Rees Mogg is the worst. I remember reading about how as a child he turned up at a shareholders' meeting (GEC if I remember correctly) and started berating the chairman over the size of the dividend he'd received on the shares he'd been given by his father. I'm not sure which Viz character he reminds me of most - Spoiled Bastard or Victorian Dad. Either way, he really is a tosser.
Didn't he say once that every time he opened his mouth it meant the Tories losing a vote? I'm not sure what changed between then and him becoming an MP.
I remember him from the Oxford Union. His accent then was a lot "worse" than it is now. As someone from ooop noorth who hadn't met many public school types, it did grate just a little at the time...and he did have a lot to say.
I have some time for the traditionalist approach though. Surely voting by phone takes away some of the supposedly serious nature of parliament? I would say the same for any remote voting (including elections).
Crowding through division lobbies is 'serious'? What other legislature conducts it's voting like that? Apart possibly from the Democratic Party in Iowa?
Most legislatures don't have people voting remotely from a phone whilst wandering about, though.
Even the EU-style voting has its problems. Just sitting there pressing buttons as per your pre-prescribed voting list isn't great (especially when MEPs accidentally press the wrong button).
Wandering about with a phone in hand isn't what I had in mind as an alternative. Might appeal to likes of Cummings of course Otherwise I take your point, although I believe people have been known to go through the wrong lobby on occasions.
True, and quite recently too. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to follow the "right" set of people.
Perhaps those MPs who have to be remote from the chamber should only be able to vote from a registered office from which they 'attend' (either within Parliament or their constituency). I'm not sure how you would enforce that, though.
Somewhat worrying that some at least of our MP's don't know who their friends are.
If it's possible to identify exactly where someone was 13 years ago from their mobile phone usage, I'm sure it can't be that difficult to ensure someone always votes rom their 'appointed place'
Google can do that already. In fact if I was accused of a crime I was sure I hadn't comitted I'd probably turn to Google Maps as my first point of alibi as to where I was on a particualr day.
Wasn't that effectively what Cummings did in relation to the incorrect press report about a second return trip to Durham? He certainly offered to make electronic data available in evidence.
He did not however make such an offer in respect of the rest of his story so maybe the evidence there wasn't quite so conclusive.
He hadn't challenged the rest of the story. He had admitted both the initial journey to Durham and the trip to Barnard Castle along with its ridiculous excuse. Obviously he is not going to think it necessary to offer evidence to counter a claim he already admitted was correct.
Mr. 86, there's also been much muttering about every case *with* COVID here being described statistically as a death *from* COVID (so if I pummel you to death with a stuff walrus, that counts as a COVID death if your corpse tests positive).
If the walrus was infected with C19 would that count?
I'll care about chlorinated chicken the moment we remove chlorine from our drinking water from the tap.
The issue is he standard of food hygiene that requires it to be chlorinated. But I'm sure you already know that
I believe the US has an order of magnitude higher number of deaths from Salmonella, compared with the European Union. Admittedly, several hundred versus a handful.
I think this is true-ish. Though I recall the last time I tried to verify the figures I ran into problems, as reporting of cases is all over the place, so difficult to compare (in a similar manner to Covid deaths, but probably worse).
As I added to my original comment salmonella poisoning is unpleasant even if you don't die. It's very common in the USA , many times more common than here.
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Duh! I am not "the left". I am an ex-Tory activist who has spent his life studying leadership. Boris Johnson does not have leadership skills. He can win an election against an extreme left wing muppet, but that is not BEING PM. It is winning a beauty contest against a very very ugly opponent.
He didnt just beat him he crushed him. And if you put lipstick on the ugly opponent it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to win.
The "lip stick on a pig" epithet is the perfect description of both Corbyn and Johnson. Although Corbyn was/is not 17 stone, he was considered more piggy by the electorate who would rather have an incompetent pig (though they didn't guess how incompetent) rather than a terrorist sympathising anti-Semitic Marxist pig
Someone didn't enjoy the election result. 2 Mayoral elections, Brexit, 2019 - the guy is good.
I'll care about chlorinated chicken the moment we remove chlorine from our drinking water from the tap.
The issue is he standard of food hygiene that requires it to be chlorinated. But I'm sure you already know that
I believe the US has an order of magnitude higher number of deaths from Salmonella, compared with the European Union. Admittedly, several hundred versus a handful.
Should add salmonella poisoning is an unpleasant experience, even if you don't die. 1.3 million cases in the US annually versus 10 000 in the UK
It may be my personal prejudice showing through, but whenever I see some gun-toting US loon on TV I do wonder what they put in the food.
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
For now. Besides that’s quite a low bar.
Eh? Why is it a low bar?
Have you seen the past Tory leaders?
Thatcher, Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May, Johnson...
The only truly popular leaders in my lifetime have been Blair, and perhaps Johnson.
Both of whom are utter charlatans. If that is the measure of a popular PM then give me an unpopular one any day.
Mr. 86, there's also been much muttering about every case *with* COVID here being described statistically as a death *from* COVID (so if I pummel you to death with a stuff walrus, that counts as a COVID death if your corpse tests positive).
Ultimately deaths in excess of the average is all that really matters. I trust the ONS figures for this unconditionally.
Quite. This is the only metric that, in the long run, makes sense.
In data quality terms, comparability and morally (last IMHO).
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
Just proves how stupid Tories are, superficial halfwitted cretins.
Is it a good idea to insult 45% of voters?
as I said, Malc's suffering from turnipmyopia
If he had not been up against an absolute loser he would have been thrashed, he got a free pass and we see the result , the idiot could not run a bath, and has surrounded himself with clones of his halfwitted self.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
Did other countries go into the virus with the 'world beating', we are resilient mindset? If not they may cope better with the subsequent period of rigorous self examination than the UK will.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
I don't think there's a lot of travel between Spain and Portugal, is there?
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
Just proves how stupid Tories are, superficial halfwitted cretins.
Is it a good idea to insult 45% of voters?
If the cap fits ............
Irony alert. Adherent to the backward philosophy of nationalism, one of the dumbest hatefilled political perversions of the 19th Century calls other people halfwitted cretins. And the poster who wrote it is one of the most inarticulate ill informed buffoons who writes on here. He will now prove my point by his response no doubt!!
Mr. 86, Mr. Andrew, frankly, I'd want to be more familiar with how the averages are calculated and longer term trends before taking them as gospel.
Plus, many deaths may have occurred due to the lockdown preventing medical treatment but not being directly caused by COVID. How are we to treat these instances?
And we know governments can both over-report and under-report cases.
I'll care about chlorinated chicken the moment we remove chlorine from our drinking water from the tap.
The issue is he standard of food hygiene that requires it to be chlorinated. But I'm sure you already know that
I believe the US has an order of magnitude higher number of deaths from Salmonella, compared with the European Union. Admittedly, several hundred versus a handful.
I think this is true-ish. Though I recall the last time I tried to verify the figures I ran into problems, as reporting of cases is all over the place, so difficult to compare (in a similar manner to Covid deaths, but probably worse).
As I added to my original comment salmonella poisoning is unpleasant even if you don't die. It's very common in the USA , many times more common than here.
Hopefully we don't drop food standards to allow that, it'd really shit the bed.
Mr. 86, there's also been much muttering about every case *with* COVID here being described statistically as a death *from* COVID (so if I pummel you to death with a stuff walrus, that counts as a COVID death if your corpse tests positive).
Not true.
For it to be recorded as a covid death on a death certificate, it needs to be recorded as a contributing factor.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Except they won't be able to make a choice to ban cruel practices in farming if we do the kind of nasty deal with the US that American agribusiness interests are aggressively pushing for. Or are you advocating a free for all with no animal welfare standards at all?
And we couldn't ban cruel practises like live export of animals in the eu and we have to accept meat from other eu countries with lower animal welfare standards for the last 40 years. The complaining you did was so loud no one heard it
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Duh! I am not "the left". I am an ex-Tory activist who has spent his life studying leadership. Boris Johnson does not have leadership skills. He can win an election against an extreme left wing muppet, but that is not BEING PM. It is winning a beauty contest against a very very ugly opponent.
He didnt just beat him he crushed him. And if you put lipstick on the ugly opponent it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to win.
The "lip stick on a pig" epithet is the perfect description of both Corbyn and Johnson. Although Corbyn was/is not 17 stone, he was considered more piggy by the electorate who would rather have an incompetent pig (though they didn't guess how incompetent) rather than a terrorist sympathising anti-Semitic Marxist pig
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
For now. Besides that’s quite a low bar.
Eh? Why is it a low bar?
Good answer on the Pretenders, btw - just listened to your clip.
And also, for anyone who has seen The Americans, With or Without You will carry particular resonance.
And as for fame, my slightest claim to media fame is that once, several years ago, to my great embarrassment one of the then new tv channels did a documentary on white collar boxing which included me when I was fighting. It is repeated every 3-5 years on Dave or somesuch.
I hope you kept your white collar on in the ring, just to rile your more horny handed opponents. If like other flabbed out boxers you turn to the wrestling, it'd be a great basis on which to hang a ring persona.
My entrance music was Funtime by Iggy Pop, which I thought was suitably arch.
They usually try to match people up pretty fairly on the fights otherwise the participant count would drop. I have been asked to fight and to give the guy a fairly easy time, that said. Why then was that person there in the first place? Good question - people for some reason want to get these things out of their system.
Mr. 86, there's also been much muttering about every case *with* COVID here being described statistically as a death *from* COVID (so if I pummel you to death with a stuff walrus, that counts as a COVID death if your corpse tests positive).
Ultimately deaths in excess of the average is all that really matters. I trust the ONS figures for this unconditionally.
Quite. This is the only metric that, in the long run, makes sense.
In data quality terms, comparability and morally (last IMHO).
There's a high degree of correlation between unexplained deaths and Covid prevalence gone into by Foxy amongst others here - so I think this is the best measure.
I think this small person makes a lot more sense than many of those normally in the chamber... twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1268558103261388802?s=20
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
Just proves how stupid Tories are, superficial halfwitted cretins.
Is it a good idea to insult 45% of voters?
If the cap fits ............
Irony alert. Adherent to the backward philosophy of nationalism, one of the dumbest hatefilled political perversions of the 19th Century calls other people halfwitted cretins. And the poster who wrote it is one of the most inarticulate ill informed buffoons who writes on here. He will now prove my point by his response no doubt!!
Excepting the fact that EU nationalism fits neatly into the definitions of Nationalism by Orwell...
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
How does not eating meat save money? Protein is expensive no matter what form it comes in.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
Did other countries go into the virus with the 'world beating', we are resilient mindset? If not they may cope better with the subsequent period of rigorous self examination than the UK will.
Yes, loads of them had their own form of exceptionalism.
Re the thread, yes I agree that the Government's reaction to the virus will probably be one of those traumatic events that will remain with voters for years and will impact on the outcome of the next election. The parallel which the Tories will fear is that of Black Wednesday in 1992 which served to undermine their claims to economic competence all the way up to the 1997 general election. The response to the virus is undermining any possible idea that Johnson runs a generally competent government, such has been the shambles witnessed on multiple fronts.
In political terms, the impact will get worse for Johnson. There is a deep recession on the horizon and the question is whether the Conservatives will be blamed for its depth not least on account of their mistakes having led to the UK being late out of the lockdown.
Yesterday saw another 359 deaths confirmed by testing in the UK. That was more than the total recorded for the rest of Europe combined.
OK, if it makes you feel any better I'm not really bothered to argue with the nuance of that point. It would still means that the UK's total of daily deaths was yesterday "only" nearly as high as the total that should have been recorded for the rest of Europe combined. Ahem indeed.
What I'm not prepared to accept is that the death statistics as a whole including those on excess deaths do anything other than support the claim that the UK's response to the virus has led to outcomes worse than anywhere else in Europe.
No -you missed it. it's not "nearly" and "nuance"; it's a steaming pile of bullshit,
Nearly all of the 359 deaths in the number are from the previous fortnight, and the comparison is entirely spurious. The actual number of deaths from yesterday was 20, which will increase as others move through the process and we may have some idea of perhaps 90% of the total in 7 days.
On this one Guido is correct in skewering Newsnight, whose reporting was misleading to (and perhaps beyond) the point off dishonesty. But he diidn't skewer them enough.
They talked about "daily deaths" with the totally misrepresented numbers for their tabloid splash, then went into a spiel about how important it was to be careful.
Just a shitty news report. I don't really know how the Newsnight Editor can sleep at night.
FPT
Actually, the more I look at it, the basis of Guido's objection seems to be a load of "bullshit". You are too trusting of that site.
It's hardly news that the lag in the system the 359 UK deaths reported yesterday were deaths which occurred over the previous fortnight, most within the past few days. That's because of the time lag in UK reporting.
It is however a perfectly reasonable to use that to make comparisons with other European countries, because they too must experience lags between the date of death and the date it is reported.
The only point of substance contained in Guido's report is that the source website (Worldometer) has been dissed by a rival website whose rival data manager claims that the data on his site (Our World in Data) is better, which is not that surprising given that to say the opposite would damage his career prospects. Yet the actual differences are minimal - for Spain 27,940 cumulative deaths on Our World in Data compared to 27,128 on Worldometer or less than a 3% diffrence, with the figures on both the same for the UK. So very similar, not different.
Thanks for the reply.
I'm not debating Guido; I'm debating Newsnight and the quality of their coverage. Guido is a tabloid news site that sometimes generates interesting stories.
The exact phrase used by Nick Watt to comment on the graph put up on Newsnight was:
"what this shows is that the UK now has more daily deaths than the entire EU put together"
The UK figure is simply not what he says it is - "daily deaths"; it is deaths reported today, mainly consisting of deaths that occurred today and over the previous days. It is misleading even before we get into all the stuff needed to make sure the comparison is valid, because most of his number is 5-10 days out of date.
>"It's hardly news that the lag in the system the 359 UK deaths reported yesterday were deaths which occurred over the previous fortnight, most within the past few days. That's because of the time lag in UK reporting."
I agree with this, and they even start talking about difficulties of comparing data a bit further on.
So why on earth did they do the misleading comparison, rather than one using the data accurately?
But we know why the Beeb does misleading comparisons don't we? It makes Fox look unbiased
I'll care about chlorinated chicken the moment we remove chlorine from our drinking water from the tap.
As I pointed out to my other half, she could feed US chicken to my daughter every day for the rest of he life and my daughter would still swallow less chlorine than when my wife took her to swimming club for 15 years.
Its not the chlorine that is the problem, more the chicken faeces that they use it to camouflage.
LOL and you think public swimming pools don't contain feces, urine and God knows what else ? You can tell the stress in the pool by the amount of chlorine in it. and yet we gladly throw our chlidren in to them.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
Did other countries go into the virus with the 'world beating', we are resilient mindset? If not they may cope better with the subsequent period of rigorous self examination than the UK will.
Yes, loads of them had their own form of exceptionalism.
None of it remotely as good as British exceptionalism, of course.
Re the thread, yes I agree that the Government's reaction to the virus will probably be one of those traumatic events that will remain with voters for years and will impact on the outcome of the next election. The parallel which the Tories will fear is that of Black Wednesday in 1992 which served to undermine their claims to economic competence all the way up to the 1997 general election. The response to the virus is undermining any possible idea that Johnson runs a generally competent government, such has been the shambles witnessed on multiple fronts.
In political terms, the impact will get worse for Johnson. There is a deep recession on the horizon and the question is whether the Conservatives will be blamed for its depth not least on account of their mistakes having led to the UK being late out of the lockdown.
Yesterday saw another 359 deaths confirmed by testing in the UK. That was more than the total recorded for the rest of Europe combined.
OK, if it makes you feel any better I'm not really bothered to argue with the nuance of that point. It would still means that the UK's total of daily deaths was yesterday "only" nearly as high as the total that should have been recorded for the rest of Europe combined. Ahem indeed.
What I'm not prepared to accept is that the death statistics as a whole including those on excess deaths do anything other than support the claim that the UK's response to the virus has led to outcomes worse than anywhere else in Europe.
No -you missed it. it's not "nearly" and "nuance"; it's a steaming pile of bullshit,
Nearly all of the 359 deaths in the number are from the previous fortnight, and the comparison is entirely spurious. The actual number of deaths from yesterday was 20, which will increase as others move through the process and we may have some idea of perhaps 90% of the total in 7 days.
On this one Guido is correct in skewering Newsnight, whose reporting was misleading to (and perhaps beyond) the point off dishonesty. But he diidn't skewer them enough.
They talked about "daily deaths" with the totally misrepresented numbers for their tabloid splash, then went into a spiel about how important it was to be careful.
Just a shitty news report. I don't really know how the Newsnight Editor can sleep at night.
FPT
Actually, the more I look at it, the basis of Guido's objection seems to be a load of "bullshit". You are too trusting of that site.
It's hardly news that the lag in the system the 359 UK deaths reported yesterday were deaths which occurred over the previous fortnight, most within the past few days. That's because of the time lag in UK reporting.
It is however a perfectly reasonable to use that to make comparisons with other European countries, because they too must experience lags between the date of death and the date it is reported.
The only point of substance contained in Guido's report is that the source website (Worldometer) has been dissed by a rival website whose rival data manager claims that the data on his site (Our World in Data) is better, which is not that surprising given that to say the opposite would damage his career prospects. Yet the actual differences are minimal - for Spain 27,940 cumulative deaths on Our World in Data compared to 27,128 on Worldometer or less than a 3% diffrence, with the figures on both the same for the UK. So very similar, not different.
Thanks for the reply.
I'm not debating Guido; I'm debating Newsnight and the quality of their coverage. Guido is a tabloid news site that sometimes generates interesting stories.
The exact phrase used by Nick Watt to comment on the graph put up on Newsnight was:
"what this shows is that the UK now has more daily deaths than the entire EU put together"
The UK figure is simply not what he says it is - "daily deaths"; it is deaths reported today, mainly consisting of deaths that occurred today and over the previous days. It is misleading even before we get into all the stuff needed to make sure the comparison is valid, because most of his number is 5-10 days out of date.
>"It's hardly news that the lag in the system the 359 UK deaths reported yesterday were deaths which occurred over the previous fortnight, most within the past few days. That's because of the time lag in UK reporting."
I agree with this, and they even start talking about difficulties of comparing data a bit further on.
So why on earth did they do the misleading comparison, rather than one using the data accurately?
Because the deliberately misleading comparison fits their 'narrative'?
But we know why the Beeb does misleading comparisons don't we? It makes Fox look unbiased
I'd say rather it's just simple news demands - the ONS figures based on actual date of death only come out once a week, and even when fresh of the presses only shows stats ending 11 days beforehand.
The boring truth is that case and death figures don't actually change much day to day, it's the same old ~4.5% drop for both every day, and given a few weeks that adds up to a meaningful difference. Doesn't make for a very interesting story though.
Strange that the conservatives seem to be holding around 43% despite their unenforced errors
Despite the fury by some on here the fact remains that
Boris is only going to stand down if his health is an issue
Or
Letters are sent in to the 1922
It is likely that those shouting loudest for his head are going to be doing the same for 4 more years, sadly for them
There is more to life to be honest
Nah, his honeymoon is over. It only gets worse for him from here.
Only one of the two methods above will see Boris leave office and my point is that those who keeping calling for him to go are likely to have 4 years of doing so
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
Did other countries go into the virus with the 'world beating', we are resilient mindset? If not they may cope better with the subsequent period of rigorous self examination than the UK will.
Yes, loads of them had their own form of exceptionalism.
None of it remotely as good as British exceptionalism, of course.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Thatcher, Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May, Johnson...
The only truly popular leaders in my lifetime have been Blair, and perhaps Johnson.
Eh? Margaret Thatcher was extremely popular. In fact, she still is amongst those old enough to remember her premiership - the only ex-PM for which that is true.
I think she was respected, rather than popular. And respect is more important than popularity.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Rather spurious argument.
There are plenty of other things that could have prevented Corocavirus eg nuking Wuhan a couple of years ago.
I'd agree that nor having wet markets with bats would be a reasonable price.
Mr. D, I'm shocked to discover that Newsnight might have, quite by accident, presented stats that are flawed but appear to show the UK Government in a bad light.
Jackson Carlaw, Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. twisting the knife into BoZo’s belly just now on BBC Radio Scotland. He says, repeatedly, that he is “not wholly convinced” by Dominic Cummings’ explanation for his actions.
Classic code for “the man’s a liar”.
Astonishingly, Carlaw has not spoken to his boss BoZo in months. They have only exchanged two text messages since The Clown was released from hospital.
Carlaw sounds like a drowning man, unable to affect either his opponents nor his (supposed) allies.
The Milton Keynes appointee is a real kick in the groin.
MK? *googles for land of concrete coos* Ah - now I see. Blood is sure thicker than residence when it comes to Tories. But what a dunt in the baws to the actual Scottish Tories. Remiunds me of the day when the Scottish Office was run by a MP from Weston-Super-Mare IIRC.
The new Scottish office minister was born in Hamilton and went to school in Glasgow.
He is Scottish, he just represents an English seat
Your lot howled when Labour and LD MPs from Scotland voted on English matters (a sentiment the SNP entirely sympathise with).
Also - do you think race/genetics/blood rather than voter representation is more important?
That's a point. Presumably the new under-assistant, deputy panjandrum won't be voting on the Scotland only matters that he's supposed to be helping to formulate?
HY is a blood and soil nationalist.
You gotta laugh at Tories. Remember when they screamed their heads off at a jock being their prime minister.
Your the supporter of the Nationalist party not me.
The Conservative Party is not Nationalist? Pull the other one.
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Duh! I am not "the left". I am an ex-Tory activist who has spent his life studying leadership. Boris Johnson does not have leadership skills. He can win an election against an extreme left wing muppet, but that is not BEING PM. It is winning a beauty contest against a very very ugly opponent.
He didnt just beat him he crushed him. And if you put lipstick on the ugly opponent it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to win.
The "lip stick on a pig" epithet is the perfect description of both Corbyn and Johnson. Although Corbyn was/is not 17 stone, he was considered more piggy by the electorate who would rather have an incompetent pig (though they didn't guess how incompetent) rather than a terrorist sympathising anti-Semitic Marxist pig
Someone didn't enjoy the election result. 2 Mayoral elections, Brexit, 2019 - the guy is good.
Winning elections is not everything, but for a politician, it is almost everything.
Breaking into Red Wall seats, pulling off a big swing among Hindu voters, (mostly) keeping Conservative Remainers while gaining Labour Leavers, were all significant achievements.
But we know why the Beeb does misleading comparisons don't we? It makes Fox look unbiased
I'd say rather it's just simple news demands - the ONS figures based on actual date of death only come out once a week, and even when fresh of the presses only shows stats ending 11 days beforehand.
The boring truth is that case and death figures don't actually change much day to day, it's the same old ~4.5% drop for both every day, and given a few weeks that adds up to a meaningful difference. Doesn't make for a very interesting story though.
It is more about not having the intellectual curiosity beyond - "This is a number. This is another number."
But we know why the Beeb does misleading comparisons don't we? It makes Fox look unbiased
I'd say rather it's just simple news demands - the ONS figures based on actual date of death only come out once a week, and even when fresh of the presses only shows stats ending 11 days beforehand.
The boring truth is that case and death figures don't actually change much day to day, it's the same old ~4.5% drop for both every day, and given a few weeks that adds up to a meaningful difference. Doesn't make for a very interesting story though.
It is more about not having the intellectual curiosity beyond - "This is a number. This is another number."
TOO CONFUSING....much easier to just read tweets from my echo chamber to get my info.
Strange that the conservatives seem to be holding around 43% despite their unenforced errors
Despite the fury by some on here the fact remains that
Boris is only going to stand down if his health is an issue
Or
Letters are sent in to the 1922
It is likely that those shouting loudest for his head are going to be doing the same for 4 more years, sadly for them
There is more to life to be honest
Nah, his honeymoon is over. It only gets worse for him from here.
Only one of the two methods above will see Boris leave office and my point is that those who keeping calling for him to go are likely to have 4 years of doing so
Not sure his health will be an issue for him. His role model is one Churchill W.S.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
While that's true that's a relatively worse performance for the UK than Italy, Spain, etc, because we had two extra weeks in order to take measures to save lives and reach a better outcome. We wasted that opportunity.
Based on an estimated doubling time of half a week, if we'd imposed a lockdown two weeks earlier we might have reduced our excess deaths by a factor of 16. We could have saved more than 55,000 deaths.
Thatcher, Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May, Johnson...
The only truly popular leaders in my lifetime have been Blair, and perhaps Johnson.
Eh? Margaret Thatcher was extremely popular. In fact, she still is amongst those old enough to remember her premiership - the only ex-PM for which that is true.
I think she was respected, rather than popular. And respect is more important than popularity.
If Thatcher had to choose between being liked and being respected she's have chosen "respected" in a heartbeat.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
I wouldn't assume the UK is reporting Covid deaths more accurately than other countries. In fact if their number of excess deaths is low then we can guarantee they are reporting their non-existent deaths more accurately than the UK. This applies to Germany and Portugal from the countries you mentioned.
The question is whether the UK reports figures more accurately than other countries with similarly high fatalities - ie Spain, Italy, France, Sweden and Belgium. Spain, yes;Italy probably in the early days. No particular reason to believe it does compared with France, Belgium or Sweden.
Mr. D, I'm shocked to discover that Newsnight might have, quite by accident, presented stats that are flawed but appear to show the UK Government in a bad light.
They said many of the deaths related to previous days, and that different countries compile data differently. It was literally the next sentence! Watch to the end.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
How does not eating meat save money? Protein is expensive no matter what form it comes in.
I was alluding to the fact that Covid-19 (as well as Ebola, Sars, HIVAids) was caused by eating animals. I was just wondering if people felt it was worth the price (economic or deaths)
The next one might be even more lethal and there will be a next one unless the world alters its ways.
Rees Mogg is the worst. I remember reading about how as a child he turned up at a shareholders' meeting (GEC if I remember correctly) and started berating the chairman over the size of the dividend he'd received on the shares he'd been given by his father. I'm not sure which Viz character he reminds me of most - Spoiled Bastard or Victorian Dad. Either way, he really is a tosser.
Didn't he say once that every time he opened his mouth it meant the Tories losing a vote? I'm not sure what changed between then and him becoming an MP.
I remember him from the Oxford Union. His accent then was a lot "worse" than it is now. As someone from ooop noorth who hadn't met many public school types, it did grate just a little at the time...and he did have a lot to say.
I have some time for the traditionalist approach though. Surely voting by phone takes away some of the supposedly serious nature of parliament? I would say the same for any remote voting (including elections).
Crowding through division lobbies is 'serious'? What other legislature conducts it's voting like that? Apart possibly from the Democratic Party in Iowa?
Most legislatures don't have people voting remotely from a phone whilst wandering about, though.
Even the EU-style voting has its problems. Just sitting there pressing buttons as per your pre-prescribed voting list isn't great (especially when MEPs accidentally press the wrong button).
Wandering about with a phone in hand isn't what I had in mind as an alternative. Might appeal to likes of Cummings of course Otherwise I take your point, although I believe people have been known to go through the wrong lobby on occasions.
True, and quite recently too. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to follow the "right" set of people.
Perhaps those MPs who have to be remote from the chamber should only be able to vote from a registered office from which they 'attend' (either within Parliament or their constituency). I'm not sure how you would enforce that, though.
Somewhat worrying that some at least of our MP's don't know who their friends are.
If it's possible to identify exactly where someone was 13 years ago from their mobile phone usage, I'm sure it can't be that difficult to ensure someone always votes rom their 'appointed place'
Google can do that already. In fact if I was accused of a crime I was sure I hadn't comitted I'd probably turn to Google Maps as my first point of alibi as to where I was on a particualr day.
Wasn't that effectively what Cummings did in relation to the incorrect press report about a second return trip to Durham? He certainly offered to make electronic data available in evidence.
He did not however make such an offer in respect of the rest of his story so maybe the evidence there wasn't quite so conclusive.
He hadn't challenged the rest of the story. He had admitted both the initial journey to Durham and the trip to Barnard Castle along with its ridiculous excuse. Obviously he is not going to think it necessary to offer evidence to counter a claim he already admitted was correct.
Thanks Richard but you are missing my point.
Let me make it clear immediately that I have my doubts about the whole story and not just the Castle fairy tale element. There has been, as far as I know, no corroboration of his wife's illness, or his own, or indeed much about the dramatic visit with the son to the hospital. Nor is there any corroboration about the trip to Durham, exactly when it was made, whether there were any stops or detours, and likewise the return trip. Nor have the activities whilst staying 'on the farm' been corroborated.
Cummings electronic records would be very helpful in such corroboration if they were offered. They were offered only in connection with the plainly incorrect story of the second trip. That suggests to me that handing over the said records for the whole period might prove awkward.
Feel free to aim things at me. Happy to be Aunt Sally on this one.
They said many of the deaths related to previous days, and that different countries compile data differently. It was literally the next sentence! Watch to the end.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
Trying to reach conclusions about "performance" on different fatality data sets and without reference to data on national age profiles, BAME percentages, people in risk occupations etc etc is a fools game which is why Beeb is so good at it.
Dr. Foxy, ah, didn't realise they then put up a helpful graphic rather than putting one up and immediately explaining why it's seemingly shocking comparative information was, in fact, worthless.
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Duh! I am not "the left". I am an ex-Tory activist who has spent his life studying leadership. Boris Johnson does not have leadership skills. He can win an election against an extreme left wing muppet, but that is not BEING PM. It is winning a beauty contest against a very very ugly opponent.
He didnt just beat him he crushed him. And if you put lipstick on the ugly opponent it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to win.
The "lip stick on a pig" epithet is the perfect description of both Corbyn and Johnson. Although Corbyn was/is not 17 stone, he was considered more piggy by the electorate who would rather have an incompetent pig (though they didn't guess how incompetent) rather than a terrorist sympathising anti-Semitic Marxist pig
Someone didn't enjoy the election result. 2 Mayoral elections, Brexit, 2019 - the guy is good.
Good at winning elections but not much else unfortunately. He has also been very lucky indeed in his election opponents. I honestly don't see him lasting the full term.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
How does not eating meat save money? Protein is expensive no matter what form it comes in.
I was alluding to the fact that Covid-19 (as well as Ebola, Sars, HIVAids) was caused by eating animals. I was just wondering if people felt it was worth the price (economic or deaths)
The next one might be even more lethal and there will be a next one unless the world alters its ways.
Since his election as leader I have revised my opinion of sks upwards, and now back down again. This is being "forensic" in the sense that it feels as if he thinks these letters will be devastatingly effective when they form p.78 of documents bundle XVIIa in a High Court trial five years hence. They are his equivalent of calls for judge led inquiries into everything.
Thatcher, Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May, Johnson...
The only truly popular leaders in my lifetime have been Blair, and perhaps Johnson.
Eh? Margaret Thatcher was extremely popular. In fact, she still is amongst those old enough to remember her premiership - the only ex-PM for which that is true.
I think she was respected, rather than popular. And respect is more important than popularity.
If Thatcher had to choose between being liked and being respected she's have chosen "respected" in a heartbeat.
You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing! - Margaret Thatcher, interview for Press Association, 3 May 1989.
The question is whether the UK reports figures more accurately than other countries with similarly high fatalities - ie Spain, Italy, France, Sweden and Belgium. Spain, yes;Italy probably in the early days. No particular reason to believe it does compared with France, Belgium or Sweden.
ratio of covid deaths/excess deaths:
Italy 0.51 Austria 0.57 NL 0.60 GB 0.77 Spain 0.9 Sweden 0.92 France 0.95 Belgium 1.06 <---- hrrrrm
GB figures are edging upwards, they're basically 1.00 for the last three weeks. This was the same pattern for others in the past, different stage of epidemic etc.
Italy's ratio is likely cos their excess deaths only go to end March.
Some however were particularly early to a high ratio, eg Belgium, which made it look particularly horrendous on deaths/capita measures back then (still bad but no longer miles ahead of everyone).
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Yes.
Interesting. And if the next virus we get from eating bats or pangolins or monkeys or whatever kills millions?
Since his election as leader I have revised my opinion of sks upwards, and now back down again. This is being "forensic" in the sense that it feels as if he thinks these letters will be devastatingly effective when they form p.78 of documents bundle XVIIa in a High Court trial five years hence. They are his equivalent of calls for judge led inquiries into everything.
Yes, exactly. Still, keep things in perspective - he's better than the previous three leaders of his party and completely out of sight compared with his immediate predecessor.
They said many of the deaths related to previous days, and that different countries compile data differently. It was literally the next sentence! Watch to the end.
Since his election as leader I have revised my opinion of sks upwards, and now back down again. This is being "forensic" in the sense that it feels as if he thinks these letters will be devastatingly effective when they form p.78 of documents bundle XVIIa in a High Court trial five years hence. They are his equivalent of calls for judge led inquiries into everything.
At the last PMQs the most forensic questions were delivered by Jeremy Hunt and Theresa May.....
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
How does not eating meat save money? Protein is expensive no matter what form it comes in.
I was alluding to the fact that Covid-19 (as well as Ebola, Sars, HIVAids) was caused by eating animals. I was just wondering if people felt it was worth the price (economic or deaths)
The next one might be even more lethal and there will be a next one unless the world alters its ways.
Animal protein is more expensive though, and not just in terms of money, but also in terms of land use and water etc.
Though this was an interesting piece of news over recent weeks, and perhaps explains our obesity drive. A hunger for protein.
I've stopped paying attention to all the latest twists and turns. Social distancing is not a sustainable policy in the long term. This will soon become particularly obvious on public transport and in schools. All the hand-wringing over it will make not the slightest difference in the end. It will eventually go. The needs that we have as human beings cannot be met in a perpetually socially distanced society.
For example, how are driving lessons and driving tests going to work? Or will people just stop learning to drive? For me, the time has come to switch off from these interminable discussions that cannot solve anything.
Taxi drivers are amongst the highest risk occupations as I recall.
Where social distancing is impossible, such as in cars, trains, some workplaces, masks should be compulsory for all.
I am not a taxi driver, but I live near a driving instructor. Probably most taxi drivers and people in similar occupations are too busy working to post on forums like this.
The question is whether the UK reports figures more accurately than other countries with similarly high fatalities - ie Spain, Italy, France, Sweden and Belgium. Spain, yes;Italy probably in the early days. No particular reason to believe it does compared with France, Belgium or Sweden.
ratio of covid deaths/excess deaths:
Italy 0.51 Austria 0.57 NL 0.60 GB 0.77 Spain 0.9 Sweden 0.92 France 0.95 Belgium 1.06 <---- hrrrrm
GB figures are edging upwards, they're basically 1.00 for the last three weeks. This happened to others a few weeks back too, different stage of epidemic etc.
Some however were particularly early to a high ratio, eg Belgium, which made it look particularly horrendous on deaths/capita measures back then (still bad but no longer miles ahead of everyone).</p>
England surely? Scotland has been more or les unity for quite a while. Not sure about Wales/NI.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Yes.
Interesting. And if the next virus we get from eating bats or pangolins or monkeys or whatever kills millions?
People will eat meat anyway - you can't change the habits of x billion people...
But we know why the Beeb does misleading comparisons don't we? It makes Fox look unbiased
I'd say rather it's just simple news demands - the ONS figures based on actual date of death only come out once a week, and even when fresh of the presses only shows stats ending 11 days beforehand.
The boring truth is that case and death figures don't actually change much day to day, it's the same old ~4.5% drop for both every day, and given a few weeks that adds up to a meaningful difference. Doesn't make for a very interesting story though.
You'll be telling me next that they make stuff up. News should be plain vanilla.
The question is whether the UK reports figures more accurately than other countries with similarly high fatalities - ie Spain, Italy, France, Sweden and Belgium. Spain, yes;Italy probably in the early days. No particular reason to believe it does compared with France, Belgium or Sweden.
ratio of covid deaths/excess deaths:
Italy 0.51 Austria 0.57 NL 0.60 GB 0.77 Spain 0.9 Sweden 0.92 France 0.95 Belgium 1.06 <---- hrrrrm
GB figures are edging upwards, they're basically 1.00 for the last three weeks. This was the same pattern for others in the past, different stage of epidemic etc.
Some however were particularly early to a high ratio, eg Belgium, which made it look particularly horrendous on deaths/capita measures back then (still bad but no longer miles ahead of everyone).</p>
So Spain, may be reporting quite accurately in the round, despite recent shenanigans. 106% for Belgium isn't necessarily a disqualifier. The figure is relative to a five year average. It's possible non-Covid 19 related deaths are down at the moment. In fact there are specific reasons why they might be: fewer accidents; less pollution
I've stopped paying attention to all the latest twists and turns. Social distancing is not a sustainable policy in the long term. This will soon become particularly obvious on public transport and in schools. All the hand-wringing over it will make not the slightest difference in the end. It will eventually go. The needs that we have as human beings cannot be met in a perpetually socially distanced society.
For example, how are driving lessons and driving tests going to work? Or will people just stop learning to drive? For me, the time has come to switch off from these interminable discussions that cannot solve anything.
Taxi drivers are amongst the highest risk occupations as I recall.
Where social distancing is impossible, such as in cars, trains, some workplaces, masks should be compulsory for all.
I am not a taxi driver, but I live near a driving instructor. Probably most taxi drivers and people in similar occupations are too busy working to post on forums like this.
The taxi drivers are all busy ferrying the SeanTs around, while providing data to the hive mind, in the form of anecdotes.
They said many of the deaths related to previous days, and that different countries compile data differently. It was literally the next sentence! Watch to the end.
Seems like they needed a rather large asterisk next to the chart they splashed then.
It doesn't make the invalid comparison valid though.
It just makes it "look at our big shiny chart .... mumble mumble .,,, but".
And we know that we look at the big shiny visual more than listening to the comment.
Just look at the entire textual content of the Tweet:
"“The UK now has more daily deaths from Covid than the rest of the entire EU put together.”"
The general impression - Britain is doing lamentably badly by comparison with its neighbours now - is fair enough. Quibbling over the statistical detail is rather missing the point.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Yes.
Interesting. And if the next virus we get from eating bats or pangolins or monkeys or whatever kills millions?
I couldn't care less.
Viruses don't discriminate between people who eat meat and vegetarians - and the entire world isn't going to become vegetarian.
(Allen is president of the Brookings Institution, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.)
Are people finally beginning to stand up to Trump? Seems quite a lot are disagreeing with him publicly now.
I sense it all crumbling around him now. Been expecting this and I am certain it will continue. Sometimes something is too absurd to carry on being and Trump as US President is one such thing. People have had enough. They are calling time on it.
(Allen is president of the Brookings Institution, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.)
Are people finally beginning to stand up to Trump? Seems quite a lot are disagreeing with him publicly now.
I sense it all crumbling around him now. Been expecting this and I am certain it will continue. Sometimes something is too absurd to carry on being and Trump as US President is one such thing. People have had enough. They are calling time on it.
A lot of us have had that feeling for a very long time, at least four years in my case. Yet his approval ratings remain stubbornly persistent at around 40/45%. By historical standards that's quite poor for an incumbent President but considering he is by some distance the worst POTUS in my lifetime (and I go back to Truman) it is still extraordinarily high.
Still higher than you'd think possible but this is (imo) a water/dam situation. It crumbles to a point of no return and then it collapses.
Or - and I prefer this - Donald Trump is the Wizard of Oz and by November the American people will be Dorothy.
I also predict with great confidence that following his thrashing at the polls, and the passage of just a short amount of time thereafter, there will be an air of unreality about his election as POTUS in the first place and a general sense of retrospective angst and disbelief that his behaviour in office was excused and tolerated for as long as it was.
There will be much guilt and shame to be dealt with by people as best they can. As happened with Jimmy Savile there will be a mass collective re-imaging of what they said at the time.
"I could always see he was a monster. Used to tell people this till I was blue in the face. Cannot understand why so many went along with it."
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
While that's true that's a relatively worse performance for the UK than Italy, Spain, etc, because we had two extra weeks in order to take measures to save lives and reach a better outcome. We wasted that opportunity.
Based on an estimated doubling time of half a week, if we'd imposed a lockdown two weeks earlier we might have reduced our excess deaths by a factor of 16. We could have saved more than 55,000 deaths.
That sounds like we'd have saved everyone if we'd started in November.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
I agree the FT numbers are the best, and they basically show Belgium (53% excess deaths), the UK (65%), Spain (62%) and Italy (47%) in a group with the worst rates of excess deaths. France (30%) - with its more geographically dispersed population - started off looking like us, but now looks like it's done quite a bit better. Then you have Germany (6%), Portugal (14%) and Norway (none) - which of Western European countries - have really done very well.
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
Just proves how stupid Tories are, superficial halfwitted cretins.
Is it a good idea to insult 45% of voters?
If the cap fits ............
Irony alert. Adherent to the backward philosophy of nationalism, one of the dumbest hatefilled political perversions of the 19th Century calls other people halfwitted cretins. And the poster who wrote it is one of the most inarticulate ill informed buffoons who writes on here. He will now prove my point by his response no doubt!!
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Yes.
Interesting. And if the next virus we get from eating bats or pangolins or monkeys or whatever kills millions?
People will eat meat anyway - you can't change the habits of x billion people...
Then we just need to accept the consequences and not whinge about them because those consequences are avoidable
Since his election as leader I have revised my opinion of sks upwards, and now back down again. This is being "forensic" in the sense that it feels as if he thinks these letters will be devastatingly effective when they form p.78 of documents bundle XVIIa in a High Court trial five years hence. They are his equivalent of calls for judge led inquiries into everything.
It does not feel very Statesmanlike to post letters like this for the crowd on social media. Pure posturing from a man who probably won't ever have to worry about being PM at the same time as Trump is President.
They said many of the deaths related to previous days, and that different countries compile data differently. It was literally the next sentence! Watch to the end.
Seems like they needed a rather large asterisk next to the chart they splashed then.
It doesn't make the invalid comparison valid though.
It just makes it "look at our big shiny chart .... mumble mumble .,,, but".
And we know that we look at the big shiny visual more than listening to the comment.
Just look at the entire textual content of the Tweet:
"“The UK now has more daily deaths from Covid than the rest of the entire EU put together.”"
The general impression - Britain is doing lamentably badly by comparison with its neighbours now - is fair enough. Quibbling over the statistical detail is rather missing the point.
I think it's precisely the point, because attention to detail is the foundation of a decent quality media. And that is a reasonable expectation, especially of a taxpayer funded organisation which is very difficult to hold to account.
This is the type of thing that will put Newsnight in the Knacker's Yard eventually.
Headlines turned into linkbait (as we used to call it) are a real problem.
Thatcher, Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May, Johnson...
The only truly popular leaders in my lifetime have been Blair, and perhaps Johnson.
Eh? Margaret Thatcher was extremely popular. In fact, she still is amongst those old enough to remember her premiership - the only ex-PM for which that is true.
I think she was respected, rather than popular. And respect is more important than popularity.
If Thatcher had to choose between being liked and being respected she's have chosen "respected" in a heartbeat.
You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing! - Margaret Thatcher, interview for Press Association, 3 May 1989.
That was the year before she was defenestrated by her own party as I recall...
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Yes.
Interesting. And if the next virus we get from eating bats or pangolins or monkeys or whatever kills millions?
I couldn't care less.
Viruses don't discriminate between people who eat meat and vegetarians - and the entire world isn't going to become vegetarian.
All right, but just warn us before you pop that mandrill on the barbie. Be very much appreciated.
As I've said plenty of times, the government are being shat on for being very honest about the death statistics while others are getting a free pass by not. The FT analysis is still the best and while it doesn't mean that the UK has a good showing, but it does show that loads of other countries are doing as badly across Europe, they just aren't recording it in their official statistics.
When all the dusts settles, I think we are going to see that Germany clearly handled this initial outbreak best, but most of Western Europe is going to end up roughly the same. Portugal interesting appears to have performed quite well, despite being the poorest Western European nation and bordering Spain.
That isn't to say the UK government haven't made big mistakes, but they really haven't tried to hide any figures.
Why Greece and Eastern European countries have got off lighter will require more research.
I wouldn't assume the UK is reporting Covid deaths more accurately than other countries. In fact if their number of excess deaths is low then we can guarantee they are reporting their non-existent deaths more accurately than the UK. This applies to Germany and Portugal from the countries you mentioned.
The question is whether the UK reports figures more accurately than other countries with similarly high fatalities - ie Spain, Italy, France, Sweden and Belgium. Spain, yes;Italy probably in the early days. No particular reason to believe it does compared with France, Belgium or Sweden.
It's less about accuracy, 'cos you can argue about what constitutes accuracy, it's more about consistency.
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
Just proves how stupid Tories are, superficial halfwitted cretins.
Is it a good idea to insult 45% of voters?
If the cap fits ............
Irony alert. Adherent to the backward philosophy of nationalism, one of the dumbest hatefilled political perversions of the 19th Century calls other people halfwitted cretins. And the poster who wrote it is one of the most inarticulate ill informed buffoons who writes on here. He will now prove my point by his response no doubt!!
If your belief in an illusory British nation state overrides your belief in sovereign European states cooperating within the European Union, you're a British nationalist. Your ranting against nationalists is deeply hypocritical.
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Yes.
Interesting. And if the next virus we get from eating bats or pangolins or monkeys or whatever kills millions?
People will eat meat anyway - you can't change the habits of x billion people...
And zoonotic diseases do not come from eating meat. They come from our encroachment into wildlife habitats creating two factors - 1) greater human/wildlife interaction and 2) less diverse ecosystems which concentrate species and therefore drive up viral evolution rates and hence the rate of new zoonotic disease emergence.
Since his election as leader I have revised my opinion of sks upwards, and now back down again. This is being "forensic" in the sense that it feels as if he thinks these letters will be devastatingly effective when they form p.78 of documents bundle XVIIa in a High Court trial five years hence. They are his equivalent of calls for judge led inquiries into everything.
This is for Labour party consumption. It's important for him to do this kind of thing as he builds his leadership internally. What's more, focusing on Johnson's close relaitonship with Trump is politically smart - especially as the government looks to be about to backtrack on animal welfare standards in order to get a trade deal with the Americans.
Face coverings on public transport will be compulsory from 15 June in England to help stop the transmission of coronavirus as more people go back to work, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said on Thursday.
The government will require people to wear face coverings on buses, trains, tubes and other modes of public transport from that date, when non-essential shops are likely to reopen.
However, it will not apply to people entering shops, despite the current guidance saying face coverings should be worn in enclosed public places.
Ministers are bringing in the policy due to concerns about the difficulties of physical distancing on crowded public transport, despite people being asked to use other ways of travelling, to space out, face away from each other and travel at staggered times.
A senior government source said it would help stop asymptomatic people passing the virus on to others and also “act as a visible reminder” of the need for distancing and measures such as handwashing.
Under the conditions of carriage, fines may be imposed for anyone who flouts the new rules.
Wot about the leadership polls though? As Mike often points out these are a better indicator. Johnson is becoming an even bigger joke than I feared he would be. Memes about earpieces or empty skulls will eventually feed through to the popular subconscious. Those that follow things a little closer will realise the emperor has no leadership skills.
Every week that goes past his incompetence will become more visible. Tories of today will join ex-Tories like myself who rue the day when the dumber section of the party membership foisted him on us.
Not the twitter memes! how will they cope with their massive polling lead.
It's as if the left never learn, Boris had endless memes last year too and won a landslide. Leadership polls will mean a lot less than VI if Boris doesn't fight 2024 so Im not sure Labour can take too much heart from that.
Boris is still polling higher than any Tory leader has got at a general election since Thatcher
Even you know that is only temporary. You must be realising gradually he is useless as a PM. He has no leadership skills.
He is the most popular Tory leader on the doorstep I have ever campaigned for in my lifetime
For now. Besides that’s quite a low bar.
Eh? Why is it a low bar?
Good answer on the Pretenders, btw - just listened to your clip.
And also, for anyone who has seen The Americans, With or Without You will carry particular resonance.
And as for fame, my slightest claim to media fame is that once, several years ago, to my great embarrassment one of the then new tv channels did a documentary on white collar boxing which included me when I was fighting. It is repeated every 3-5 years on Dave or somesuch.
I hope you kept your white collar on in the ring, just to rile your more horny handed opponents. If like other flabbed out boxers you turn to the wrestling, it'd be a great basis on which to hang a ring persona.
My entrance music was Funtime by Iggy Pop, which I thought was suitably arch.
They usually try to match people up pretty fairly on the fights otherwise the participant count would drop. I have been asked to fight and to give the guy a fairly easy time, that said. Why then was that person there in the first place? Good question - people for some reason want to get these things out of their system.
Could you have been a contender, do you think, if you had done it full time?
Even under the tariff plan chicken and beef imported from the USA will still be cheaper than that produced in the UK.
Amazing how quickly the UK folded . Time to order the gimp suit !
So we're going to get cheaper food is what you're saying?
Good. That's what the Kiwis did - abolish tariffs, abolish subsidies, told their farmers to make do without any of that. And they're still exporters.
The food will be cheaper because it will not meet current animal care standards. UK farmers will clearly have to have the standards they work to lowered as well if they are to compete. My guess is that this will not be popular even if it does lower prices a little. We shall see. Luckily - like the people inflicting this on us - I will still be able to buy the good stuff for my family.
Or UK farmers will maintain current standards and consumers can make the choice to buy Red Tractor approved products. Just like we already can do.
I buy Free Range eggs and Red Tractor food even though cheaper caged eggs and cheaper lower standard food is available. People can make a free choice in a free society.
Doesn't the welfare of the animals figure anywhere in your argument or is that just irrelevant?
I would have thought that the fact that all these avoidable viruses (Ebola, Covid-19, Sars, HIV-Aids, Swine Fever) have come from our treatment of animals might at least cause you to stop and think about the way we treat them for a minute.
Yes they did factor. Red Tractor meat and Free Range eggs are about animal welfare not just being British for Red Tractor and that's what I said I choose to buy as do others.
If people on a budget want to prioritise cheap food that meets basic standards but has lower welfare then that's their choice not mine. Caged eggs, Danish bacon etc are all perfectly legal to buy.
Do you think that forgoing eating meat would be too high a price to pay to have avoided the economic havoc that Covid-19 alone has visited on the world?
Yes.
Interesting. And if the next virus we get from eating bats or pangolins or monkeys or whatever kills millions?
People will eat meat anyway - you can't change the habits of x billion people...
And zoonotic diseases do not come from eating meat. They come from our encroachment into wildlife habitats creating two factors - 1) greater human/wildlife interaction and 2) less diverse ecosystems which concentrate species and therefore drive up viral evolution rates and hence the rate of new zoonotic disease emergence.
Though points 1 and 2 are both heavily exacerbated by our desire to find new grazing land for the meat.
Face coverings on public transport will be compulsory from 15 June in England to help stop the transmission of coronavirus as more people go back to work, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said on Thursday.
The government will require people to wear face coverings on buses, trains, tubes and other modes of public transport from that date, when non-essential shops are likely to reopen.
However, it will not apply to people entering shops, despite the current guidance saying face coverings should be worn in enclosed public places.
Ministers are bringing in the policy due to concerns about the difficulties of physical distancing on crowded public transport, despite people being asked to use other ways of travelling, to space out, face away from each other and travel at staggered times.
A senior government source said it would help stop asymptomatic people passing the virus on to others and also “act as a visible reminder” of the need for distancing and measures such as handwashing.
Under the conditions of carriage, fines may be imposed for anyone who flouts the new rules.
Since his election as leader I have revised my opinion of sks upwards, and now back down again. This is being "forensic" in the sense that it feels as if he thinks these letters will be devastatingly effective when they form p.78 of documents bundle XVIIa in a High Court trial five years hence. They are his equivalent of calls for judge led inquiries into everything.
It does seem a bit that way. PMQs, I wrote to you, but you didn't write back. Well i phoned you....but there were other people on the call...and....arhhh see I got you....person in the street, huh.
I have compiled a dossier of companies that tried to sell you PPE, but you ignored them....yes, we asked them to fill in a form to provide evidence of their supply chain and we found they were from Trotters Independent Trading...arhhh see got you.
Strange that the conservatives seem to be holding around 43% despite their unenforced errors
Despite the fury by some on here the fact remains that
Boris is only going to stand down if his health is an issue
Or
Letters are sent in to the 1922
It is likely that those shouting loudest for his head are going to be doing the same for 4 more years, sadly for them
There is more to life to be honest
It will take Labour more than two months to undo the years of self-harm it has inflicted on itself. The good news, from Labour's perspective, is that Tory incompetence, arrogance and lies are getting the party a hearing a lot sooner than it might otherwise have expected. Once the economy moves to centre stage in the autumn that will prove helpful.
Comments
https://twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1268558103261388802?s=20
In data quality terms, comparability and morally (last IMHO).
Plus, many deaths may have occurred due to the lockdown preventing medical treatment but not being directly caused by COVID. How are we to treat these instances?
And we know governments can both over-report and under-report cases.
For it to be recorded as a covid death on a death certificate, it needs to be recorded as a contributing factor.
They usually try to match people up pretty fairly on the fights otherwise the participant count would drop. I have been asked to fight and to give the guy a fairly easy time, that said. Why then was that person there in the first place? Good question - people for some reason want to get these things out of their system.
Could copy/paste that for a lot of HoC speeches.
The boring truth is that case and death figures don't actually change much day to day, it's the same old ~4.5% drop for both every day, and given a few weeks that adds up to a meaningful difference. Doesn't make for a very interesting story though.
There are plenty of other things that could have prevented Corocavirus eg nuking Wuhan a couple of years ago.
I'd agree that nor having wet markets with bats would be a reasonable price.
Mr. D, I'm shocked to discover that Newsnight might have, quite by accident, presented stats that are flawed but appear to show the UK Government in a bad light.
Breaking into Red Wall seats, pulling off a big swing among Hindu voters, (mostly) keeping Conservative Remainers while gaining Labour Leavers, were all significant achievements.
Based on an estimated doubling time of half a week, if we'd imposed a lockdown two weeks earlier we might have reduced our excess deaths by a factor of 16. We could have saved more than 55,000 deaths.
The question is whether the UK reports figures more accurately than other countries with similarly high fatalities - ie Spain, Italy, France, Sweden and Belgium. Spain, yes;Italy probably in the early days. No particular reason to believe it does compared with France, Belgium or Sweden.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1268537372712546304?s=20
They said many of the deaths related to previous days, and that different countries compile data differently. It was literally the next sentence! Watch to the end.
https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1268304147301965826?s=09
The next one might be even more lethal and there will be a next one unless the world alters its ways.
Let me make it clear immediately that I have my doubts about the whole story and not just the Castle fairy tale element. There has been, as far as I know, no corroboration of his wife's illness, or his own, or indeed much about the dramatic visit with the son to the hospital. Nor is there any corroboration about the trip to Durham, exactly when it was made, whether there were any stops or detours, and likewise the return trip. Nor have the activities whilst staying 'on the farm' been corroborated.
Cummings electronic records would be very helpful in such corroboration if they were offered. They were offered only in connection with the plainly incorrect story of the second trip. That suggests to me that handing over the said records for the whole period might prove awkward.
Feel free to aim things at me. Happy to be Aunt Sally on this one.
Good at winning elections but not much else unfortunately. He has also been very lucky indeed in his election opponents. I honestly don't see him lasting the full term.
Not a reason to give up meat.
- Margaret Thatcher, interview for Press Association, 3 May 1989.
ratio of covid deaths/excess deaths:
Italy 0.51
Austria 0.57
NL 0.60
GB 0.77
Spain 0.9
Sweden 0.92
France 0.95
Belgium 1.06 <---- hrrrrm
GB figures are edging upwards, they're basically 1.00 for the last three weeks. This was the same pattern for others in the past, different stage of epidemic etc.
Italy's ratio is likely cos their excess deaths only go to end March.
Some however were particularly early to a high ratio, eg Belgium, which made it look particularly horrendous on deaths/capita measures back then (still bad but no longer miles ahead of everyone).
It just makes it "look at our big shiny chart .... mumble mumble .,,, but".
And we know that we look at the big shiny visual more than listening to the comment.
Just look at the entire textual content of the Tweet. When you boil it down, the bit left is the dodgy claim:
"“The UK now has more daily deaths from Covid than the rest of the entire EU put together.”"
https://twitter.com/GuernseyPolice/status/1268502629983883264?s=20
Though this was an interesting piece of news over recent weeks, and perhaps explains our obesity drive. A hunger for protein.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1264060029956755457?s=19
Viruses don't discriminate between people who eat meat and vegetarians - and the entire world isn't going to become vegetarian.
Or - and I prefer this - Donald Trump is the Wizard of Oz and by November the American people will be Dorothy.
I also predict with great confidence that following his thrashing at the polls, and the passage of just a short amount of time thereafter, there will be an air of unreality about his election as POTUS in the first place and a general sense of retrospective angst and disbelief that his behaviour in office was excused and tolerated for as long as it was.
There will be much guilt and shame to be dealt with by people as best they can. As happened with Jimmy Savile there will be a mass collective re-imaging of what they said at the time.
"I could always see he was a monster. Used to tell people this till I was blue in the face. Cannot understand why so many went along with it."
And I will smile in that knowing way I have.
Exclusive: Move is latest attempt to unwind ‘disastrous’ 2014 changes under Chris Grayling
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/04/ministers-considering-renationalising-england-and-wales-probation-service
This is the type of thing that will put Newsnight in the Knacker's Yard eventually.
Headlines turned into linkbait (as we used to call it) are a real problem.
The government will require people to wear face coverings on buses, trains, tubes and other modes of public transport from that date, when non-essential shops are likely to reopen.
However, it will not apply to people entering shops, despite the current guidance saying face coverings should be worn in enclosed public places.
Ministers are bringing in the policy due to concerns about the difficulties of physical distancing on crowded public transport, despite people being asked to use other ways of travelling, to space out, face away from each other and travel at staggered times.
A senior government source said it would help stop asymptomatic people passing the virus on to others and also “act as a visible reminder” of the need for distancing and measures such as handwashing.
Under the conditions of carriage, fines may be imposed for anyone who flouts the new rules.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/04/face-masks-to-be-made-compulsory-on-public-transport-in-england?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1591286551
Could you have been somebody?
Cycling organisations have been asking about that one.
I have compiled a dossier of companies that tried to sell you PPE, but you ignored them....yes, we asked them to fill in a form to provide evidence of their supply chain and we found they were from Trotters Independent Trading...arhhh see got you.