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  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    eadric said:

    Think they might need an earlier curfew....

    https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1267621792333643778?s=19

    This will only stop when they start shooting the looters. Which they will
    Surprised they have not so far. Need to state anyone on street after curfew will be shot , stop pussyfooting about.
    We tried that in Basra. At one point we were shooting anyone with a beard (so males 10 and over, females 50 and over) who was on the street after the dusk call to prayer. To the great surprise of the self styled counter-insurgency experts of the British Army this did not calm the city.
    Indeed.

    Experience tells us that extrajudicial military execution of civilians never works out well. The Gàidhealtachd is still trying to recover from the horrific events 1746-48 at the hands of the king’s son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. Events which resulted in his Tory opponents naming him Butcher Cumberland.
    The wholesale sell-out of their leaders resulting in the Highland Clearances didn't help the recovery, either.
    Why did it not work out well? It silenced the Scots and stopped them invading England
    This’ll be the “best of both worlds” and being an “equal partner” within the Union promised by the Conservative/Labour/LibDem/UKIP/BNP axis in 2014.

    Lord grant that Marshal Wade
    May by thy mighty aid
    Victory bring.
    May he sedition hush,
    And like a torrent rush,
    Rebellious Scots to crush.
    God save the Queen!
    General Wade's network of roads and bridges may have been designed to 'bring victory' but actually it brought unprecedented trade and economic activity to the remotest parts of Scotland.

    It must be tricky arguing for Scottish separation from a historical angle, when the 19th century was Scotland's most prosperous and successful era, as the faded grandeur of hundreds of towns (in common with hundreds in England) shows.
    Vote BetterTogether2 for General Wade’s roads and faded town centres!

    You might want to come up with a more catchy slogan.
    IIRC one, if not the main, of the reasons the Romans built the roads they did was to ensure their Legions could move swiftly to crush rebellions.
    Of course. That’s why Labour constructed the M6 right through the heart of Glasgow city centre: to crush the plebs.
    M8!
    Doh! 😆

    Fun typo.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    But you could sell a story. And then say "its is difficult to understand" later. Or the other classic - "The man in the street doesn't understand these things..."

    What kind of a fascist would expect the press to report accurately?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The military is strongly Republican however, as long as Trump is President and Commander in Chief they will remain loyal to him.

    Don't forget it was absentee military ballots that won Bush Florida in 2000
    Gore won the popular vote across America in 2000.
    Which proves the point, the US military is more Republican than the average American voter
    That's a huge walk back from "strongly" Republican.
    They are strongly Republican, Trump has a near 60% unfavourable rating with US voters in some polls compared to just 49% with the US military.

    52% of the US military have an unfavourable view of the twice elected Obama
    So strongly Republican he has a net negative rating?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,837
    IanB2 said:

    I see yesterday's Newsnight reported that such is the level of discontent within Tory MPs about the quarantine plan that it is likely immediately to be significantly watered down and may be abandoned fairly quickly.

    Apparently we are now trying to do air bridges with european countries, but they are reluctant given our higher infection levels.

    Quarantining countries with very low levels of infection doesnt help us. It should have been on a country by country basis, but the govt didnt know how to tell the US that they were higher risk without offending the President and risking whatever random reprisal he dreams up.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,555
    edited June 2020
    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139
    edited June 2020
    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The military is strongly Republican however, as long as Trump is President and Commander in Chief they will remain loyal to him.

    Don't forget it was absentee military ballots that won Bush Florida in 2000
    Gore won the popular vote across America in 2000.
    Which proves the point, the US military is more Republican than the average American voter
    That's a huge walk back from "strongly" Republican.
    They are strongly Republican, Trump has a near 60% unfavourable rating with US voters in some polls compared to just 49% with the US military.

    52% of the US military have an unfavourable view of the twice elected Obama
    So strongly Republican he has a net negative rating?
    51% of the US military do not give Trump a negative rating.

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    edited June 2020

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    The thing is with the political journalists, whats the point of having your science correspondence etc & why aren't they giving them a quick text / call and saying can you just check this for me / explain it.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999
    edited June 2020

    Has there been a coherent, defensible explanation for this or is it just mumble, mumble, cos reasons?

    https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1267498210609844224?s=20

    Yes.

    Slide 6 of the presentation yesterday

    On 1 June the cumulative totals for deaths have been revised to include an additional 445 deaths in England. Please note the historical data for the daily totals before 1 June has not been updated. These additional deaths are from the period 24 April – 31 May. Figures still relate to those who have died, in any setting, having had a positive lab confirmed test.

    I, for one, look forwards to your coherent and reasonable reply.

    I tend to stick 'I look forward to' in the passive aggressive 'with respect' bullshit pile.

    And the reason they weren't mentioned by Hancock in his half hour yesterday?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    It's ironic to see those most outraged in the US at violence now are typically the biggest supporters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms . . . And the biggest proponents of suggesting that the right to bear arms is important to stand up to an oppressive government.

    They're not happy that it's their oppressive government that is on the receiving end of fire.

    If the right to bear arms isn't relevant for violence when the Police are killing unarmed people when is it meant to be relevant for?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    Yes and no.

    As you will be well aware, the main SNP focus is the Scottish general election next year, where our latest VI is 53%.

    So, SNP voting intention in Scotland is significantly higher than Con voting intention in England. Stands to reason.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    Take a random sample of journalists. Check what they did their degrees in. Bet you the number with an *Sc is very, very low.

    Take a random sample of PBers. Bet the other way...
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,620

    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    eadric said:

    Think they might need an earlier curfew....

    https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1267621792333643778?s=19

    This will only stop when they start shooting the looters. Which they will
    Surprised they have not so far. Need to state anyone on street after curfew will be shot , stop pussyfooting about.
    We tried that in Basra. At one point we were shooting anyone with a beard (so males 10 and over, females 50 and over) who was on the street after the dusk call to prayer. To the great surprise of the self styled counter-insurgency experts of the British Army this did not calm the city.
    Indeed.

    Experience tells us that extrajudicial military execution of civilians never works out well. The Gàidhealtachd is still trying to recover from the horrific events 1746-48 at the hands of the king’s son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. Events which resulted in his Tory opponents naming him Butcher Cumberland.
    The wholesale sell-out of their leaders resulting in the Highland Clearances didn't help the recovery, either.
    Why did it not work out well? It silenced the Scots and stopped them invading England
    This’ll be the “best of both worlds” and being an “equal partner” within the Union promised by the Conservative/Labour/LibDem/UKIP/BNP axis in 2014.

    Lord grant that Marshal Wade
    May by thy mighty aid
    Victory bring.
    May he sedition hush,
    And like a torrent rush,
    Rebellious Scots to crush.
    God save the Queen!
    General Wade's network of roads and bridges may have been designed to 'bring victory' but actually it brought unprecedented trade and economic activity to the remotest parts of Scotland.

    It must be tricky arguing for Scottish separation from a historical angle, when the 19th century was Scotland's most prosperous and successful era, as the faded grandeur of hundreds of towns (in common with hundreds in England) shows.
    It must be tricky arguing for the Union from a historical angle, when the 19th century was the Scotland's most prosperous and successful era.

    'I know it's a bit crap in the 21st century, but just look at the 19th!'
    I'm not sure Stuart's nostalgia for potato patches in the west Highlands and being ordered about by a clan leader is the best imagery of an independent Scotland.

    :wink:
    So, for you the word Gàidhealtachd conjures up potato patches and people being ordered about.

    That says more about you and your cause than it does about me and my cause.
    I don't have a cause but I do have a sense of amusement at your bewailing the end of the old days.

    Always easier to do from the safety of three centuries and a different country.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The lack of understanding of basic mathematics is scary.

    Many people seem to think that an R of 0.8 with 5000 currently infected means more new infections than an R of 0.7 with 30,000 currently infected.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207
    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    Well, in theory there is.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421

    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    eadric said:

    Think they might need an earlier curfew....

    https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1267621792333643778?s=19

    This will only stop when they start shooting the looters. Which they will
    Surprised they have not so far. Need to state anyone on street after curfew will be shot , stop pussyfooting about.
    We tried that in Basra. At one point we were shooting anyone with a beard (so males 10 and over, females 50 and over) who was on the street after the dusk call to prayer. To the great surprise of the self styled counter-insurgency experts of the British Army this did not calm the city.
    Indeed.

    Experience tells us that extrajudicial military execution of civilians never works out well. The Gàidhealtachd is still trying to recover from the horrific events 1746-48 at the hands of the king’s son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. Events which resulted in his Tory opponents naming him Butcher Cumberland.
    The wholesale sell-out of their leaders resulting in the Highland Clearances didn't help the recovery, either.
    Oh, absolutely. This was the great irony, that the Tory and Episcopalian nobles who had so disastrously fermented and encouraged the risings, then crushed the remaining Gaels under foot in their greedy dash for quick cash. The word “Tory” has been dirt in Scotland ever since, and led to the Liberals, then Labour, dominating the country.
    The name of the Tories was so muddy that they won outright majorities in Scotland in the following elections:

    1900
    1924
    1931
    1935
    1955

    And were the largest party in 1918 and 1951 (the latter case, jointly with Labour with the Liberal in Orkney making up the balance).

    That hardly equates to 'the Liberals and then Labour dominating the country.' Labour have been dominant since the early 1960s, but not earlier.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,005
    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    I'm actually (as part of my straw-clutching) viewing this as something that may, in the long run, be looked back upon as the luckiest break we've ever had.

    Because after this, we damn well will prepare for Disease X. Could have happened as you describe, and eventually will happen that way, but we'll actually end up taking preparation for it seriously.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Has there been a coherent, defensible explanation for this or is it just mumble, mumble, cos reasons?

    https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1267498210609844224?s=20

    Yes.

    Slide 6 of the presentation yesterday

    On 1 June the cumulative totals for deaths have been revised to include an additional 445 deaths in England. Please note the historical data for the daily totals before 1 June has not been updated. These additional deaths are from the period 24 April – 31 May. Figures still relate to those who have died, in any setting, having had a positive lab confirmed test.

    I, for one, look forwards to your coherent and reasonable reply.

    I tend to stick 'I look forward to' in the passive aggressive 'with respect' bullshit pile.

    And the reason they weren't mentioned by Hancock in his half hour yesterday?
    They were, in the slides.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,434
    edited June 2020

    It's ironic to see those most outraged in the US at violence now are typically the biggest supporters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms . . . And the biggest proponents of suggesting that the right to bear arms is important to stand up to an oppressive government.

    They're not happy that it's their oppressive government that is on the receiving end of fire.

    If the right to bear arms isn't relevant for violence when the Police are killing unarmed people when is it meant to be relevant for?

    It's interesting that Trump namechecked protecting people's Second Amendment rights in the same category as protecting lives and property. He certainly knows his supporters.

    This is the quote:

    “I am your president of law and order,” Trump said. “I am mobilising all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your second amendment rights.”

    From https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/trump-george-floyd-protests-military-deploy
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,914

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The number of cases would increase of course, assuming that someone who had the disease and has recovered or is recovering is still classed as a case.
    So if R was 0.9 there would still be new cases every week.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,908

    So, would anyone say that Trump has, indeed, Made America Great Again?
    Off the top of my head I can't think of anything Trump has done that has made America better, and in most areas things are significantly worse.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The number of cases would increase of course, assuming that someone who had the disease and has recovered or is recovering is still classed as a case.
    So if R was 0.9 there would still be new cases every week.
    It wouldn't be an increase in active cases since people would be recovering faster than new cases developed.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    Yes and no.

    As you will be well aware, the main SNP focus is the Scottish general election next year, where our latest VI is 53%.

    So, SNP voting intention in Scotland is significantly higher than Con voting intention in England. Stands to reason.
    SNP voting intention just 47% in Scotland last weekend with Opinium
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,837

    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    I'm actually (as part of my straw-clutching) viewing this as something that may, in the long run, be looked back upon as the luckiest break we've ever had.

    Because after this, we damn well will prepare for Disease X. Could have happened as you describe, and eventually will happen that way, but we'll actually end up taking preparation for it seriously.
    For the next decade or two yes, within 50 years, maybe sooner, politicians will see expenditure on these pandemic prevention measures as ripe for cost cutting.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    glw said:

    So, would anyone say that Trump has, indeed, Made America Great Again?
    Off the top of my head I can't think of anything Trump has done that has made America better, and in most areas things are significantly worse.
    He gave it a great slogan, one that allowed serious problems to be ignored and even expatiated
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited June 2020

    It's ironic to see those most outraged in the US at violence now are typically the biggest supporters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms . . . And the biggest proponents of suggesting that the right to bear arms is important to stand up to an oppressive government.

    They're not happy that it's their oppressive government that is on the receiving end of fire.

    If the right to bear arms isn't relevant for violence when the Police are killing unarmed people when is it meant to be relevant for?

    Well, that's a bit of a shit take given I know plenty of outraged left-leaning city-dwellers who are pretty terrified of the violence. Also not sure how burning and looting people's homes and business is "standing up to an oppressive government". Finally, PDs are not part of the federal government.


    But apart from all that, sure, spot on.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    It's ironic to see those most outraged in the US at violence now are typically the biggest supporters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms . . . And the biggest proponents of suggesting that the right to bear arms is important to stand up to an oppressive government.

    They're not happy that it's their oppressive government that is on the receiving end of fire.

    If the right to bear arms isn't relevant for violence when the Police are killing unarmed people when is it meant to be relevant for?

    It's interesting that Trump namechecked protecting people's Second Amendment rights in the same category as protecting lives and property. He certainly knows his supporters.

    This is the quote:

    “I am your president of law and order,” Trump said. “I am mobilising all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your second amendment rights.”

    From https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/trump-george-floyd-protests-military-deploy
    He doesn't want BLM exercising their second amendment rights though.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,224
    Some context...

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/george-floyd-minneapolis-police-killings-protests-clark-castile-blm.html
    ...So Minnesota, until just three years ago, had never had a police officer charged for killing someone while on duty. The first time that officer was charged, it was Jeronimo Yanez, who shot and killed Castile. That was after a lot of pressure from activists and people in the community to file charges. Then Yanez was acquitted on all counts.

    In July 2017, an Australian woman who lived in Minneapolis, Justine Damond, thought she heard noises, went out to the alley, and called the police. An officer named Mohamed Noor shot and killed her in her alley. He was charged and found guilty of third-degree murder and manslaughter. That was the first time an officer was ever found guilty for killing someone in Minnesota. And Derek Chauvin’s case is actually the first time a white police officer has been charged for killing anyone in Minnesota...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139
    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order

  • glwglw Posts: 9,908
    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    ++

    As I've said a few times now, current events are not the doomsday scenario, but they are a warning. I hope that we heed it.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    I'm actually (as part of my straw-clutching) viewing this as something that may, in the long run, be looked back upon as the luckiest break we've ever had.

    Because after this, we damn well will prepare for Disease X. Could have happened as you describe, and eventually will happen that way, but we'll actually end up taking preparation for it seriously.
    I think part of it is the incessant desire to signal that "the greatest threat is climate change/terrorism" (delete accordingly) rather than tackle the mundane like viruses.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766

    It's ironic to see those most outraged in the US at violence now are typically the biggest supporters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms . . . And the biggest proponents of suggesting that the right to bear arms is important to stand up to an oppressive government.

    They're not happy that it's their oppressive government that is on the receiving end of fire.

    If the right to bear arms isn't relevant for violence when the Police are killing unarmed people when is it meant to be relevant for?

    It's interesting that Trump namechecked protecting people's Second Amendment rights in the same category as protecting lives and property. He certainly knows his supporters.

    This is the quote:

    “I am your president of law and order,” Trump said. “I am mobilising all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your second amendment rights.”

    From https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/trump-george-floyd-protests-military-deploy
    He doesn't want BLM exercising their second amendment rights though.
    “I am your president of law and order,”

    And there we have it, the election slogan. It was going to be 'fuck China', but that has been relegated to second line slogan.

  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,837
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order

    Not enough to be willing to change their racist policies in order to achieve it.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,914
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order

    ... and justice?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    Yes and no.

    As you will be well aware, the main SNP focus is the Scottish general election next year, where our latest VI is 53%.

    So, SNP voting intention in Scotland is significantly higher than Con voting intention in England. Stands to reason.
    SNP voting intention just 47% in Scotland last weekend with Opinium
    You really are a parody.
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    So we are no longer disowning the people causing violence as agent provocateurs?

  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    tlg86 said:

    The ONS appear to have removed the v 5-year average analysis from their weekly release, which is frustrating because that was really interesting.

    There is this graph:

    https://twitter.com/DevanSinha/status/1267741059515322368/photo/1
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,288
    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    Closer to home, MERS with its 30+% fatality rate, should have been warning enough not to just think about flu. And that applies globally. You don't need to go at all exotic to posit a Domesday scenario here. Indeed the exotic tropical diseases are probably poor candidates for a global pandemic - Ebola needs physical contact to spread, AIDS moreso, many diseases are controllable by basic hygiene
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,914

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The number of cases would increase of course, assuming that someone who had the disease and has recovered or is recovering is still classed as a case.
    So if R was 0.9 there would still be new cases every week.
    It wouldn't be an increase in active cases since people would be recovering faster than new cases developed.
    .. or dying, that would do it too.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,288
    Pro_Rata said:

    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    Closer to home, MERS with its 30+% fatality rate, should have been warning enough not to just think about flu. And that applies globally. You don't need to go at all exotic to posit a Domesday scenario here. Indeed the exotic tropical diseases are probably poor candidates for a global pandemic - Ebola needs physical contact to spread, AIDS moreso, many diseases are controllable by very basic hygiene. A cough and a sneeze, you can slow, but airborne transmission is the really tricky one.

  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    Excellent substantive header. Thanks @Cyclefree .
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited June 2020
    Cyclefree said:

    How the enquiry will turn out depends on the terms of reference.. just go back to the Iraq enquiry.....

    Apologies for forgetting the other PHE authorities.

    Whatever slack one can cut the government
    "the" government?

    There are four, just as there are four health authorities.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited June 2020

    It's ironic to see those most outraged in the US at violence now are typically the biggest supporters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms . . . And the biggest proponents of suggesting that the right to bear arms is important to stand up to an oppressive government.

    They're not happy that it's their oppressive government that is on the receiving end of fire.

    If the right to bear arms isn't relevant for violence when the Police are killing unarmed people when is it meant to be relevant for?

    Well, that's a bit of a shit take given I know plenty of outraged left-leaning city-dwellers who are pretty terrified of the violence. Also not sure how burning and looting people's homes and business is "standing up to an oppressive government". Finally, PDs are not part of the federal government.


    But apart from all that, sure, spot on.
    I'm not justifying the violence just pointing out the irony that the gun-toting people who do advocate violence as a solution and were happy to see armed individuals storm a states Congress last month are in uproar if the "wrong type of people" are armed.

    People who turned a blind eye to the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery and the murder of George Floyd are horrified when others turn to violence and carry weapons.

    There's no excuse for violence but then there's no excuse for murdering unarmed civilians either.

    All those who commit violent atrocities should be prosecuted which should include charging the three other Police Officers involved with Floyd's death with being accessories to murder.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999

    Has there been a coherent, defensible explanation for this or is it just mumble, mumble, cos reasons?

    https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1267498210609844224?s=20

    Yes.

    Slide 6 of the presentation yesterday

    On 1 June the cumulative totals for deaths have been revised to include an additional 445 deaths in England. Please note the historical data for the daily totals before 1 June has not been updated. These additional deaths are from the period 24 April – 31 May. Figures still relate to those who have died, in any setting, having had a positive lab confirmed test.

    I, for one, look forwards to your coherent and reasonable reply.

    I tend to stick 'I look forward to' in the passive aggressive 'with respect' bullshit pile.

    And the reason they weren't mentioned by Hancock in his half hour yesterday?
    They were, in the slides.
    I didn't watch it. How did Hancock highlight this revision?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,224
    edited June 2020
    Very interesting paper...

    SARS-CoV-2 Reverse Genetics Reveals a Variable Infection Gradient in the Respiratory Tract
    https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30675-9.pdf

    Summary
    The mode of acquisition and causes for the variable clinical spectrum of COVID- 19 remain unknown. We utilized a reverse genetics system to generate a GFP reporter virus to explore SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and a luciferase reporter virus to demonstrate sera collected from SARS and COVID-19 patients exhibited limited cross- CoV neutralization. High-sensitivity RNA in situ mapping revealed the highest ACE2 expression in the nose with decreasing expression throughout the lower respiratory tract, paralleled by a striking gradient of SARS-CoV-2 infection in proximal (high) vs distal (low) pulmonary epithelial cultures. COVID-19 autopsied lung studies identified focal disease and, congruent with culture data, SARS-CoV-2-infected ciliated and type 2 pneumocyte cells in airway and alveolar regions, respectively. These findings highlight the nasal susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 with likely subsequent aspiration-mediated virus seeding to the lung in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. These reagents provide a foundation for investigations into virus-host interactions in protective immunity, host susceptibility, and virus pathogenesis...



    And from the conclusions...
    ...While speculative, if the nasal cavity is the initial site mediating seeding of the lung via aspiration, these studies argue for the widespread use of masks to prevent aerosol, large droplet, and/or mechanical exposure to the nasal passages. Complementary therapeutic strategies that reduce viral titer in the nose early in the disease, e.g., nasal lavages, topical antivirals, or immune modulation, may be beneficial.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,878

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    So we are no longer disowning the people causing violence as agent provocateurs?

    Do you think Officer Chauvin is an agent provocateur?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    So we are no longer disowning the people causing violence as agent provocateurs?

    You mean the Police?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    @Theuniondivvie - I'm not usually bothered by what people choose as avatars - but don't you think a picture of an alleged murder might be more than a little insensitive?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Has there been a coherent, defensible explanation for this or is it just mumble, mumble, cos reasons?

    https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1267498210609844224?s=20

    Yes.

    Slide 6 of the presentation yesterday

    On 1 June the cumulative totals for deaths have been revised to include an additional 445 deaths in England. Please note the historical data for the daily totals before 1 June has not been updated. These additional deaths are from the period 24 April – 31 May. Figures still relate to those who have died, in any setting, having had a positive lab confirmed test.

    I, for one, look forwards to your coherent and reasonable reply.

    I tend to stick 'I look forward to' in the passive aggressive 'with respect' bullshit pile.

    And the reason they weren't mentioned by Hancock in his half hour yesterday?
    They were, in the slides.
    I didn't watch it. How did Hancock highlight this revision?
    I didn't watch it either but the politician doesn't normally present the slides so I doubt he did.

    Plus journalists ought to be able to read the slides.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order

    ... and justice?
    The police officer in the George Floyd case has been arrested and charged with murder
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,005

    tlg86 said:

    The ONS appear to have removed the v 5-year average analysis from their weekly release, which is frustrating because that was really interesting.

    There is this graph:

    https://twitter.com/DevanSinha/status/1267741059515322368/photo/1
    I do have a concern with the constant focus on the number of deaths rather than the number of hospitalisations.
    It's totally understandable, because the deaths are irreversible, tragic, and signify the loss of many years of life for all those sadly lost (and the media instinctively go for the most tragic stories) - but the focus has led to some in the younger demographics concluding that because their demographics aren't showing up as much in the death statistics, they must therefore be all-but-immune.

    Rather than being far more likely to eventually recover, which is the main driver of the differential death rates. They're a little less likely to need hospitalisation (whereas they seem to assume that they automatically would get a mild enough case for it to be like a "normal" flu), still reasonably likely to need ICU, but overall far more likely to not actually die - as long as they receive that help. Which they wouldn't if the virus was allowed to let rip in any demographic.

    (And then they automatically gloss over the issue of them infecting the more vulnerable demographics, anyway)
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The number of cases would increase of course, assuming that someone who had the disease and has recovered or is recovering is still classed as a case.
    So if R was 0.9 there would still be new cases every week.
    It wouldn't be an increase in active cases since people would be recovering faster than new cases developed.
    .. or dying, that would do it too.
    Yes but if people are dying faster than new cases develop then something has either gone very badly wrong or very suddenly and surprisingly right.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,929
    eek said:

    glw said:

    So, would anyone say that Trump has, indeed, Made America Great Again?
    Off the top of my head I can't think of anything Trump has done that has made America better, and in most areas things are significantly worse.
    He gave it a great slogan, one that allowed serious problems to be ignored and even expatiated
    Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist whose analysis of Trump was often quoted here by Plato, answered the charge that Trump offered only slogans by saying that 70 per cent of the President's job *is* presentation.

    You can argue that 70 per cent might be too high or low but there is an element of truth there. Coming back to this thread and this side of the Atlantic, this is (partly) why Boris won last year, and why Nicola Sturgeon is now rated above him despite barely a fag paper between actual Covid-19 policies, and why Dominic Cummings' rubbing voters' noses in his Castle Barnard stunts is so toxic.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,555

    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    I'm actually (as part of my straw-clutching) viewing this as something that may, in the long run, be looked back upon as the luckiest break we've ever had.

    Because after this, we damn well will prepare for Disease X. Could have happened as you describe, and eventually will happen that way, but we'll actually end up taking preparation for it seriously.
    I think part of it is the incessant desire to signal that "the greatest threat is climate change/terrorism" (delete accordingly) rather than tackle the mundane like viruses.
    The whole point of having a top quality, non politicised civil service/public administration is that it is boring and competent, and acts on issues according to facts, evidence, risk and the public good.

    Climate change has special features in that by definition no small state can resolve it, it relies 100% on global cooperation. China and India in a month can undo 10 years of decarbonisation somewhere else. Small states must of course do what they can, but as a state must prepare for the consequences of climate change.

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order
    They do. But they also want a society that is not forever on the edge of the opposite. People thinking this plays good for Trump are wrong. It's yet another crisis exposing his inadequacies. He is slip sliding away in the POTUS market and I expect this to continue. I predict that come the autumn you will be able to back him for re-election at 3 point something in Betfair parlance. Maybe even 4. At which price he will be a lay.

    On PT people were wondering what you call a Flat White in America. Well I can tell you the answer to this. The answer is Donald Trump and his neanderthal "base" on 4th November.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    eadric said:

    Think they might need an earlier curfew....

    https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1267621792333643778?s=19

    This will only stop when they start shooting the looters. Which they will
    Surprised they have not so far. Need to state anyone on street after curfew will be shot , stop pussyfooting about.
    We tried that in Basra. At one point we were shooting anyone with a beard (so males 10 and over, females 50 and over) who was on the street after the dusk call to prayer. To the great surprise of the self styled counter-insurgency experts of the British Army this did not calm the city.
    Indeed.

    Experience tells us that extrajudicial military execution of civilians never works out well. The Gàidhealtachd is still trying to recover from the horrific events 1746-48 at the hands of the king’s son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. Events which resulted in his Tory opponents naming him Butcher Cumberland.
    The wholesale sell-out of their leaders resulting in the Highland Clearances didn't help the recovery, either.
    Why did it not work out well? It silenced the Scots and stopped them invading England
    This’ll be the “best of both worlds” and being an “equal partner” within the Union promised by the Conservative/Labour/LibDem/UKIP/BNP axis in 2014.

    Lord grant that Marshal Wade
    May by thy mighty aid
    Victory bring.
    May he sedition hush,
    And like a torrent rush,
    Rebellious Scots to crush.
    God save the Queen!
    General Wade's network of roads and bridges may have been designed to 'bring victory' but actually it brought unprecedented trade and economic activity to the remotest parts of Scotland.

    It must be tricky arguing for Scottish separation from a historical angle, when the 19th century was Scotland's most prosperous and successful era, as the faded grandeur of hundreds of towns (in common with hundreds in England) shows.
    It must be tricky arguing for the Union from a historical angle, when the 19th century was the Scotland's most prosperous and successful era.

    'I know it's a bit crap in the 21st century, but just look at the 19th!'
    I'm not sure Stuart's nostalgia for potato patches in the west Highlands and being ordered about by a clan leader is the best imagery of an independent Scotland.

    :wink:
    So, for you the word Gàidhealtachd conjures up potato patches and people being ordered about.

    That says more about you and your cause than it does about me and my cause.
    I don't have a cause but I do have a sense of amusement at your bewailing the end of the old days.
    The Gàidhealtachd is not an historic concept.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order

    ... and justice?
    The police officer in the George Floyd case has been arrested and charged with murder
    Belatedly. The three accessories to murder who watched him do it haven't been charged.

    If this was gang violence all 4 would quite rightly be charged with Felony Murder. Why shouldn't the three accomplices be charged?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    eek said:

    glw said:

    So, would anyone say that Trump has, indeed, Made America Great Again?
    Off the top of my head I can't think of anything Trump has done that has made America better, and in most areas things are significantly worse.
    He gave it a great slogan, one that allowed serious problems to be ignored and even expatiated
    Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist whose analysis of Trump was often quoted here by Plato, answered the charge that Trump offered only slogans by saying that 70 per cent of the President's job *is* presentation.

    You can argue that 70 per cent might be too high or low but there is an element of truth there. Coming back to this thread and this side of the Atlantic, this is (partly) why Boris won last year, and why Nicola Sturgeon is now rated above him despite barely a fag paper between actual Covid-19 policies, and why Dominic Cummings' rubbing voters' noses in his Castle Barnard stunts is so toxic.
    Indeed. See my post above where I rated it 90/10, but 70/30 might be right too.
  • MangoMango Posts: 1,019
    Pulpstar said:



    Yep the military will follow the commander in chief whether that's Trump, Obama, Bush, Biden or Clinton.

    "Only obeying orders..."
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,224
    A laudably civilised response to having your business looted and burned.

    Central Camera Company Rebuild
    https://www.gofundme.com/f/central-camera-company-rebuild
    ...On the night of May 30th into early morning May 31st, Central Camera Company, Chicago's oldest camera store, was destroyed and burned. We are still surveying the area to see if we can recover any assets, but at this time it looks like 100% destruction.

    All funds raised on this page will go towards the restoration and reopening of our 121-year-old iconic camera store. We thank you all for your donations and kind messages. As our owner, Don said, “we’re going to rebuild it and make it just as good or better.”

    Although this is a tough time for the store, it doesn’t compare to the loss of George Floyd’s life and the countless other Black lives lost. We stand with the African American community in solidarity....

  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999

    @Theuniondivvie - I'm not usually bothered by what people choose as avatars - but don't you think a picture of an alleged murder might be more than a little insensitive?

    Unless you click on it, it's only a picture of a gormless looking cop. I won't be keeping it permanently but I think people should see the inarguable truth of what happened, in fact the 'pre-existing condition, we shouldn't call it murder yet' merchants should have their noses rubbed in it. Sensitivity can take a wee hike for a couple of weeks.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    It seems to me that anyone who was familiar with the Risk Register for the local duck pond preservation trust would think that for a state with the resources and brains of the UK, right at the top of their Risk Register in bright red would be a previously unknown infection which killed lots of people and didn't act exactly like any previously known one. It would be right at the top of this list in terms of both likelihood that one day it will occur AND potential devastating consequences.

    The government has been incredibly lucky. If we have this much unpreparedness for Covid 19, how would we be getting on if this new disease happened to kill healthy children and young people in large numbers, be highly infectious, be completely untreatable, have universal symptoms like ebola and nearly always fatal? It is not as if we had not been warned. And suppose Labour had won the election in 2019, would they have been any better prepared? And if so, how?

    And if AIDS and ebola were not enough warning, what would be?

    I'm actually (as part of my straw-clutching) viewing this as something that may, in the long run, be looked back upon as the luckiest break we've ever had.

    Because after this, we damn well will prepare for Disease X. Could have happened as you describe, and eventually will happen that way, but we'll actually end up taking preparation for it seriously.
    I think part of it is the incessant desire to signal that "the greatest threat is climate change/terrorism" (delete accordingly) rather than tackle the mundane like viruses.
    The whole point of having a top quality, non politicised civil service/public administration is that it is boring and competent, and acts on issues according to facts, evidence, risk and the public good.

    Climate change has special features in that by definition no small state can resolve it, it relies 100% on global cooperation. China and India in a month can undo 10 years of decarbonisation somewhere else. Small states must of course do what they can, but as a state must prepare for the consequences of climate change.

    That is far too sensible to be swallowed here.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The number of cases would increase of course, assuming that someone who had the disease and has recovered or is recovering is still classed as a case.
    So if R was 0.9 there would still be new cases every week.
    Actually there would be a net decrease in cases. Deaths + recoveries > new cases. That's at anything below 1.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    On the latest data...

    He also said there were considerable regional variations with the north east currently seeing the highest rates of excess deaths
  • Rexel56Rexel56 Posts: 807

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The lack of understanding of basic mathematics is scary.

    Many people seem to think that an R of 0.8 with 5000 currently infected means more new infections than an R of 0.7 with 30,000 currently infected.
    Well, it isn’t helped by the loose language of Ministers.... last night Hancock declared that keeping R below 1 is one of the five tests... it isn’t... test three requires: Reliable data from SAGE showing that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board. Was this him talking without thinking or an attempt to rewrite the five tests? Whichever, it’s not surprising that people get confused between the rate of infections, the R, the caseload etc.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    Yes and no.

    As you will be well aware, the main SNP focus is the Scottish general election next year, where our latest VI is 53%.

    So, SNP voting intention in Scotland is significantly higher than Con voting intention in England. Stands to reason.
    SNP voting intention just 47% in Scotland last weekend with Opinium
    So, Westminster 2024 VI sub-sample out-trumps Holyrood 2021 VI full-sample.

    Keep taking the tablets HY. The only person you are fooling is yourself.

    (And incidentally, 47% is still bigger than 43%.)
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862
    At current rates by 2024 the government will have abolished death and will no doubt be re-elected by acclamation.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    @Cyclefree

    Great stuff. Anyone would think you worked in the field.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999
    I see as in Glasgow, there are big fans of File Transfer Protocol in Washington.

    https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1267645860520898566?s=20
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    GB adults: - ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    England 14%
    Scotland 44%

    They have both handled it the same 25%
    Don’t know 17%

    (YouGov surveyed 2883 GB adults
    Conducted May 29, 2020)

    ... and the Scottish respondents were even clearer:

    England 7%
    Scotland 68%

    They have both handled it the same 17%
    Don’t know 8%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    All the media's fault apparently: on the one hand asking our wonderful HMG stupid questions which makes them look bad, on the other hand giving wee Jimmy Krankie Mcnippyface an easy ride.

    Two electorates brainwashed in entirely different directions.
    To be honest I don't understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    She hasn't done anything substantially different policy wise. She's just presented it better.
    I understand why Nicola is getting such great ratings compared to Boris.

    Politics is, unfortunately, 90% trappings and 10% substance.

    So, even if the substantive differences are small (but arguably important), they are vastly outweighed by the zeitgeist.

    BoZo is a diminished, untrustworthy and confused dud.
    Sturgeon is a reasonable, pleasant and competent leader.

    In the harsh world of politics, that is enough.
    The Tories were on 45% across the UK and the SNP 47% in Scotland last weekend, little difference
    That was prior to the YouGov fieldwork. Even English people think Scotland handled Covid19 better.

    ”Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?“

    Respondents saying “England”:

    London 13%
    Rest of South 16%
    Midlands 16%
    North 14%

    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/29/9742c/2

    Not very impressive, is it?
    So what, your point was about Boris and Tory popularity compared to Sturgeon and SNP popularity.

    As I said Tory UK voteshare little different to SNP Scottish voteshare
    Yes and no.

    As you will be well aware, the main SNP focus is the Scottish general election next year, where our latest VI is 53%.

    So, SNP voting intention in Scotland is significantly higher than Con voting intention in England. Stands to reason.
    SNP voting intention just 47% in Scotland last weekend with Opinium
    So, Westminster 2024 VI sub-sample out-trumps Holyrood 2021 VI full-sample.

    Keep taking the tablets HY. The only person you are fooling is yourself.

    (And incidentally, 47% is still bigger than 43%.)
    SCon and SLab on 50% with Opinium combined which is certainly bigger than 47% and Holyrood has PR unlike Westminster
  • brokenwheelbrokenwheel Posts: 3,352
    edited June 2020

    I'm not justifying the violence just pointing out the irony that the gun-toting people who do advocate violence as a solution and were happy to see armed individuals storm a states Congress last month are in uproar if the "wrong type of people" are armed.

    Are they in uproar about the wrong type of people being armed? From what I see they're mostly advocating people getting guns to protect their homes and taking the piss out of Antifa kids who don't know how to use guns.

    People who turned a blind eye to the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery and the murder of George Floyd are horrified when others turn to violence and carry weapons.

    There's no excuse for violence but then there's no excuse for murdering unarmed civilians either.

    All those who commit violent atrocities should be prosecuted which should include charging the three other Police Officers involved with Floyd's death with being accessories to murder.

    Who is saying they shouldn't? Literally no one. Also who is turning a blind eye to the murder of George Floyd? Are you just making stuff up?

    That isn't what this is about. People aren't looting Nike and Louis Vuitton or setting fire to homes over George Floyd.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Rexel56 said:

    Mr. Malmesbury, cheers for that info.

    Consistently troubling the mainstream journalists have a weaker grasp of science, maths, and politics than PBers...

    or the basics of finding where the information is.

    Better to rush to twitter and pretend there's a scandal.

    Genuinely sick of most of them, and the mouth breathers that incoherently and indefensibly retweet every single brain fart.
    There was a clown on the radio asking what would happen if the "R ratio didn't keep on falling". When told that R isn't a ratio and that if it remained below 1, but static the number of cases would fall..

    He responded with - "that would mean an increase in cases". Yes, literally that.
    The lack of understanding of basic mathematics is scary.

    Many people seem to think that an R of 0.8 with 5000 currently infected means more new infections than an R of 0.7 with 30,000 currently infected.
    Well, it isn’t helped by the loose language of Ministers.... last night Hancock declared that keeping R below 1 is one of the five tests... it isn’t... test three requires: Reliable data from SAGE showing that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board. Was this him talking without thinking or an attempt to rewrite the five tests? Whichever, it’s not surprising that people get confused between the rate of infections, the R, the caseload etc.
    R below one is the rate of infection decreasing.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139
    edited June 2020
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order
    They do. But they also want a society that is not forever on the edge of the opposite. People thinking this plays good for Trump are wrong. It's yet another crisis exposing his inadequacies. He is slip sliding away in the POTUS market and I expect this to continue. I predict that come the autumn you will be able to back him for re-election at 3 point something in Betfair parlance. Maybe even 4. At which price he will be a lay.

    On PT people were wondering what you call a Flat White in America. Well I can tell you the answer to this. The answer is Donald Trump and his neanderthal "base" on 4th November.
    Latest US poll Biden 50% Trump 45%, latest Michigan poll Biden 50% Trump 44%. I still think it will be very close

    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1267699277482135552?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1267569875955916803?s=20
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    That seems like a good thing to me. We want to move on from partisan hatred in Ireland.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139
    Well Sinn Fein hate Varadkar and Varadkar has ruled out a border poll for a generation, so no surprise there
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,837
    Scott_xP said:
    The key stat I want to know on testing is not how many but how fast. What percentage are within 24 and 48 hours from when requested. The rest shouldnt count as successful tests.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    ydoethur said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    eadric said:

    Think they might need an earlier curfew....

    https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1267621792333643778?s=19

    This will only stop when they start shooting the looters. Which they will
    Surprised they have not so far. Need to state anyone on street after curfew will be shot , stop pussyfooting about.
    We tried that in Basra. At one point we were shooting anyone with a beard (so males 10 and over, females 50 and over) who was on the street after the dusk call to prayer. To the great surprise of the self styled counter-insurgency experts of the British Army this did not calm the city.
    Indeed.

    Experience tells us that extrajudicial military execution of civilians never works out well. The Gàidhealtachd is still trying to recover from the horrific events 1746-48 at the hands of the king’s son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. Events which resulted in his Tory opponents naming him Butcher Cumberland.
    The wholesale sell-out of their leaders resulting in the Highland Clearances didn't help the recovery, either.
    Oh, absolutely. This was the great irony, that the Tory and Episcopalian nobles who had so disastrously fermented and encouraged the risings, then crushed the remaining Gaels under foot in their greedy dash for quick cash. The word “Tory” has been dirt in Scotland ever since, and led to the Liberals, then Labour, dominating the country.
    The name of the Tories was so muddy that they won outright majorities in Scotland in the following elections:

    1900
    1924
    1931
    1935
    1955

    And were the largest party in 1918 and 1951 (the latter case, jointly with Labour with the Liberal in Orkney making up the balance).

    That hardly equates to 'the Liberals and then Labour dominating the country.' Labour have been dominant since the early 1960s, but not earlier.
    I also missed out the SNP. I was not intending on creating a comprehensive political history of the country for the past quarter of a millennium.

    Incidentally, those Scottish “Tory” factoids you listed do not stand up to scrutiny. In order to achieve that you have to add in an astonishing concoction of Unionists, independents, liberals and a patchwork of other MPs, none of whom had the word “Tory” or “Conservative” on the ballot paper!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    No matter how tooled up you make the police policing only works by consent. There is far more public than there are police.

    If the public want to seriously get violent there is nothing the police can do.

    If say 80% to 90% of the population want a revolution maybe.

    However when at least 40%+ of US voters still support Trump and a majority of US voters oppose looting and rioting that is a totally different matter.

    US voters want law and order
    They do. But they also want a society that is not forever on the edge of the opposite. People thinking this plays good for Trump are wrong. It's yet another crisis exposing his inadequacies. He is slip sliding away in the POTUS market and I expect this to continue. I predict that come the autumn you will be able to back him for re-election at 3 point something in Betfair parlance. Maybe even 4. At which price he will be a lay.

    On PT people were wondering what you call a Flat White in America. Well I can tell you the answer to this. The answer is Donald Trump and his neanderthal "base" on 4th November.
    Latest US poll Biden 50% Trump 45%, latest Michigan poll Biden 50% Trump 44%. I still think it will be very close

    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1267699277482135552?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1267569875955916803?s=20
    You and your polls.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999

    That seems like a good thing to me. We want to move on from partisan hatred in Ireland.
    It's great news.

    Maybe not so much for the Minister for the Union, whose name escapes me for the moment.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    -95 for Boris Johnson among nationalists? That must be approaching some kind of record.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370
    Is it possible that with the reduced hospital emergency levels, more patients are coming/being brought to hospital?

    I believe Foxy was wondering if the admission criteria had change...
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,250
    DavidL said:

    At current rates by 2024 the government will have abolished death and will no doubt be re-elected by acclamation.
    Is this the one that 'Professor' Murphy has insisted is lies and dishonest unless all 553 be added on one day...

    https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/06/02/lies-damned-lies-and-yesterdays-covid-19-stats/
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862

    Scott_xP said:
    The key stat I want to know on testing is not how many but how fast. What percentage are within 24 and 48 hours from when requested. The rest shouldnt count as successful tests.
    Exactly so. This is the beginning and end of trace and test and I am suspicious that we have nothing like the capacity we need to make it work, even if we had a working App.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 14,127
    This struck me as wishful thinking from the EU, to be honest. Similar article in the Times.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885

    I see as in Glasgow, there are big fans of File Transfer Protocol in Washington.

    https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1267645860520898566?s=20

    Oh dear. Though I wonder how many PBers this will go over the heads of. My experience is that English incomers to Scotland find it very slow to even appreciate the existence of such, erm, narratives that my Belfast-born friend or any Scot at all familiar with the West Central Belt will instantly detect.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    That seems like a good thing to me. We want to move on from partisan hatred in Ireland.
    It's great news.

    Maybe not so much for the Minister for the Union, whose name escapes me for the moment.
    I believe that Minister has tried to develop a good working relationship with Varadkar, from spending time one on one with him in the Wirral onwards, so I doubt he cares an iota about this poll.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,555
    Progress. Unionism is a complex entity. No UK wide party shows any signs of supporting NI unionism. They don't organise and don't stand candidates in NI. The idea that Britain is one island and Ireland is another is obvious. Look at a map. The idea that each island has two sensible choices: two states, Ireland and Britain, or one state called UK of Britain and Ireland (the New Zealand solution - works OK there) is increasingly obvious. Politics, history and the EU problem make the one state solution, sadly, impossible for now, leaving only one sensible solution. A state called Britain and a state called Ireland. Now, or very soon, is the moment.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,862

    Is it possible that with the reduced hospital emergency levels, more patients are coming/being brought to hospital?

    I believe Foxy was wondering if the admission criteria had change...
    I think that was in the context of ICUs but yes, one of the really alarming aspects of care home deaths was how many were dying in situ with no attempt to provide them with medical intervention.
This discussion has been closed.