I look forward to you applying that just as stringently in the future when it's Conservative appointees in the frame (spoiler: you won't).
I see in the Independent that actually he wasn't blocked because of the bullying allegations but because he wasn't Labour, so the Appointments Commission felt it wasn't appropriate for the Labour leader to nominate him. That seems utterly bizarre and a really bad precedent - why shouldn't party leaders be open-minded enough to nominate people who are not party loyalists?
The leaked comments also say that they was a lot of um'ing and ah'ing over Watson, but in his case it was the paedophile claims issue, while Murphy was seen as a "slam-dunk" for unspecified reasons presumed to relate to the handling of anti-semitism allegations.
To be fair, none of this seems to have Johnson's fingerprints on it - it's all the Commission. But their decision-making criteria seem mysterious and subjective, and the willingness of a member (presumably) to gossip anonymously about them makes it even worse.
Yes whether Bercow gets a peerage or not, I couldnt care less about, but if we are going to have peerages decided by politicians, surely there is nothing wrong with them selecting someone outside their own party?
Anyone willing to argue to the contrary, because it seems a terrible rule to me?
Ashdown used one of his nominations for david Alton after he had resigned the whip and I think party membership.
Lib Dems are almost as principles and morals free as the Tories.
Well I remain, in my mind, principled and attempt to live to my idea of a moral code.
Nichomar , was not personal, I was looking at current party people, MP's etc, not many shining lights there and even fewer in Scotland.
Actually I’m very tired of party politics the last four years both politically and personally have made me think seriously about the effectiveness of the party political system. When excellent MP’s and councilors can be ousted off the back of national swing and replaced by party puppets you have to question the system. As a Lib Dem member I will stay within the ‘family’ but probably will not actively promote party policy anymore.
If they are truly outstanding MPs or councillors they might defy the national swing.
There are plenty of independent and Residents' Association councillors though
"In blocking a peerage to Bercow Johnson is also going against the advice of Bercow’s successor, Lindsay Hoyle. Back in December he urged Downing Street to follow “custom and practice”."
I have respect for Lindsay Hoyle, certainly after Bercow, but he's hardly uninterested in this row, is he?
They do if they don't make sense in a particular case, as is arguably true here.
I personally think honours should be earned, rather than be given automatically for doing your job.
Anyway, if the HLAC decided not to recommend Bercow, at least until the allegations are settled, then wouldn't it be a breach of convention for Boris to nominate him?
Johnson has now created a new rule - outgoing speakers only get elevated to a peerage if they have pleased the government of the day. That is a constitutional outrage.
In Bercow's case, it's by no means as simple as that. Firstly, there is the matter of his alleged bullying conduct towards several members of his staff, and the fact that it is the subject of an unresolved parliamentary investigation. Secondly, precedent and tradition meant nothing to Bercow in 2019 when he was quite content to throw the parliamentary rule book out of the window to suit his own political purposes. It is not a matter even that he disregarded neutrality in order to stand in the way of the government of the day (or "failed to please" as you put it), it is that he trashed precedent in order to do so.
Likewise, it is reasonable to refuse Karie Murphy's nomination whilst she is under active investigation for alleged anti-semitic offences. Bercow could hardly be granted a Lordship if Murphy is refused on similar grounds. So at least there is consistency in the PM's actions.
The refusal that I have difficulty with is that of Tom Watson. Whatever his errors in believing the paedophile accuser, he was not the only one to be taken in and his motives were good. He acted in good faith to try and shake the cage in the face of what he thought was an establishment cover up. He's being refused a peerage for no more than an error of judgement made in good faith, despite decades of long service to the Labour Party.
Watson was quite clear at the time, that he was acting from party political motives - anything to get the Tories.
I hope that data on who the new cases are and where the infections are coming from is being collected and analysed. it's certainly not being put in the public domain, as far as I can tell. if I had to guess I'd suggest mainly it is among NHS staff, care workers and possibly supermarket staff, but that would be a guess.
Whilst I agree the fact that these are guesses is a disgrace. Social workers, public transport workers and emergency services must also be at some considerable risk.
You'd hope there's serious egghead analysis of who is getting the virus going on. But I'm not sure there is. Has anyone with a positive test been asked which is their predominant mode of transport for instance ?
I just don't understand why people are not focusing on this. It is just so bloody obvious, even a lawyer can see it.
My understanding, via my friend at Imperial, is that a number of studies have/are being run on WhoWhatWhereWhyWhen - trying to get detailed information on how the infection spreads. Essentially they are contact tracing - but with great detail. Even using the virus genetics to try and build transmission trees...
Apparently the interesting thing is that the results seem to be all over the place - some seem to find a very low transmission rate, with people in close contact not catching it. Others find transmission between people with the briefest of contacts...
This is the super spreader thesis I keep wittering on about and it is undoubtedly a serious complication. Again, why do we have no idea what makes a "super spreader"? A test for that would be very helpful.
As the studies are being done by scientists, I find it hard to imagine, their first thought on the differing results, is not WHY?
You'd assume so but several months on we seem to have no clear idea and the result is a blunderbuss response when we need a rapier.
Science can be hard - it is worth noting that the same issue appears in studies around the world. Various theories have been put forward, but I have not seen an actual claim for the answer.
I am not saying its easy. I am saying that these are the priorities to which all available resources should be directed because they are the key to a successful lifting of the lockdown.
lockdown is almost gone in any case David, certainly in England and likely Scotland shortly.
Until we can go to hotels and restaurants again and visit each others houses then lockdown is not over
People are already doing the latter.
Peoples' gardens yes, not going inside peoples' houses which remains illegal unless using the toilet
This is being widely ignored and flaunted.
Kids, parents and grandchildren are all visiting each other’s houses at the moment - and staying over. I even know some police officers who did so over the weekend.
The guidance should now be that two healthy family households up to 6-8 people can mix, provided they are sensible with social distancing and contact.
Since the government has chosen not to say this people are taking matters into their own hands.
No they are not, none of my family or friends are going inside each others houses.
If you know of people going inside the houses of another household to stay over you should inform the police.
Any police officers breaking the law in this way should be sacked.
OT shopping. Sainsbury's back to almost normal, and their security staff have snazzy new hi-vis jackets. No queue for Aldi. Long queue for B&Q. Massive queues outside all the banks.
I've been intrigued by the queues at banks. What are people actually queuing to do?
If it has really been like this for 3 weeks a good deal of encouragement can be taken from those figures.
The example of Belgium really is quite interesting - the death rate skyrocketed, peaked astonishingly high in mid April, dramatically worse than anywhere else (Peru perhaps?), but then fell away equally rapidly also.
IANA scientist but it does give some support to the super spreader thesis. Once those most likely to pass on the disease have gained immunity the virus struggles to spread. I just find it remarkable that how (not why as @Beibheirli_C points out) viruses seem to peter out has not been the subject of far more detailed investigation prior to now.
You require an epidemic/pandemic to give more than small number statistics, which are not THAT common, and you need the resources and will power of funding bodies.
There's a reason much of our knowledge comes from studies of commercially-important agriculture.
But we give hundreds of millions to the WHO. It might have been worth a look. How did SARS end, for example? That might have given us some clue. Most of our thinking has been influenced by studies in the 1930s after Spanish flu and the infamous "second wave" of Hong Kong flu in 1970. Are these the exceptions or the norm? I really wish we knew.
I think the idea is that SARS ended because people weren't very infectious before they showed symptoms, so isolating people with symptoms wiped it out quite quickly.
I'd guess we probably still don't have a very good idea how infectious COVID-19 is before people show symptoms. Given the difficulty of estimating even the overall R number at any time, the finer detail is hard to find out.
Kids, parents and grandchildren are all visiting each other’s houses at the moment - and staying over. I even know some police officers who did so over the weekend.
The guidance should now be that two healthy family households up to 6-8 people can mix, provided they are sensible with social distancing and contact.
Since the government has chosen not to say this people are taking matters into their own hands.
Literally none of my friends were not out at lunch, drinks or visiting over the weekend. If you are a couple with an only child you can visit a couple with an only child. If not these rules are meaningless and will be ignored.
When the rival superpower collapsed, exhausted, the United States took the wrong lessons from the fall of communism. American policymakers convinced themselves their global dominance was due to the success of their liberal ideology rather than of their industrial might, and that the sudden, unexpected disintegration of the Soviet Union was due to the vindication of liberalism rather than of the awakened nationalism of Russia’s subject peoples.
America’s rapid rise to global hegemony and equally rapid decline is a grand historical tragedy of the highest order, and as in classical tragedy, the root cause is the protagonist’s central character flaw.
And, a key point (the same conclusion reached by Krastev & Holmes):
Trump is a morbid symptom of this chaos, rather than its cause.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a symptom of a sick country and since then he has been instrumental in the deterioration of the patient. For a cure to even be contemplated the necessary first step is his removal from office. This is how I look at it.
The worrying thing is that Trump could win again (all the rioting plays into his hands), and even if Biden wins, he won't be able to make it better.
All while China rubs its hands, HK off the front pages, and will all the economic hit from both coronavirus and sustained rioting / looting, they will be in prime position to buy up companies at rock bottom prices.
He won't win, trust me. He's not electable this time. Social unrest plays into his hands? I don't think so. Every crisis further exposes his almost comical inadequacy. Biden, for all his negatives, will be better on every issue on every level.
China? Yes, they probably benefit from American decline. It would be great if there was a "win win" here but when you're competing for global top dog, I guess there isn't.
Soon as Trump is gone I will be back to rooting more for USA than China in this battle.
I would obviously hope that your figures are correct. But the government's own figures, and the comments from Sir Patrick Valance, seem to indicate a stubbornly high rate of infection - declining, but not fast. The idea behind the lockdown was to hammer the numbers down to very low levels, such that contact tracing could stay on top of any subsequent outbreaks and the average person could be confident that a typical train, office, school or hospital doesn't contain any infected people, allowing normal life to resume in those places. The government's figures don't make it look like this has happened and it would be nice if the confusion could be resolved.
It could also be that the lockdown worked in stamping down infections, but that the starting levels were stratospheric. I've seen daily infection estimates of 100k/day for the period just after lockdown (say 1/April). To get down to 8k/day by the 10th may, the middle of the ONS survey period, you need 6.25% daily decline - actually more than the subsequent death decline rates of 4.5%ish.
Surely the complaint that appears frivolous should be first on their list? They can quickly log it as closed if their investigation matches their hunch, which should be good for their own numbers - not to mention the health of those accused.
I'd think the police would want to deal with the complaints that were most likely to involve a crime first, because there's more likely to be an actual criminal who needs to be prevented from committing further offences.
It's also possible that if you are efficient in dismissing frivolous complaints then this only provokes those complaints into making more to pursue a vendetta. If you drag your feet on investigating the initial complaint then perhaps such a person is more satisfied and less likely to generate additional work. This is not as good a reason as the first.
When the rival superpower collapsed, exhausted, the United States took the wrong lessons from the fall of communism. American policymakers convinced themselves their global dominance was due to the success of their liberal ideology rather than of their industrial might, and that the sudden, unexpected disintegration of the Soviet Union was due to the vindication of liberalism rather than of the awakened nationalism of Russia’s subject peoples.
America’s rapid rise to global hegemony and equally rapid decline is a grand historical tragedy of the highest order, and as in classical tragedy, the root cause is the protagonist’s central character flaw.
And, a key point (the same conclusion reached by Krastev & Holmes):
Trump is a morbid symptom of this chaos, rather than its cause.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a symptom of a sick country and since then he has been instrumental in the deterioration of the patient. For a cure to even be contemplated the necessary first step is his removal from office. This is how I look at it.
The worrying thing is that Trump could win again (all the rioting plays into his hands), and even if Biden wins, he won't be able to make it better.
All while China rubs its hands, HK off the front pages, and will all the economic hit from both coronavirus and sustained rioting / looting, they will be in prime position to buy up companies at rock bottom prices.
Why would Biden be able to make it better?
No president since Kennedy has. Republican or Democrat, white or black, doesn;t matter.
Despite all the sound and fury of the last 60 years, it seems little has changed.
The nugget at the end of that piece is the most interesting.
Going for herd immunity left Sweden with a lower antibody trace than countries that.....er.....were not going for herd immunity. The later often had more people with antibodies. In some cases, lots more (London)
Well, yes. Their base R0 was lower than that here and in many other countries, thanks to their population distribution and social culture. As discussed at length here.
So the initial ramp up was harder and faster here, in France, in Belgium, in NYC, and so on, resulting in far more infections (and thus, a bit later, deaths) already baked in prior to lockdowns being instituted.
Had Sweden done a full-on lockdown at about the same time we did, they'd have rammed their infection rates down (as Norway and Denmark did), their infection rates would be far lower. And lifting to their current strategy then would have been sustainable long-term.
Missed opportunity.
How do we know ?
CV19 is a marathon not a sprint. In all likelihood we wont know what's best for another three years or so when the final body count has been done. Sweden could be following the right strategy or it could be a complete disaster. .None of us can claim to know what is best as its still too early to say.
That's absurd. We have decisions to make and we must make them with the best available evidence that we have, however incomplete it may be.
"In blocking a peerage to Bercow Johnson is also going against the advice of Bercow’s successor, Lindsay Hoyle. Back in December he urged Downing Street to follow “custom and practice”."
I have respect for Lindsay Hoyle, certainly after Bercow, but he's hardly uninterested in this row, is he?
They do if they don't make sense in a particular case, as is arguably true here.
I personally think honours should be earned, rather than be given automatically for doing your job.
Anyway, if the HLAC decided not to recommend Bercow, at least until the allegations are settled, then wouldn't it be a breach of convention for Boris to nominate him?
Johnson has now created a new rule - outgoing speakers only get elevated to a peerage if they have pleased the government of the day. That is a constitutional outrage.
In Bercow's case, it's by no means as simple as that. Firstly, there is the matter of his alleged bullying conduct towards several members of his staff, and the fact that it is the subject of an unresolved parliamentary investigation. Secondly, precedent and tradition meant nothing to Bercow in 2019 when he was quite content to throw the parliamentary rule book out of the window to suit his own political purposes. It is not a matter even that he disregarded neutrality in order to stand in the way of the government of the day (or "failed to please" as you put it), it is that he trashed precedent in order to do so.
Likewise, it is reasonable to refuse Karie Murphy's nomination whilst she is under active investigation for alleged anti-semitic offences. Bercow could hardly be granted a Lordship if Murphy is refused on similar grounds. So at least there is consistency in the PM's actions.
The refusal that I have difficulty with is that of Tom Watson. Whatever his errors in believing the paedophile accuser, he was not the only one to be taken in and his motives were good. He acted in good faith to try and shake the cage in the face of what he thought was an establishment cover up. He's being refused a peerage for no more than an error of judgement made in good faith, despite decades of long service to the Labour Party.
Watson was quite clear at the time, that he was acting from party political motives - anything to get the Tories.
Not true.
I tend to agree - it looked like he was doing it for party political reasons, but never said that himself. Another example of the never apologise for making mistakes culture.
I hope that data on who the new cases are and where the infections are coming from is being collected and analysed. it's certainly not being put in the public domain, as far as I can tell. if I had to guess I'd suggest mainly it is among NHS staff, care workers and possibly supermarket staff, but that would be a guess.
Whilst I agree the fact that these are guesses is a disgrace. Social workers, public transport workers and emergency services must also be at some considerable risk.
You'd hope there's serious egghead analysis of who is getting the virus going on. But I'm not sure there is. Has anyone with a positive test been asked which is their predominant mode of transport for instance ?
I just don't understand why people are not focusing on this. It is just so bloody obvious, even a lawyer can see it.
My understanding, via my friend at Imperial, is that a number of studies have/are being run on WhoWhatWhereWhyWhen - trying to get detailed information on how the infection spreads. Essentially they are contact tracing - but with great detail. Even using the virus genetics to try and build transmission trees...
Apparently the interesting thing is that the results seem to be all over the place - some seem to find a very low transmission rate, with people in close contact not catching it. Others find transmission between people with the briefest of contacts...
This is the super spreader thesis I keep wittering on about and it is undoubtedly a serious complication. Again, why do we have no idea what makes a "super spreader"? A test for that would be very helpful.
As the studies are being done by scientists, I find it hard to imagine, their first thought on the differing results, is not WHY?
You'd assume so but several months on we seem to have no clear idea and the result is a blunderbuss response when we need a rapier.
Science can be hard - it is worth noting that the same issue appears in studies around the world. Various theories have been put forward, but I have not seen an actual claim for the answer.
I am not saying its easy. I am saying that these are the priorities to which all available resources should be directed because they are the key to a successful lifting of the lockdown.
lockdown is almost gone in any case David, certainly in England and likely Scotland shortly.
Until we can go to hotels and restaurants again and visit each others houses then lockdown is not over
People are already doing the latter.
Peoples' gardens yes, not going inside peoples' houses which remains illegal unless using the toilet
If it has really been like this for 3 weeks a good deal of encouragement can be taken from those figures.
The example of Belgium really is quite interesting - the death rate skyrocketed, peaked astonishingly high in mid April, dramatically worse than anywhere else (Peru perhaps?), but then fell away equally rapidly also.
IANA scientist but it does give some support to the super spreader thesis. Once those most likely to pass on the disease have gained immunity the virus struggles to spread. I just find it remarkable that how (not why as @Beibheirli_C points out) viruses seem to peter out has not been the subject of far more detailed investigation prior to now.
You require an epidemic/pandemic to give more than small number statistics, which are not THAT common, and you need the resources and will power of funding bodies.
There's a reason much of our knowledge comes from studies of commercially-important agriculture.
But we give hundreds of millions to the WHO. It might have been worth a look. How did SARS end, for example? That might have given us some clue. Most of our thinking has been influenced by studies in the 1930s after Spanish flu and the infamous "second wave" of Hong Kong flu in 1970. Are these the exceptions or the norm? I really wish we knew.
I think the idea is that SARS ended because people weren't very infectious before they showed symptoms, so isolating people with symptoms wiped it out quite quickly.
I'd guess we probably still don't have a very good idea how infectious COVID-19 is before people show symptoms. Given the difficulty of estimating even the overall R number at any time, the finer detail is hard to find out.
Of course, IF T-cells with memories of other coronas do confer a form of immunity that doesn;t show antibodies, then the R calculation in use now and its assumptions of who can be affected, will be seen to be very flawed. Very flawed indeed.
When the rival superpower collapsed, exhausted, the United States took the wrong lessons from the fall of communism. American policymakers convinced themselves their global dominance was due to the success of their liberal ideology rather than of their industrial might, and that the sudden, unexpected disintegration of the Soviet Union was due to the vindication of liberalism rather than of the awakened nationalism of Russia’s subject peoples.
America’s rapid rise to global hegemony and equally rapid decline is a grand historical tragedy of the highest order, and as in classical tragedy, the root cause is the protagonist’s central character flaw.
And, a key point (the same conclusion reached by Krastev & Holmes):
Trump is a morbid symptom of this chaos, rather than its cause.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a symptom of a sick country and since then he has been instrumental in the deterioration of the patient. For a cure to even be contemplated the necessary first step is his removal from office. This is how I look at it.
The worrying thing is that Trump could win again (all the rioting plays into his hands), and even if Biden wins, he won't be able to make it better.
All while China rubs its hands, HK off the front pages, and will all the economic hit from both coronavirus and sustained rioting / looting, they will be in prime position to buy up companies at rock bottom prices.
The majority of the G20 is about to isolate China and may even demand reparations from Beijing if it refuses to cooperate in an official inquiry.
If Trump is re elected that means a US tariff war with China
If it has really been like this for 3 weeks a good deal of encouragement can be taken from those figures.
The example of Belgium really is quite interesting - the death rate skyrocketed, peaked astonishingly high in mid April, dramatically worse than anywhere else (Peru perhaps?), but then fell away equally rapidly also.
IANA scientist but it does give some support to the super spreader thesis. Once those most likely to pass on the disease have gained immunity the virus struggles to spread. I just find it remarkable that how (not why as @Beibheirli_C points out) viruses seem to peter out has not been the subject of far more detailed investigation prior to now.
You require an epidemic/pandemic to give more than small number statistics, which are not THAT common, and you need the resources and will power of funding bodies.
There's a reason much of our knowledge comes from studies of commercially-important agriculture.
But we give hundreds of millions to the WHO. It might have been worth a look. How did SARS end, for example? That might have given us some clue. Most of our thinking has been influenced by studies in the 1930s after Spanish flu and the infamous "second wave" of Hong Kong flu in 1970. Are these the exceptions or the norm? I really wish we knew.
Almost all SARS cases were in China so we have to rely mostly on their studies of it.
When the rival superpower collapsed, exhausted, the United States took the wrong lessons from the fall of communism. American policymakers convinced themselves their global dominance was due to the success of their liberal ideology rather than of their industrial might, and that the sudden, unexpected disintegration of the Soviet Union was due to the vindication of liberalism rather than of the awakened nationalism of Russia’s subject peoples.
America’s rapid rise to global hegemony and equally rapid decline is a grand historical tragedy of the highest order, and as in classical tragedy, the root cause is the protagonist’s central character flaw.
And, a key point (the same conclusion reached by Krastev & Holmes):
Trump is a morbid symptom of this chaos, rather than its cause.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a symptom of a sick country and since then he has been instrumental in the deterioration of the patient. For a cure to even be contemplated the necessary first step is his removal from office. This is how I look at it.
The worrying thing is that Trump could win again (all the rioting plays into his hands), and even if Biden wins, he won't be able to make it better.
All while China rubs its hands, HK off the front pages, and will all the economic hit from both coronavirus and sustained rioting / looting, they will be in prime position to buy up companies at rock bottom prices.
The majority of the G20 is about to isolate China and may even demand reparations from Beijing if it refuses to cooperate in an official inquiry.
If Trump is re elected that means a US tariff war with China
There will be no “reparations” man c’mon get a grip.
The English are finally finding out what it's like to be governed by the English.
They don't look like Covidiots. Just idiots.
It’s a sign of the times that most people just stand around filming it rather than doing anything to help break it up.
To be fair, I have seen more than enough clips of people trying to do exactly that and then an even bigger fight breaks out, as in the chaos people decide that those trying to assist are part of it.
From the US, there is a clip from yesterday where a guy goes to help a woman who has been pushed off her bike and being robbed by a couple of people. Then it escalates as the mob decide he must have been assaulting the robbers, so 10s of them beat him up.
In another clip from the other day in the UK on a beach, a fight break out, some people try to calm it and one particular evil thug uses the fact people are distracted to sucker punch 2 or 3 of those who didn't even start it.
I’ve broken up a fight before just by being calm and even handed such that both protagonists were embarrassed to continue.
Of course that’s far riskier in a riot/mob situation.
At my Trust 3000 staff have had antibody testing since it was announced on Friday. They have suspended it for the remaining staff so that they can catch up in the Lab.
Thanks - do you know if the plan is to test all of the NHS first, or just a (national) sub-sample ? Kinda curious about the policy route they'll take with antibody testing in the wider public.
I believe that front line staff first, then second echelon, then further afield.
If it has really been like this for 3 weeks a good deal of encouragement can be taken from those figures.
The example of Belgium really is quite interesting - the death rate skyrocketed, peaked astonishingly high in mid April, dramatically worse than anywhere else (Peru perhaps?), but then fell away equally rapidly also.
IANA scientist but it does give some support to the super spreader thesis. Once those most likely to pass on the disease have gained immunity the virus struggles to spread. I just find it remarkable that how (not why as @Beibheirli_C points out) viruses seem to peter out has not been the subject of far more detailed investigation prior to now.
Or, to put the point more credibly the other way around, it is quite possible (and imo likely) that more of the population have some sort of resistance than is currently being recognised.
Part of the trouble is that politicians are so happy when infection rates fall away - and content to take the credit for this having arisen from their ow decisions - that no-one much seems to be wanting to dig into why it is happening.
At some point the Conservatives are going to be out of power. I hope they can wrap up well for the cold.
They were out of power for 13 years from 1997 to 2010 but managed to survive
Actually, a large part of the problem is their residual paranoia from that time. All this rubbish about a deep state trying to thwart them comes from the belief that government was somehow rigged against them.
Some Tory posters on this site have similar issues, believing that they have to fight dirty because Blair somehow cheated by winning in 1997, rather than merely running on a popular centrist platform against an exhausted and demoralised government. Tories don't have a divine right to run this country, the peaceful transfer of power between competing political parties with a well informed electorate helped by a fair and independent media should be something that we all aspire to, instead of some kind of politics as total war mindset in which the truth is the first casualty.
One of my main bugbears is the gratuitous use of the term derangement syndrome.
Somebody such as Trump or Johnson does or says something that is objectively reprehensible - by which I mean most reasonable people would conclude this - and when one simply points this out back comes a response along the lines of "ah another case of XYZ derangement syndrome".
This is the exact equivalent of an abuser continuously claiming that the person they are abusing is mentally unstable and in the grip of delusion. It is gaslighting and as such is toxic to political discourse.
Hate it.
It is when people hysterical towards a politician regardless of logic or their own previous beliefs.
I've had someone going on and on for weeks about how Dominic Cummings was opposing the lockdown and wanting us all to catch the virus and wipe out the weak and elderly in his evil pursuit of herd immunity.
Now he's been caught going out he'd suddenly the architect of the lockdown, forcing us all to stay at home and all the herd immunity stuff is entirely forgotten.
They will always choose the explanation that makes them most angry about their chosen hate figure. It's deranged behaviour.
Comments
There are plenty of independent and Residents' Association councillors though
If you know of people going inside the houses of another household to stay over you should inform the police.
Any police officers breaking the law in this way should be sacked.
The virus spreads far more inside than outside
I'd guess we probably still don't have a very good idea how infectious COVID-19 is before people show symptoms. Given the difficulty of estimating even the overall R number at any time, the finer detail is hard to find out.
China? Yes, they probably benefit from American decline. It would be great if there was a "win win" here but when you're competing for global top dog, I guess there isn't.
Soon as Trump is gone I will be back to rooting more for USA than China in this battle.
It could also be that the lockdown worked in stamping down infections, but that the starting levels were stratospheric. I've seen daily infection estimates of 100k/day for the period just after lockdown (say 1/April). To get down to 8k/day by the 10th may, the middle of the ONS survey period, you need 6.25% daily decline - actually more than the subsequent death decline rates of 4.5%ish.
It's also possible that if you are efficient in dismissing frivolous complaints then this only provokes those complaints into making more to pursue a vendetta. If you drag your feet on investigating the initial complaint then perhaps such a person is more satisfied and less likely to generate additional work. This is not as good a reason as the first.
No president since Kennedy has. Republican or Democrat, white or black, doesn;t matter.
Despite all the sound and fury of the last 60 years, it seems little has changed.
That includes international comparisons.
If Trump is re elected that means a US tariff war with China
Part of the trouble is that politicians are so happy when infection rates fall away - and content to take the credit for this having arisen from their ow decisions - that no-one much seems to be wanting to dig into why it is happening.
I've had someone going on and on for weeks about how Dominic Cummings was opposing the lockdown and wanting us all to catch the virus and wipe out the weak and elderly in his evil pursuit of herd immunity.
Now he's been caught going out he'd suddenly the architect of the lockdown, forcing us all to stay at home and all the herd immunity stuff is entirely forgotten.
They will always choose the explanation that makes them most angry about their chosen hate figure. It's deranged behaviour.