Cummings should just resign but seems he could not care less
Boris was bumbling and hopeless in front of the liason committee and conservative mps need to take back control from both of them, but when and how long it will take is anyone's guess
However, I want to speak out against the media and others, including obsessives on this site who actively want a narrative that no one will follow the NHS instructions because of Cummings behaviour, in a vain attempt to bring him and Boris down
It is not just coincidence that the vast amount of continuing attacks come from devoted remainers who know that once the 1st July passes the EU will either have to do a deal or it will be no deal. It is astonishing that Barnier should openly write to the dissenters offering upto two years, subject to payment no doubt of one billion a month, extension to transition
The widescale condemnation of Cummings is wholly justified but the public are scared enough that they will follow advice,and those who are using Cummings to undermine the message in a pandemic for political purposes is just not acceptable
Starmer has called this right by his low key intervention and it is time for the media to grow up and accept their responsibility to promote observation of the rules rather than mocking them
Journalism is not about gotchas
I am not a "former Remainer". I am still a Remainer and I am hoping Johnson goes for a No Deal Brexit.
No Deal Brexit is impossible, Brexit happened in January with a Deal, the Withdrawal Agreement.
The transition period might not be extended beyond December and we might not get a FTA with the EU by then and end up trading with them on WTO terms but that is not the same thing
Since moving here I have been struck by how distinctive and mellifluous it is. It also seems to be very local. I only have to drive ten miles north to Evesham (Worcestershire) and the accent changes dramatically.
"Why we remember wars but forget plagues Pandemics aren't represented in film or literature because they're too boring, too horrific and too depressing By Sean Thomas"
One of the things that have surprised me in recent times was that Hong Kong flu killed 80k in 1969/70. I was out of the country at the time but my wife who was in Oban no memory of it. We have checked with others in their childhood and early adulthood at the time and they are all the same. No one remembers it.
We have speculated that this is because it did not swamp the media of the time in the way CV has today. Life seems to have gone on as normal, football continued to be played with crowds on the old packed terraces, people still went to work. Was a generation just out of the shadow of the war simply more sanguine about the vicissitudes of life? Did people not even know until after the event how calamitous it had been? Its a bit of a mystery.
I suspect that the reasons you suggest are all true. I'd add: - limits on the rapid gathering and dissemination of data (people researching it would not have been tweeting updates - papers in journals after a few months, maybe a few things getting picked up by newspapers). Even getting the data to do research might have taken months. - it happened quite gradually compared to the current outbreak, which may have made it dull for newspapers - with, apparently, nothing really in the way of precautions it killed 80k. The current outbreak may get towards those numbers with a lockdown and 500k was floated without precautions - corona virus is still objectively a much bigger threat.
I spoke to my mum about it recently. I was only four at the time, so no memory. She says people were worried, but just got on with stuff. No massive changes like we have seen this time.
A combined age of 147 years ... I don't think the American electorate will be too keen on such a proposition. I can't help but think the Democratic ticket will look a whole lot more attractive with either 55 year-old Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar aged 60 on board ... my money wold be on the latter.
Hi PfP. All well?
Agree with your reasoning but not AK, who presents a bit of a problem for black voters. If I had to guess, I'd say KH but wouldn't bet at the odds.
Stay well. Keep washing those paws!
PtP
Am I the only poster who thought PfP and PtP were the same? Apologies, now youve posted next to each other I shall remember you are each your own person!
Broadly speaking, Biden needs to win Florida to get the keys to the White House and if he does get Florida he will probably do well enough elsewhere to win the presidency. His entire campaign including VP pick should be focused on what will win Florida.
Not necessarily, it would be easier for Biden to win Michigan and Pennsylvania and Nebraska 02 and the Hillary states and Electoral College than Florida in my view.
If he wins Florida he likely has already won anyway
Broadly speaking, Biden needs to win Florida to get the keys to the White House and if he does get Florida he will probably do well enough elsewhere to win the presidency. His entire campaign including VP pick should be focused on what will win Florida.
I think he has several routes to victory but the mid western states that went to Trump by tiny margins where Clinton neglected to campaign are probably the easiest. Then probably Pennsylvania, then Florida.
It looks like Biden might go for Warren but he would still be better off picking a Midwesterner like Klobuchar or Whitmer in my view and focusing on the swing states
Broadly speaking, Biden needs to win Florida to get the keys to the White House and if he does get Florida he will probably do well enough elsewhere to win the presidency. His entire campaign including VP pick should be focused on what will win Florida.
I think he has several routes to victory but the mid western states that went to Trump by tiny margins where Clinton neglected to campaign are probably the easiest. Then probably Pennsylvania, then Florida.
Biden will want to win Penn. Virtually a home state.
How does the government propose to police such self-isolations? Or is it putting up new arrivals in the Heathrow Hilton?
Get off the plane at Heathrow. Onto Heathrow Express. A bus. Then a train. And a taxi home. Then you have to self isolated to make sure you only drive to Barnard Castle as a test to see if you have the pox or not.
In other countries you are escorted from the plane and essentially locked up in a quarantine hotel room. In the UK, "quarantine" is designed to shut up Farage and sound tough to Brexiteers rather than have a function as actual quarantine.
What is crystal clear is that for whatever reasons, and incompetence and ineptitude certainly play their part, the R number for the next few months is going to be hovering at or slightly above 1. Anything that helps control it needs careful consideration and international travellers are an obvious potential source of risk. Again there are economic consequences from further disrupting international travel but I do not think that this is a risk that we can take. But then I have thought this since February.
Same here - I've criticised repeatedly the UK government having Taken Back Control of our borders choosing to leave them wide open. My problem with the scheme announced though is that its bollocks. Quarantine is off the plane here's your hotel room see you in two weeks. Not make your own way home try not to infect anyone on the way, please confirm you are at home and not going out though we won't be enforcing it.
Oh I agree what is proposed is little short of ridiculous. The Guardian article linked to downthread indicates that 80% of infections are caused by 10% of the infected, the super spreaders. If we "burn out" our super spreaders by having them catching the disease and then becoming immune this will be very important in controlling the R number. What we absolutely do not need is new potential super spreaders coming from outside the herd and then using public transport on their way to their hotel room.
We should test people, twice or three times if necessary to be sure, then they can go. Two weeks' quarantine is massive overkill.
"Why we remember wars but forget plagues Pandemics aren't represented in film or literature because they're too boring, too horrific and too depressing By Sean Thomas"
It's pretty good - but it misses out the family obvious point that the likely reason we've made so little effort to remember previous plagues is that it used to be something we just had to put up with. And it's not as though death itself hasn't been a constant preoccupation of writers throughout the ages.
Because we've found ways in which to intervene to mitigate, and possibly in future prevent pandemics, we'll likely make a determined effort to remember the detail of this one.
It looks like Biden might go for Warren but he would still be better off picking a Midwesterner like Klobuchar or Whitmer in my view and focusing on the swing states
Genuine question - how transferable is regional familiarity? If he picks Klobouchar, say, it will no doubt help in Minnesota, but will Michigan voters also feel she's sort of local? I can't remember if candidates in the primaries did notably better in their home regions outside their own states.
The fact that a VP candidate is local is a pretty weak contributor to voting intention anyway, I'd have thought.
Since moving here I have been struck by how distinctive and mellifluous it is. It also seems to be very local. I only have to drive ten miles north to Evesham (Worcestershire) and the accent changes dramatically.
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
What is crystal clear is that for whatever reasons, and incompetence and ineptitude certainly play their part, the R number for the next few months is going to be hovering at or slightly above 1. Anything that helps control it needs careful consideration and international travellers are an obvious potential source of risk. Again there are economic consequences from further disrupting international travel but I do not think that this is a risk that we can take. But then I have thought this since February.
Except that we are left with the mystery as to precisely why rates are falling as they are, and particularly why R in London and New York is now lower than other parts of their respective countries.
Because a combination of lockdown measures (especially wrt public transport) and high levels of fear engendered by the particularly severe early outbreaks there) have led to bigger and more persistent changes in people's behaviour? I live in London and all members of our household have barely left the house since mid-March. Our opportunities for catching the disease are dramatically lower than they were before.
Remember we are comparing London with the same changes across the rest of the country. My evidence is also anecdotal (both personal and from the media) and I am sceptical that the effectiveness of the lockdown is significantly better in London than in the provinces. Indeed, the opposite, since the nature of London makes it more difficult to keep people apart.
I suspect the changes to behaviour in London have been greater, particularly with respect to public transport usage and greater recourse to WFH. I would think London's R0 is higher than elsewhere owing to higher population density and more commuting (and for longer times) by public transport, and the changes in travel behaviour in particular should have had a big impact. I would guess outside of London the main risk factors are an older and less healthy population (especially more overweight - sorry to say this but always the thing that most strikes me when I venture outside the London bubble, everyone is so bloody fat!) And these factors won't have changed much (maybe got worse!)
"Why we remember wars but forget plagues Pandemics aren't represented in film or literature because they're too boring, too horrific and too depressing By Sean Thomas"
I'm not surprised that he's completely ignored the bulging literature of plague produced by science fiction authors, but it does sadden me.
Herbert's White Plague was one that immediately came to mind.
Outside SF, Camus is also an odd exception - the name of his book "The Plague" is a hint. It was a fictional plague, but clearly based on real ones.
That said, if someone sets out to review all literature ever, even in a specific field, it's unreasonable to expect every possibility covered. Let's give SeanT a break for that...
Since moving here I have been struck by how distinctive and mellifluous it is. It also seems to be very local. I only have to drive ten miles north to Evesham (Worcestershire) and the accent changes dramatically.
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
Ladbrokes and Starsports seem to have stopped betting on this, though could return later. Paddy Power traders also think it's all over bar the shouting so punters can think about locking in a profit or letting it ride.
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
True but why try and do an impossible task - and Boris has made policing any lockdown impossible - remember your personal desires override any greater good (Copyright Philip Thompson)..
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
True but why try and do an impossible task - and Boris has made policing any lockdown impossible - remember your personal desires override any greater good (Copyright Philip Thompson)..
The government will be gasping for people to hit the shops on 15th June.
Laughable. How many people read those papers, or take notice of them? Few if any of those I have spoken to.
Ms Maitless works for the state broadcaster.
If yesterday's News at Ten was anything to go by, she works for the state run broadcaster.
The edit during Laura's piece made Boris' performance in the afternoon look like he fully grasped all the issues and was running a well-oiled machine. I had seen the car crash in all its glory, Johnson, when I watched it in the afternoon, demonstrated he neither grasped the issues nor ran a well-oiled machine
That is, to be fair, a very difficult problem for them.
I watched the actual thing live, and was utterly dismayed by his lack of capacity.
But to have done an edit which displayed that would have been arguably editorialising in the other direction (and would certainly have been seen as such by government loyalists). And there is an argument that a state broadcaster has some responsibility, alongside challenging its mistakes, to preserve confidence in a government in the middle of a national crisis, and a long way from the next election.
On the other hand I agree entirely that the edit was an utter misrepresentation of his actual performance.
It looks like Biden might go for Warren but he would still be better off picking a Midwesterner like Klobuchar or Whitmer in my view and focusing on the swing states
Genuine question - how transferable is regional familiarity? If he picks Klobouchar, say, it will no doubt help in Minnesota, but will Michigan voters also feel she's sort of local? I can't remember if candidates in the primaries did notably better in their home regions outside their own states.
The fact that a VP candidate is local is a pretty weak contributor to voting intention anyway, I'd have thought.
The fact Bill Clinton and Al Gore were both southerners helped Clinton-Gore win large numbers of southern states in 1992
It looks like Biden might go for Warren but he would still be better off picking a Midwesterner like Klobuchar or Whitmer in my view and focusing on the swing states
Harris no good iyo?
Yes, Hillary won California by miles and Obama is more useful than Harris with the black vote
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
True but why try and do an impossible task - and Boris has made policing any lockdown impossible - remember your personal desires override any greater good (Copyright Philip Thompson)..
I've never said that. I said you need to follow your personal judgement in complex scenarios, not your personal desires.
Cummings should just resign but seems he could not care less
Boris was bumbling and hopeless in front of the liason committee and conservative mps need to take back control from both of them, but when and how long it will take is anyone's guess
However, I want to speak out against the media and others, including obsessives on this site who actively want a narrative that no one will follow the NHS instructions because of Cummings behaviour, in a vain attempt to bring him and Boris down
It is not just coincidence that the vast amount of continuing attacks come from devoted remainers who know that once the 1st July passes the EU will either have to do a deal or it will be no deal. It is astonishing that Barnier should openly write to the dissenters offering upto two years, subject to payment no doubt of one billion a month, extension to transition
The widescale condemnation of Cummings is wholly justified but the public are scared enough that they will follow advice,and those who are using Cummings to undermine the message in a pandemic for political purposes is just not acceptable
Starmer has called this right by his low key intervention and it is time for the media to grow up and accept their responsibility to promote observation of the rules rather than mocking them
Journalism is not about gotchas
I am not a "former Remainer". I am still a Remainer and I am hoping Johnson goes for a No Deal Brexit.
No Deal Brexit is impossible, Brexit happened in January with a Deal, the Withdrawal Agreement.
The transition period might not be extended beyond December and we might not get a FTA with the EU by then and end up trading with them on WTO terms but that is not the same thing
Congratulations. A post from you that is factual and rational.
We have left the EU. So there is nothing to derail, no shenanigans to stop us leaving. We left. As for the end of transition its now pretty clear our fate: 1. We won't agree a FTA in the next 32 days 2. We won't request more time to agree an FTA 3. We'll announce WTO 4. WTO will state that to do so we need to do full checks and tariff imposition from 1/1/21 5. Govey will ask HMRC, HMBF and the Ports to do so 6. They will laugh at him and throw the "3 to 5 years to implement" memos back across his desk 7. A "Red Tape for Britain" campaign will be launched much like the pick fruit one, imploring the 4-5m newly unfurloughed unemployed to help create the vast array of red tape which will free more people from their jobs 8. We cock it up. The EU secure their border as states did for the virus 9. We get on the phone to President Trump and beg him to send whatever weevil-invested American food he has spare 10. Some minor country refuses our proposed schedules and tariffs at the WTO. Our "GATT24" exemption gets refused with a ruling written in crayon so that the cabinet can understand it. 11. The Mail turns on the government. "THIS ISN'T THE BREXIT WE VOTED FOR" - we've already seen furious Mail Brexiteer readers writing comments like this so we know the sentiment is there.
Get your popcorn ready. This is going to be piss funny.
Laughable. How many people read those papers, or take notice of them? Few if any of those I have spoken to.
Ms Maitless works for the state broadcaster.
If yesterday's News at Ten was anything to go by, she works for the state run broadcaster.
The edit during Laura's piece made Boris' performance in the afternoon look like he fully grasped all the issues and was running a well-oiled machine. I had seen the car crash in all its glory, Johnson, when I watched it in the afternoon, demonstrated he neither grasped the issues nor ran a well-oiled machine
That is, to be fair, a very difficult problem for them.
I watched the actual thing live, and was utterly dismayed by his lack of capacity.
But to have done an edit which displayed that would have been arguably editorialising in the other direction (and would certainly have been seen as such by government loyalists). And there is an argument that a state broadcaster has some responsibility, alongside challenging its mistakes, to preserve confidence in a government in the middle of a national crisis, and a long way from the next election.
On the other hand I agree entirely that the edit was an utter misrepresentation of his actual performance.
As could be seen at the election (the Cenotaph etc.) the BBC casts Johnson, where it can with a neutral edit, even when he has been dire. I suspect this is no conspiracy just a misguided attempt at impartiality.
The attitude of the hardcore Cummings supporters (I won't say "defenders" because virtually all of them are just saying "Yeah, so what?") is illustrative. The only difference between them and the hardcore Corbyn supporters on the antisemitism problems is simply that they chose a different team to start with. Exactly the same refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, the issue could be something other than "the media have got it in for our hero," and that just maybe, their hero fucked up and got people angry and disgusted.
Well, there's one issue: they're (mainly) less inclined to even bother with trying to explain it away with more and more far-reaching "explanations"
But it does show whose morality and ideology is completely subservient to their adherence.
(And I wonder how many of them have registered that if Cummings was in a position where dropping them would be the best for his worldview and his benefit, their heads would spin with the speed by which he would demonstrate that there's no place for gratitude in his game)
A combined age of 147 years ... I don't think the American electorate will be too keen on such a proposition. I can't help but think the Democratic ticket will look a whole lot more attractive with either 55 year-old Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar aged 60 on board ... my money wold be on the latter.
Hi PfP. All well?
Agree with your reasoning but not AK, who presents a bit of a problem for black voters. If I had to guess, I'd say KH but wouldn't bet at the odds.
Stay well. Keep washing those paws!
PtP
Am I the only poster who thought PfP and PtP were the same? Apologies, now youve posted next to each other I shall remember you are each your own person!
He is just talking to himself.
Only if the Punter_from_Putney to turns up will we know he's gone the full eadric.
Deaf ears. The UK lives in a bubble and can NEVER be criticised by foreigners. If you criticise it, that makes you a foreigner. Why don't you bugger off and live in foreign land?
Our oligarchical media has been declining for decades now, but the lag time on this institutional deterioration means that it's too late to do anything. We are already corroded.
There could be any number of reasons for that, most not application related.
Fair comment. And we do still have 4 days to deliver that world beating system.
From the minister's description on this morning's radio, the system is entirely manual. Someone talks to the victim and attempts to identify everyone they have been in contact with, and then tries to make contact with them. The App is receding into the background; the manual system is being launched now because a working App clearly hasn't been landed in time.
Note - in reality this is partly because we are faster at recording this information than other countries. But let's not let facts get in the way of the story.
I wonder if Scott truly believes that the UK has had the most excess deaths in the world, or maybe we have a world leading statistics collecting organisation called the ONS and other countries don't.
Cummings should just resign but seems he could not care less
Boris was bumbling and hopeless in front of the liason committee and conservative mps need to take back control from both of them, but when and how long it will take is anyone's guess
However, I want to speak out against the media and others, including obsessives on this site who actively want a narrative that no one will follow the NHS instructions because of Cummings behaviour, in a vain attempt to bring him and Boris down
It is not just coincidence that the vast amount of continuing attacks come from devoted remainers who know that once the 1st July passes the EU will either have to do a deal or it will be no deal. It is astonishing that Barnier should openly write to the dissenters offering upto two years, subject to payment no doubt of one billion a month, extension to transition
The widescale condemnation of Cummings is wholly justified but the public are scared enough that they will follow advice,and those who are using Cummings to undermine the message in a pandemic for political purposes is just not acceptable
Starmer has called this right by his low key intervention and it is time for the media to grow up and accept their responsibility to promote observation of the rules rather than mocking them
Journalism is not about gotchas
I am not a "former Remainer". I am still a Remainer and I am hoping Johnson goes for a No Deal Brexit.
No Deal Brexit is impossible, Brexit happened in January with a Deal, the Withdrawal Agreement.
The transition period might not be extended beyond December and we might not get a FTA with the EU by then and end up trading with them on WTO terms but that is not the same thing
Congratulations. A post from you that is factual and rational.
We have left the EU. So there is nothing to derail, no shenanigans to stop us leaving. We left. As for the end of transition its now pretty clear our fate: 1. We won't agree a FTA in the next 32 days 2. We won't request more time to agree an FTA 3. We'll announce WTO 4. WTO will state that to do so we need to do full checks and tariff imposition from 1/1/21 5. Govey will ask HMRC, HMBF and the Ports to do so 6. They will laugh at him and throw the "3 to 5 years to implement" memos back across his desk 7. A "Red Tape for Britain" campaign will be launched much like the pick fruit one, imploring the 4-5m newly unfurloughed unemployed to help create the vast array of red tape which will free more people from their jobs 8. We cock it up. The EU secure their border as states did for the virus 9. We get on the phone to President Trump and beg him to send whatever weevil-invested American food he has spare 10. Some minor country refuses our proposed schedules and tariffs at the WTO. Our "GATT24" exemption gets refused with a ruling written in crayon so that the cabinet can understand it. 11. The Mail turns on the government. "THIS ISN'T THE BREXIT WE VOTED FOR" - we've already seen furious Mail Brexiteer readers writing comments like this so we know the sentiment is there.
Get your popcorn ready. This is going to be piss funny.
Doesn't sound at all funny to me. You map out the eventual destination for a country lumbered with a government foolish enough to put politics before common sense and judgement.
What is crystal clear is that for whatever reasons, and incompetence and ineptitude certainly play their part, the R number for the next few months is going to be hovering at or slightly above 1. Anything that helps control it needs careful consideration and international travellers are an obvious potential source of risk. Again there are economic consequences from further disrupting international travel but I do not think that this is a risk that we can take. But then I have thought this since February.
Except that we are left with the mystery as to precisely why rates are falling as they are, and particularly why R in London and New York is now lower than other parts of their respective countries.
Because a combination of lockdown measures (especially wrt public transport) and high levels of fear engendered by the particularly severe early outbreaks there) have led to bigger and more persistent changes in people's behaviour? I live in London and all members of our household have barely left the house since mid-March. Our opportunities for catching the disease are dramatically lower than they were before.
Remember we are comparing London with the same changes across the rest of the country. My evidence is also anecdotal (both personal and from the media) and I am sceptical that the effectiveness of the lockdown is significantly better in London than in the provinces. Indeed, the opposite, since the nature of London makes it more difficult to keep people apart.
I suspect the changes to behaviour in London have been greater, particularly with respect to public transport usage and greater recourse to WFH. I would think London's R0 is higher than elsewhere owing to higher population density and more commuting (and for longer times) by public transport, and the changes in travel behaviour in particular should have had a big impact. I would guess outside of London the main risk factors are an older and less healthy population (especially more overweight - sorry to say this but always the thing that most strikes me when I venture outside the London bubble, everyone is so bloody fat!) And these factors won't have changed much (maybe got worse!)
The difference between actual R and R0 is the nub of the matter. The rest of that is mostly not relevant.
What is crystal clear is that for whatever reasons, and incompetence and ineptitude certainly play their part, the R number for the next few months is going to be hovering at or slightly above 1. Anything that helps control it needs careful consideration and international travellers are an obvious potential source of risk. Again there are economic consequences from further disrupting international travel but I do not think that this is a risk that we can take. But then I have thought this since February.
Except that we are left with the mystery as to precisely why rates are falling as they are, and particularly why R in London and New York is now lower than other parts of their respective countries.
Because a combination of lockdown measures (especially wrt public transport) and high levels of fear engendered by the particularly severe early outbreaks there) have led to bigger and more persistent changes in people's behaviour? I live in London and all members of our household have barely left the house since mid-March. Our opportunities for catching the disease are dramatically lower than they were before.
Remember we are comparing London with the same changes across the rest of the country. My evidence is also anecdotal (both personal and from the media) and I am sceptical that the effectiveness of the lockdown is significantly better in London than in the provinces. Indeed, the opposite, since the nature of London makes it more difficult to keep people apart.
You may be confusing lockdown residential London with normal London.
We have lost several million commuters, tourists, second home owners, students in lockdown residential London.
Cummings should just resign but seems he could not care less
Boris was bumbling and hopeless in front of the liason committee and conservative mps need to take back control from both of them, but when and how long it will take is anyone's guess
However, I want to speak out against the media and others, including obsessives on this site who actively want a narrative that no one will follow the NHS instructions because of Cummings behaviour, in a vain attempt to bring him and Boris down
It is not just coincidence that the vast amount of continuing attacks come from devoted remainers who know that once the 1st July passes the EU will either have to do a deal or it will be no deal. It is astonishing that Barnier should openly write to the dissenters offering upto two years, subject to payment no doubt of one billion a month, extension to transition
The widescale condemnation of Cummings is wholly justified but the public are scared enough that they will follow advice,and those who are using Cummings to undermine the message in a pandemic for political purposes is just not acceptable
Starmer has called this right by his low key intervention and it is time for the media to grow up and accept their responsibility to promote observation of the rules rather than mocking them
Journalism is not about gotchas
I am not a "former Remainer". I am still a Remainer and I am hoping Johnson goes for a No Deal Brexit.
No Deal Brexit is impossible, Brexit happened in January with a Deal, the Withdrawal Agreement.
The transition period might not be extended beyond December and we might not get a FTA with the EU by then and end up trading with them on WTO terms but that is not the same thing
Congratulations. A post from you that is factual and rational.
We have left the EU. So there is nothing to derail, no shenanigans to stop us leaving. We left. As for the end of transition its now pretty clear our fate: 1. We won't agree a FTA in the next 32 days 2. We won't request more time to agree an FTA 3. We'll announce WTO 4. WTO will state that to do so we need to do full checks and tariff imposition from 1/1/21 5. Govey will ask HMRC, HMBF and the Ports to do so 6. They will laugh at him and throw the "3 to 5 years to implement" memos back across his desk 7. A "Red Tape for Britain" campaign will be launched much like the pick fruit one, imploring the 4-5m newly unfurloughed unemployed to help create the vast array of red tape which will free more people from their jobs 8. We cock it up. The EU secure their border as states did for the virus 9. We get on the phone to President Trump and beg him to send whatever weevil-invested American food he has spare 10. Some minor country refuses our proposed schedules and tariffs at the WTO. Our "GATT24" exemption gets refused with a ruling written in crayon so that the cabinet can understand it. 11. The Mail turns on the government. "THIS ISN'T THE BREXIT WE VOTED FOR" - we've already seen furious Mail Brexiteer readers writing comments like this so we know the sentiment is there.
Get your popcorn ready. This is going to be piss funny.
I'm very much looking forward to it: get that petrol on the BBQ Boris, what could go wrong for someone standing so close to it?
There could be any number of reasons for that, most not application related.
Fair comment. And we do still have 4 days to deliver that world beating system.
From the minister's description on this morning's radio, the system is entirely manual. Someone talks to the victim and attempts to identify everyone they have been in contact with, and then tries to make contact with them. The App is receding into the background; the manual system is being launched now because a working App clearly hasn't been landed in time.
Doesn't sound at all funny to me. You map out the eventual destination for a country lumbered with a government foolish enough to put politics before common sense and judgement.
It will be relatively funny compared with the culture wars, penury and fascism that follows.
Press release Coronavirus: Government launches campaign urging people to stay at home this Easter Stay at home this Easter to protect the NHS and save lives.
Stay at home this Easter to protect the NHS and save lives is the latest message to the public from the government in a new campaign to fight coronavirus.
The campaign has been developed to meet the additional pressures of the long Easter weekend where many people typically spend time with family or friends. New organic and paid-for content will be rolled out across social media, print and outside the home.
The new campaign reinforces the importance of staying at home over Easter, and only leaving your house to buy essentials, to do one form of exercise a day, to travel into work, but only where you cannot work from home, and for any medical or social care need. If you need to leave your home for these reasons, you should be minimising time spent outside of the house and ensuring you are two metres away from anyone outside of your household. You should not be visiting friends or family during the long weekend.
I guess the line: "Or if you feel like driving an hour and a half's round trip to a local beauty spot to, I don't know, check your eyesight, especially if your wife has a birthday over the Easter weekend" didn't make it into the final draft. Or maybe they should have highlighted that this was only for the little people.
Elizabeth Warren seems unlikely for two reasons. First, she is old enough to be vulnerable if age does become an issue; second, she is not a woman of colour, which according to some reports, Biden said he will pick. I'd expect Warren to get a Cabinet role; in other words, she would be to Biden what Hillary was to Obama and not what Biden was to Obama.
She really brings nothing electorally either. The New England vote should be locked in for Biden no matter what.
There is an overemphasis on regional loyalty. The calculation will be that she makes Biden more appealing to the left of the party who might otherwise have stayed home. Sanders and Warren largely agree on many of the issues (“Medicare For All,” free college tuition, wiping out college debt, Green New Deal), and the two long have considered each other friends. So Sanders fans will be happier.
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
True but why try and do an impossible task - and Boris has made policing any lockdown impossible - remember your personal desires override any greater good (Copyright Philip Thompson)..
I've never said that. I said you need to follow your personal judgement in complex scenarios, not your personal desires.
Which includes judging that when you are perfectly healthy you may use your judgement to act as if you are on deaths door. Which pretty much opens it up for anyones personal desires as long as they are willing to mislead about it.
But as yet no obvious shift in the small lead that Biden has, which may suggest a large "Don't like Trump but not sure Biden is any good" voter cohort. A good VP candidate might shift that as Pence is already priced in. Warren seems too obvious to me, and too radical for the mainstream while too much of a wrecker to be forgiven by Bernie fans. Harris still looks a fair shot.
Trump's popularity has just reverted to the band it was stuck in before the little rally he got at the end of March.
Biden's VP pick might be only downside. If people are going to see the VP as a president-in-waiting this time because of Biden's age, it's a kind of lose-lose situation.
If he picks someone from the radical wing he might scare off all the voters who were going to vote Biden as the moderate option, if he picks someone more like him, he's going to lose the enthusiasm of the more radical voters. If he picks a non-white woman (as hinted), he's going to get accused of not picking the best person for the job because of political correctness, if he doesn't he's going to disappoint a lot of people who are expecting that. If he picks someone to appeal to people in Florida he might miss with people in the Mid-West and vice versa.
He's best off picking a likeable unknown who might pick up a few votes somewhere important, while not giving that much importance to the VP because Biden is going to be the president. Trying to run with "OK you're not sure if Biden is any good, but look at the VP you're getting!" doesn't sound like a winning formula to me.
Really important point on a radical scaring off voters. I can see him picking Warren and it being a mistake.
Have there been many cases of VP picks derailing a presidential bid? Palin springs to mind but McCain was never going to beat Obama.
It's weird to think now that someone with Palin's views might put off US voters.
Laughable. How many people read those papers, or take notice of them? Few if any of those I have spoken to.
Ms Maitless works for the state broadcaster.
If yesterday's News at Ten was anything to go by, she works for the state run broadcaster.
The edit during Laura's piece made Boris' performance in the afternoon look like he fully grasped all the issues and was running a well-oiled machine. I had seen the car crash in all its glory, Johnson, when I watched it in the afternoon, demonstrated he neither grasped the issues nor ran a well-oiled machine
That is, to be fair, a very difficult problem for them.
I watched the actual thing live, and was utterly dismayed by his lack of capacity.
But to have done an edit which displayed that would have been arguably editorialising in the other direction (and would certainly have been seen as such by government loyalists). And there is an argument that a state broadcaster has some responsibility, alongside challenging its mistakes, to preserve confidence in a government in the middle of a national crisis, and a long way from the next election.
On the other hand I agree entirely that the edit was an utter misrepresentation of his actual performance.
As could be seen at the election (the Cenotaph etc.) the BBC casts Johnson, where it can with a neutral edit, even when he has been dire. I suspect this is no conspiracy just a misguided attempt at impartiality.
There is a similar phenomenon with Trump in the US. Sure, the media is partisan, but those who aspire to impartiality (the NYT, for example) still frame stories about Trump in exactly that manner.
There could be any number of reasons for that, most not application related.
User not logged on properly to VPN would be my first guess.
Nope, it's a publicly accessible website sat on aws, so on one level at least they have created a system that is scalable on another level they haven't built it correctly.
As I've said before you post the first thing that comes into your head, I however find it best to doublecheck before posting
The aws information took me 2 seconds to find when I started checking.
There could be any number of reasons for that, most not application related.
Fair comment. And we do still have 4 days to deliver that world beating system.
From the minister's description on this morning's radio, the system is entirely manual. Someone talks to the victim and attempts to identify everyone they have been in contact with, and then tries to make contact with them. The App is receding into the background; the manual system is being launched now because a working App clearly hasn't been landed in time.
A world beating manual system then.
The minister was on weak ground when he started talking about people you might have coughed over; I would imagine people's recollection of such happenings, a week after the event, and the descriptions they can provide, are going to be somewhat sketchy.
Accidental but significant contact with complete strangers is where the App would have come into play.
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
True but why try and do an impossible task - and Boris has made policing any lockdown impossible - remember your personal desires override any greater good (Copyright Philip Thompson)..
I've never said that. I said you need to follow your personal judgement in complex scenarios, not your personal desires.
Which includes judging that when you are perfectly healthy you may use your judgement to act as if you are on deaths door. Which pretty much opens it up for anyones personal desires as long as they are willing to mislead about it.
If people are willing to mislead about it that's neither here nor there, they will find a way to do so.
If people want to do the right thing they will do.
I don't want to give up the requirement and right to use personal judgement because some people are pricks.
The attitude of the hardcore Cummings supporters (I won't say "defenders" because virtually all of them are just saying "Yeah, so what?") is illustrative. The only difference between them and the hardcore Corbyn supporters on the antisemitism problems is simply that they chose a different team to start with. Exactly the same refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, the issue could be something other than "the media have got it in for our hero," and that just maybe, their hero fucked up and got people angry and disgusted.
Well, there's one issue: they're (mainly) less inclined to even bother with trying to explain it away with more and more far-reaching "explanations"
But it does show whose morality and ideology is completely subservient to their adherence.
(And I wonder how many of them have registered that if Cummings was in a position where dropping them would be the best for his worldview and his benefit, their heads would spin with the speed by which he would demonstrate that there's no place for gratitude in his game)
Much of it boils down to the ludicrous levels of partisanship exhibited by some PBers.
Witness the utterly pathetic cheering and jeering whenever a poll is released four years from an election. I find it impossible to care either way, but the partisans seem to take personal credit from it.
As for Cummings, I can’t get excited. Everyone knew he was a poisonous little git before this incident, so why the surprise?
I found the debates with yourself, Cyclefree, Andy and others over how to reduce/end the the lockdown much more compelling than reading over pumped attacks or rather pathetic defences of Cummings from the partisans, who are two cheeks of the same arse.
Its a flippant answer, but valid. The vast majority of the evidence still suggests something similar was necessary but we could have been smarter in how we went about it. And Norway is not the UK at all, it is far more remote with a far lower population density and a better educated public more willing to do their duty.
The evidence shows in the UK that R was below 1 on the day we went into lockdown.
Yet in the UK it is barely under 1 after 9 weeks of lockdown. Care to guess where it would have been after 9 weeks of do as you like? Because guesses is all we have...
Note - in reality this is partly because we are faster at recording this information than other countries. But let's not let facts get in the way of the story.
I wonder if Scott truly believes that the UK has had the most excess deaths in the world, or maybe we have a world leading statistics collecting organisation called the ONS and other countries don't.
The attitude of the hardcore Cummings supporters (I won't say "defenders" because virtually all of them are just saying "Yeah, so what?") is illustrative. The only difference between them and the hardcore Corbyn supporters on the antisemitism problems is simply that they chose a different team to start with. Exactly the same refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, the issue could be something other than "the media have got it in for our hero," and that just maybe, their hero fucked up and got people angry and disgusted.
Well, there's one issue: they're (mainly) less inclined to even bother with trying to explain it away with more and more far-reaching "explanations"
But it does show whose morality and ideology is completely subservient to their adherence.
(And I wonder how many of them have registered that if Cummings was in a position where dropping them would be the best for his worldview and his benefit, their heads would spin with the speed by which he would demonstrate that there's no place for gratitude in his game)
No. The Cummings story is a 100% media phenomenon for the simple reason that if no-one had read about it no-one would care and no-one would be grandstanding and threatening to infect their granny because of him. By contrast the Corbyn anti-semitism meme was barely mentioned in most national media (leading Newsnight? I don't think so) though the victims were (and are) real.
Broadly speaking, Biden needs to win Florida to get the keys to the White House and if he does get Florida he will probably do well enough elsewhere to win the presidency. His entire campaign including VP pick should be focused on what will win Florida.
I think he has several routes to victory but the mid western states that went to Trump by tiny margins where Clinton neglected to campaign are probably the easiest. Then probably Pennsylvania, then Florida.
Barring a major upset, Biden should hang onto all the states that went Clinton last time. Pennsylvania is also looking good for him, if by no means a certainty. Beyond that he needs to win either Florida or several Mid West states that went Trump last time. If he gets Florida he should be in the clear. So that looks like Florida should be the absolute focus of his campaign.
Once Boris spoke on Sunday no scalp wasn't an issue - the complete replacement of public good with personal desire means that when wave 2 comes it's everyone for themselves.
Elizabeth Warren seems unlikely for two reasons. First, she is old enough to be vulnerable if age does become an issue; second, she is not a woman of colour, which according to some reports, Biden said he will pick. I'd expect Warren to get a Cabinet role; in other words, she would be to Biden what Hillary was to Obama and not what Biden was to Obama.
She really brings nothing electorally either. The New England vote should be locked in for Biden no matter what.
There is an overemphasis on regional loyalty. The calculation will be that she makes Biden more appealing to the left of the party who might otherwise have stayed home. Sanders and Warren largely agree on many of the issues (“Medicare For All,” free college tuition, wiping out college debt, Green New Deal), and the two long have considered each other friends. So Sanders fans will be happier.
There's an electoral benefit overemphasis on the VP pick. Biden is quite likely to pick someone he actually wants as his VP, I think.
Laughable. How many people read those papers, or take notice of them? Few if any of those I have spoken to.
Ms Maitless works for the state broadcaster.
If yesterday's News at Ten was anything to go by, she works for the state run broadcaster.
The edit during Laura's piece made Boris' performance in the afternoon look like he fully grasped all the issues and was running a well-oiled machine. I had seen the car crash in all its glory, Johnson, when I watched it in the afternoon, demonstrated he neither grasped the issues nor ran a well-oiled machine
That is, to be fair, a very difficult problem for them.
I watched the actual thing live, and was utterly dismayed by his lack of capacity.
But to have done an edit which displayed that would have been arguably editorialising in the other direction (and would certainly have been seen as such by government loyalists). And there is an argument that a state broadcaster has some responsibility, alongside challenging its mistakes, to preserve confidence in a government in the middle of a national crisis, and a long way from the next election.
On the other hand I agree entirely that the edit was an utter misrepresentation of his actual performance.
As could be seen at the election (the Cenotaph etc.) the BBC casts Johnson, where it can with a neutral edit, even when he has been dire. I suspect this is no conspiracy just a misguided attempt at impartiality.
Isn’t there a psychological phenomenon whereby people tend to overcompensate for their own known biases?
I.e. if you support a football team, you grossly underestimate their chances of victory because you don’t want to allow your bias to colour your judgement
The attitude of the hardcore Cummings supporters (I won't say "defenders" because virtually all of them are just saying "Yeah, so what?") is illustrative. The only difference between them and the hardcore Corbyn supporters on the antisemitism problems is simply that they chose a different team to start with. Exactly the same refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, the issue could be something other than "the media have got it in for our hero," and that just maybe, their hero fucked up and got people angry and disgusted.
Well, there's one issue: they're (mainly) less inclined to even bother with trying to explain it away with more and more far-reaching "explanations"
But it does show whose morality and ideology is completely subservient to their adherence.
(And I wonder how many of them have registered that if Cummings was in a position where dropping them would be the best for his worldview and his benefit, their heads would spin with the speed by which he would demonstrate that there's no place for gratitude in his game)
No. The Cummings story is a 100% media phenomenon for the simple reason that if no-one had read about it no-one would care and no-one would be grandstanding and threatening to infect their granny because of him. By contrast the Corbyn anti-semitism meme was barely mentioned in most national media (leading Newsnight? I don't think so) though the victims were (and are) real.
What? If I hadn't read about Ian Huntley I wouldn't care about him, either. What a nonsensical attempt at a point.
I've come to the conclusion that Cummings is actually quite stupid and anyone who thinks he's clever must therefore be even stupider. Is he useful to BJ? In much the same way as Thomas Cromwell was useful to Henry VIII. Someone should write a book about it.
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
True but why try and do an impossible task - and Boris has made policing any lockdown impossible - remember your personal desires override any greater good (Copyright Philip Thompson)..
I've never said that. I said you need to follow your personal judgement in complex scenarios, not your personal desires.
Which includes judging that when you are perfectly healthy you may use your judgement to act as if you are on deaths door. Which pretty much opens it up for anyones personal desires as long as they are willing to mislead about it.
If people are willing to mislead about it that's neither here nor there, they will find a way to do so.
If people want to do the right thing they will do.
I don't want to give up the requirement and right to use personal judgement because some people are pricks.
Problem is some people are pricks and as a result you have already given up personal judgment. My personal judgment was that I was a very good driver even before I passed my test. The State disagrees. I am sure I would be wholly safe and responsible with a gun. The State disagrees. I would like to smoke a joint every so often. The State disagrees.
The State made a judgment that those who were contagious with a deadly virus could kill immunocompromised children (though contact with their parents, and their parents friends etc etc) and other vulnerable people and thus instructed everyone to stay at home. Certain people decided that potentially killing already very ill children didn’t matter to them. Asking social services to help them was just tooo ghastly and plebeian dharling
That - or the police really can't be arsed to police it any more. After they weren't allowed to taser anybody out on the streets, they never seem to have got the hang of it...
True but why try and do an impossible task - and Boris has made policing any lockdown impossible - remember your personal desires override any greater good (Copyright Philip Thompson)..
I've never said that. I said you need to follow your personal judgement in complex scenarios, not your personal desires.
Which includes judging that when you are perfectly healthy you may use your judgement to act as if you are on deaths door. Which pretty much opens it up for anyones personal desires as long as they are willing to mislead about it.
If people are willing to mislead about it that's neither here nor there, they will find a way to do so.
If people want to do the right thing they will do.
I don't want to give up the requirement and right to use personal judgement because some people are pricks.
If after 24 hours you can't see the flaw in your argument when it comes to public health we may as well leave.
BTW Have you noticed that it does seem that Covid19 has an impact on people's capabilities. I strongly suspect Boris would be in a very different place this week if he hadn't been seriously ill with it
The attitude of the hardcore Cummings supporters (I won't say "defenders" because virtually all of them are just saying "Yeah, so what?") is illustrative. The only difference between them and the hardcore Corbyn supporters on the antisemitism problems is simply that they chose a different team to start with. Exactly the same refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, the issue could be something other than "the media have got it in for our hero," and that just maybe, their hero fucked up and got people angry and disgusted.
Well, there's one issue: they're (mainly) less inclined to even bother with trying to explain it away with more and more far-reaching "explanations"
But it does show whose morality and ideology is completely subservient to their adherence.
(And I wonder how many of them have registered that if Cummings was in a position where dropping them would be the best for his worldview and his benefit, their heads would spin with the speed by which he would demonstrate that there's no place for gratitude in his game)
No. The Cummings story is a 100% media phenomenon for the simple reason that if no-one had read about it no-one would care and no-one would be grandstanding and threatening to infect their granny because of him. By contrast the Corbyn anti-semitism meme was barely mentioned in most national media (leading Newsnight? I don't think so) though the victims were (and are) real.
What? If I hadn't read about Ian Huntley I wouldn't care about him, either. What a nonsensical attempt at a point.
Huntley faced the due process of law and the media reported it factually.
Once Boris spoke on Sunday no scalp wasn't an issue - the complete replacement of public good with personal desire means that when wave 2 comes it's everyone for themselves.
If "everyone for themselves" means taking responsibility for ensuring that you infect no other person, we will do just fine.
Wave 2 and care homes is where (you would damned well hope) the difference will be.
"Why we remember wars but forget plagues Pandemics aren't represented in film or literature because they're too boring, too horrific and too depressing By Sean Thomas"
Broadly speaking, Biden needs to win Florida to get the keys to the White House and if he does get Florida he will probably do well enough elsewhere to win the presidency. His entire campaign including VP pick should be focused on what will win Florida.
I think he has several routes to victory but the mid western states that went to Trump by tiny margins where Clinton neglected to campaign are probably the easiest. Then probably Pennsylvania, then Florida.
Barring a major upset, Biden should hang onto all the states that went Clinton last time. Pennsylvania is also looking good for him, if by no means a certainty. Beyond that he needs to win either Florida or several Mid West states that went Trump last time. If he gets Florida he should be in the clear. So that looks like Florida should be the absolute focus of his campaign.
Although, that would risk repeating Hillary’s strategic error of ignoring the Midwest.
The Midwest states are notionally easier for him than FL, although admittedly the polling in FL looks (surprisingly) good at the moment.
The attitude of the hardcore Cummings supporters (I won't say "defenders" because virtually all of them are just saying "Yeah, so what?") is illustrative. The only difference between them and the hardcore Corbyn supporters on the antisemitism problems is simply that they chose a different team to start with. Exactly the same refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, the issue could be something other than "the media have got it in for our hero," and that just maybe, their hero fucked up and got people angry and disgusted.
Well, there's one issue: they're (mainly) less inclined to even bother with trying to explain it away with more and more far-reaching "explanations"
But it does show whose morality and ideology is completely subservient to their adherence.
(And I wonder how many of them have registered that if Cummings was in a position where dropping them would be the best for his worldview and his benefit, their heads would spin with the speed by which he would demonstrate that there's no place for gratitude in his game)
No. The Cummings story is a 100% media phenomenon for the simple reason that if no-one had read about it no-one would care and no-one would be grandstanding and threatening to infect their granny because of him. By contrast the Corbyn anti-semitism meme was barely mentioned in most national media (leading Newsnight? I don't think so) though the victims were (and are) real.
Even yesterday on this site a slight increase in the number of peeople who had died from Covid 3 days ago in England's hospitals was blamed on the Cummings effect . I am afraid this country and this site has just gone mental and everything now will be Cummings fault. 4 years of rancid anti semitism in the opposition party of the UK barely got a mention compared to the coverage the Cummings story has. Clearly anti semitism on an enormous scale is far less important than man drives to Durham with his wife and child and self isolates.
I refer you to the fact that I predicted this outcome from Day 1. If it were up to me, the story would have died there, but it has received such fanatical media attention, not to mention 50 squillion consecutive headers on here, until this one, that I don't feel the slightest bit bad about rubbing it in.
Cummings should just resign but seems he could not care less
Boris was bumbling and hopeless in front of the liason committee and conservative mps need to take back control from both of them, but when and how long it will take is anyone's guess
However, I want to speak out against the media and others, including obsessives on this site who actively want a narrative that no one will follow the NHS instructions because of Cummings behaviour, in a vain attempt to bring him and Boris down
It is not just coincidence that the vast amount of continuing attacks come from devoted remainers who know that once the 1st July passes the EU will either have to do a deal or it will be no deal. It is astonishing that Barnier should openly write to the dissenters offering upto two years, subject to payment no doubt of one billion a month, extension to transition
The widescale condemnation of Cummings is wholly justified but the public are scared enough that they will follow advice,and those who are using Cummings to undermine the message in a pandemic for political purposes is just not acceptable
Starmer has called this right by his low key intervention and it is time for the media to grow up and accept their responsibility to promote observation of the rules rather than mocking them
Journalism is not about gotchas
I am not a "former Remainer". I am still a Remainer and I am hoping Johnson goes for a No Deal Brexit.
No Deal Brexit is impossible, Brexit happened in January with a Deal, the Withdrawal Agreement.
The transition period might not be extended beyond December and we might not get a FTA with the EU by then and end up trading with them on WTO terms but that is not the same thing
Congratulations. A post from you that is factual and rational.
We have left the EU. So there is nothing to derail, no shenanigans to stop us leaving. We left. As for the end of transition its now pretty clear our fate: 1. We won't agree a FTA in the next 32 days 2. We won't request more time to agree an FTA 3. We'll announce WTO 4. WTO will state that to do so we need to do full checks and tariff imposition from 1/1/21 5. Govey will ask HMRC, HMBF and the Ports to do so 6. They will laugh at him and throw the "3 to 5 years to implement" memos back across his desk 7. A "Red Tape for Britain" campaign will be launched much like the pick fruit one, imploring the 4-5m newly unfurloughed unemployed to help create the vast array of red tape which will free more people from their jobs 8. We cock it up. The EU secure their border as states did for the virus 9. We get on the phone to President Trump and beg him to send whatever weevil-invested American food he has spare 10. Some minor country refuses our proposed schedules and tariffs at the WTO. Our "GATT24" exemption gets refused with a ruling written in crayon so that the cabinet can understand it. 11. The Mail turns on the government. "THIS ISN'T THE BREXIT WE VOTED FOR" - we've already seen furious Mail Brexiteer readers writing comments like this so we know the sentiment is there.
Get your popcorn ready. This is going to be piss funny.
It doesn't matter if anyone objects to our WTO tariff schedules, they get adopted in the interim (indefinitely) anyway.
Broadly speaking, Biden needs to win Florida to get the keys to the White House and if he does get Florida he will probably do well enough elsewhere to win the presidency. His entire campaign including VP pick should be focused on what will win Florida.
I think he has several routes to victory but the mid western states that went to Trump by tiny margins where Clinton neglected to campaign are probably the easiest. Then probably Pennsylvania, then Florida.
Barring a major upset, Biden should hang onto all the states that went Clinton last time. Pennsylvania is also looking good for him, if by no means a certainty. Beyond that he needs to win either Florida or several Mid West states that went Trump last time. If he gets Florida he should be in the clear. So that looks like Florida should be the absolute focus of his campaign.
If Biden wins Michigan and Pennsylvania and the 1 EC vote in Nebraska 02 (which Obama won in 2008 and where the last poll in the district had Biden 10% ahead) he has won the Electoral College and does not need to win Florida
I've come to the conclusion that Cummings is actually quite stupid and anyone who thinks he's clever must therefore be even stupider. Is he useful to BJ? In much the same way as Thomas Cromwell was useful to Henry VIII. Someone should write a book about it.
The alternative view: the media could have spent the last week talking about 20,000 deaths in care homes - 20,000 that some will argue could have been avoided.
One of these stories has the capacity to do terminal damage to the Government. Cummings knows which it is...
Comments
The transition period might not be extended beyond December and we might not get a FTA with the EU by then and end up trading with them on WTO terms but that is not the same thing
If he wins Florida he likely has already won anyway
The David Icke of PB.com
The fact that a VP candidate is local is a pretty weak contributor to voting intention anyway, I'd have thought.
Ok, Matt, how is it going?
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1265919082181820416
https://twitter.com/ashishskynews/status/1265916115051520003
https://youtu.be/hs5hOhI4pEE
That said, if someone sets out to review all literature ever, even in a specific field, it's unreasonable to expect every possibility covered. Let's give SeanT a break for that...
Ladbrokes and Starsports seem to have stopped betting on this, though could return later. Paddy Power traders also think it's all over bar the shouting so punters can think about locking in a profit or letting it ride.
PP/Betfair: 4/1 go, 1/7 stay
https://twitter.com/laidler22/status/1265780863410855936
The Lockdown is passe.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1265835505284939776?s=20
I watched the actual thing live, and was utterly dismayed by his lack of capacity.
But to have done an edit which displayed that would have been arguably editorialising in the other direction (and would certainly have been seen as such by government loyalists). And there is an argument that a state broadcaster has some responsibility, alongside challenging its mistakes, to preserve confidence in a government in the middle of a national crisis, and a long way from the next election.
On the other hand I agree entirely that the edit was an utter misrepresentation of his actual performance.
And money
https://twitter.com/frasernelson/status/1265651857235619840?s=21
We have left the EU. So there is nothing to derail, no shenanigans to stop us leaving. We left. As for the end of transition its now pretty clear our fate:
1. We won't agree a FTA in the next 32 days
2. We won't request more time to agree an FTA
3. We'll announce WTO
4. WTO will state that to do so we need to do full checks and tariff imposition from 1/1/21
5. Govey will ask HMRC, HMBF and the Ports to do so
6. They will laugh at him and throw the "3 to 5 years to implement" memos back across his desk
7. A "Red Tape for Britain" campaign will be launched much like the pick fruit one, imploring the 4-5m newly unfurloughed unemployed to help create the vast array of red tape which will free more people from their jobs
8. We cock it up. The EU secure their border as states did for the virus
9. We get on the phone to President Trump and beg him to send whatever weevil-invested American food he has spare
10. Some minor country refuses our proposed schedules and tariffs at the WTO. Our "GATT24" exemption gets refused with a ruling written in crayon so that the cabinet can understand it.
11. The Mail turns on the government. "THIS ISN'T THE BREXIT WE VOTED FOR" - we've already seen furious Mail Brexiteer readers writing comments like this so we know the sentiment is there.
Get your popcorn ready. This is going to be piss funny.
The only difference between them and the hardcore Corbyn supporters on the antisemitism problems is simply that they chose a different team to start with. Exactly the same refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, the issue could be something other than "the media have got it in for our hero," and that just maybe, their hero fucked up and got people angry and disgusted.
Well, there's one issue: they're (mainly) less inclined to even bother with trying to explain it away with more and more far-reaching "explanations"
But it does show whose morality and ideology is completely subservient to their adherence.
(And I wonder how many of them have registered that if Cummings was in a position where dropping them would be the best for his worldview and his benefit, their heads would spin with the speed by which he would demonstrate that there's no place for gratitude in his game)
Our oligarchical media has been declining for decades now, but the lag time on this institutional deterioration means that it's too late to do anything. We are already corroded.
Ken was awful second time around. Weirdly, he almost won, even though he should never have been anywhere near the candidacy.
We have lost several million commuters, tourists, second home owners, students in lockdown residential London.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-government-launches-campaign-urging-people-to-stay-at-home-this-easter
Press release
Coronavirus: Government launches campaign urging people to stay at home this Easter
Stay at home this Easter to protect the NHS and save lives.
Stay at home this Easter to protect the NHS and save lives is the latest message to the public from the government in a new campaign to fight coronavirus.
The campaign has been developed to meet the additional pressures of the long Easter weekend where many people typically spend time with family or friends. New organic and paid-for content will be rolled out across social media, print and outside the home.
The new campaign reinforces the importance of staying at home over Easter, and only leaving your house to buy essentials, to do one form of exercise a day, to travel into work, but only where you cannot work from home, and for any medical or social care need. If you need to leave your home for these reasons, you should be minimising time spent outside of the house and ensuring you are two metres away from anyone outside of your household. You should not be visiting friends or family during the long weekend.
I guess the line: "Or if you feel like driving an hour and a half's round trip to a local beauty spot to, I don't know, check your eyesight, especially if your wife has a birthday over the Easter weekend" didn't make it into the final draft. Or maybe they should have highlighted that this was only for the little people.
It's weird to think now that someone with Palin's views might put off US voters.
Sure, the media is partisan, but those who aspire to impartiality (the NYT, for example) still frame stories about Trump in exactly that manner.
As I've said before you post the first thing that comes into your head, I however find it best to doublecheck before posting
The aws information took me 2 seconds to find when I started checking.
Accidental but significant contact with complete strangers is where the App would have come into play.
If people want to do the right thing they will do.
I don't want to give up the requirement and right to use personal judgement because some people are pricks.
Witness the utterly pathetic cheering and jeering whenever a poll is released four years from an election. I find it impossible to care either way, but the partisans seem to take personal credit from it.
As for Cummings, I can’t get excited. Everyone knew he was a poisonous little git before this incident, so why the surprise?
I found the debates with yourself, Cyclefree, Andy and others over how to reduce/end the the lockdown much more compelling than reading over pumped attacks or rather pathetic defences of Cummings from the partisans, who are two cheeks of the same arse.
Its a flippant answer, but valid. The vast majority of the evidence still suggests something similar was necessary but we could have been smarter in how we went about it. And Norway is not the UK at all, it is far more remote with a far lower population density and a better educated public more willing to do their duty.
Biden is quite likely to pick someone he actually wants as his VP, I think.
I.e. if you support a football team, you grossly underestimate their chances of victory because you don’t want to allow your bias to colour your judgement
The State made a judgment that those who were contagious with a deadly virus could kill immunocompromised children (though contact with their parents, and their parents friends etc etc) and other vulnerable people and thus instructed everyone to stay at home. Certain people decided that potentially killing already very ill children didn’t matter to them. Asking social services to help them was just tooo ghastly and plebeian dharling
BTW Have you noticed that it does seem that Covid19 has an impact on people's capabilities. I strongly suspect Boris would be in a very different place this week if he hadn't been seriously ill with it
Wave 2 and care homes is where (you would damned well hope) the difference will be.
https://guernseypress.com/news/2020/05/28/island-is-declared-free-of-known-covid-19-cases/
The Midwest states are notionally easier for him than FL, although admittedly the polling in FL looks (surprisingly) good at the moment.
One of these stories has the capacity to do terminal damage to the Government. Cummings knows which it is...