That's a reasonable suggestion . About the first from either the tories or labour or lib dems since covid-19 began
It may sound it to the uninitiated, but it isn't. There wouldn't be time to hold exams in July and release the results before about mid-September - too late for sixth form colleges and universities. So if you are going down that route, you are again accepting predicted grades from teachers as the basis of next year's university entry.
The smart move - and it really would be a smart move - would be to put the university start date to January and pay every lecturer to have a six month sabbatical doing lots of lovely research. That would not only buy time in this emergency situation so the exams could be moved later if necessary, but would mean from hereon in universities would work from real grades not predicted grades (sixth forms could be fudged).
But that would require some intelligence and fortitude from the DfE so is as likely as Nicola Sturgeon declaring staying in the UK is the correct course of action for Scotland.
Do they not get enough holidays without another 6 months.
Well, academics actually don't get many holidays. They're meant to have a month. The rest of the time they should be doing research.
Doesn't always work that way in practice, of course, which is why I suggested making it clear this break really IS to do research.
We've clearly been among the worst hit in the world, but the data included in the BBC's reporting say's we're 4th worst deaths per capita rate in the world (excluding micro nations), with Italy, Spain, Sweden and us being pretty comparable in terms of European nations with really bad death rates.
That doesn't undermine that our numbers show just how badly we've been affected, but of the truly large Western European nations only Germany has done well, France a bit better, and Spain and Italy about the same, and without Boris Johnson as a factor. As a continent we look to have done collectively badly despite very different systems and governments.
I’d also challenge the “on every measure” the response has been woeful.
Clearly they made mistakes.
But on the really really big things - the absolute games changers - they did well.
NHS was not overwhelmed. Nightingales were built
Ventilators were designed and production ramped up. There was no shortage
Vaccine strategy has been well executed on the scientific, procurement and manufacturing side
But I guess none of that counts?
Not when the new tabloid Telegraph needs clicks and subscriptions, it seems.
Peter Hitchins is ( I think) on Talk Radio today at 11am. Whilst he can be too contrarian and occasionally pompous at times which ruins his generally logical arguments he is spot on about the futility of mask wearing and the misery it is causing and the economic damage it is causing especially to the "fun " industry (cinema ,theatre ,museums and public transport (ok the last might not be fun sometimes but its full of life and its diversity!)
The government has banned fun. Didn;t you get the memo?
Joking aside it actually was the USP of Boris Johnson . Nicola Sturgeon was never going to win elections based on her fun factor but Boris certainly got a fair few votes from his - He needs to start thinking about that in his policy making (not follow the SNP a few days later) .Whilst fun is hard to measure and value (and hence to conventional politicians irrelevant) Boris seemed at one point to get that people needed fun .He either seems to have forgot this or maybe overwhelmed by the more stale politicians who have grasped the chance to impose petty laws in covid -19
While I think Trump is on more favourable electoral territory, with the focus on law & order, it doesn't really seem - at any point - to have made any significant difference to Biden's polling.
Indeed, look at the 538 or RCP averages (and while I suspect Nate Silver of Democratic sympathies, RCP is slightly right of centre). They both show Biden continuing to be very close to his high watermark polling-wise. (It's hard to have much of a bounce when you're already at 50 percent in the polling, and your peak is 51% back in May.)
I do see Republicans as more motivated. I also think that a lot of the undecideds will break for Trump. But unless that Biden share moves down from 50%, then Trump is going to really find this very difficult.
Could there be something where the polls are not picking up switchers (a form of shy trumpers). In the way there was an issue with the YouGov panel being dominated by the politically engaged
On why the law and order issue (or riots if you prefer) has not boosted Trump, remember we saw the same thing in our 2017 general election. President Trump is in power right now, so voters might reasonably blame him for not dealing with it or for making it worse.
Didn't get the whole thing because of the paywall but the subtitle says Biden should condemn violence unequivocally, which he already has.
This is what his defenders keep saying.
He hasn't. He condemns violence on all sides and calls for peace and calm. He needs to come out strongly against the rioters and not sympathise with them, or criticise them with caveats. It's not good enough.
Even if he had done what you think he's done (spoiler: he hasn't) no-one on the fence who's not already a Trump hater believes he has - and they're not hearing him - so he'd need to dial up the volume and change his campaign tune anyway.
"The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same."
I'd say that is pretty strong condemnation and throws it back at Trump's one sided condemnations. I would expect to see more as this goes on from Biden's camp as so far law and order is Trump's only card currently
That is extremely strong and unequivocal condemnation of the violence.
When has Trump unequivocally attacked the violence on both sides rather than stoked it?
When there has been blood spilt by white supremacists Trump never unequivocally condemns it, he says instead that "there's good people on both sides". Biden is the only Presidential candidate unequivocally condemning violence.
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
Is it possible they don’t have the human resource to run the nightingale hospitals as the primary Covid care centers. I struggle to understand why, the UK hospitals are deemed to old or badly built to facilitate both normal care and distancing why the centers have not been used.
I don't know for sure myself, but I can hazard a guess.
The Nightingale hospitals were thrown up in a tremendous hurry to deal specifically, AIUI, with the expected tsunami of ventilator cases that mercifully didn't happen on the scale envisaged. Is it simply the case that they don't contain enough support facilities - loos, catering, etc. - to cope with less sick patients who are conscious, can get up and walk about and need to be fed conventionally?
If that is the case, however, then this could've been remedied by constructing the necessary facilities over the Summer months. I don't know for sure that this hasn't been done, but I'd imagine not. Having not needed them to cope with the first wave, I expect that the authorities simply breathed a sigh of relief, mothballed all the Nightingales and forgot about them. Unfortunately, this would mean, in turn, that they would only be of use for ventilator cases if needed again.
We'll pay a high price for this if general hospitals end up stuffed with people who are a bit short of breath or getting by on CPAP machines this Winter, meaning that almost nobody else gets treated. Again.
I'm not sure how much of the problem is also caused by staffing shortages. It's bound to be a factor, but again the Government could plug some of the holes by using Army medics and by hiring and training up more healthcare assistants to relieve the pressure of some of the basic donkeywork tasks. Again, I strongly suspect that nothing will have been done in respect of the latter.
Anyway, I'm sure that members of the PB medical community will rock up before long and shoot my argument full of holes!
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
Don't worry about masks slipping, we can all see past your mask.
Harris is a former Attorney General who has also unequivocally condemned the violence on all sides. Unlike Trump.
Nothing at all shocking about Portland - this is the template Trump will use to win the election. People want to vote for someone else? Shoot them! He's already incited armed militia to storm state houses and armed militia to intimidate voters, so this is hardly a big step we're seeing in Portland.
Trump is a patriot. If you don't support Trump you aren't a patriot. If you aren't a patriot then All Good Men must step forward and defend to your death their interpretation of the constitution. God Bless America.
I can imagine armed militias and federal troops "monitoring" polling stations in Democrat wards in swing states.
Because Biden values the Constitution, I fear, win, lose or draw he will eventually concede.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Not massively interested in US politics aside from betting on it . I do think we (As a nation) obsess too much about the USA generally . However I do really wonder how on earth the democrats have missed the opportunity to nail this election by picking almost anyone other than Joe Biden
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
The fact that you think Harris has a radical agenda which is probably to the right of ‘normal’ Tory policy just shows how far off the scale you are in your political perspective.
O/T - it used to be a nearly consensus view here that Merkel had made a terrible mistake by letting in so many Syrian refugees. On the whole it seems to be working out OK, both socially (no attacks fopr years) and politiccally (CDU back up, AfD adrift). An article putting the case in more detail:
It may turn out similarly to the Vietnamese migration - the "boat people" have generally turned out to be an asset to their new societies.
My problem with it was not the intention or its potential impact on Germany it was its unilateral action supported by people who usually insist that consultation and cooperation are sacrosanct and sneer at unilateral ism. It showed all that talk was bunkum and people actually just want the things they want to happen and dont care as much about international cooperation as they high mindedly pretend.
That’s always been the case. The vast majority of politicians who support the EU do so because they believe they will get what they want, while they are not convinced the great British public will vote for these measures
We've clearly been among the worst hit in the world, but the data included in the BBC's reporting say's we're 4th worst deaths per capita rate in the world (excluding micro nations), with Italy, Spain, Sweden and us being pretty comparable in terms of European nations with really bad death rates.
That doesn't undermine that our numbers show just how badly we've been affected, but of the truly large Western European nations only Germany has done well, France a bit better, and Spain and Italy about the same, and without Boris Johnson as a factor. As a continent we look to have done collectively badly despite very different systems and governments.
I’d also challenge the “on every measure” the response has been woeful.
Clearly they made mistakes.
But on the really really big things - the absolute games changers - they did well.
NHS was not overwhelmed. Nightingales were built
Ventilators were designed and production ramped up. There was no shortage
Vaccine strategy has been well executed on the scientific, procurement and manufacturing side
But I guess none of that counts?
Not sure about the NHS; many, many routine appointments seem to have have been delayed and, locally at any rate GP services haven't enhanced, at least, their reputations.
[argument with somebody snipped] Biden's starting to go down like a bucket of cold sick amongst swing voters in swing states over the issue of law and order.
I'm not at all saying you're wrong but is there some evidence for this?
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
When you say Biden is a "leftist", do you mean in the same way, say David Cameron was a leftist?
Didn't get the whole thing because of the paywall but the subtitle says Biden should condemn violence unequivocally, which he already has.
Repeatedly.
Unequivocally.
This is apparently not enough. In fact, it is never enough. Biden has to do something, never actually stated, more. Which he can never do because no one defines what that more is.
I think he needs to go and start punching protesters, telling them to be more peaceful
This site is so full of confirmation bias on Biden, it's laughable.
Blind blind blind.
Not so, quite a few of us have taken Michael Moore's warning seriously.
Personally I am also expecting the election to hinge on Trump's voter suppression tactics and potential litigation, disputing any Biden win.
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
Wait, so you're saying even in California, a state entirely in the hands of deeply radical leftists, nobody has paid any reparations? These deeply radical leftists seem a bit crap to me.
Don't forget that Phase III started in South Africa and Brazil almost six weeks ago. If the placebo group has gotten a fair number of CV19 cases, and the vaccine group have (ideally) got none, and there have been no side effects, then it's possible...
Although given that there are - what two weeks? - between the doses, any data is very, very preliminary at this stage...
It’s a double blinded trial, so that data simply isn’t there yet to make such a decision.
But presumably the organisers will get told of any confirmed CV19 cases, and can then check it against whether someone was given the vaccine or not.
For the record, given all the dangers (in particular the risk of creating something that kills more people than the disease), it would be insane to approve a vaccine without proper testing.
That’s not how it works. A double blinded survey means the investigators do not know until the trial reaches a predetermined endpoint; they don’t get to peak at the data as it goes along - and they don’t know who was or wasn’t given the vaccine until the data is unblinded.
It depends. A number of double blind studies appoint an independent panel empowered to end the trial early if an unexpectedly strong difference is discovered, for good or ill.
An interim data review needs to be built into the protocol in advance
Didn't get the whole thing because of the paywall but the subtitle says Biden should condemn violence unequivocally, which he already has.
Repeatedly.
Unequivocally.
This is apparently not enough. In fact, it is never enough. Biden has to do something, never actually stated, more. Which he can never do because no one defines what that more is.
I think he needs to go and start punching protesters, telling them to be more peaceful
This site is so full of confirmation bias on Biden, it's laughable.
Blind blind blind.
Not so, quite a few of us have taken Michael Moore's warning seriously.
Personally I am also expecting the election to hinge on Trump's voter suppression tactics and potential litigation, disputing any Biden win.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Not massively interested in US politics aside from betting on it . I do think we (As a nation) obsess too much about the USA generally . However I do really wonder how on earth the democrats have missed the opportunity to nail this election by picking almost anyone other than Joe Biden
The Dems did run primaries that might have selected anyone-but-Biden had the field not been overcrowded and the process disrupted by the pandemic and the inability of Iowans to count. Most likely, however, Biden would have won the primaries anyway simply because he was by far the best known candidate after eight years as Vice President. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016 showed how valuable this can be.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Not massively interested in US politics aside from betting on it . I do think we (As a nation) obsess too much about the USA generally . However I do really wonder how on earth the democrats have missed the opportunity to nail this election by picking almost anyone other than Joe Biden
The picked Joe Biden because in primaries, old people have votes, and Joe Biden is popular with old people, and not just because he is himself an old person. I think this may turn out well for them because old people also have votes in the general election, and a lot of the swing voters the Democrats need to reach are also old people. Current polling is suggesting that this is going to work, but obviously a lot can change between now and then.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
THat's factually inaccurate on a number of levels.
1) Biden has condemned the violence on multiple occasions prior to now 2) Since 2016 the far-right regularly travel into Portland to cause trouble, especially in summer months. They did not take the last 3 months off.
Plus, the UK had a couple of weeks more notice of what was going on. A couple of weeks warning of what could go wrong.
We didn't use that advantage well.
How did that happen? Did the internet go down in Germany for a couple of weeks?
What seems to have happened was that the British had a plan for dealing with pandemics, and they'd worked jolly hard at it, and they weren't going to throw it away just because some foreigners had discovered that the pandemic they were dealing with wasn't like the one in the plan.
I know you said that as a joke but I suspect it’s pretty close to the truth
It’s the equivalent of the railway timetable theory for the First World War
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
Don't worry about masks slipping, we can all see past your mask.
Harris is a former Attorney General who has also unequivocally condemned the violence on all sides. Unlike Trump.
You enjoy a personal smear when your arguments are countered, don;t you Philip?
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Not massively interested in US politics aside from betting on it . I do think we (As a nation) obsess too much about the USA generally . However I do really wonder how on earth the democrats have missed the opportunity to nail this election by picking almost anyone other than Joe Biden
The picked Joe Biden because in primaries, old people have votes, and Joe Biden is popular with old people, and not just because he is himself an old person. I think this may turn out well for them because old people also have votes in the general election, and current polling is suggesting that the strategy is going to work, but obviously a lot can change between now and then.
I don't like Biden, but he is a 'safe pair of hands' compared to many other candidates. Certainly better than having gone for Sanders.
From a betting angle on the US election- It seems to me as a Brit that Biden should be shorter odds . It seems to most on here as well including Mike Smithson (who I think we can say is a shrewd political punter!) Ye the bookies and betfair must have an equal amount of money coming in on Trump to make it a "levels you devils" odds on each. Is the Trump money coming more therefore from the USA ? If so , I think we punters this side of the pond need to ask ourselves are we being sucked into the UK media slant that Trump is so unpopular (just because he is outside the US ,certainly with the liberal media types like the BBC) that he cannot possibly win? I want to have a fair punt on Biden at this stage but hate to do this when I cannot fully fathom why Trump is being supported in bets probably stateside?
We've clearly been among the worst hit in the world, but the data included in the BBC's reporting say's we're 4th worst deaths per capita rate in the world (excluding micro nations), with Italy, Spain, Sweden and us being pretty comparable in terms of European nations with really bad death rates.
That doesn't undermine that our numbers show just how badly we've been affected, but of the truly large Western European nations only Germany has done well, France a bit better, and Spain and Italy about the same, and without Boris Johnson as a factor. As a continent we look to have done collectively badly despite very different systems and governments.
I’d also challenge the “on every measure” the response has been woeful.
Clearly they made mistakes.
But on the really really big things - the absolute games changers - they did well.
NHS was not overwhelmed. Nightingales were built
Ventilators were designed and production ramped up. There was no shortage
Vaccine strategy has been well executed on the scientific, procurement and manufacturing side
But I guess none of that counts?
Not sure about the NHS; many, many routine appointments seem to have have been delayed and, locally at any rate GP services haven't enhanced, at least, their reputations.
Postcode lottery, I dare say. Experience of our GP services - I've not had to use them, but husband has plenty - is that they've coped very well. But we're in a rural and quite wealthy town that has got off lightly from the pandemic (five deaths certified as involving Covid to date according to the ONS map, very few in the surrounding areas and almost none outside of April.)
Other practices that have either been swamped with cases or have overreacted and virtually stopped treating people might not have performed as highly.
Didn't get the whole thing because of the paywall but the subtitle says Biden should condemn violence unequivocally, which he already has.
Repeatedly.
Unequivocally.
This is apparently not enough. In fact, it is never enough. Biden has to do something, never actually stated, more. Which he can never do because no one defines what that more is.
The quote today was something like “I condemn all violence on both sides”
Which comes across as as equivocating - a bit like a Gerry Adams evasion when asked to condemn the latest murder of a soldier
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
Don't worry about masks slipping, we can all see past your mask.
Harris is a former Attorney General who has also unequivocally condemned the violence on all sides. Unlike Trump.
You enjoy a personal smear when your arguments are countered, don;t you Philip?
You're the one making smears not others.If the arguments were countered then that'd be fair enough, but all we're getting from you and some others are unfounded smears and allegations.
"Biden must condemn the violence" - "he has condemned the violence, what about Trump?" - "Biden must condemn the violence" - "he has condemned the violence, what about Trump?" - "Biden must condemn the violence" - "he has condemned the violence, what about Trump?" - "Biden must condemn the violence" . . .
You think that's countering the arguments? You've been shown multiple instances of Biden condemning the violence on all sides. Is Biden the only Presidential Candidate doing so? Yes or no.
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
I don't want to stan Biden too much as we're currently in a bit of a waiting period where the attacks have been rolled out at the conventions, but we don't yet really have the polling to see if they're working. But given Trump's reputation as an effective attacker, I think it's remarkable just how weak this stuff is.
Biden is X! OK, Biden isn't X, but his VP is X! OK, his VP isn't X, but she comes from a state where some of the people are X!
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
The fact that you think Harris has a radical agenda which is probably to the right of ‘normal’ Tory policy just shows how far off the scale you are in your political perspective.
Something of which I don't think we take enough account: virtually all the ancestors, and often very recent ancestors, of most Americans, be they Asian, European or Latino, and including the Native Americans, came to the US voluntarily. However, most of the ancestors of Afro/Black Americans were brought to the US very much involuntarily, as slaves. Must make a difference.
Didn't get the whole thing because of the paywall but the subtitle says Biden should condemn violence unequivocally, which he already has.
Repeatedly.
Unequivocally.
This is apparently not enough. In fact, it is never enough. Biden has to do something, never actually stated, more. Which he can never do because no one defines what that more is.
The quote today was something like “I condemn all violence on both sides”
Which comes across as as equivocating - a bit like a Gerry Adams evasion when asked to condemn the latest murder of a soldier
No its not equivocating, it is unequivocal. The violence on both sides has to stop.
Where is Trump condemning the violence from the right? He is stoking and encouraging it.
That's a reasonable suggestion . About the first from either the tories or labour or lib dems since covid-19 began
The smart answer from the government would be
That’s an interesting idea. It’s one that we are already considering and I’m glad the opposition is willing to support our proposals. We will get back to you when we’ve worked through in more details and we look forward to more productive collaboration from the Labour Party in future. It’s so much better than childishly sniping from the sidelines like they normally do
From a betting angle on the US election- It seems to me as a Brit that Biden should be shorter odds . It seems to most on here as well including Mike Smithson (who I think we can say is a shrewd political punter!) Ye the bookies and betfair must have an equal amount of money coming in on Trump to make it a "levels you devils" odds on each. Is the Trump money coming more therefore from the USA ? If so , I think we punters this side of the pond need to ask ourselves are we being sucked into the UK media slant that Trump is so unpopular (just because he is outside the US ,certainly with the liberal media types like the BBC) that he cannot possibly win? I want to have a fair punt on Biden at this stage but hate to do this when I cannot fully fathom why Trump is being supported in bets probably stateside?
The weight of money is on Trump, punters are rerunning 2016 in their heads
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
THat's factually inaccurate on a number of levels.
1) Biden has condemned the violence on multiple occasions prior to now 2) Since 2016 the far-right regularly travel into Portland to cause trouble, especially in summer months. They did not take the last 3 months off.
The riots and looting have been going on in Portland for three months now, by Antifa thugs hiding behind BLM banners.
The vigilante mob has turned up now because the Democrat mayor and Democrat Discrict Attourney are letting the violence continue, dozens of people have been killed and thousands more have lost their businesses thanks to left-wing rioting.
Biden and CNN have only woken up to it now, because right-wing thugs are getting involved, which gives them the opportunity to link violence to Trump.
People may not agree with its overall premise or conclusion, but I do often think we have an emotional reaction to the NHS which does not help us or it deal with the many problems any behemoth of an organisation would face, that money is presumed to be the only issue, and that the chances if addressing problems is slight.
The British generally have a wildly exaggerated faith in their government. I'm always amazed to hear people talking about a "Rolls Royce civil service" and an NHS which is the "envy of the world" and so on.
Neither are terrible, but compared to most other civilised countries they're at best mediocre.
As others have previously pointed out, the Germans have achieved substantially better healthcare outcomes with a model that is (a) not the NHS, (b) not cruel America either and (c) not worshipped as a god.
To be fair, the Nightingale Hospitals were built quickly, and, for a while it did seem they might be needed.
And they could yet come into their own. If there is a substantial uptick in Covid hospitalisations in the Autumn then it would, presumably, be a very good idea indeed to send them all to segregated plague hospitals rather than filling the general hospitals back up?
We already know that enormous waiting lists for treatment have built up, the lists are still lengthening (because the NHS seems wholly incapable of returning to full capacity due to social distancing and other considerations,) and things are going to get even worse if hospitals start to fill back up with more highly contagious Covid victims. Indeed, the broad consensus would seem to be that tens of thousands of people who've never had Covid are either already dead or are going to die because of the way the healthcare system has buckled under the pressure of the virus. God knows we need to find ways to stop the situation from deteriorating even further and faster than it has already.
They are using the private hospitals to clear the backlog
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Not massively interested in US politics aside from betting on it . I do think we (As a nation) obsess too much about the USA generally . However I do really wonder how on earth the democrats have missed the opportunity to nail this election by picking almost anyone other than Joe Biden
Actually I think Biden is a candidate that the RNC, particularly Trump's RNC, find hard to attack, hence why they are going after " democrat run cities" and are going hard with law and order. They tried "sleepy Joe" but that was easily knocked away as time has gone on with more media coverage of Biden speaking. In the black community as he was Obama's VP, he is liked with women of all races and appeals to the blue collar workers due to his background. If Sanders or Warren won it would have been easy left wing are bad which would be enough to scare moderates on both wings.
The main reasons why I see Biden has not run away with it is down to 2 major things, US politics is stupidly polarised so clan mentality wins out, red must beat blue even if I hate red right now. Also Trump and co rely heavily on "a lie can travel the world twice before the truth had put is boots on" which works amazingly well in today's social media and fast paced traditional media. However recent interviews have shown this technique falls if you get pinned down ( Fox and Axios) and shows a clear template for the debates, if the democrats are bothering to learn.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
THat's factually inaccurate on a number of levels.
1) Biden has condemned the violence on multiple occasions prior to now 2) Since 2016 the far-right regularly travel into Portland to cause trouble, especially in summer months. They did not take the last 3 months off.
The riots and looting have been going on in Portland for three months now, by Antifa thugs hiding behind BLM banners.
The vigilante mob has turned up now because the Democrat mayor and Democrat Discrict Attourney are letting the violence continue, dozens of people have been killed and thousands more have lost their businesses thanks to left-wing rioting.
Biden and CNN have only woken up to it now, because right-wing thugs are getting involved, which gives them the opportunity to link violence to Trump.
Trump has been stoking the violence all along and has refused to condemn it. Biden has condemned the violence all along.
That's the difference.
Dozens of people have been killed the Police too. Thousands more attacked with tear gas, batons etc
This is actually something that the Scottish Government really needs to get a grip on. If, whenever it comes, they can win Indyref2 - which seems highly likely - then they're probably going to have no longer than 2-3 years to set up the entire trappings of an independent state. If they're struggling this badly just with a portion of the social security system then the prospects for this being done successfully do not, at present, look especially encouraging.
Apart from anything else, just think of the large numbers of Government IT projects they're going to have to deliver on time...
Remember when sending private messages to colleagues, that if these are on Teams, Slack or other company-owned platform, or a company-logged phone or computer, your IT department, HR department and possibly even your line manager will be able to read them!
Think of a chat in the pub vs posting on social media, for a good example of the difference! < /IT_Director >
Unless you are a thick twunt , saying someone is talking mince is hardly likely to get you in any trouble. I hardly think HR have time to trawl through millions of lines of messages to see if anyone is being catty about someone
And that is why it will be scripted.
But even if it isn't, HR will find the time to search the logs for incriminating material when the CEO asks them if it is possible to fire Mr X without making a redundancy payment.
Unfortunately we do live in an increasing surveillance world even at work . Quite depressing really
Surveillance will get worse with all this WFH as companies start to monitor VPN activity and even keyboard presence, and that is before they get to laptops' cameras and microphones.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
THat's factually inaccurate on a number of levels.
1) Biden has condemned the violence on multiple occasions prior to now 2) Since 2016 the far-right regularly travel into Portland to cause trouble, especially in summer months. They did not take the last 3 months off.
The vigilante mob has turned up now because the Democrat mayor and Democrat Discrict Attourney are letting the violence continue,
You have absolutely no clue of the history of far-right violence in Portland.
The "Vigilantes mob" is not a new phenomena. Proud boys and patriot prayer come into town on a weekly basis to cause trouble and have done for years now.
Peter Hitchins is ( I think) on Talk Radio today at 11am. Whilst he can be too contrarian and occasionally pompous at times which ruins his generally logical arguments he is spot on about the futility of mask wearing and the misery it is causing and the economic damage it is causing especially to the "fun " industry (cinema ,theatre ,museums and public transport (ok the last might not be fun sometimes but its full of life and its diversity!)
The government has banned fun. Didn;t you get the memo?
Joking aside it actually was the USP of Boris Johnson . Nicola Sturgeon was never going to win elections based on her fun factor but Boris certainly got a fair few votes from his - He needs to start thinking about that in his policy making (not follow the SNP a few days later) .Whilst fun is hard to measure and value (and hence to conventional politicians irrelevant) Boris seemed at one point to get that people needed fun .He either seems to have forgot this or maybe overwhelmed by the more stale politicians who have grasped the chance to impose petty laws in covid -19
Or maybe Boris's own experience of Covid knocked some of the fun-loving side out of him?
We've clearly been among the worst hit in the world, but the data included in the BBC's reporting say's we're 4th worst deaths per capita rate in the world (excluding micro nations), with Italy, Spain, Sweden and us being pretty comparable in terms of European nations with really bad death rates.
That doesn't undermine that our numbers show just how badly we've been affected, but of the truly large Western European nations only Germany has done well, France a bit better, and Spain and Italy about the same, and without Boris Johnson as a factor. As a continent we look to have done collectively badly despite very different systems and governments.
I’d also challenge the “on every measure” the response has been woeful.
Clearly they made mistakes.
But on the really really big things - the absolute games changers - they did well.
NHS was not overwhelmed. Nightingales were built
Ventilators were designed and production ramped up. There was no shortage
Vaccine strategy has been well executed on the scientific, procurement and manufacturing side
But I guess none of that counts?
Good question to which there is a simple answer: none of those things have counted so far.
Nightingales are essentially dumping grounds for when the NHS is overwhelmed. Fortunately we didn't quite get there.
Ditto the Ventilator Challenge. We just managed to stay inside the capacity, which is just as well as the ventilators produced through the Challenge arrived too late to meet the First Wave peak and weren't optimal for the treatments they would be used for (anaesthesia ventilators repurposed for limited intensive care interventions)
A vaccine might be a game changer next year. In the meantime we have to live with the virus, including getting through what promises to be a grim winter.
Which is not to say these three things were a waste of time. The Nightingale project was well managed; the Ventilator Challenge much less so IMO. Jury's out on the vaccine programme: accelerated timetable is good; rushed and botched job is bad - we want the first.
Plus, the UK had a couple of weeks more notice of what was going on. A couple of weeks warning of what could go wrong.
We didn't use that advantage well.
How did that happen? Did the internet go down in Germany for a couple of weeks?
What seems to have happened was that the British had a plan for dealing with pandemics, and they'd worked jolly hard at it, and they weren't going to throw it away just because some foreigners had discovered that the pandemic they were dealing with wasn't like the one in the plan.
I know you said that as a joke but I suspect it’s pretty close to the truth
It’s the equivalent of the railway timetable theory for the First World War
What Edmund says, plus having watched Italy we panicked and focused all attention and effort on the single metric of ICU capacity, rather than on the wider picture and risks elsewhere such as care homes.
Biden must be more Trump than Trump in his condemnation and must ignore the support the local police and federal agents giving the Trump supporters on the street to the point that people say well we might as well vote for the real thing.
We've clearly been among the worst hit in the world, but the data included in the BBC's reporting say's we're 4th worst deaths per capita rate in the world (excluding micro nations), with Italy, Spain, Sweden and us being pretty comparable in terms of European nations with really bad death rates.
That doesn't undermine that our numbers show just how badly we've been affected, but of the truly large Western European nations only Germany has done well, France a bit better, and Spain and Italy about the same, and without Boris Johnson as a factor. As a continent we look to have done collectively badly despite very different systems and governments.
I’d also challenge the “on every measure” the response has been woeful.
Clearly they made mistakes.
But on the really really big things - the absolute games changers - they did well.
NHS was not overwhelmed. Nightingales were built
Ventilators were designed and production ramped up. There was no shortage
Vaccine strategy has been well executed on the scientific, procurement and manufacturing side
But I guess none of that counts?
Not sure about the NHS; many, many routine appointments seem to have have been delayed and, locally at any rate GP services haven't enhanced, at least, their reputations.
Postcode lottery, I dare say. Experience of our GP services - I've not had to use them, but husband has plenty - is that they've coped very well. But we're in a rural and quite wealthy town that has got off lightly from the pandemic (five deaths certified as involving Covid to date according to the ONS map, very few in the surrounding areas and almost none outside of April.)
Other practices that have either been swamped with cases or have overreacted and virtually stopped treating people might not have performed as highly.
Glad to hear it. In a similar, albeit smaller, town with what appears to be a similar Covid experience things don't seem to be as good. And I don't think it's as been anywhere near as good in the next nearest community, but the practice there started from a lower base!
Remember when sending private messages to colleagues, that if these are on Teams, Slack or other company-owned platform, or a company-logged phone or computer, your IT department, HR department and possibly even your line manager will be able to read them!
Think of a chat in the pub vs posting on social media, for a good example of the difference! < /IT_Director >
Unless you are a thick twunt , saying someone is talking mince is hardly likely to get you in any trouble. I hardly think HR have time to trawl through millions of lines of messages to see if anyone is being catty about someone
And that is why it will be scripted.
But even if it isn't, HR will find the time to search the logs for incriminating material when the CEO asks them if it is possible to fire Mr X without making a redundancy payment.
Unfortunately we do live in an increasing surveillance world even at work . Quite depressing really
Surveillance will get worse with all this WFH as companies start to monitor VPN activity and even keyboard presence, and that is before they get to laptops' cameras and microphones.
Yes it will become like the old TIme and Motion studies that sucked the life out of everybody years ago. WFH does have more disadvantages than people who think its the way ahead give credit for
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
THat's factually inaccurate on a number of levels.
1) Biden has condemned the violence on multiple occasions prior to now 2) Since 2016 the far-right regularly travel into Portland to cause trouble, especially in summer months. They did not take the last 3 months off.
The vigilante mob has turned up now because the Democrat mayor and Democrat Discrict Attourney are letting the violence continue,
You have absolutely no clue of the history of far-right violence in Portland.
The "Vigilantes mob" is not a new phenomena. Proud boys and patriot prayer come into town on a weekly basis to cause trouble and have done for years now.
From a betting angle on the US election- It seems to me as a Brit that Biden should be shorter odds . It seems to most on here as well including Mike Smithson (who I think we can say is a shrewd political punter!) Ye the bookies and betfair must have an equal amount of money coming in on Trump to make it a "levels you devils" odds on each. Is the Trump money coming more therefore from the USA ? If so , I think we punters this side of the pond need to ask ourselves are we being sucked into the UK media slant that Trump is so unpopular (just because he is outside the US ,certainly with the liberal media types like the BBC) that he cannot possibly win? I want to have a fair punt on Biden at this stage but hate to do this when I cannot fully fathom why Trump is being supported in bets probably stateside?
My sense is that much of the money for Trump is driven by the memory of the shock result last time. "We don't get fooled again" type sentiment with regards to polls and prevailing wisdom.
A good comparison is to our GE19. The previous election had produced a Hung Parliament instead of the expected Con win and in Nov and Dec 2019 lots of money kept going onto Hung Parliament again at short odds despite the polls pointing to a clear Con win.
That money was mug money and so it will prove this time imo. The polls need to tighten considerably to justify Trump at evens. Unless the Biden lead is slashed quite soon the Trump price will collapse.
That's a reasonable suggestion . About the first from either the tories or labour or lib dems since covid-19 began
The smart answer from the government would be
That’s an interesting idea. It’s one that we are already considering and I’m glad the opposition is willing to support our proposals. We will get back to you when we’ve worked through in more details and we look forward to more productive collaboration from the Labour Party in future. It’s so much better than childishly sniping from the sidelines like they normally do
If co-operation were actually wanted I'd leave off the last sentence! Just saying!!
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
You sound more and more like a Trump propaganda merchant.
"Seeking to read around the election and provide balance" - MY ARSE.
You continue to sit in your little echo chamber watching CNN and Twitter, *knowing* that Biden’s going to win by a mile because the other guy is worse than Hitler.
I’ll keep trying to find as many sources as possible for what’s actually happening, and bet accordingly.
FWIW I think Biden should be the clear favourite at the moment, it’s closer to 60/40 than 50/50, although the risk is that, like Hilary, Biden piles up votes in safe states rather than marginals.
Didn't get the whole thing because of the paywall but the subtitle says Biden should condemn violence unequivocally, which he already has.
Repeatedly.
Unequivocally.
This is apparently not enough. In fact, it is never enough. Biden has to do something, never actually stated, more. Which he can never do because no one defines what that more is.
I think he needs to go and start punching protesters, telling them to be more peaceful
This site is so full of confirmation bias on Biden, it's laughable.
Blind blind blind.
If you want a lucid explanation of why Trump is doing way better in the betting than the polls Nigel Farage's essay for Newsweek is actually not bad.
Sorry to be a lazy **** but what's the gist of his essay? I'm mildly interested in the disconnect between the betting (opinion) and polling (arguably hard data). In the only other form of betting of which I have slight experience, horseracing, the betting market is at least as important as the data (form etc), I'm just wondering if there's a convincing argument that this can be applied to the US election.
Portland will soon find out precisely the effects of failing to do any policing for 90+ days.
Cold. Blooded. Murder.
If the Portland police actually arrested the Nazi's who came to town every weekend rather than colaborating with them the world would be a better place.
So they don’t have the right to protest because you disagree with them?
Do you think the Portland police should have been feeding real time information to the head of the Proud Boys as to the location of antifa protests? Do you think the Portland Police should have been giving the proud boys advice on how one of their members could avoid being arrested?
This is all documented in official communications.
No. But they shouldn’t arrest them either just because you disagree with them.
Regarding the end of summer and the end of financial support. Unfortunately the pox hasn't gone away, is already surging back and that's before we send the school super spreaders to work. The government needs to try and at least throttle the vast sums being spent supporting the economy, but its seems clear enough that the result in doing so will be a surge in unemployment.
For a right wing free marketeer that shouldn't provide a concern and didn't in the 80s when economic reform and modernisation required the mass unemployment of working people across the midlands and north. These people didn't vote Tory and didn't matter. But now? One of the successes of the Tories has been the demonisation of state aid. If you are taking support from the government you must be some kind of scrounger, shirker, failure. Universal Credit, Food Banks, Bedroom Taxes - these are all things that happen to other people and besides its exaggerated.
Until now. The people being dumped onto UC are increasingly the people told UC was for dossers who live it large on your tax dollars. They are finding the opposite is true, and the "is that all I can get" conversations with the likes of Citizens Advice I am assured are eye-opening. As the middle class increasingly find themselves dumped onto a system that treats them like dirt and provides farthings, whilst at the same time the government issues increasingly patronising messages featuring someone like Ester McVeigh pretenting to drive off to her "staycation" I cannot see how the Tories avoid the political calamity this will bring.
And just as the pain from their people gets the most acute, we exit from transition with no deal. The borders gum shut, we get mass shortages and what there is costs money that their people don't have. Whilst IDS pops up cheering the glorious future we have now started. No wonder Shagger is looking to step off the stage.
Is the Trump money coming more therefore from the USA ? If so , I think we punters this side of the pond need to ask ourselves are we being sucked into the UK media slant that Trump is so unpopular (just because he is outside the US ,certainly with the liberal media types like the BBC) that he cannot possibly win?
That's a good question, and it's always possible we're missing something. I know of 3 people betting on Trump, one's a Tokyo-based French software developer who gets his news from Zerohedge and knows basically nothing about politics, another is a fairly libertarian Thiel fellowship recipient, and a third is a Marmot-loving anglo-American pro-EU pro-second amendment lawyer. I think at least two of these three are mostly thinking with their hearts, and they're not people who usually bet.
But if one candidate has a 7% lead on voting intention, and a 15% lead on approval, and this picture has been mostly unchanged for months with only 2 months to go, I don't think you need to posit local media bias to explain why most people here seem to think he's more likely to win than the other guy.
I think you can put it the other way around: The US media really needs a race, and they're currently talking it up as if it is one. Also I think Trumpists were successfully *enthused* by the convention, they seem to be enjoying themselves more than they were. So in this case I'd say pb is just a better place to see the wood for the trees.
OT will WFH mean a decline in formal clothing, with tailors and tie-retailers next to go bust?
I'd think so. I've seen it said that dry cleaners are struggling, since the need to have your clothes looking fresh and ironed has declined.
We've debated in our organisation what the dress code should now be and agreed it should be the usdual "Don't dress in a way that distracts people from work". In practice the office is predominantly female, including nearly all the management, and smart casual is the norm anyway, but among the men I've not seen a tie for months.
OT will WFH mean a decline in formal clothing, with tailors and tie-retailers next to go bust?
Dunn’s already planning on closing all retail outlets, who still wears a tie or even a suit to work?
Well some do ,some don't . Whilst a bit of a natural scruff (who comes out in cold sweats when needing to go to black tie events) I dont really see why there is the obsessiveness by some to disparage smart clothes wearing in the workplace .Richard Branson says he used to have scissors to cut the tie off anyone who wore one when meeting him - Surely its a matter of personal choice which to be fair is the case in most office based work now. A shirt and tie can still be a signal to show respect to others especially when meeting them for the first time
I am intrigued by this story on the beeb about the Tui flight to Cardiff last week.
It looks like a 737, probably an 800. According to Boeing that plane seats up to 189. Tui had 197 people on board, which sounds more like a cattle truck.
By contrast my own local airline, Delta, blocks all middle seats and limits capacity on all flights. Delta also insists on wearing masks from arrival at the airport. Failure to obey an instruction to wear a mask means Delta will ban you.
This is a betting website - everyone can be right.
(1) If the election were held tomorrow, Biden would win. He currently leads Trump in more than enough states. (2) Since the election is only being held on 3 November, Trump has an opportunity to turn this around. He could improve his position and lose.
I don't think anyone could look at the polls and be assured of one victory over another right at the moment.
OT will WFH mean a decline in formal clothing, with tailors and tie-retailers next to go bust?
Probably, but so what? It's not as though people are going to stop wearing clothes altogether. If a business can't adapt to changes in fashion it deserves to go bust. If your business plan is "sell the same old stuff forever and ever" you are a fool.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
THat's factually inaccurate on a number of levels.
1) Biden has condemned the violence on multiple occasions prior to now 2) Since 2016 the far-right regularly travel into Portland to cause trouble, especially in summer months. They did not take the last 3 months off.
The vigilante mob has turned up now because the Democrat mayor and Democrat Discrict Attourney are letting the violence continue,
You have absolutely no clue of the history of far-right violence in Portland.
The "Vigilantes mob" is not a new phenomena. Proud boys and patriot prayer come into town on a weekly basis to cause trouble and have done for years now.
I’m well aware of the history of violence in Portland. I’m just making the point that for the past 90 days there have been nightly riots and looting by a left-wing mob, who for several weeks cordoned off part of the city and occupied it, causing widespread human and economic damage, and quietly condoned by the authorities there.
Now a right wing mob has also turned up, everyone on the left has started talking about both sides - having said nothing for the past three months.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
Sleepy Joe finally wakes up, now there’s “two sides” to condemn and he can use it for his political ends.
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
You sound more and more like a Trump propaganda merchant.
"Seeking to read around the election and provide balance" - MY ARSE.
You continue to sit in your little echo chamber watching CNN and Twitter, *knowing* that Biden’s going to win by a mile because the other guy is worse than Hitler.
I’ll keep trying to find as many sources as possible for what’s actually happening, and bet accordingly.
FWIW I think Biden should be the clear favourite at the moment, it’s closer to 60/40 than 50/50, although the risk is that, like Hilary, Biden piles up votes in safe states rather than marginals.
I don't use Twitter or watch CNN. And I price it not a million miles from you. Biden twice as likely to win as Trump but with a good possibility of a big win whereas a Trump win can only be close.
My daily EC centre of gravity for Trump as we speak is 215.
Maybe one question is: given that law and order has been in the news since the end of May in the US, why hasn't it dented Biden's lead in the opinion polls?
RCP: May 24 (day before George Floyd) Biden 5.6% ahead currently 6.9% ahead. 538: May 24 Biden 6.2% ahead, currently 8.2% ahead.
Law and order issues can benefit Republican candidates, but isn't it one of those gut feelings things?
If you're not a Trump fan, but willing to consider voting for him (and he needs some of those voters in order to win), what is your gut feeling? Am I safer with Trump as president or with Biden as president?
I don't know, but I guess quite a few of those might just feel safer with Biden as president?
Regarding the end of summer and the end of financial support. Unfortunately the pox hasn't gone away, is already surging back and that's before we send the school super spreaders to work. The government needs to try and at least throttle the vast sums being spent supporting the economy, but its seems clear enough that the result in doing so will be a surge in unemployment.
For a right wing free marketeer that shouldn't provide a concern and didn't in the 80s when economic reform and modernisation required the mass unemployment of working people across the midlands and north. These people didn't vote Tory and didn't matter. But now? One of the successes of the Tories has been the demonisation of state aid. If you are taking support from the government you must be some kind of scrounger, shirker, failure. Universal Credit, Food Banks, Bedroom Taxes - these are all things that happen to other people and besides its exaggerated.
Until now. The people being dumped onto UC are increasingly the people told UC was for dossers who live it large on your tax dollars. They are finding the opposite is true, and the "is that all I can get" conversations with the likes of Citizens Advice I am assured are eye-opening. As the middle class increasingly find themselves dumped onto a system that treats them like dirt and provides farthings, whilst at the same time the government issues increasingly patronising messages featuring someone like Ester McVeigh pretenting to drive off to her "staycation" I cannot see how the Tories avoid the political calamity this will bring.
And just as the pain from their people gets the most acute, we exit from transition with no deal. The borders gum shut, we get mass shortages and what there is costs money that their people don't have. Whilst IDS pops up cheering the glorious future we have now started. No wonder Shagger is looking to step off the stage.
There.
Feel better now? Nothing like a little vent in the morning to set up the day.
That's a reasonable suggestion . About the first from either the tories or labour or lib dems since covid-19 began
It may sound it to the uninitiated, but it isn't. There wouldn't be time to hold exams in July and release the results before about mid-September - too late for sixth form colleges and universities. So if you are going down that route, you are again accepting predicted grades from teachers as the basis of next year's university entry.
The smart move - and it really would be a smart move - would be to put the university start date to January and pay every lecturer to have a six month sabbatical doing lots of lovely research. That would not only buy time in this emergency situation so the exams could be moved later if necessary, but would mean from hereon in universities would work from real grades not predicted grades (sixth forms could be fudged).
But that would require some intelligence and fortitude from the DfE so is as likely as Nicola Sturgeon declaring staying in the UK is the correct course of action for Scotland.
Do they not get enough holidays without another 6 months.
Well, academics actually don't get many holidays. They're meant to have a month. The rest of the time they should be doing research.
Doesn't always work that way in practice, of course, which is why I suggested making it clear this break really IS to do research.
surely as children get 17 weeks a year then teachers get same give or take a few days
OT will WFH mean a decline in formal clothing, with tailors and tie-retailers next to go bust?
Dunn’s already planning on closing all retail outlets, who still wears a tie or even a suit to work?
Well some do ,some don't . Whilst a bit of a natural scruff (who comes out in cold sweats when needing to go to black tie events) I dont really see why there is the obsessiveness by some to disparage smart clothes wearing in the workplace .Richard Branson says he used to have scissors to cut the tie off anyone who wore one when meeting him - Surely its a matter of personal choice which to be fair is the case in most office based work now. A shirt and tie can still be a signal to show respect to others especially when meeting them for the first time
I don't wear a tie but I do wear a jacket when meeting people - literally the only difference in my attire between work and non work is whether I'm wearing a jacket or a sweatshirt.
I am intrigued by this story on the beeb about the Tui flight to Cardiff last week.
It looks like a 737, probably an 800. According to Boeing that plane seats up to 189. Tui had 197 people on board, which sounds more like a cattle truck.
By contrast my own local airline, Delta, blocks all middle seats and limits capacity on all flights. Delta also insists on wearing masks from arrival at the airport. Failure to obey an instruction to wear a mask means Delta will ban you.
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
Only one mask slipping I can see from this nasty post.
I'm guessing nobody has a citation for Trump condemning the violence on both sides.
Because he's never done it.
Trump's violence under Trump's watch that he's been stoking for years.
The closest Trump has ever come to being even handed was his comment about Charlottesville: "You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides." Of course one of those sides was some alt-right white supremacists.
That's a reasonable suggestion . About the first from either the tories or labour or lib dems since covid-19 began
It may sound it to the uninitiated, but it isn't. There wouldn't be time to hold exams in July and release the results before about mid-September - too late for sixth form colleges and universities. So if you are going down that route, you are again accepting predicted grades from teachers as the basis of next year's university entry.
The smart move - and it really would be a smart move - would be to put the university start date to January and pay every lecturer to have a six month sabbatical doing lots of lovely research. That would not only buy time in this emergency situation so the exams could be moved later if necessary, but would mean from hereon in universities would work from real grades not predicted grades (sixth forms could be fudged).
But that would require some intelligence and fortitude from the DfE so is as likely as Nicola Sturgeon declaring staying in the UK is the correct course of action for Scotland.
Do they not get enough holidays without another 6 months.
Well, academics actually don't get many holidays. They're meant to have a month. The rest of the time they should be doing research.
Doesn't always work that way in practice, of course, which is why I suggested making it clear this break really IS to do research.
surely as children get 17 weeks a year then teachers get same give or take a few days
Much longer working week than average though, given all the preparation and marking time.
Portland will soon find out precisely the effects of failing to do any policing for 90+ days.
Cold. Blooded. Murder.
If the Portland police actually arrested the Nazi's who came to town every weekend rather than colaborating with them the world would be a better place.
So they don’t have the right to protest because you disagree with them?
Do you think the Portland police should have been feeding real time information to the head of the Proud Boys as to the location of antifa protests? Do you think the Portland Police should have been giving the proud boys advice on how one of their members could avoid being arrested?
This is all documented in official communications.
No. But they shouldn’t arrest them either just because you disagree with them.
But you agree the police should arrest people with outstanding warrants rather than facilitating their escape right?
Why is that LOL? Do you actually want Trump to win? I think the prospect is terrifying. To be honest I am also very worried if he loses as well.
I am really struggling very hard to find any distinguishing features between him and a full blown fascist now.
He has brought the most powerful country in the world to the verge of civil war.
If he loses, he and his supporters are in deep deep trouble, so I'm not expecting a smooth hand over. I just can't imagine what will happen if he wins.
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
Don't worry about masks slipping, we can all see past your mask.
Harris is a former Attorney General who has also unequivocally condemned the violence on all sides. Unlike Trump.
You enjoy a personal smear when your arguments are countered, don;t you Philip?
We'll have to wait until you have actually countered his arguments to find that out.
(I have to say, incidentally, I have frequently locked horns with Philip but I can't remember him ever getting personal.)
This is a betting website - everyone can be right.
(1) If the election were held tomorrow, Biden would win. He currently leads Trump in more than enough states. (2) Since the election is only being held on 3 November, Trump has an opportunity to turn this around. He could improve his position and lose.
I don't think anyone could look at the polls and be assured of one victory over another right at the moment.
We can't all be right, only one side gets the money.
OK, that's not quite true, some of the recent crypto-economic betting systems are based on the idea that both sides get the money, but the person who bet on Trump gets paid in "Trump won the election" currency, and the person who bet on Biden gets paid in "Biden won the election" currency, and if Biden won the election then the "Trump won the election" currency probably isn't worth much.
Comments
Doesn't always work that way in practice, of course, which is why I suggested making it clear this break really IS to do research.
Can people in the "Biden must condemn" camp reword the tweet so that it condemns in the way they wish it to?
When has Trump unequivocally attacked the violence on both sides rather than stoked it?
When there has been blood spilt by white supremacists Trump never unequivocally condemns it, he says instead that "there's good people on both sides". Biden is the only Presidential candidate unequivocally condemning violence.
Come on. Biden is irrelevant. He's a moderate weak minded and soon to be replaced cardboard cut out hiding a deeply, deeply radical leftist party.
The DNC's candidate is California Democrat Kamala Harris. California, a state where over the week-end the legislature approved the instigation of a working group to plan reparations to black people.
That's reparations to people who were not enslaved, by people who are not slavers. In the case of hispanics and Asians, by people whose ancestors were also not slavers.
Harris herself said last year that some form of reparations was a goer.
That's the Democrat agenda here. A patsy candidate hiding a very radical agenda. Occasionally, the mask slips. But mask it is.
The Nightingale hospitals were thrown up in a tremendous hurry to deal specifically, AIUI, with the expected tsunami of ventilator cases that mercifully didn't happen on the scale envisaged. Is it simply the case that they don't contain enough support facilities - loos, catering, etc. - to cope with less sick patients who are conscious, can get up and walk about and need to be fed conventionally?
If that is the case, however, then this could've been remedied by constructing the necessary facilities over the Summer months. I don't know for sure that this hasn't been done, but I'd imagine not. Having not needed them to cope with the first wave, I expect that the authorities simply breathed a sigh of relief, mothballed all the Nightingales and forgot about them. Unfortunately, this would mean, in turn, that they would only be of use for ventilator cases if needed again.
We'll pay a high price for this if general hospitals end up stuffed with people who are a bit short of breath or getting by on CPAP machines this Winter, meaning that almost nobody else gets treated. Again.
I'm not sure how much of the problem is also caused by staffing shortages. It's bound to be a factor, but again the Government could plug some of the holes by using Army medics and by hiring and training up more healthcare assistants to relieve the pressure of some of the basic donkeywork tasks. Again, I strongly suspect that nothing will have been done in respect of the latter.
Anyway, I'm sure that members of the PB medical community will rock up before long and shoot my argument full of holes!
Harris is a former Attorney General who has also unequivocally condemned the violence on all sides. Unlike Trump.
Because Biden values the Constitution, I fear, win, lose or draw he will eventually concede.
Can they also point to any equivalent comment by Trump unequivocally condemning the violence on both sides?
Nothing for the past three months though, while one side has been involved in nightly deadly riots in Portland.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17467830.snp-urged-apologise-devolved-benefits-delayed-2024/
When has Trump been doing so?
1) Biden has condemned the violence on multiple occasions prior to now
2) Since 2016 the far-right regularly travel into Portland to cause trouble, especially in summer months. They did not take the last 3 months off.
It’s the equivalent of the railway timetable theory for the First World War
Is the Trump money coming more therefore from the USA ? If so , I think we punters this side of the pond need to ask ourselves are we being sucked into the UK media slant that Trump is so unpopular (just because he is outside the US ,certainly with the liberal media types like the BBC) that he cannot possibly win?
I want to have a fair punt on Biden at this stage but hate to do this when I cannot fully fathom why Trump is being supported in bets probably stateside?
That party is condemning violence on all sides?
Yeh right.....
Its poll pressure. Everybody can see it.
Other practices that have either been swamped with cases or have overreacted and virtually stopped treating people might not have performed as highly.
"Seeking to read around the election and provide balance" - MY ARSE.
Which comes across as as equivocating - a bit like a Gerry Adams evasion when asked to condemn the latest murder of a soldier
https://twitter.com/BotSentinel/status/1300285874555551745?s=20
"Biden must condemn the violence" - "he has condemned the violence, what about Trump?" - "Biden must condemn the violence" - "he has condemned the violence, what about Trump?" - "Biden must condemn the violence" - "he has condemned the violence, what about Trump?" - "Biden must condemn the violence" . . .
You think that's countering the arguments? You've been shown multiple instances of Biden condemning the violence on all sides. Is Biden the only Presidential Candidate doing so? Yes or no.
Biden is X!
OK, Biden isn't X, but his VP is X!
OK, his VP isn't X, but she comes from a state where some of the people are X!
This place really is a Biden echo chamber. Criticise the democrat campaign at your peril.
The personal insults come thick and fast.
Black men made up 4% of the electorate, black women 6%.
On universal swing that would mean African American men would be 30% Trump voters in 2020.
Must make a difference.
Where is Trump condemning the violence from the right? He is stoking and encouraging it.
That’s an interesting idea. It’s one that we are already considering and I’m glad the opposition is willing to support our proposals. We will get back to you when we’ve worked through in more details and we look forward to more productive collaboration from the Labour Party in future. It’s so much better than childishly sniping from the sidelines like they normally do
I posted a video clip of Biden doing just that
In response Casino called me a twat.
The vigilante mob has turned up now because the Democrat mayor and Democrat Discrict Attourney are letting the violence continue, dozens of people have been killed and thousands more have lost their businesses thanks to left-wing rioting.
Biden and CNN have only woken up to it now, because right-wing thugs are getting involved, which gives them the opportunity to link violence to Trump.
If Sanders or Warren won it would have been easy left wing are bad which would be enough to scare moderates on both wings.
The main reasons why I see Biden has not run away with it is down to 2 major things, US politics is stupidly polarised so clan mentality wins out, red must beat blue even if I hate red right now. Also Trump and co rely heavily on "a lie can travel the world twice before the truth had put is boots on" which works amazingly well in today's social media and fast paced traditional media.
However recent interviews have shown this technique falls if you get pinned down ( Fox and Axios) and shows a clear template for the debates, if the democrats are bothering to learn.
Biden has condemned the violence all along.
That's the difference.
Dozens of people have been killed the Police too. Thousands more attacked with tear gas, batons etc
Apart from anything else, just think of the large numbers of Government IT projects they're going to have to deliver on time...
Have you got a citation for Trump condemning the violence yet? All violence, not just one side?
The "Vigilantes mob" is not a new phenomena. Proud boys and patriot prayer come into town on a weekly basis to cause trouble and have done for years now.
Nightingales are essentially dumping grounds for when the NHS is overwhelmed. Fortunately we didn't quite get there.
Ditto the Ventilator Challenge. We just managed to stay inside the capacity, which is just as well as the ventilators produced through the Challenge arrived too late to meet the First Wave peak and weren't optimal for the treatments they would be used for (anaesthesia ventilators repurposed for limited intensive care interventions)
A vaccine might be a game changer next year. In the meantime we have to live with the virus, including getting through what promises to be a grim winter.
Which is not to say these three things were a waste of time. The Nightingale project was well managed; the Ventilator Challenge much less so IMO. Jury's out on the vaccine programme: accelerated timetable is good; rushed and botched job is bad - we want the first.
The failures have been policy failures.
And I don't think it's as been anywhere near as good in the next nearest community, but the practice there started from a lower base!
A good comparison is to our GE19. The previous election had produced a Hung Parliament instead of the expected Con win and in Nov and Dec 2019 lots of money kept going onto Hung Parliament again at short odds despite the polls pointing to a clear Con win.
That money was mug money and so it will prove this time imo. The polls need to tighten considerably to justify Trump at evens. Unless the Biden lead is slashed quite soon the Trump price will collapse.
But if the polls do flip, then sure - Game On.
I’ll keep trying to find as many sources as possible for what’s actually happening, and bet accordingly.
FWIW I think Biden should be the clear favourite at the moment, it’s closer to 60/40 than 50/50, although the risk is that, like Hilary, Biden piles up votes in safe states rather than marginals.
For a right wing free marketeer that shouldn't provide a concern and didn't in the 80s when economic reform and modernisation required the mass unemployment of working people across the midlands and north. These people didn't vote Tory and didn't matter. But now? One of the successes of the Tories has been the demonisation of state aid. If you are taking support from the government you must be some kind of scrounger, shirker, failure. Universal Credit, Food Banks, Bedroom Taxes - these are all things that happen to other people and besides its exaggerated.
Until now. The people being dumped onto UC are increasingly the people told UC was for dossers who live it large on your tax dollars. They are finding the opposite is true, and the "is that all I can get" conversations with the likes of Citizens Advice I am assured are eye-opening. As the middle class increasingly find themselves dumped onto a system that treats them like dirt and provides farthings, whilst at the same time the government issues increasingly patronising messages featuring someone like Ester McVeigh pretenting to drive off to her "staycation" I cannot see how the Tories avoid the political calamity this will bring.
And just as the pain from their people gets the most acute, we exit from transition with no deal. The borders gum shut, we get mass shortages and what there is costs money that their people don't have. Whilst IDS pops up cheering the glorious future we have now started. No wonder Shagger is looking to step off the stage.
But if one candidate has a 7% lead on voting intention, and a 15% lead on approval, and this picture has been mostly unchanged for months with only 2 months to go, I don't think you need to posit local media bias to explain why most people here seem to think he's more likely to win than the other guy.
I think you can put it the other way around: The US media really needs a race, and they're currently talking it up as if it is one. Also I think Trumpists were successfully *enthused* by the convention, they seem to be enjoying themselves more than they were. So in this case I'd say pb is just a better place to see the wood for the trees.
We've debated in our organisation what the dress code should now be and agreed it should be the usdual "Don't dress in a way that distracts people from work". In practice the office is predominantly female, including nearly all the management, and smart casual is the norm anyway, but among the men I've not seen a tie for months.
Because he's never done it.
Trump's violence under Trump's watch that he's been stoking for years.
(1) If the election were held tomorrow, Biden would win. He currently leads Trump in more than enough states.
(2) Since the election is only being held on 3 November, Trump has an opportunity to turn this around. He could improve his position and lose.
I don't think anyone could look at the polls and be assured of one victory over another right at the moment.
Now a right wing mob has also turned up, everyone on the left has started talking about both sides - having said nothing for the past three months.
My daily EC centre of gravity for Trump as we speak is 215.
RCP: May 24 (day before George Floyd) Biden 5.6% ahead currently 6.9% ahead.
538: May 24 Biden 6.2% ahead, currently 8.2% ahead.
Law and order issues can benefit Republican candidates, but isn't it one of those gut feelings things?
If you're not a Trump fan, but willing to consider voting for him (and he needs some of those voters in order to win), what is your gut feeling? Am I safer with Trump as president or with Biden as president?
I don't know, but I guess quite a few of those might just feel safer with Biden as president?
Feel better now? Nothing like a little vent in the morning to set up the day.
I am really struggling very hard to find any distinguishing features between him and a full blown fascist now.
He has brought the most powerful country in the world to the verge of civil war.
If he loses, he and his supporters are in deep deep trouble, so I'm not expecting a smooth hand over. I just can't imagine what will happen if he wins.
(I have to say, incidentally, I have frequently locked horns with Philip but I can't remember him ever getting personal.)
OK, that's not quite true, some of the recent crypto-economic betting systems are based on the idea that both sides get the money, but the person who bet on Trump gets paid in "Trump won the election" currency, and the person who bet on Biden gets paid in "Biden won the election" currency, and if Biden won the election then the "Trump won the election" currency probably isn't worth much.