I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
Hmm ... a lot of those falls are for prior medical reasons, so it's not a fair comparator. Falling is a symptom rather than a disease in itself. [edit]
A lot of Covid deaths and injuries are due to prior medical reasons too!!
The Labour Party in the Industrial North and South Wales have often been blighted by low level local corruption through their dominant electoral position.
I know of similar issues in solid Conservative areas. If you are a local "businessman" and want to "influence" things. you join whatever party has control.
Local government reform is one of those areas that isn't discussed enough.
How would you reform it? Proportional representation is one way to break the local party monopolies...
Part of the problem going forward is the decline in local newspapers the only medium to report on local council activities. So they can operate in a bubble free of criticism. Even worse when there is no opposition. STV multi member wards would stop single party councils but as can be seen from turnout in local elections 60% of the electorate aren’t interested.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
How do you see him refusing to leave panning out that way?
Next Cabinet Minister out -- note that the "reshuffle" rules vary from place to place so check if you get dead-heat rules on everyone the same day, or the first announced wins.
Robert Jenrick is 20/1 with Starsports (first announced) and Paddy Power (dead-heat). Jenrick is the Housing Secretary who broke the guidelines to drive to his second third home, and who this week had his decision on a housing development overturned. Coincidentally, Jenrick's decision would have saved a Party donor £40 million. The news got lost in the row over eye tests up north but that is two decisions that in normal times might have provoked an exchange of letters. We are not living in normal times so do not lose the rent money!
From The Independent (other newspapers are available): Robert Jenrick approved the Westferry Printworks development in east London on 14 January, a day before new rules would have increased the owners’ costs by up to £50m.
The site belongs to Northern & Shell, the company owned by former Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond, and which donated £10,000 to the Conservative Party in September 2017.
Tower Hamlets council has now overturned Mr Jenrick’s decision to approve an expanded version of the scheme that included 1,500 homes, which went against the advice of planning inspectors. The council launched the challenge in March on the basis that Mr Jenrick’s decision appeared to have been “influenced by a desire to help the developer to avoid a financial liability”.
The government has now accepted that Mr Jenrick acted unlawfully, the council said in a statement released on Friday. Whitehall backed down to avoid having to release documents that may have shed light on how the housing secretary reached his decision, the authority said.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
It's much easier to manage the election to increase the chance of victory, by inciting violence to prevent supposed vote rigging, for example, than to ignore the result once lost.
If violence on polling day stops Democrat voting areas in MI from turning out, so Trump wins the State, then there's nothing Biden can do about it.
Next Cabinet Minister out -- note that the "reshuffle" rules vary from place to place so check if you get dead-heat rules on everyone the same day, or the first announced wins.
Robert Jenrick is 20/1 with Starsports (first announced) and Paddy Power (dead-heat). Jenrick is the Housing Secretary who broke the guidelines to drive to his second third home, and who this week had his decision on a housing development overturned. Coincidentally, Jenrick's decision would have saved a Party donor £40 million. The news got lost in the row over eye tests up north but that is two decisions that in normal times might have provoked an exchange of letters. We are not living in normal times so do not lose the rent money!
From The Independent (other newspapers are available): Robert Jenrick approved the Westferry Printworks development in east London on 14 January, a day before new rules would have increased the owners’ costs by up to £50m.
The site belongs to Northern & Shell, the company owned by former Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond, and which donated £10,000 to the Conservative Party in September 2017.
Tower Hamlets council has now overturned Mr Jenrick’s decision to approve an expanded version of the scheme that included 1,500 homes, which went against the advice of planning inspectors. The council launched the challenge in March on the basis that Mr Jenrick’s decision appeared to have been “influenced by a desire to help the developer to avoid a financial liability”.
The government has now accepted that Mr Jenrick acted unlawfully, the council said in a statement released on Friday. Whitehall backed down to avoid having to release documents that may have shed light on how the housing secretary reached his decision, the authority said.
The Government is correct to think that they've got past the peak of the Cummings story. Most people have filed it as "disgraceful incident" but are probably not interested in picking over more details. Consequently, I expect Conservative poll ratings to stabilise rather than keep dropping.
The problem is more, as Collins observes, that the Government has lost the air of competence. People will be cautiously pleased by the lockdown relaxations, but inclined to attribute them to Johnson wanting to change the subject rather than the successful nexr stage of a masterplan. If no widespread resurgence of the virus follows, people will move on from that too and we'll be debating economic aftermath and Brexit. But the Government's reserves of credibility have been spent, and the next problem will be hard to handle.
Speaking of Brexit, my understanding from a Downing Street contact (politics is a small world, even across party) is that the Government is planning on No Deal - not just contingency planning, but actively assuming it. They are encouraging friendly writers to discuss the new freedoms which No Deal will facilitate. Have they thought through the downsides? I really don't think they have.
“New freedoms”? To abolish environmental, food safety and social standards, those sorts of freedoms?
I expect a lot of "Sun says" type pieces extolling the virtues of cheap American food. "The homous-munching liberal metropolitan elite love to tell us what we can eat. But in these tough times real families will be glad to have a Sunday roast for less wonga. So ignore scare stories about so-called 'chlorinated chicken' - this is good clean food at prices we all love. The Sun Says tuck in!" etc etc etc.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
I keep reading this data on falling down stairs, and I cannot source it - I've done some research. The quarter of a million figure is for all falls requiring hospital admission, not stairs - many of these will be outside the home, caused by ice, dodgy pavements, fragility etc. I really can't find anything on specifically falling down stairs that looks reliable. The nearest I got was c. 1,000 very elderly people a year die from falls.
If somebody has a reliable source, I'm quite happy to withdraw my suspicion that this is nonsense.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
How do you see him refusing to leave panning out that way?
Let's hope we don't have to find out. The best thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
Next Cabinet Minister out -- note that the "reshuffle" rules vary from place to place so check if you get dead-heat rules on everyone the same day, or the first announced wins.
Robert Jenrick is 20/1 with Starsports (first announced) and Paddy Power (dead-heat). Jenrick is the Housing Secretary who broke the guidelines to drive to his second third home, and who this week had his decision on a housing development overturned. Coincidentally, Jenrick's decision would have saved a Party donor £40 million. The news got lost in the row over eye tests up north but that is two decisions that in normal times might have provoked an exchange of letters. We are not living in normal times so do not lose the rent money!
From The Independent (other newspapers are available): Robert Jenrick approved the Westferry Printworks development in east London on 14 January, a day before new rules would have increased the owners’ costs by up to £50m.
The site belongs to Northern & Shell, the company owned by former Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond, and which donated £10,000 to the Conservative Party in September 2017.
Tower Hamlets council has now overturned Mr Jenrick’s decision to approve an expanded version of the scheme that included 1,500 homes, which went against the advice of planning inspectors. The council launched the challenge in March on the basis that Mr Jenrick’s decision appeared to have been “influenced by a desire to help the developer to avoid a financial liability”.
The government has now accepted that Mr Jenrick acted unlawfully, the council said in a statement released on Friday. Whitehall backed down to avoid having to release documents that may have shed light on how the housing secretary reached his decision, the authority said.
The Government is correct to think that they've got past the peak of the Cummings story. Most people have filed it as "disgraceful incident" but are probably not interested in picking over more details. Consequently, I expect Conservative poll ratings to stabilise rather than keep dropping.
The problem is more, as Collins observes, that the Government has lost the air of competence. People will be cautiously pleased by the lockdown relaxations, but inclined to attribute them to Johnson wanting to change the subject rather than the successful nexr stage of a masterplan. If no widespread resurgence of the virus follows, people will move on from that too and we'll be debating economic aftermath and Brexit. But the Government's reserves of credibility have been spent, and the next problem will be hard to handle.
Speaking of Brexit, my understanding from a Downing Street contact (politics is a small world, even across party) is that the Government is planning on No Deal - not just contingency planning, but actively assuming it. They are encouraging friendly writers to discuss the new freedoms which No Deal will facilitate. Have they thought through the downsides? I really don't think they have.
“New freedoms”? To abolish environmental, food safety and social standards, those sorts of freedoms?
I expect a lot of "Sun says" type pieces extolling the virtues of cheap American food. "The homous-munching liberal metropolitan elite love to tell us what we can eat. But in these tough times real families will be glad to have a Sunday roast for less wonga. So ignore scare stories about so-called 'chlorinated chicken' - this is good clean food at prices we all love. The Sun Says tuck in!" etc etc etc.
It won’t remain cheap for long, once our agricultural industry has been destroyed by US farmers.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
I wonder why Trump doesn't start his own social media platform (he could call it Trumpet). It would almost certainly attract a sufficiently large number of users from the kick off.
Quick trademark the name in the US. You could sue Trump for millions when he adopts it.
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
If you define the blob as people who think Cummings should resign, that's a pretty big blob, encompassing well over half the British population and millions of Tory voters. Happy to be counted as part of the blob myself.
There have been some genuinely fabulous bits of entrepreneurism and community activism by companies. However, the furlough count is now 8.4m and still climbing and a significant number of those will not emerge out of it with a job.
Lets be optimistic and say its only 3m unemployed at the end. With no job, no options to get rehired into within their former industry and a large stack of people just like them just as stuck. Add then on top the people who cannot go back to work full time because schools will be 2 days a week in the next academic year. This will pose a basic crisis of survival for these people.
We know the government's view of the nightmare that is Universal Credit. A large number of people are about to get their first experience ever of welfare and it will be a hideous wake-up call. that the government have torpedoed the empathy that Boris brought to the table just adds hypocrisy and incompetence to the perception that the general public has.
We know that Dom likes to radically shake things up. He's certainly done a number on the Tory party
As the article makes clear the furlough scheme has been a triumph, leading to far lower unemployment in the UK than other nations which have just put workers out of work and on benefits.
As the lockdown is ease before the furlough is there will also be fewer redundancies from it
Its been brilliant at stopping people just being dumped onto the dole - absolutely. The problem is that as it ends so many of the jobs furloughed are in industries that cannot reopen. As the requirement switches to have companies that have zero income pay 20% of wages that will be the end of those jobs and probably the companies. Hospitality, travel and tourism are fucked no matter what you come on here to say. The industry analysis newsletter I get every week is getting worse and worse, with companies already in an absolutely perilous financial state despite all the help they have been given - hard to survive zero revenue for months.
Go ask the pub and restaurant sector about the easing of lockdown. 2m spacing means so many aren't viable as a business. So they'll never reopen. Along with so many of the businesses who supply that sector. Wholesale was hoping that the reopening of schools may help. They don't have hospitality or hotels or restaurants any more. Workplace catering is a fraction of what it was. And with schools going back part time and on packed lunches there's nothing for them either.
Airlines? Fucked. Hotels? Fucked. The service sector who support office workers together with landlords? Fucked. Sorry mate but there is a very hard reality check coming to you.
You forgot agriculture. Farmers round here are having to throw milk away because of the drop in demand.
If hospitality reopens it has to be without social distancing (which is not a rule in any case). Social interaction and closeness are the whole point of it.
And if people say oh no they must stay closed then, ask yourselves whether you want to live in a world without pubs, restaurants, cafes, village halls, theatres, clubs, choirs, concert halls, live music, festivals etc etc.
No, I would not. Reopening them without social distancing is the lesser of two evils.
Otherwise, surely they would have banned him by now for his own sake.
It is bizarre what twitter is doing. They refuse to ban Nazi's (except in Germany) but now they are doing this with Trump's tweet.
I Don't Get it.
Presumably they’re trying to get Trump off their platform, by continually challenging everything he says.
The risk is that they upset politicians enough that a bipartisanan bill removing their S230 protections gets through, turning them into a publisher that can be sued for libel for anything false and defamatory posted on their site.
But it makes no sense as Trump drives Twitter engagement metrics. That is part of the reason why they don't ban Nazis, they drive views and clicks.
I don't understand the logic of what they are doing except if was some ludicrous 12D chess in favour of Trump to amplify his tweets more and this is all a confected outrage between them.
Just to be clear in don't think it is that. I think it is because Jack Dorsey is an idiot.
There have been some genuinely fabulous bits of entrepreneurism and community activism by companies. However, the furlough count is now 8.4m and still climbing and a significant number of those will not emerge out of it with a job.
Lets be optimistic and say its only 3m unemployed at the end. With no job, no options to get rehired into within their former industry and a large stack of people just like them just as stuck. Add then on top the people who cannot go back to work full time because schools will be 2 days a week in the next academic year. This will pose a basic crisis of survival for these people.
We know the government's view of the nightmare that is Universal Credit. A large number of people are about to get their first experience ever of welfare and it will be a hideous wake-up call. that the government have torpedoed the empathy that Boris brought to the table just adds hypocrisy and incompetence to the perception that the general public has.
We know that Dom likes to radically shake things up. He's certainly done a number on the Tory party
As the article makes clear the furlough scheme has been a triumph, leading to far lower unemployment in the UK than other nations which have just put workers out of work and on benefits.
As the lockdown is ease before the furlough is there will also be fewer redundancies from it
Its been brilliant at stopping people just being dumped onto the dole - absolutely. The problem is that as it ends so many of the jobs furloughed are in industries that cannot reopen. As the requirement switches to have companies that have zero income pay 20% of wages that will be the end of those jobs and probably the companies. Hospitality, travel and tourism are fucked no matter what you come on here to say. The industry analysis newsletter I get every week is getting worse and worse, with companies already in an absolutely perilous financial state despite all the help they have been given - hard to survive zero revenue for months.
Go ask the pub and restaurant sector about the easing of lockdown. 2m spacing means so many aren't viable as a business. So they'll never reopen. Along with so many of the businesses who supply that sector. Wholesale was hoping that the reopening of schools may help. They don't have hospitality or hotels or restaurants any more. Workplace catering is a fraction of what it was. And with schools going back part time and on packed lunches there's nothing for them either.
Airlines? Fucked. Hotels? Fucked. The service sector who support office workers together with landlords? Fucked. Sorry mate but there is a very hard reality check coming to you.
That is the same for any country which has had lockdown, economically though the furlough has ensured the UK will come out of lockdown with more workers still in jobs and with lower unemployment than most of them
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
How do you see him refusing to leave panning out that way?
Let's hope we don't have to find out. The best thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
That might be true, ironically. The real problem isn't Trump himself, it's 150 million Republicans with guns deciding that their chosen leader was robbed, losing faith in US democracy, and deciding to start another Civil War...
Otherwise, surely they would have banned him by now for his own sake.
It is bizarre what twitter is doing. They refuse to ban Nazi's (except in Germany) but now they are doing this with Trump's tweet.
I Don't Get it.
Presumably they’re trying to get Trump off their platform, by continually challenging everything he says.
The risk is that they upset politicians enough that a bipartisanan bill removing their S230 protections gets through, turning them into a publisher that can be sued for libel for anything false and defamatory posted on their site.
Another might be to declare themselves a publisher in respect of posters who have more than a certain number of followers (more than a million, for example) ?
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
TB is not a First World problem! It is sad, but that is the reason.
After the dust settles on the Durham affair, and healing to a previous topic, I don't think crossover in the polls is imminent, I think it'll settle for a bit at a small Tory lead.
But Labour shouldn't worry too much. In terms of 'opportunities for fresh disasters', and glossing over for one moment that many of those disasters will weigh heavily on real.peoples' lives, Boris has set himself up.very nicely.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
Next Cabinet Minister out -- note that the "reshuffle" rules vary from place to place so check if you get dead-heat rules on everyone the same day, or the first announced wins.
Robert Jenrick is 20/1 with Starsports (first announced) and Paddy Power (dead-heat). Jenrick is the Housing Secretary who broke the guidelines to drive to his second third home, and who this week had his decision on a housing development overturned. Coincidentally, Jenrick's decision would have saved a Party donor £40 million. The news got lost in the row over eye tests up north but that is two decisions that in normal times might have provoked an exchange of letters. We are not living in normal times so do not lose the rent money!
From The Independent (other newspapers are available): Robert Jenrick approved the Westferry Printworks development in east London on 14 January, a day before new rules would have increased the owners’ costs by up to £50m.
The site belongs to Northern & Shell, the company owned by former Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond, and which donated £10,000 to the Conservative Party in September 2017.
Tower Hamlets council has now overturned Mr Jenrick’s decision to approve an expanded version of the scheme that included 1,500 homes, which went against the advice of planning inspectors. The council launched the challenge in March on the basis that Mr Jenrick’s decision appeared to have been “influenced by a desire to help the developer to avoid a financial liability”.
The government has now accepted that Mr Jenrick acted unlawfully, the council said in a statement released on Friday. Whitehall backed down to avoid having to release documents that may have shed light on how the housing secretary reached his decision, the authority said.
The Government is correct to think that they've got past the peak of the Cummings story. Most people have filed it as "disgraceful incident" but are probably not interested in picking over more details. Consequently, I expect Conservative poll ratings to stabilise rather than keep dropping.
The problem is more, as Collins observes, that the Government has lost the air of competence. People will be cautiously pleased by the lockdown relaxations, but inclined to attribute them to Johnson wanting to change the subject rather than the successful nexr stage of a masterplan. If no widespread resurgence of the virus follows, people will move on from that too and we'll be debating economic aftermath and Brexit. But the Government's reserves of credibility have been spent, and the next problem will be hard to handle.
Speaking of Brexit, my understanding from a Downing Street contact (politics is a small world, even across party) is that the Government is planning on No Deal - not just contingency planning, but actively assuming it. They are encouraging friendly writers to discuss the new freedoms which No Deal will facilitate. Have they thought through the downsides? I really don't think they have.
“New freedoms”? To abolish environmental, food safety and social standards, those sorts of freedoms?
Of course. The conservative party has pretty much been taken over by people who believe in the right of unscrupulous rich people to make even more money, no matter how much it costs everybody else.
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I think people thinking that any event can only have positive effects for their side need to - maybe - double back and rethink things.
Taking just this example:
Having spent so much energy on this one topic with the end result being that the only people looking like to have suffered reduced employment are an anonymous tweet happy civil servant and at least one journalist, would you think twice they spend that much energy again?
Going further, if the Mirror and Guardian pages end up with attached retractions*, will they be quite so willing to run with stories that may have one or two unclear elements? Maybe? Maybe not?
And, then as you've said, Government have shown that they can, indeed, stand fast and succeed.
*there are clearly inconsistencies and there have been IPSO complaints, we'll see where the process takes us.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
Impossible under the US constitution
You are right but we are talking Trump here!
Yes but short of a civil war he cannot overrule the US Supreme Court or the US Congress
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
How do you see him refusing to leave panning out that way?
Let's hope we don't have to find out. The best thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
That might be true, ironically. The real problem isn't Trump himself, it's 150 million Republicans with guns deciding that their chosen leader was robbed, losing faith in US democracy, and deciding to start another Civil War...
If that's what you think then I am changing my mind. The worst thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
How do you see him refusing to leave panning out that way?
Let's hope we don't have to find out. The best thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
That might be true, ironically. The real problem isn't Trump himself, it's 150 million Republicans with guns deciding that their chosen leader was robbed, losing faith in US democracy, and deciding to start another Civil War...
If that's what you think then I am changing my mind. The worst thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
How do you see him refusing to leave panning out that way?
Let's hope we don't have to find out. The best thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
That might be true, ironically. The real problem isn't Trump himself, it's 150 million Republicans with guns deciding that their chosen leader was robbed, losing faith in US democracy, and deciding to start another Civil War...
If that's what you think then I am changing my mind. The worst thing that can happen for the US is that Trump is re-elected.
There is worse. Imagine Judge Roy Moore as President.
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
If you define the blob as people who think Cummings should resign, that's a pretty big blob, encompassing well over half the British population and millions of Tory voters. Happy to be counted as part of the blob myself.
Once ministers (maybe Hancock is top of the the list) have had to appear regularly in excruciating circumstances plainly embarrassed to defend the indefensible, and obviously coming second in the batting order to an unelected official it is difficult to get authority back.
And sometimes it doesn't go away. Blair and Campbell have still never really recovered from their contortions over Iraq.
Otherwise, surely they would have banned him by now for his own sake.
It is bizarre what twitter is doing. They refuse to ban Nazi's (except in Germany) but now they are doing this with Trump's tweet.
I Don't Get it.
Presumably they’re trying to get Trump off their platform, by continually challenging everything he says.
The risk is that they upset politicians enough that a bipartisanan bill removing their S230 protections gets through, turning them into a publisher that can be sued for libel for anything false and defamatory posted on their site.
But it makes no sense as Trump drives Twitter engagement metrics. That is part of the reason why they don't ban Nazis, they drive views and clicks.
I don't understand the logic of what they are doing except if was some ludicrous 12D chess in favour of Trump to amplify his tweets more and this is all a confected outrage between them.
Just to be clear in don't think it is that. I think it is because Jack Dorsey is an idiot.
I think Jack thinks he’s playing 12D chess, when actually he’s being an idiot.
The clue is the absolute fury from Zuckerberg, who knows where this path leads.
It does seem as though some on here are starting to realise the truth.
Its a truth our government, and every western government, has spent a huge amount of political and real capital trying to avoid telling people
We either go back to our lives and accept the extra risk (minimal for most).
Or we face complete social and economic disintegration
In the end, there ain;t nothing going on but the rent. We need to generate wealth to pay for the services we want. We are not doing it.
Not necessarily optimal for those who succumb. Although no alternatives appear altogether optimal.
The Italian figures showed 80% of those who succumb had at least two other serious illnesses like respiratory hypertension or renal failure. The average age of death there 80.
Don;t tell me such people cannot be isolated and protected. They surely can be
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
If you define the blob as people who think Cummings should resign, that's a pretty big blob, encompassing well over half the British population and millions of Tory voters. Happy to be counted as part of the blob myself.
Once ministers (maybe Hancock is top of the the list) have had to appear regularly in excruciating circumstances plainly embarrassed to defend the indefensible, and obviously coming second in the batting order to an unelected official it is difficult to get authority back.
And sometimes it doesn't go away. Blair and Campbell have still never really recovered from their contortions over Iraq.
Blair was re elected in 2005 after the Iraq invasion, albeit with a smaller majority
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
I suspect that the Durham affair has been a negative sum game which has hurt more or less everyone. I would put the losers in order of loss as:
Public health (destroyed credibility and clarity of messaging) Government's overall credibility (public trust down significantly) Boris Johnson (shown to be weak and over-dependent on Cummings) Journalists and the media (failed to dislodge Cummings) Tory MPs (have mailbags heaving with angry letters from voters) Dominic Cummings (SpAd shouldn't be the story).
Only real winners: Labour (notably Keir Starmer) for cool handling of crisis and as beneficiary of public rage at government, and for whom Cummings staying on is best outcome.
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I think people thinking that any event can only have positive effects for their side need to - maybe - double back and rethink things.
Taking just this example:
Having spent so much energy on this one topic with the end result being that the only people looking like to have suffered reduced employment are an anonymous tweet happy civil servant and at least one journalist, would you think twice they spend that much energy again?
Going further, if the Mirror and Guardian pages end up with attached retractions*, will they be quite so willing to run with stories that may have one or two unclear elements? Maybe? Maybe not?
And, then as you've said, Government have shown that they can, indeed, stand fast and succeed.
*there are clearly inconsistencies and there have been IPSO complaints, we'll see where the process takes us.
Absolutely. And despite what's been said below, public and media attention can only really focus on one big story at a time, especially if a lot of outrage and emotional energy is being expended on it. Whatever one's view of Cummings' ability to play 6-dimensional chess, the fact is that the witch-hunt has taken the heat out of the 'Highest Death Rate In The World' and 'Care Homes Scandal' stories, because Cummings has absorbed every drop of rage and vitriol instead. Nicely played, UK media - sacrificing the long-term potential of those stories for the short-term hit of a political scalp that they then miserably failed to take.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
If you really think that the country will frame it as a 'Conservative recession' then you are sadly mistaken
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
If you define the blob as people who think Cummings should resign, that's a pretty big blob, encompassing well over half the British population and millions of Tory voters. Happy to be counted as part of the blob myself.
Once ministers (maybe Hancock is top of the the list) have had to appear regularly in excruciating circumstances plainly embarrassed to defend the indefensible, and obviously coming second in the batting order to an unelected official it is difficult to get authority back.
And sometimes it doesn't go away. Blair and Campbell have still never really recovered from their contortions over Iraq.
I realise the point is it's the contortions that get you in the end, but I'd say lying about something that resulted in hundreds of thousands dead in a war that has ruined the Middle East is a bit more serious than something that gets a £30 fine if proven guilty, and the police say there's no case to answer
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
First of all sorry that my ire read as if it was directly at you. I am mainly pissed off at the usual suspects (further up in that discussion) who claim over and over again that governments should not have locked down, when it is blatantly clear that the bad situation would have been a lot worse with no lockdown.
As far as risk goes, the medics and politicians are concerned, they have to make decisions based on the risk to the public as a whole. The risk to individuals is different from the overall risk, I was writing this in February. There will be individuals that won't get ill, there will be individuals who will consider the risk of getting ill low enough to carry on as usual. The problem is as we all know that everyone who gets infected passes the virus on to other people. To ignore tis factor when making decisions is reckless and irresponsible.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
Oh, Starmer has definitely gained, at least in the short term, but the real Blob I was referring to is the media, which is a much bigger threat to the Conservatives than the Labour Party could ever be. Neutralize that, and Starmer is thoroughly beatable.
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
If you define the blob as people who think Cummings should resign, that's a pretty big blob, encompassing well over half the British population and millions of Tory voters. Happy to be counted as part of the blob myself.
Once ministers (maybe Hancock is top of the the list) have had to appear regularly in excruciating circumstances plainly embarrassed to defend the indefensible, and obviously coming second in the batting order to an unelected official it is difficult to get authority back.
And sometimes it doesn't go away. Blair and Campbell have still never really recovered from their contortions over Iraq.
If yesterdays appalling video is anything to go by, then Campbell certainly hasn't
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
The main movement since GE19 has been LD to Labour. The LDs down from 11% to 6% with Yougov and Labour up from 32% to 38%.
Annex B: Maintaining good decision making in acute settings
Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made.
Requiring ITU or HDU care Requiring oxygen therapy/ NIV Requiring intravenous fluids NEWS2 > 3 (clinical judgement required in patients with AF &/or chronic respiratory disease) Diminished level of consciousness where recovery realistic Acute functional impairment in excess of home/community care provision Last hours of life Requiring intravenous medication > b.d. (including analgesia) Undergone lower limb surgery within 48hrs Undergone thorax-abdominal/pelvic surgery with 72 hrs Within 24hrs of an invasive procedure (with attendant risk of acute life threatening deterioration)
I suspect that there is more to this than meets the eye. That document was published 6 days after my mother was unexpectedly discharged from hospital. The day beforehand her doctors told my sisters and I that they anticipated her remaining in hospital for a further 6 weeks. Mum's ward mate, who had been an inpatient since Christmas, and was also expecting to be there for another couple of months, was also hastily discharged. The teaching hospital at that point was treating 6 Covid patients.
I'm sure there is, almost certainly on a national scale. But the document is incontrovertible evidence of the government planning.
Interesting that a couple of days later this article describes panicked NHS managers and the "problem" of care homes refusing untested people.
NHS trusts have been desperately trying to discharge patients to free up capacity ahead of an expected surge in covid-19 cases.
But in some areas, HSJ has been told care and nursing homes have refused to accept discharges unless they have been tested for the virus. Testing is not a requirement under the discharge guidance issued by the government on Thursday.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
Oh, Starmer has definitely gained, at least in the short term, but the real Blob I was referring to is the media, which is a much bigger threat to the Conservatives than the Labour Party could ever be. Neutralize that, and Starmer is thoroughly beatable.
What planet are you on? Britain has one of the most partisan and right skewed media landscapes in the world. The idea that they are anything but a net positive for the Tories is laughable. It may be a novel experience for you to get attacked by the Daily Mail, but they were only expressing the views of their readership. Ask Mr Big G, who I believe is a reader.
Otherwise, surely they would have banned him by now for his own sake.
It is bizarre what twitter is doing. They refuse to ban Nazi's (except in Germany) but now they are doing this with Trump's tweet.
I Don't Get it.
Presumably they’re trying to get Trump off their platform, by continually challenging everything he says.
The risk is that they upset politicians enough that a bipartisanan bill removing their S230 protections gets through, turning them into a publisher that can be sued for libel for anything false and defamatory posted on their site.
Another might be to declare themselves a publisher in respect of posters who have more than a certain number of followers (more than a million, for example) ?
YouTube have been deleting a lot of videos that question the WHO view of events, or that opine on whether a total lockdown is worth the economic cost of it.
They also pulled Michael Moore’s documentary on “big green” based on a spurious copyright takedown.
They’re also making extensive use of ‘demonetising’ videos they don’t like (refusing to run ads alongside them), which is a dealbreaker for independent commentators who don’t get paid as a result, and ‘shadowbanning’ (delsiting a video from search and recommend algorithms) meaning videos get a fraction of their usual audience.
They’re being a lot more evil than Twitter or Facebook - what was Google’s original company motto?
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
The main movement since GE19 has been LD to Labour. The LDs down from 11% to 6% with Yougov and Labour up from 32% to 38%.
The Tories voteshare is unchanged on 44%
Just to say, HYUFD, your intervention was the only moment in Cummingsgate where my absolute certainty that he would stay wavered, if only because you are obviously plugged in to the Conservative machine, whereas despite my blueness I've never even been a member. I wonder if you had any specific information that you were basing your view on, or was it just that you didn't like the polling numbers?
I was referring to is the media, which is a much bigger threat to the Conservatives than the Labour Party could ever be. Neutralize that, and Starmer is thoroughly beatable.
We can win an election if we destroy the free press
Unusual for fascists to be quite to blatant about it, but you do you...
There have been some genuinely fabulous bits of entrepreneurism and community activism by companies. However, the furlough count is now 8.4m and still climbing and a significant number of those will not emerge out of it with a job.
As the article makes clear the furlough scheme has been a triumph, leading to far lower unemployment in the UK than other nations which have just put workers out of work and on benefits.
As the lockdown is ease before the furlough is there will also be fewer redundancies from it
Its been brilliant at stopping people just being dumped onto the dole - absolutely. The problem is that as it ends so many of the jobs furloughed are in industries that cannot reopen. As the requirement switches to have companies that have zero income pay 20% of wages that will be the end of those jobs and probably the companies. Hospitality, travel and tourism are fucked no matter what you come on here to say. The industry analysis newsletter I get every week is getting worse and worse, with companies already in an absolutely perilous financial state despite all the help they have been given - hard to survive zero revenue for months.
Go ask the pub and restaurant sector about the easing of lockdown. 2m spacing means so many aren't viable as a business. So they'll never reopen. Along with so many of the businesses who supply that sector. Wholesale was hoping that the reopening of schools may help. They don't have hospitality or hotels or restaurants any more. Workplace catering is a fraction of what it was. And with schools going back part time and on packed lunches there's nothing for them either.
Airlines? Fucked. Hotels? Fucked. The service sector who support office workers together with landlords? Fucked. Sorry mate but there is a very hard reality check coming to you.
You forgot agriculture. Farmers round here are having to throw milk away because of the drop in demand.
If hospitality reopens it has to be without social distancing (which is not a rule in any case). Social interaction and closeness are the whole point of it.
And if people say oh no they must stay closed then, ask yourselves whether you want to live in a world without pubs, restaurants, cafes, village halls, theatres, clubs, choirs, concert halls, live music, festivals etc etc.
No, I would not. Reopening them without social distancing is the lesser of two evils.
How is your daughter at the moment?
Despairing.
If the government keeps her business shut but expects her to pay 20% of employees’ wages, the business closes.
If she is allowed to reopen - properly ie making whatever hygiene changes that work for her business - and soon (June not September) then she can talk to her landlord about rent and she has a chance of making her business work.
If “social distancing” becomes a law which is imposed then the hospitality sector - and many others - die, her business included.
What can she do next? What other work will there be? She will be with thousands, maybe millions of others all looking for work. All the business knowledge and experience she has gained (a profitable first year, turnover up by 62%) all lost.
And the government thinks it is going to unleash Britain’s entrepreneurs?! Give me a break. It is killing them.
Not sure that the Cummings affair is that 'passing'. Jokes are still being made. not always in places where you'd expect them. That's the sort of thing that suggests something's stuck in the minds of at least some.
I suspect that the Durham affair has been a negative sum game which has hurt more or less everyone. I would put the losers in order of loss as:
Public health (destroyed credibility and clarity of messaging) Government's overall credibility (public trust down significantly) Boris Johnson (shown to be weak and over-dependent on Cummings) Journalists and the media (failed to dislodge Cummings) Tory MPs (have mailbags heaving with angry letters from voters) Dominic Cummings (SpAd shouldn't be the story).
Only real winners: Labour (notably Keir Starmer) for cool handling of crisis and as beneficiary of public rage at government, and for whom Cummings staying on is best outcome.
I would move Tory Mps into the neutral column. I was surprised and pleased how many were willing to take a stand.
Sadly given how vindictive Orville and Harris are it probably means the pool of potential ministers is now 60 lower, and we were desperately short on talent (well basic competence would do) already.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
Oh, Starmer has definitely gained, at least in the short term, but the real Blob I was referring to is the media, which is a much bigger threat to the Conservatives than the Labour Party could ever be. Neutralize that, and Starmer is thoroughly beatable.
What planet are you on? Britain has one of the most partisan and right skewed media landscapes in the world. The idea that they are anything but a net positive for the Tories is laughable. It may be a novel experience for you to get attacked by the Daily Mail, but they were only expressing the views of their readership. Ask Mr Big G, who I believe is a reader.
Did you perhaps miss the moment where the State broadcaster - to which all TV users have to pay a fee under penalty of law - threw their pretend impartiality out the window on their flagship news programme? The way in which every 'journalist' on Murdoch's Sky News behaved as if they worked for Novara? Examples could be multiplied indefinitely. Don't make me laugh.
The Conservatives need to wake up and take the threat from the media very seriously indeed. And I know just the man to do it...
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
TB is not a First World problem! It is sad, but that is the reason.
I know that. But even the countries where it is a problem have not reacted in this way. Nor has the WHO. And nor did we when it was a problem in this country.
Nor did we in 1968 and 1957 when we had flu epidemics which killed tens of thousands of people.
So I do think that we should be asking ourselves whether we are overreacting.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
The main movement since GE19 has been LD to Labour. The LDs down from 11% to 6% with Yougov and Labour up from 32% to 38%.
The Tories voteshare is unchanged on 44%
Just to say, HYUFD, your intervention was the only moment in Cummingsgate where my absolute certainty that he would stay wavered, if only because you are obviously plugged in to the Conservative machine, whereas despite my blueness I've never even been a member. I wonder if you had any specific information that you were basing your view on, or was it just that you didn't like the polling numbers?
I was certainly getting some disquiet but opinion divided amongst Tories I know however the fact the Tories still have a poll lead, albeit down, steadied the ship.
Not sure that the Cummings affair is that 'passing'. Jokes are still being made. not always in places where you'd expect them. That's the sort of thing that suggests something's stuck in the minds of at least some.
Boris is not one who would find it comfortable to be laughed at, or be figure of ridicule as opposed to people laughing with him, and being a jolly good bloke who is capable of being ridiculous.
The fact that DC and Boris did not take the safe way out - explain, mitigate, DC offer to resign, apologise, avoid the legalistic justifications, keep him on - shows how sensitive they are.
But preferring the abject humiliation of a bunch of ministers to taking it on the chin themselves will not be seen to be clever.
I suspect that the Durham affair has been a negative sum game which has hurt more or less everyone. I would put the losers in order of loss as:
Public health (destroyed credibility and clarity of messaging) Government's overall credibility (public trust down significantly) Boris Johnson (shown to be weak and over-dependent on Cummings) Journalists and the media (failed to dislodge Cummings) Tory MPs (have mailbags heaving with angry letters from voters) Dominic Cummings (SpAd shouldn't be the story).
Only real winners: Labour (notably Keir Starmer) for cool handling of crisis and as beneficiary of public rage at government, and for whom Cummings staying on is best outcome.
I would move Tory Mps into the neutral column. I was surprised and pleased how many were willing to take a stand.
Sadly given how vindictive Orville and Harris are it probably means the pool of potential ministers is now 60 lower, and we were desperately short on talent (well basic competence would do) already.
Tory MPs “took a stand” in the same way that Labour MPs “took a stand” over anti-semitism ie a bit of hand-wringing, a Tweet or email and absolutely no action at all. They go into the “pathetic” column.
I would also add the Attorney-General, Suella Braverman, into the losers column. She has trashed what little reputation she had Shami-style by showing that she has no understanding of the A-G’s role.
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
Not sure you really have much to rejoice.
On a party political level this has only been a -ve for Boris. There aren't many ways to spin the drops in polling support over the last week, and with Cummings staying it simply remains an open sore. Boris and Dom have severely dented their "people v xxxx" credentials.
But the more important problem is that it can only make dealing with Covid more difficult. There is no way that people are going to be more likely to follow the rules from now on. Boris has made it clear that he prefers "policing by consent", and this issue can only make that harder.
Sadly, it's about as hollow as any "victory" could be.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
TB is not a First World problem! It is sad, but that is the reason.
I know that. But even the countries where it is a problem have not reacted in this way. Nor has the WHO. And nor did we when it was a problem in this country.
Nor did we in 1968 and 1957 when we had flu epidemics which killed tens of thousands of people.
So I do think that we should be asking ourselves whether we are overreacting.
You are thinking about tens of thousands of people.
The question is whether you doubt, that if this virus worked its way through the whole population unhindered, we would be talking about half a million deaths. And whether you think in that context we are overreacting.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
I do agree with your last paragraph, but we also have to take into account that what we know know about the medical risks and the epidemiology are much more nuanced thatn at the start of March. Your point about TB is valid in terms of directing money and medical resources throughout the world, but unfair at the moment as a comparison to Covid-19. In countries with good health care, TB is not hospitalising many more extra people month on month, it is at worst slowly increasing, it is not threatening the collapse of healthcare systems. TB is a problem in the developing world. In these countries Covid 19 will be an significant additional problem in countries which could not adequately cope pre-Corona. In 18 months time it will be valid to compare TB with Covid-19, when Covid-19 is endemic and not threatening an exponential pandemic.
The disease is still spreading an people are still dying. The rate at which the disease is spreading is being contained in Europe, but we still have fairly strict restrictions, which is keeping it down. I really hope that as the easing contiues that the spread of the corona virus remains under control.
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
If you define the blob as people who think Cummings should resign, that's a pretty big blob, encompassing well over half the British population and millions of Tory voters. Happy to be counted as part of the blob myself.
Once ministers (maybe Hancock is top of the the list) have had to appear regularly in excruciating circumstances plainly embarrassed to defend the indefensible, and obviously coming second in the batting order to an unelected official it is difficult to get authority back.
And sometimes it doesn't go away. Blair and Campbell have still never really recovered from their contortions over Iraq.
I realise the point is it's the contortions that get you in the end, but I'd say lying about something that resulted in hundreds of thousands dead in a war that has ruined the Middle East is a bit more serious than something that gets a £30 fine if proven guilty, and the police say there's no case to answer
We'll have to wait and see whether "Barnard Castle Eye Test" remains as notorious as "45 minutes" in the collective public consciousness, or becomes the sort of thing only remembered by panellists on TV comedy game shows, but I'm afraid the calculus of death is not the metric that would lead me to predict in Johnson's favour.
Many more of the dead have been British this time, and unfair as that might be, British deaths matter more to a British electorate than those in the Middle East.
Are the CCP really trying to provoke the Western world into WWIII, at a time when their reputation is somewhat sullied by recent events and they have few friends around?
Curious. Where's this 'Mighty Boris versus The Media' thing coming from? (One or two Boris admirers on here have also been relentlessly pushing it.) The media were also overwhelmingly hostile to the Iraq War, so are we now canonizing Tone for his defiance on that occasion? This all smacks of inventing imaginary adversaries for Boris to conquer. His supporters should be concerned that they feel the need to do this.
I suspect that the Durham affair has been a negative sum game which has hurt more or less everyone. I would put the losers in order of loss as:
Public health (destroyed credibility and clarity of messaging) Government's overall credibility (public trust down significantly) Boris Johnson (shown to be weak and over-dependent on Cummings) Journalists and the media (failed to dislodge Cummings) Tory MPs (have mailbags heaving with angry letters from voters) Dominic Cummings (SpAd shouldn't be the story).
Only real winners: Labour (notably Keir Starmer) for cool handling of crisis and as beneficiary of public rage at government, and for whom Cummings staying on is best outcome.
I would move Tory Mps into the neutral column. I was surprised and pleased how many were willing to take a stand.
Sadly given how vindictive Orville and Harris are it probably means the pool of potential ministers is now 60 lower, and we were desperately short on talent (well basic competence would do) already.
Tory MPs “took a stand” in the same way that Labour MPs “took a stand” over anti-semitism ie a bit of hand-wringing, a Tweet or email and absolutely no action at all. They go into the “pathetic” column.
I would also add the Attorney-General, Suella Braverman, into the losers column. She has trashed what little reputation she had Shami-style by showing that she has no understanding of the A-G’s role.
Lets see how many of the 60 ever get a ministerial role under this leadership - Id imagine it will be low single figures. Ultimately who the PMs special adviser is, is up to the PM, not backbenchers.
Should the idiots have voted for him in the leadership contest, no, but on this they had no real power.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
TB is not a First World problem! It is sad, but that is the reason.
I know that. But even the countries where it is a problem have not reacted in this way. Nor has the WHO. And nor did we when it was a problem in this country.
Nor did we in 1968 and 1957 when we had flu epidemics which killed tens of thousands of people.
So I do think that we should be asking ourselves whether we are overreacting.
You are thinking about tens of thousands of people.
The question is whether you doubt, that if this virus worked its way through the whole population unhindered, we would be talking about half a million deaths. And whether you think in that context we are overreacting.
1.5 million people died of TB in 2018.
I think locking down to suppress the virus is probably the right thing to do in the short-term. Shutting down for the long-term is a different question - and there I think the question of overreaction, risk, the costs of doing so, the purpose of life etc should be taken into account. That is what my last thread header was about. It was roundly ignored because of Cummings but it is, even if I am the one saying so, a necessary debate.
It does seem as though some on here are starting to realise the truth.
Its a truth our government, and every western government, has spent a huge amount of political and real capital trying to avoid telling people
We either go back to our lives and accept the extra risk (minimal for most).
Or we face complete social and economic disintegration
In the end, there ain;t nothing going on but the rent. We need to generate wealth to pay for the services we want. We are not doing it.
Not necessarily optimal for those who succumb. Although no alternatives appear altogether optimal.
The Italian figures showed 80% of those who succumb had at least two other serious illnesses like respiratory hypertension or renal failure. The average age of death there 80.
Don;t tell me such people cannot be isolated and protected. They surely can be
They surely can? Has it been done anywhere?
Do you have any inkling about how care of the elderly works?
I think Marquee Mark's general point about the press losing their cool and being unable to see through the issue is pretty much bang on. They've absolutely lost it. Lost. It.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
If you define the blob as people who think Cummings should resign, that's a pretty big blob, encompassing well over half the British population and millions of Tory voters. Happy to be counted as part of the blob myself.
Once ministers (maybe Hancock is top of the the list) have had to appear regularly in excruciating circumstances plainly embarrassed to defend the indefensible, and obviously coming second in the batting order to an unelected official it is difficult to get authority back.
And sometimes it doesn't go away. Blair and Campbell have still never really recovered from their contortions over Iraq.
I realise the point is it's the contortions that get you in the end, but I'd say lying about something that resulted in hundreds of thousands dead in a war that has ruined the Middle East is a bit more serious than something that gets a £30 fine if proven guilty, and the police say there's no case to answer
We'll have to wait and see whether "Barnard Castle Eye Test" remains as notorious as "45 minutes" in the collective public consciousness, or becomes the sort of thing only remembered by panellists on TV comedy game shows, but I'm afraid the calculus of death is not the metric that would lead me to predict in Johnson's favour.
Many more of the dead have been British this time, and unfair as that might be, British deaths matter more to a British electorate than those in the Middle East.
Given that comedians on panel shows still think the the ‘story’ about David Cameron and the pig is funny and relevant, that’s a very low bar indeed!
Just a few short weeks ago Boris Johnson broke the grim news to us about the lockdown. “You MUST stay at home.” That one. We all watched on TV and - supporter of his or not – were struck by the sombre vibe around him which matched the moment. This was serious business. Each person hung on every word and tried to process what it meant for themselves and for the nation.
To yesterday. The same person, Boris Johnson, stands there and announces various relaxation measures. We can now do this and that. We still can’t do that and this. But it didn’t really matter what he said because this time people were not hanging on his every word. All they heard was “bla bla bla” and the collective response was delivered in full Valley teen mode. “Whatever.”
This is the measure of what Johnson has managed to achieve with his mis-handling of the Dominic Cummings affair. A total collapse of respect and authority. Has any PM ever lost so much credibility in so short a time? Hard to think of one. He will not be stepping down or replaced - will no doubt struggle on until the next election – but it will be one long protracted ordeal for him and for us. The word “tragedy” is often abused but I think it applies here.
Curious. Where's this 'Mighty Boris versus The Media' thing coming from? (One or two Boris admirers on here have also been relentlessly pushing it.) The media were also overwhelmingly hostile to the Iraq War, so are we now canonizing Tone for his defiance on that occasion? This all smacks of inventing imaginary adversaries for Boris to conquer. His supporters should be concerned that they feel the need to do this.
Indeed, but I was also referring to the subject matter he picked
All the Brexiteers rejoicing at the closure of the Barcelona plant failed to notice that they didn't say production was moving to Sunderland. In their call, Nissan mentioned Sunderland, er, not at all...
So if BoZo shielding Cummings is the same as Sunderland voting for Brexit, that may not work out to his advantage.
Ooh, ooh will they stop us buying Huawei? Oh dear.
There is only one way to stand up to bullies. Let’s see if our brave politicians, so keen to face down the bullying MSM, will have the balls for this one.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
TB is not a First World problem! It is sad, but that is the reason.
I know that. But even the countries where it is a problem have not reacted in this way. Nor has the WHO. And nor did we when it was a problem in this country.
Nor did we in 1968 and 1957 when we had flu epidemics which killed tens of thousands of people.
So I do think that we should be asking ourselves whether we are overreacting.
You are thinking about tens of thousands of people.
The question is whether you doubt, that if this virus worked its way through the whole population unhindered, we would be talking about half a million deaths. And whether you think in that context we are overreacting.
1.5 million people died of TB in 2018.
In the UK? I am asking whether you doubt it would be half a million in the UK.
Yep, it's a big moment. The entire Opposition Blob fired everything they had at Cummings, including several kitchen sinks and the BBC's comical 'impartiality', and they could. not. move. him. The Government's ability to ignore any future trumped-up scandals is vastly increased, as is its ability to tell the media to get stuffed if they don't like it.
I really think that you don't get it.
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
The main movement since GE19 has been LD to Labour. The LDs down from 11% to 6% with Yougov and Labour up from 32% to 38%.
The Tories voteshare is unchanged on 44%
If you look at the graph in the header two threads ago, you can see that the LD slide was mainy in February and March, which was picked up by the Conservatives. The Labour increase has been in April and May which has a corresponding decrease in the Conservative share
So he will get himself banned from twitter then refuse to leave when he loses the election as his right to free speech wasnt heard. If the remaining adults in the Republican party dont take back control at that time, it might be the last US presidential election in decades (or at least the last with more than one candidate allowed).
Impossible under the US constitution
You are right but we are talking Trump here!
Yes but short of a civil war he cannot overrule the US Supreme Court or the US Congress
I know that is why it is scary. Does he know or think that? I never thought I would see a group of heavily armed men 'storm' a State Parliament, but they have. The thought that always go through my mind is that if they were black that wouldn't have been tolerated and there would probably have been a shoot out.
We can see excuses developing for the election being declared rigged.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
I keep reading this data on falling down stairs, and I cannot source it - I've done some research. The quarter of a million figure is for all falls requiring hospital admission, not stairs - many of these will be outside the home, caused by ice, dodgy pavements, fragility etc. I really can't find anything on specifically falling down stairs that looks reliable. The nearest I got was c. 1,000 very elderly people a year die from falls.
If somebody has a reliable source, I'm quite happy to withdraw my suspicion that this is nonsense.
"More than 1,000 people die every year after falling down stairs, new figures reveal. Stairs are the place where most deaths and serious injuries happen in the home."
Edit: in context that looks at first sight as if it's about the elderly, but it's everybody.
I suspect that the Durham affair has been a negative sum game which has hurt more or less everyone. I would put the losers in order of loss as:
Public health (destroyed credibility and clarity of messaging) Government's overall credibility (public trust down significantly) Boris Johnson (shown to be weak and over-dependent on Cummings) Journalists and the media (failed to dislodge Cummings) Tory MPs (have mailbags heaving with angry letters from voters) Dominic Cummings (SpAd shouldn't be the story).
Only real winners: Labour (notably Keir Starmer) for cool handling of crisis and as beneficiary of public rage at government, and for whom Cummings staying on is best outcome.
I would move Tory Mps into the neutral column. I was surprised and pleased how many were willing to take a stand.
Sadly given how vindictive Orville and Harris are it probably means the pool of potential ministers is now 60 lower, and we were desperately short on talent (well basic competence would do) already.
Tory MPs “took a stand” in the same way that Labour MPs “took a stand” over anti-semitism ie a bit of hand-wringing, a Tweet or email and absolutely no action at all. They go into the “pathetic” column.
I would also add the Attorney-General, Suella Braverman, into the losers column. She has trashed what little reputation she had Shami-style by showing that she has no understanding of the A-G’s role.
I'm glad someone else noticed that. It's disturbing that the politicisation of the office appears to be becoming routine.
I very much appreciate your arguments on behalf to the socially undistanceable industries. It's a hard problem, on which my only useful thought for now is that mass population testing ought to be able, in about a month's time, to give us a far better idea of the extent of infection across the country, and what percentage of the population might be immune. Such information would make developing policies to open up much easier.
Are the CCP really trying to provoke the Western world into WWIII, at a time when their reputation is somewhat sullied by recent events and they have few friends around?
YES! The idea the divided Western world can attack China in their backyard and expect China not to respond is bonkers.
If we want to escalate problems in our relationship with China, we need to have a realistic plan of where we want to end up and strong allies we can rely on. We have neither, so should stay out of it.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
TB is not a First World problem! It is sad, but that is the reason.
I know that. But even the countries where it is a problem have not reacted in this way. Nor has the WHO. And nor did we when it was a problem in this country.
Nor did we in 1968 and 1957 when we had flu epidemics which killed tens of thousands of people.
So I do think that we should be asking ourselves whether we are overreacting.
You are thinking about tens of thousands of people.
The question is whether you doubt, that if this virus worked its way through the whole population unhindered, we would be talking about half a million deaths. And whether you think in that context we are overreacting.
1.5 million people died of TB in 2018.
In the UK? I am asking whether you doubt it would be half a million in the UK.
Please don't try to be too clever about this.
I’m not. Lockdowns have been imposed worldwide. The WHO considers TB to be a pandemic but I am struck by the different reaction by them and the countries where it happens. I suspect it is because we have lived with TB for a long time and this virus is new. It is inconsistent but there it is.
Anyway I’ve given my answer. The lockdown has been necessary in order to prevent what seemed to be likely - a very large number of deaths, possibly into the hundreds of thousands. It is what happens next I am raising.
I know it was late at night but your response was unnecessarily assertive!
My use of Alastair’s now infamous stairs stat wasn’t to in some way to criticise the lockdown, it is merely good shorthand for people’s warped perception of risk.
People are getting wiser to the actual risks they face. If you are under 60 and healthy, you are (apparently, according to PB, I haven’t verified this) at more risk of falling down the stairs than from Covid-19.
I dare say few people know this. And I wasn’t only talking about risk of death, I was talking about general risk of both death and injury.
Apparently a quarter of a million Britons a year end up in hospital having fallen down the stairs. Of course, only a fraction of those A&E reports die, but many are injured (some seriously) from their accident.
So, Alastair’s stat is useful, as it provides an everyday comparator. @AndyJS has been trying to convey this risk profile daily, and is often ignored or even attacked for it.
Yet the risk profile is very relevant. That is not to underplay the risks from Covid, merely to quantify and compare them.
A better comparison might be the one I made in my most recent thread header, namely, TB. This is contagious and is spread in very similar ways to Covid-19. Death from it is similar too. And if you survive it, it often leaves long-term health problems.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
TB is not a First World problem! It is sad, but that is the reason.
I know that. But even the countries where it is a problem have not reacted in this way. Nor has the WHO. And nor did we when it was a problem in this country.
Nor did we in 1968 and 1957 when we had flu epidemics which killed tens of thousands of people.
So I do think that we should be asking ourselves whether we are overreacting.
Current estimations of Infection Fatality Rate hover about 1%, which means around half a million deaths in the UK by the time the epidemic dies out, unless it is contained. Even then, there may be reinfection. We are talking about more deaths, potentially, than the whole of the Second World War. Deaths are skewed to the elderly but we would nevertheless see a big cut in life expectancy as well as a lot of chronic health conditions even in younger people.
The UK missed an opportunity to follow the South Korea workbook: keep the epidemic to a trickle, implement a rigorous Test, Track and Quarantine programme so that sporadic outbreaks are dealt with effectively, and allow people to carry on approximately as normal.
Instead the UK allowed the epidemic to get out of control, imposed lockdown late, and will maintain semi-lockdown going forwards so that the epidemic stays more or less in equilibrium. It means many people will lose their lives unnecessarily, although far less than if the epidemic wasn't mitigated, and business won't be back to normal for the foreseeable future.
Otherwise, surely they would have banned him by now for his own sake.
It is bizarre what twitter is doing. They refuse to ban Nazi's (except in Germany) but now they are doing this with Trump's tweet.
I Don't Get it.
Presumably they’re trying to get Trump off their platform, by continually challenging everything he says.
The risk is that they upset politicians enough that a bipartisanan bill removing their S230 protections gets through, turning them into a publisher that can be sued for libel for anything false and defamatory posted on their site.
Another might be to declare themselves a publisher in respect of posters who have more than a certain number of followers (more than a million, for example) ?
YouTube have been deleting a lot of videos that question the WHO view of events, or that opine on whether a total lockdown is worth the economic cost of it.
They also pulled Michael Moore’s documentary on “big green” based on a spurious copyright takedown.
They’re also making extensive use of ‘demonetising’ videos they don’t like (refusing to run ads alongside them), which is a dealbreaker for independent commentators who don’t get paid as a result, and ‘shadowbanning’ (delsiting a video from search and recommend algorithms) meaning videos get a fraction of their usual audience.
They’re being a lot more evil than Twitter or Facebook - what was Google’s original company motto?
I wouldn't for a moment be an apologist for Youtube. I just thought the particular idea a potentially useful one.
Comments
If violence on polling day stops Democrat voting areas in MI from turning out, so Trump wins the State, then there's nothing Biden can do about it.
The death rate world-wide is 15%. In 2018 1.5 million people died from it. Even though there are antibiotics that can cure it.
And, yet, despite this appalling death rate, the world has not reacted in the same way by shutting down everything in sight.
So it is legitimate to ask whether we are not overreacting - particularly in our apparent intention to keep things shut or make it impossible for them to reopen.
If somebody has a reliable source, I'm quite happy to withdraw my suspicion that this is nonsense.
How is your daughter at the moment?
I don't understand the logic of what they are doing except if was some ludicrous 12D chess in favour of Trump to amplify his tweets more and this is all a confected outrage between them.
Just to be clear in don't think it is that. I think it is because Jack Dorsey is an idiot.
https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1266116477104599043
Another might be to declare themselves a publisher in respect of posters who have more than a certain number of followers (more than a million, for example) ?
Its a truth our government, and every western government, has spent a huge amount of political and real capital trying to avoid telling people
We either go back to our lives and accept the extra risk (minimal for most).
Or we face complete social and economic disintegration
In the end, there ain;t nothing going on but the rent. We need to generate wealth to pay for the services we want. We are not doing it.
But Labour shouldn't worry too much. In terms of 'opportunities for fresh disasters', and glossing over for one moment that many of those disasters will weigh heavily on real.peoples' lives, Boris has set himself up.very nicely.
Taking just this example:
Having spent so much energy on this one topic with the end result being that the only people looking like to have suffered reduced employment are an anonymous tweet happy civil servant and at least one journalist, would you think twice they spend that much energy again?
Going further, if the Mirror and Guardian pages end up with attached retractions*, will they be quite so willing to run with stories that may have one or two unclear elements? Maybe? Maybe not?
And, then as you've said, Government have shown that they can, indeed, stand fast and succeed.
*there are clearly inconsistencies and there have been IPSO complaints, we'll see where the process takes us.
The choice is stark.
But I think that's all there is.
And sometimes it doesn't go away. Blair and Campbell have still never really recovered from their contortions over Iraq.
The clue is the absolute fury from Zuckerberg, who knows where this path leads.
Don;t tell me such people cannot be isolated and protected. They surely can be
Starmer wasn't trying to move Cummings. Starmer was trying to move voting intention and public attitudes to Johnson personally. Starmer was also trying to turn Cummings into a widely known figure of derision while hoping that Johnson held onto his Svengali in order to ensure that this continued to hurt the Conservatives going forward.
Starmer seems to have succeeded in every count. The gap with YouGov is down from the 24% he inherited to 6% now. And there's the fallout from the Conservative recession to come.
https://twitter.com/oflynnsocial/status/1266294775826665475
Public health (destroyed credibility and clarity of messaging)
Government's overall credibility (public trust down significantly)
Boris Johnson (shown to be weak and over-dependent on Cummings)
Journalists and the media (failed to dislodge Cummings)
Tory MPs (have mailbags heaving with angry letters from voters)
Dominic Cummings (SpAd shouldn't be the story).
Only real winners:
Labour (notably Keir Starmer) for cool handling of crisis and as beneficiary of public rage at government, and for whom Cummings staying on is best outcome.
As far as risk goes, the medics and politicians are concerned, they have to make decisions based on the risk to the public as a whole. The risk to individuals is different from the overall risk, I was writing this in February. There will be individuals that won't get ill, there will be individuals who will consider the risk of getting ill low enough to carry on as usual. The problem is as we all know that everyone who gets infected passes the virus on to other people. To ignore tis factor when making decisions is reckless and irresponsible.
The Tories voteshare is unchanged on 44%
https://www.hsj.co.uk/news/nhs-told-to-up-its-game-in-helping-social-care-respond-to-crisis/7027193.article
They also pulled Michael Moore’s documentary on “big green” based on a spurious copyright takedown.
They’re also making extensive use of ‘demonetising’ videos they don’t like (refusing to run ads alongside them), which is a dealbreaker for independent commentators who don’t get paid as a result, and ‘shadowbanning’ (delsiting a video from search and recommend algorithms) meaning videos get a fraction of their usual audience.
They’re being a lot more evil than Twitter or Facebook - what was Google’s original company motto?
Unusual for fascists to be quite to blatant about it, but you do you...
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/coronavirus-unemployment-five-nation-comparison.pdf
If the government keeps her business shut but expects her to pay 20% of employees’ wages, the business closes.
If she is allowed to reopen - properly ie making whatever hygiene changes that work for her business - and soon (June not September) then she can talk to her landlord about rent and she has a chance of making her business work.
If “social distancing” becomes a law which is imposed then the hospitality sector - and many others - die, her business included.
What can she do next? What other work will there be? She will be with thousands, maybe millions of others all looking for work. All the business knowledge and experience she has gained (a profitable first year, turnover up by 62%) all lost.
And the government thinks it is going to unleash Britain’s entrepreneurs?! Give me a break. It is killing them.
Sadly given how vindictive Orville and Harris are it probably means the pool of potential ministers is now 60 lower, and we were desperately short on talent (well basic competence would do) already.
(Presumably because they’ll be spending a billion dollars on his platform between now and November).
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/zuckerberg-facebook-twitter-should-not-fact-check-political-speech.html
The Conservatives need to wake up and take the threat from the media very seriously indeed. And I know just the man to do it...
Nor did we in 1968 and 1957 when we had flu epidemics which killed tens of thousands of people.
So I do think that we should be asking ourselves whether we are overreacting.
So a bit of both really
The fact that DC and Boris did not take the safe way out - explain, mitigate, DC offer to resign, apologise, avoid the legalistic justifications, keep him on - shows how sensitive they are.
But preferring the abject humiliation of a bunch of ministers to taking it on the chin themselves will not be seen to be clever.
I would also add the Attorney-General, Suella Braverman, into the losers column. She has trashed what little reputation she had Shami-style by showing that she has no understanding of the A-G’s role.
On a party political level this has only been a -ve for Boris. There aren't many ways to spin the drops in polling support over the last week, and with Cummings staying it simply remains an open sore. Boris and Dom have severely dented their "people v xxxx" credentials.
But the more important problem is that it can only make dealing with Covid more difficult. There is no way that people are going to be more likely to follow the rules from now on. Boris has made it clear that he prefers "policing by consent", and this issue can only make that harder.
Sadly, it's about as hollow as any "victory" could be.
The question is whether you doubt, that if this virus worked its way through the whole population unhindered, we would be talking about half a million deaths. And whether you think in that context we are overreacting.
The disease is still spreading an people are still dying. The rate at which the disease is spreading is being contained in Europe, but we still have fairly strict restrictions, which is keeping it down. I really hope that as the easing contiues that the spread of the corona virus remains under control.
Many more of the dead have been British this time, and unfair as that might be, British deaths matter more to a British electorate than those in the Middle East.
Are the CCP really trying to provoke the Western world into WWIII, at a time when their reputation is somewhat sullied by recent events and they have few friends around?
Should the idiots have voted for him in the leadership contest, no, but on this they had no real power.
I think locking down to suppress the virus is probably the right thing to do in the short-term. Shutting down for the long-term is a different question - and there I think the question of overreaction, risk, the costs of doing so, the purpose of life etc should be taken into account. That is what my last thread header was about. It was roundly ignored because of Cummings but it is, even if I am the one saying so, a necessary debate.
Do you have any inkling about how care of the elderly works?
Just a few short weeks ago Boris Johnson broke the grim news to us about the lockdown. “You MUST stay at home.” That one. We all watched on TV and - supporter of his or not – were struck by the sombre vibe around him which matched the moment. This was serious business. Each person hung on every word and tried to process what it meant for themselves and for the nation.
To yesterday. The same person, Boris Johnson, stands there and announces various relaxation measures. We can now do this and that. We still can’t do that and this. But it didn’t really matter what he said because this time people were not hanging on his every word. All they heard was “bla bla bla” and the collective response was delivered in full Valley teen mode. “Whatever.”
This is the measure of what Johnson has managed to achieve with his mis-handling of the Dominic Cummings affair. A total collapse of respect and authority. Has any PM ever lost so much credibility in so short a time? Hard to think of one. He will not be stepping down or replaced - will no doubt struggle on until the next election – but it will be one long protracted ordeal for him and for us. The word “tragedy” is often abused but I think it applies here.
https://twitter.com/BBCSimonJack/status/1266292822165995522
All the Brexiteers rejoicing at the closure of the Barcelona plant failed to notice that they didn't say production was moving to Sunderland. In their call, Nissan mentioned Sunderland, er, not at all...
So if BoZo shielding Cummings is the same as Sunderland voting for Brexit, that may not work out to his advantage.
There is only one way to stand up to bullies. Let’s see if our brave politicians, so keen to face down the bullying MSM, will have the balls for this one.
Apart from that...
Please don't try to be too clever about this.
We can see excuses developing for the election being declared rigged.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/790609.stm
"More than 1,000 people die every year after falling down stairs, new figures reveal.
Stairs are the place where most deaths and serious injuries happen in the home."
Edit: in context that looks at first sight as if it's about the elderly, but it's everybody.
I very much appreciate your arguments on behalf to the socially undistanceable industries.
It's a hard problem, on which my only useful thought for now is that mass population testing ought to be able, in about a month's time, to give us a far better idea of the extent of infection across the country, and what percentage of the population might be immune.
Such information would make developing policies to open up much easier.
If we want to escalate problems in our relationship with China, we need to have a realistic plan of where we want to end up and strong allies we can rely on. We have neither, so should stay out of it.
Anyway I’ve given my answer. The lockdown has been necessary in order to prevent what seemed to be likely - a very large number of deaths, possibly into the hundreds of thousands. It is what happens next I am raising.
The UK missed an opportunity to follow the South Korea workbook: keep the epidemic to a trickle, implement a rigorous Test, Track and Quarantine programme so that sporadic outbreaks are dealt with effectively, and allow people to carry on approximately as normal.
Instead the UK allowed the epidemic to get out of control, imposed lockdown late, and will maintain semi-lockdown going forwards so that the epidemic stays more or less in equilibrium. It means many people will lose their lives unnecessarily, although far less than if the epidemic wasn't mitigated, and business won't be back to normal for the foreseeable future.
The offer isn't to "Hong Kong residents" but to "British National Overseas" passport holders.
I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!