preference, or holdings by conservative banks etc?
- crossbreed in patients also infected with the 'wild' strain ('recombination' is the technical term) to produce, say, something deadly AND even more contagious
- change the Darwinian natural selection pressures on the wild virus in perhaps deleterious ways e.g. selecting for increased viorulence (to compete with the new virus)
And I'm not even a virologist.
BJO incoming in 5....4...3...2...1.....
"At 0.5% per 100,000 people, the death rate in Slovakia is the lowest in the EU ..."
Labour was in contention in Cities of London & Westminster in 2017.
They were trending that way for years, and it accelerated following the Brexit vote.
It just showed up in the electoral results in 2019.
It just showed up in the electoral results in 2019.
It's always worth looking at turnout, too.
Edit. Vanilla strikes again.
Edit. Vanilla strikes again.
I accept the reality of the demographic trend - and that is likely to continue. It is the dramatic shift over a short period which I am not persuaded is permanent.I find it reminiscent of the big swings to Labour in Kent and Essex in the elections of 1997 & 2001. Seats such as Siitingbourne, Thanet South,Bexleyheath, Medway and Harwich have reverted to being safely Tory.
Also worth pointing out that some areas which had returned Tories within living memory in the North East failed to do so in 2019. Sunderland South was Tory-held until 1964 and Tynemouth only fell in 1997 for the first time.
You honestly think people would sit back and just let that happen?
Which is why Doncaster was Conservative in the 1950s and Don Valley Labour while the opposite happened in 2019.
Holywood had a pretty good war, with an apparent bias to the USAAF (Stewart, Gable & Palance off the top of my head). Always a disappointment to me that the Duke was a bit of chickenhawk.
Infection rate of 26% will not achieve herd immunity, in fact you'll end up with the worst of all worlds?
The factors which have shifted the constituency leftwards can be seen in urban areas across the country - public sector middle classes shifting leftwards, private sector middle classes moving out, big houses being turned into bedsits, increasing non-white population, increasing students.
Who could have forecast that today given the government's mixed messaging?
I think that would be true regardless of what somebody briefed to the media, VE day bank holiday + lovely weather, I think we would have seen people bursting out regardless.
PS: Though I would say the DUP are the biggest cheek.
Sweden has more heard immunity because of the policy of letting schools and businesses stay open so the the healthy chaldran and working age people who very very relay die form the virus get it and become immune.
One friend said Salford was more rammed than during a hot summer weekend.
A ) 26% is too low for herd immunity unless R<1.25, which requires considerable social distancing.
B ) The rate outside Stockholm County is much lower than 26%.
The whole "Swedish experiment" is so politicised, both by Swedes who have waged their careers on it, and non-Swedes who want to justify their own position, that I think it unlikely to give a clear outcome. Not until reviewed in the history books anyway.
That looks like a lockdown to me.
We're wasting our time talking about Sweden. It has had a poor response to the virus. The only to be said in its favour is that the UK response was even worse.
He was saying there is a level of community immunity, such that new infections won't overwhelm the system. His outlook is that this thing will be here without a vaccine for years, and so it is better to have a background level of it where you manage month after month, rather than hard lockdown, restart, rinse and repeat.
He said he thought that there was now ~20% of Swedes had had it, compared to 1-2% of most other Nordic countries. And thus, the Swedish strategy could continue unchanged indefinitely, where as other countries that wasn't any option.
The big mistake he said Sweden made was again not shielding people in care homes.
His opinion is ultimately basically everybody will be exposed to this, it is just over what period of time.
Now, if he is right, that's a different matter.
Surveys show the president’s standing with seniors, the group most vulnerable to the coronavirus, has fallen as he pushes to reopen the country.
NYTimes
You can go for a walk.
Wow !!!
We've been able to do that from the start and many of us have been.
He took time off to make two films during the war, both designed to help the war effort including The First of the Few which is a brilliant film. After filming he returned to the front lines and served in Normandy with his unit often operating behind enemy lines.
A reasonable explanation - https://plus.maths.org/content/maths-minute-r0-and-herd-immunity
- If R0 is about 1.35, 26% is close to herd immunity.
- If R0 is 2.5 you would need 60%
I think Sweden may well show that social control measures have only a modest effect on the size of an epidemic peak. I think that is what the redacted bits of the SAGE documents said.
And it will reduce the risk.
the higher the level of infection the lower the rate of transition, yes 80%+ would be required if there was no change in people behaviour at all, but 26% (or whatever Stockholm has, does appear to be sufficient to bring Stockholm to a R number of less than 1, given the behaviour in Stockholm at them moment.
As more people start to go to bars and so on the transition rate will increase, but that will be balanced to some extent by the increasing immunity, there is no guarantee that theses will exactly balance, but I would suggest, less risk of a spike, than suddenly changing the rules in a contrary that has been on lock down.
As to worst of both woulds, no I think the opposite, the death rate is relay a proportion of the very old and ill who have got it, and not real replanted to the general transition in population.
Therefor is the old and ill do there best to stay safe, while the rest of the population gradually take more risks and get infected gradually then Sweden can/will:
1) Get to heard immunity and be safe from a new wave of infections.
2) Have a lower overall death rate then other nations.
3) Not have trashed there economy to any where like the extent it has elsewhere.
Time will tell, but I think they have the right approach.
More generally, I am not denying the trend in many Red Wall areas , which can indeed be seen over an extended period, but rather questioning why a sudden anti-Labour pro -Tory swing should happen on such a massive scale in 2019 . Why were those former Labour voters so more alienated in 2019 compared with 2017 or 2015?
Always liked Niven, he's one of those people who I'd be hugely disappointed to find out that he was a shit, which hasn't happened so far (don't spoil it for me if anyone has evidence to support this proposition).
*It's not The Guns of Navarone though that's perfectly decent.
I don't believe that Sweden has an infection rate 10 times its neighbours. If it did it would have had many more deaths.