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?
Didn't I see an OECD/Economist chart which showed that the UK was worst both on excess deaths and economic impact?
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,
It's actually worse than that - as a lot of the middle class people are about to discover that the working class know how to play the game far better than they did so will discover how (if they are renting and have children) 14 hours at a shop will give them a far better life than 35 hours in an office ever would. It does require someone being generous enough to tell them how the system actually works to ensure they navigate it correctly..
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
Children get twelve weeks, teachers 11 (although personally I've been pretty busy rewriting lessons). But that's not what I was talking about. Academia is a very different beast from school teaching.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
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.
I was thinking that too - the c.f. with horse racing. If I'm looking at a race and a horse is attracting far more money than its form justifies - the "steamer" - I always give it some credence. It can mean inside info. For example, the horse could have been given something to pep it up. So - is the Trump nag on something?
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
I love the guy with the shield. What threat is he expecting?
Anyway, today is the last day of my holiday, and having checked over all my resources for tomorrow I am going to spoil myself with a nice long bike ride to Stafford.
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,
It's actually worse than that - as a lot of the middle class people are about to discover that the working class know how to play the game far better than they did so will discover how (if they are renting and have children) 14 hours at a shop will give them a far better life than 35 hours in an office ever would. It does require someone being generous enough to tell them how the system actually works to ensure they navigate it correctly..
Maybe a buddy system is needed - Every Sharon buddies a Lucy to show her the ropes , every Kevin buddies a Simon!
I feel like there's a lot more wood to be chopped in other areas, and have never been against the 0.7% topic, but if you are paring back it's unsurprising it would be a target even without the ideological opposition many Tories have for it.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
I love the guy with the shield. What threat is he expecting?
Maybe he thinks he can be a new far right superhero - Captain Germany?
I wonder what first attracted "American patriots" to fascist German imagery?
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.
I was thinking that too - the c.f. with horse racing. If I'm looking at a race and a horse is attracting far more money than its form justifies - the "steamer" - I always give it some credence. It can mean inside info. For example, the horse could have been given something to pep it up. So - is the Trump nag on something?
I suspect it's more along the lines of why England are always a crap price in the football, but it would be good to know one way or another.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
I love the guy with the shield. What threat is he expecting?
Captain America movies have been trying to convince us for years that shields are effective weapons/defences in the modern age, the same way video games have been trying to convince us the bow and arrow is a more effective death dealer than an automatic rifle .
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.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
'How dare you call us Nazis just 'cos we like a swastika'
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,
It's actually worse than that - as a lot of the middle class people are about to discover that the working class know how to play the game far better than they did so will discover how (if they are renting and have children) 14 hours at a shop will give them a far better life than 35 hours in an office ever would. It does require someone being generous enough to tell them how the system actually works to ensure they navigate it correctly..
Maybe a buddy system is needed - Every Sharon buddies a Lucy to show her the ropes , every Kevin buddies a Simon!
As a tax payer you really don't want that as I know a lot of the tricks.
As a school governor I used to trade ticking a particular box for advice - a few Travellers of Irish Decent do wonders for a school's budget.
Signing off now to go and visit Eldest Son & family. Have fun everyone. However, just looked in my diary and realised that Aug. BH last year was when England had that amazing one-wicket victory in the Test, and Leach scored 1 out of the 70 needed. It was hot, too!
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.
I've tended to maintain office attire - shirt, trousers - whilst WFH as I have frequent Zoom meetings with colleagues and less frequent ones with customers and I feel more inclined towards work when dressed for it.
A tie? I wore one every day for the first 7 or so years in this industry and in a few periods since but usage has noticeably dropped, even on customer sites. Wore one for my Zoom interview that bagged my contractor job and it felt strange! A sharp suit and tie can not just look very smart but make you feel smart (ooh, suits you sir!) - but it is a little overly formal in 2020. Will be interesting to see what business dress code is in Romania when I go out to see the client...
This place really is a Biden echo chamber. Criticise the democrat campaign at your peril.
That's provably incorrect given the number of people who are definitively anti-Trump but who have expressed worries about Biden's age and gaffes, with many a 'how could the Democrats end up with him as their candidate' style comments.
This place is certainly very anti-Trump, but it isn't exactly dropping its panties for Biden as an individual, or even overflowing with optimists that Trump has no chance.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
What do you mean? All I see are some historical recreation enthusiasts, how charming.
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.
This is a political betting site. Stuff that impacts onto people's experiences will impact how they vote. What I am describing largely won't affect me, and I'm certainly in an income bracket to largely insulate me from the mess. But the mess is there, and leading Tories pretending it isn't / not understanding the real world impacts of their lack of understanding will ultimately bite them on the arse.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
'How dare you call us Nazis just 'cos we like a swastika'
Maybe they are adherents of Jainism but couldn't find anything else with a swastika on it?
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.
I was thinking that too - the c.f. with horse racing. If I'm looking at a race and a horse is attracting far more money than its form justifies - the "steamer" - I always give it some credence. It can mean inside info. For example, the horse could have been given something to pep it up. So - is the Trump nag on something?
I suspect it's more along the lines of why England are always a crap price in the football, but it would be good to know one way or another.
The weight of money is on Trump, bookies are shortening his price because the cash keeps coming. Remember most punters lose.
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.
Trump has been on the case since at least 1989.
I just read about Yousef Saleem. Trump demanded the death penalty for his conviction. Trump apparently lobbied for a guilty verdict pre-trial, for the rape of a (white) woman in Central Park. Some years later Saleem was exonerated and the true perpetrator convicted.
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.
I've tended to maintain office attire - shirt, trousers - whilst WFH as I have frequent Zoom meetings with colleagues and less frequent ones with customers and I feel more inclined towards work when dressed for it.
A tie? I wore one every day for the first 7 or so years in this industry and in a few periods since but usage has noticeably dropped, even on customer sites. Wore one for my Zoom interview that bagged my contractor job and it felt strange! A sharp suit and tie can not just look very smart but make you feel smart (ooh, suits you sir!) - but it is a little overly formal in 2020. Will be interesting to see what business dress code is in Romania when I go out to see the client...
I went to open-necked a couple of summers ago, and haven't gone back to wearing a tie. WFH I have mostly been wearing a polo shirt and shorts. But then my customer contact is phone only and the couple of Zoom meetings I have attended we have been asked to turn video off to save bandwidth (and a polo shirt would pass muster anyway).
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.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
The extra money will have to be found as there is no way the Tories can treat their voters the same way they have treated those who do not vote for them.
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
Gorgeous weather here - with that early autumn light, crisp and clear . It reminds me of the light in the Rockies. It has really lifted my spirits as I am still quite ill with a nasty infection (not CV) I caught a week ago, the same one I had over Xmas. Nothing good about it at all. Still a diet of high fever, no food and strong antibiotics has led to me losing 7 kilos. Though it’s a bit of a drastic way to diet ...... 🤒
The local hospital was very quick and efficient. Not many people in A&E but no difference from what it was back in December. They’ve been CV-free for a while, which is a mercy.
Anyway, I can justify watching TV at silly hours and for those of a certain age “Born Free” is now on. A happy childhood memory.
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?
Philip is not exactly a champion of the far left - he's his own man, which makes him interesting to read.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
I love the guy with the shield. What threat is he expecting?
He's probably some sort of alt Right Germanic Pagan believer/Vike reenactor. I have even met a couple i my time in UK reenactment circles although there are very few and they are arseholes (just like SS reenactors).
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
Interestingly I’m aware (from Facebook) of at least one nightclub that is now open in Newcastle. I believe they have installed little tables, and you must stay on your particular floor, but its for all intents and purposes open. Is this a loop hole?
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
There could be significant local variations as well.
All those urban flats which have been built in recent years might lack a market.
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.
It's the same people who used to criticise Jeremy Corbyn for saying "I condemn all types of racism" rather than responding to the real concerns and coming out against anti-Semitism explicitly.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
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.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
The extra money will have to be found as there is no way the Tories can treat their voters the same way they have treated those who do not vote for them.
Unemployment seems likely to hit the young and urban hardest.
Interestingly I’m aware (from Facebook) of at least one nightclub that is now open in Newcastle. I believe they have installed little tables, and you must stay on your particular floor, but its for all intents and purposes open. Is this a loop hole?
It doesn't sound like it from that brief description - more like they've effectively converted it into a bar.
I notice that PBers are no longer providing the US covid data.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
It seems to have settled down to just over 1000 deaths a day. Which makes sense as the rise in new cases seems to have been curbed a bit and it's now down to 40,000+. Predicted surges really only happen if you don't do anything about it..
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
Prices of shoebox flats in central London might fall, but family houses further out will probably hold up as people look at the space they have, if they’ll be working more from home in future.
I’m expecting the Chancellor to provicde whatever encouragement* is necessary to banks, in order to prevent domestic foreclosures on primary residences. Be that moving people to interest-only mortgages, allowing long payment holidays or even extending extra loans where equity exists within existing mortgages.
*We bailed you lot out at the last recession, now it’s your turn to help us out.
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.
I agree, but you're wrong to answer critique of him (in my view) by saying "where is Trump doing this?"
We know Trump is a cynical arsehole deeply unfit for office. The issue is what's the most effective electoral strategy to eject him.
My contention is that Biden needs to come out explicitly against rioters and looters - who believe they have the cause of righteousness on their side -and back law & order in a clear address, and not just either be neutral ("I condemn all forms of violence") or just send out tweets supporting BLM protests.
It's about winning over the swing voters in the swing states, where his leads are far narrower and protecting himself against a dangerous narrative developing in the campaign.
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.
I've tended to maintain office attire - shirt, trousers - whilst WFH as I have frequent Zoom meetings with colleagues and less frequent ones with customers and I feel more inclined towards work when dressed for it.
A tie? I wore one every day for the first 7 or so years in this industry and in a few periods since but usage has noticeably dropped, even on customer sites. Wore one for my Zoom interview that bagged my contractor job and it felt strange! A sharp suit and tie can not just look very smart but make you feel smart (ooh, suits you sir!) - but it is a little overly formal in 2020. Will be interesting to see what business dress code is in Romania when I go out to see the client...
If it's like Bulgaria it will depending - it can literally be suit with tie or jeans depending on the company.
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.
It's the same people who used to criticise Jeremy Corbyn for saying "I condemn all types of racism" rather than responding to the real concerns and coming out against anti-Semitism explicitly.
Biden has come out against the violence explicitly. He has all along.
Where has Trump? When has Trump come out against far-right violence explicitly and unequivocally? When has Trump come out against Police violence explicitly and unequivocally?
Or do you only ask Biden to do it? Even though he has and Trump hasn't?
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
Not this winter - the stamp duty cut means there will be a boom until March - next year not a clue...
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
A lot pf people who used to claim tax credits will find themselves stuck on UC. While there was no change of circumstances they could stay on WTC/CTC, but would then have to claim UC when unemployed. Even if they go back to work they can't reclaim tax credits and will instead have to stay on UC for the top-up.
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.
I agree, but you're wrong to answer critique of him (in my view) by saying "where is Trump doing this?"
We know Trump is a cynical arsehole deeply unfit for office. The issue is what's the most effective electoral strategy to eject him.
My contention is that Biden needs to come out explicitly against rioters and looters - who believe they have the cause of righteousness on their side -and back law & order in a clear address, and not just either be neutral ("I condemn all forms of violence") or just send out tweets supporting BLM protests.
It's about winning over the swing voters in the swing states, where his leads are far narrower and protecting himself against a dangerous narrative developing in the campaign.
He has explicitly come out against the rioters and looters repeatedly. I don't see how condemning the other violence that is also happening is "neutral", it is anti-violence.
There is violence on all sides currently and has been all year. It needs to stop. I think the President of the United States of America should be someone who can use the Oval Office to try and stop the violence on all sides and bring Americans together. Do you agree with that?
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.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
A lot of that none welfare cap money is housing benefit paid to private landlords.
If HMRC and the government wish to really cut costs I can save them billions there and yes some people landlords would scream but investment conditions and change and investments will go up and down.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
Why are comments about "Nazis" "silly"? This isn't the UK, we're talking about the USA and it really is an issue there and not a Godwin.
'How dare you call us Nazis just 'cos we like a swastika'
I notice that PBers are no longer providing the US covid data.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
What?
Not that I have provided the data, but I have been following it. The predicted death toll to 30/11/20 has been increasing regularly still. It is now predicted to be 317,000 and has always been upwards.
What is also noticeable is that as the prediction becomes out of date you can compare the actual to the prediction up to the current date. The prediction has always been under performing the actual (hence the regular increase in the prediction). Yesterday's actual is already 4000 ahead of the last prediction for yesterday.
This place really is a Biden echo chamber. Criticise the democrat campaign at your peril.
The personal insults come thick and fast.
Yesterday Casino demanded that Biden condemn the protests.
I posted a video clip of Biden doing just that
In response Casino called me a twat.
It was a weak video condemning violence "on all sides" - Corbynite equivocation rather than the weeks of lawlessness we've seen in these cities all summer.
And, sorry, but you ARE a twat. You're so partial on this it's off the scale and you deny and refuse to engage on any view to the contrary.
You've even implied I'm a secret Trump supporter just because I'm had the temerity to criticise Biden's approach.
There's only one person here helping a Trump victory. And it's not me.
By making it harder for people to vote by post, the Trump administration is ensuring more Democrats vote on the day, and thus depriving Trump of the ability to claim the election was rigged by mail in voting.
That one way of looking at it; time will tell. What was notable is that in the few states which are already 100% ‘voting by mail’, over half those votes are returned via drop boxes.
There's maybe a 2-pronged attack going on. One is the traditional voter suppression. The other is Trump attacking mail-in voting. This seems to be having the effect of making Trump voters far more likely to vote in person, and Biden voters far more likely to vote by mail. This allows Trump to claim victory on the night before the mail-in votes are counted. A bunch of fraudulent mail-in Biden votes will be "found", to justify ignoring enough mail-in votes in enough states for Trump to either win the electoral college, or nobody will get to 270 votes and the House state delegations will then reelect Trump as president. Republicans in the House and Senate have already shown they are willing to go along with any shit in order to "win". No doubt it will end up in the courts, but who knows if Trump-appointed judges will rule against Trump.
Judges, and not just Republican appointments, have shown a propensity to crumble under pressure to rule rapidly (Bush v Gore being the best known example). They really don’t like being under the spotlight to decide a nakedly political outcome, and tend to go for speed over principle. That doesn’t mean they’d cave to a blatant Trump fix, but it is a concern.
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,
It's actually worse than that - as a lot of the middle class people are about to discover that the working class know how to play the game far better than they did so will discover how (if they are renting and have children) 14 hours at a shop will give them a far better life than 35 hours in an office ever would. It does require someone being generous enough to tell them how the system actually works to ensure they navigate it correctly..
Maybe a buddy system is needed - Every Sharon buddies a Lucy to show her the ropes , every Kevin buddies a Simon!
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.
Almost as if a highly transmissable pandemic unlike any that has hit Europe before in living memory swept through high population density western Europe.
Germany are much lower population density and got off lightly compared to the rest of western Europe but they are the exception not the rule.
But more importantly - its not a f***ing sport with a f***ing league table.
Of course Germany doesn't have a "much lower population density" compared to the rest of western Europe. It has a higher population density than Italy, France and Spain and others.
In any case, mainland Britain could (should?) have done better than continental countries, being an island. Making it much easier to control borders, and much less of an issue to restrict crossing of borders than in a country like Germany.
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?
That's the big question for the inquiry, I reckon.
What I fearfully expect:
The Johnson/Gove/Cummings National Mojo project convinced them that the UK could manage a higher infection rater than other, inferior countries. After all, we could build Nightingale Hospitals and F1 ventilators. And that was so much more fun than planning a boring old lockdown.
To be fair, the Nightingale Hospitals were built quickly, and, for a while it did seem they might be needed.
In a way, that was the trouble. The fact that we could build huge emergency hospitals distracted from whether their need could be avoided.
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.
Almost as if a highly transmissable pandemic unlike any that has hit Europe before in living memory swept through high population density western Europe.
Germany are much lower population density and got off lightly compared to the rest of western Europe but they are the exception not the rule.
But more importantly - its not a f***ing sport with a f***ing league table.
Of course Germany doesn't have a "much lower population density" compared to the rest of western Europe. It has a higher population density than Italy, France and Spain and others.
In any case, mainland Britain could (should?) have done better than continental countries, being an island. Making it much easier to control borders, and much less of an issue to restrict crossing of borders than in a country like Germany.
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?
That's the big question for the inquiry, I reckon.
What I fearfully expect:
The Johnson/Gove/Cummings National Mojo project convinced them that the UK could manage a higher infection rater than other, inferior countries. After all, we could build Nightingale Hospitals and F1 ventilators. And that was so much more fun than planning a boring old lockdown.
If all the above is true it wouldnt explain how the UK somehow had a couple of weeks more notice than Germany.
True, though calendar date is a worse measure than progress of the epidemic. Germany locked down at a much lower infection and death rate.
I strongly disagree with that, most of the lockdowns and actions in mid March should have been taken based on the global and continental data available at least as much as the national infection rates. Even with limited international travel it was going to get to pretty much everywhere. A country with no or very few cases should have locked down too, as NZ did for example. Calendar date is the best comparator.
[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?
The evidence is the issue specific polling where Trump has a sizeable lead on law & order, a small one on the economy and Biden on everything else.
The other piece of evidence is the narrower leads Biden has in the state opinion polls, some not comparing favourably to Hillary at a similar stage.
The dangers of a "Biden: soft on law & order" narrative developing should be obvious. But it seems some on here would rather put their fingers in their ears and just condemn Trump instead.
I notice that PBers are no longer providing the US covid data.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
It seems to have settled down to just over 1000 deaths a day. Which makes sense as the rise in new cases seems to have been curbed a bit and it's now down to 40,000+. Predicted surges really only happen if you don't do anything about it..
It seems to be slightly reducing now and that trend should accelerate as the reduction in new cases works through.
What's pretty clear is that the meltdown in the US health system, as predicted by some, didn't happen.
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.
Indeed. But in this case, there is no indication of that being about to happen, and they certainly wouldn’t be giving sneak peeks to the FDA, still less Trump.
The story is much more likely about the (single blinded) UK P2/3 trial which started in May, don’t you think ?
[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?
The evidence is the issue specific polling where Trump has a sizeable lead on law & order, a small one on the economy and Biden on everything else.
The other piece of evidence is the narrower leads Biden has in the state opinion polls, some not comparing favourably to Hillary at a similar stage.
The dangers of a "Biden: soft on law & order" narrative developing should be obvious. But it seems some on here would rather put their fingers in their ears and just condemn Trump instead.
Aren't they 2 different things:
Trump should be condemned
Yes it is an issue that Biden will seem soft on law and order. I am sure that is one of the reasons behind Trumps actions and I am sure everyone understand that.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
I have, mercifully, almost no experience of claiming out of work benefits, but I am assuming that anybody who finds themselves trying to obtain them is going to have to jump through the following hoops:
1. Handing over all their bank account details to be picked over by a stranger. If they've more than about tuppence ha'penny in savings then they will presumably be told to fuck off until they've burnt through it all before coming back. 2. Filling out a couple of hundred pages of forms detailing their entire life history, then waiting two or three months in absolute poverty whilst the claim chugs its way through the system. 3. They will then receive a pittance, in return for which they will have to file paperwork proving that they have spent forty hours each week searching and applying for jobs (of which there are precious few to be had, and those that are around will attract several thousand applicants each.) Failure to provide evidence that whoever assesses it deems adequate results in immediate withdrawal of payments.
Or something very like that, anyway. As you said, a lot of previously well-to-do and self-reliant middle-class types are about to find themselves being treated like dirt in exchange for a weekly purse of loose change. There will be an immense chorus of agonized wailing - and then, next year or the one after (I don't know the precise mechanics of the system,) old people will get something like a 15% pension uplift because nobody dared to touch the triple lock. Good luck to Boris and Rishi with explaining all that away.
I notice that PBers are no longer providing the US covid data.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
What?
Not that I have provided the data, but I have been following it. The predicted death toll to 30/11/20 has been increasing regularly still. It is now predicted to be 317,000 and has always been upwards.
What is also noticeable is that as the prediction becomes out of date you can compare the actual to the prediction up to the current date. The prediction has always been under performing the actual (hence the regular increase in the prediction). Yesterday's actual is already 4000 ahead of the last prediction for yesterday.
The US death toll is still staggeringly high, running at well over a thousand per day on week days compared to the UK in single digits since we fixed the methodology.
On a deaths per capita basis the USA is fast catching up with France and on current trends will overtake the UK on deaths per capita soon.
Which is remarkable when you think how socially distanced the USA is. England has a population density of about 440 per square km, the USA has a population density of 35.7 per sq km. But the USA is likely to end up with more deaths per capita by the end of this.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
I was in and out of work in the early 80s. In those days they would help with mortgages. Now on UC you are not entitled to help with mortgage interest for 9 months. There could be a lot of repossessions if this continues
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.
I agree, but you're wrong to answer critique of him (in my view) by saying "where is Trump doing this?"
We know Trump is a cynical arsehole deeply unfit for office. The issue is what's the most effective electoral strategy to eject him.
My contention is that Biden needs to come out explicitly against rioters and looters - who believe they have the cause of righteousness on their side -and back law & order in a clear address, and not just either be neutral ("I condemn all forms of violence") or just send out tweets supporting BLM protests.
It's about winning over the swing voters in the swing states, where his leads are far narrower and protecting himself against a dangerous narrative developing in the campaign.
He has explicitly come out against the rioters and looters repeatedly. I don't see how condemning the other violence that is also happening is "neutral", it is anti-violence.
There is violence on all sides currently and has been all year. It needs to stop. I think the President of the United States of America should be someone who can use the Oval Office to try and stop the violence on all sides and bring Americans together. Do you agree with that?
Yes, but on the cold-blooded campaign issue I think Casino is correct - the balance of risk is clearly against appearing to be neutral between law-enforcement officials and rioters. There are plentiful horrible examples of law-enforcement officials flagrantly breaking the law, but you don't have to be very right-wing to feel that ultimately riots are a bad thing and the police should stop them.
Trump made a widely-criticised mistake in saying "There were good people on both sides" when racists killed someone, and Biden needs to cover his flank by being ostentatiously anti-riot. Democrats need to be hard-headed, even cynical, in working out the voting impact in this situation. Nobody is going to vote Trump because Biden is seen as a bit too pro-law enforcement.
This place really is a Biden echo chamber. Criticise the democrat campaign at your peril.
The personal insults come thick and fast.
Yesterday Casino demanded that Biden condemn the protests.
I posted a video clip of Biden doing just that
In response Casino called me a twat.
It was a weak video condemning violence "on all sides" - Corbynite equivocation rather than the weeks of lawlessness we've seen in these cities all summer.
And, sorry, but you ARE a twat. You're so partial on this it's off the scale and you deny and refuse to engage on any view to the contrary.
You've even implied I'm a secret Trump supporter just because I'm had the temerity to criticise Biden's approach.
There's only one person here helping a Trump victory. And it's not me.
Its not equivocation to condemn violence on all sides when there literally is violence on all sides.
The difference is that Corbyn was condemning 'all sides' when there was only one issue to discuss. That's not the case here and hasn't been all year. You're acting as if only one side is being violent here - do you actually believe that? Do you think the protests are happening in a peaceful vacuum?
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
where is the polling or focus groups showing he is going over like a bucket of cold sick? You complain about confirmation bias but you seem to be talking about your own preferences a lot.
I want Trump to lose, dipstick.
It might possibly be (just might) that I understand the mindset and thinking of a typical WWC American swing-state voter on this, being of the Right and sharing some of their views and concerns, and am therefore better able to comment on how Biden's campaign and messaging goes down with them than you are.
The evidence is the narrower polling in the swing states and the sizeable lead Trump has on law & order. It's an obvious line of attack that Trump is going to ruthlessly exploit Biden's weaknesses on weaknesses he has.
It's no good for a core voter of Biden's to say "but..but HE HAS!!" it's all about perceptions amongst the voters that matter and you, I'm afraid, are not one of them as you think Trump is the antichrist and would wade through blood to vote against him anyway.
It's ok. Once you wake up, and Biden does accordingly, so he actually wins , rather than just runs a campaign that makes you feel good about yourself, youu can thank me later.
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.
This is overkill. I can think of lots of differences between him and an actual full blown fascist, not least of which would be arbitrary detention, trial and execution of opponents, suspension of democracy and military conscription and aggression.
His rhetoric is dangerous, divisive and nasty and he's a threat to the future integrity of the US Constitution but if you want him out - keep it in proportion for now.
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?
The NHS was not overwhelmed, but at the cost of a badly mishandled discharge of patients which ended up spreading infection.
Where the UK has done best is in running clinical trials (far more organised than in the US, where the numerous chaotic hydroxychloroquine efforts were both inconclusive and seriously hampered recruitment for other trials), and in vaccine development. Both were largely owing to infrastructure and work already in place - but government does get serious credit for prompt and generous funding.
Their work in leading international vaccine funding programs is also to be applauded (and is not unconnected with the strength of the now to be abolished Dept of International Development).
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
There could be significant local variations as well.
All those urban flats which have been built in recent years might lack a market.
I can only imagine how the market for London apartments will look. Small apartment. Designed for people who are expected to be out at work/restaurants/socialising most of the time. Located (and priced) for easy tube access to the city. With the exodus of firms and firm's requirements for everyone being in a mahoosive city/docklands office a thing of the past, who will be the takers for such properties?
Gorgeous weather here - with that early autumn light, crisp and clear . It reminds me of the light in the Rockies. It has really lifted my spirits as I am still quite ill with a nasty infection (not CV) I caught a week ago, the same one I had over Xmas. Nothing good about it at all. Still a diet of high fever, no food and strong antibiotics has led to me losing 7 kilos. Though it’s a bit of a drastic way to diet ...... 🤒
The local hospital was very quick and efficient. Not many people in A&E but no difference from what it was back in December. They’ve been CV-free for a while, which is a mercy.
Anyway, I can justify watching TV at silly hours and for those of a certain age “Born Free” is now on. A happy childhood memory.
Get well soon (I also watched Born Free as a child - wallow in the nostalgia)
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I am indeed someone who lives within his means, encourages others to do so and thinks the country should do so.
I pay a load of tax and get little back in return.
I can accept that as I think people should show some personal responsibility for their own finances.
And one of the reasons I feel like that is because I was unemployed during the 1990s - an experience which has encouraged me to be financially secure ever since.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
I have, mercifully, almost no experience of claiming out of work benefits, but I am assuming that anybody who finds themselves trying to obtain them is going to have to jump through the following hoops:
1. Handing over all their bank account details to be picked over by a stranger. If they've more than about tuppence ha'penny in savings then they will presumably be told to fuck off until they've burnt through it all before coming back. 2. Filling out a couple of hundred pages of forms detailing their entire life history, then waiting two or three months in absolute poverty whilst the claim chugs its way through the system. 3. They will then receive a pittance, in return for which they will have to file paperwork proving that they have spent forty hours each week searching and applying for jobs (of which there are precious few to be had, and those that are around will attract several thousand applicants each.) Failure to provide evidence that whoever assesses it deems adequate results in immediate withdrawal of payments.
Or something very like that, anyway. As you said, a lot of previously well-to-do and self-reliant middle-class types are about to find themselves being treated like dirt in exchange for a weekly purse of loose change. There will be an immense chorus of agonized wailing - and then, next year or the one after (I don't know the precise mechanics of the system,) old people will get something like a 15% pension uplift because nobody dared to touch the triple lock. Good luck to Boris and Rishi with explaining all that away.
What a snide comment about pensions. Thatcher almost privatised the system out of existence. (Other developed countries incl the USA retain a state earnings-related pension system.)
The result in the UK is that 35-40% of over-65s live on £6,700 per yr if born before 1951, £8,800 if born later. The former can raise it to £8,800 by demeaning themselves and claiming Pension Credit. Many don't.
I challenge any PB user to live on that derisory sum. The triple lock is slowly increasing the basic pension to just about what a person needs to live on (excluding housing costs).
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
A lot pf people who used to claim tax credits will find themselves stuck on UC. While there was no change of circumstances they could stay on WTC/CTC, but would then have to claim UC when unemployed. Even if they go back to work they can't reclaim tax credits and will instead have to stay on UC for the top-up.
Yes that is correct people on so called legacy benefits, for example child tax credits, have a change in circumstances they have to go onto UC. Then wait 5 weeks as a new claimant. God forbid you have a house and a mortgage, as you will get no help if out of work for 9 months.Unlike renters who get housing benefit. Some of the newly out of work middle class house buyers with a mortgage will have a rude awakening.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
I have, mercifully, almost no experience of claiming out of work benefits, but I am assuming that anybody who finds themselves trying to obtain them is going to have to jump through the following hoops:
1. Handing over all their bank account details to be picked over by a stranger. If they've more than about tuppence ha'penny in savings then they will presumably be told to fuck off until they've burnt through it all before coming back. 2. Filling out a couple of hundred pages of forms detailing their entire life history, then waiting two or three months in absolute poverty whilst the claim chugs its way through the system. 3. They will then receive a pittance, in return for which they will have to file paperwork proving that they have spent forty hours each week searching and applying for jobs (of which there are precious few to be had, and those that are around will attract several thousand applicants each.) Failure to provide evidence that whoever assesses it deems adequate results in immediate withdrawal of payments.
Or something very like that, anyway. As you said, a lot of previously well-to-do and self-reliant middle-class types are about to find themselves being treated like dirt in exchange for a weekly purse of loose change. There will be an immense chorus of agonized wailing - and then, next year or the one after (I don't know the precise mechanics of the system,) old people will get something like a 15% pension uplift because nobody dared to touch the triple lock. Good luck to Boris and Rishi with explaining all that away.
AND - the impact of no deal exit from the EU transition. Being openly lied to about the generous and helpful nature of Universal Credit. Plus being openly lied to about the easiest deal in history bringing immediate life benefits to you and yours. At the same time as the government continues to openly propagandise how benevolent their UC spending is and how a lack of drugs / fresh / food / fuel and price hikes is a positive benefit. I'm not saying that this will be boom time for Labour - people are going to be prone to hard right populists like Farage offering radical solutions. But the HYUFD world where delivery of no deal Brexit brings Tory rewards is for the birds. This decade is going to be hideous.
This place really is a Biden echo chamber. Criticise the democrat campaign at your peril.
That's provably incorrect given the number of people who are definitively anti-Trump but who have expressed worries about Biden's age and gaffes, with many a 'how could the Democrats end up with him as their candidate' style comments.
This place is certainly very anti-Trump, but it isn't exactly dropping its panties for Biden as an individual, or even overflowing with optimists that Trump has no chance.
I don't see how that equals an echo chamber.
"Biden's campaign is making some serious mistakes that might threaten his ability to win in November."
"No, he isn't! Look at this tweet!! The mask has slipped: you Trump supporter."
The evidence is the issue specific polling where Trump has a sizeable lead on law & order, a small one on the economy and Biden on everything else.
Do you have a link (or remember something about the polling)?
What I get is stuff like this:
Perhaps most interesting is the polling that questions voters about Biden and Trump on the issue of law and order. Two polls from June did exactly that. Biden actually beats Trump by a 49% to 42% margin on who is trusted more on law and order in an average of June Kaiser Family Foundation and Pew Research Center polls. In other words, Biden beats Trump on the terrain that Trump wishes this election were about. That seven-point difference looks a lot like the overall polling showing Biden with about a 10-point advantage.
I know there was a graph *comparing to Hillary at the same stage* where right around this time Hillary was doing really well, so she had leads in the (incorrect, as it turned out) mid-west polls. But that doesn't really show you that the issue is working for Trump now - it's not as if everyone expected Biden to follow the exact Hillary Clinton trajectory.
The dangers of a "Biden: soft on law & order" narrative developing should be obvious. But it seems some on here would rather put their fingers in their ears and just condemn Trump instead.
Oh, I think everybody understands how it *could* work. If you'd told me this story a year ago, before there was any polling about how people saw BLM protests and so on, I'd have said a bunch of protests leading up to the election was exactly the kind of thing that made Trump win.
But the polling seems to say that support for BLM is now quite broad (probably because people saw the police violence footage on social media); And when it's flared up previously, it seems to be bad for Trump, not good - probably partly because he's considered a party to it (ie he's backing the violent white nationalist side) and partly simply because he's the incumbent president, and the voters don't like chaos, so if they see chaos, they'll want to change their president.
Desperately sad article on the dangers inherent with the second wave and the complacency which allowed it to happen in Spain. Should be compulsory reading the in the UK.
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
There could be significant local variations as well.
All those urban flats which have been built in recent years might lack a market.
I can only imagine how the market for London apartments will look. Small apartment. Designed for people who are expected to be out at work/restaurants/socialising most of the time. Located (and priced) for easy tube access to the city. With the exodus of firms and firm's requirements for everyone being in a mahoosive city/docklands office a thing of the past, who will be the takers for such properties?
I imagine there might be a market for people who want to work two days a week in London and who might also want a London 'holiday flat'.
I suppose the local authorities might buy some which have been repossessed.
Though that might not increase the value of neighbouring properties.
This place really is a Biden echo chamber. Criticise the democrat campaign at your peril.
The personal insults come thick and fast.
Yesterday Casino demanded that Biden condemn the protests.
I posted a video clip of Biden doing just that
In response Casino called me a twat.
It was a weak video condemning violence "on all sides" - Corbynite equivocation rather than the weeks of lawlessness we've seen in these cities all summer.
And, sorry, but you ARE a twat. You're so partial on this it's off the scale and you deny and refuse to engage on any view to the contrary.
You've even implied I'm a secret Trump supporter just because I'm had the temerity to criticise Biden's approach.
There's only one person here helping a Trump victory. And it's not me.
Its not equivocation to condemn violence on all sides when there literally is violence on all sides.
The difference is that Corbyn was condemning 'all sides' when there was only one issue to discuss. That's not the case here and hasn't been all year. You're acting as if only one side is being violent here - do you actually believe that? Do you think the protests are happening in a peaceful vacuum?
No I'm not. I know there's police violence and brutality. I also know there's serious looting and arson and low-level disorder that's been going on in several American cities for weeks (months now) that is affecting poor black and white voters.
Biden needs to come out and lead his radical sidd: directly address his own side that that isn't the answer. And say that law & order is important, even if very serious police reform is needed.
It's the biggest question mark hanging over him and he needs to address it head on.
Gorgeous weather here - with that early autumn light, crisp and clear . It reminds me of the light in the Rockies. It has really lifted my spirits as I am still quite ill with a nasty infection (not CV) I caught a week ago, the same one I had over Xmas. Nothing good about it at all. Still a diet of high fever, no food and strong antibiotics has led to me losing 7 kilos. Though it’s a bit of a drastic way to diet ...... 🤒
The local hospital was very quick and efficient. Not many people in A&E but no difference from what it was back in December. They’ve been CV-free for a while, which is a mercy.
Anyway, I can justify watching TV at silly hours and for those of a certain age “Born Free” is now on. A happy childhood memory.
Get well soon (I also watched Born Free as a child - wallow in the nostalgia)
Get well - indeed.
Admit that I am about 2/3 of the way through the 86 episodes of "Spooks".
Currently the Yanks have conned the British into blowing up a train in Iran, in order to justify an invasion.
Mr Trump would be delighted.
Surprisingly they seem to kill off virtually all the MI5 Officers within 3 or 4 series. Did an expensive clause kick in in actors contracts at that point?
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
Im keeping an eye out at the moment and would be a buyer at 20-30% off current listed prices. Starting to see some new listings in and around London at 2015-7 sale prices so for a quick sale prices are already falling but there is wide variation in value, some are optimistically 50%+ overpriced. Id expect there will be enough of a fall for me to put some offers in next year but not sure whether prices will go low enough for those offers to succeed.
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?
That’s not a personal smear - it’s a comment on your politics, and simply throwing your own words back at you. You don’t seem to like them.
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.
I agree, but you're wrong to answer critique of him (in my view) by saying "where is Trump doing this?"
We know Trump is a cynical arsehole deeply unfit for office. The issue is what's the most effective electoral strategy to eject him.
My contention is that Biden needs to come out explicitly against rioters and looters - who believe they have the cause of righteousness on their side -and back law & order in a clear address, and not just either be neutral ("I condemn all forms of violence") or just send out tweets supporting BLM protests.
It's about winning over the swing voters in the swing states, where his leads are far narrower and protecting himself against a dangerous narrative developing in the campaign.
He has explicitly come out against the rioters and looters repeatedly. I don't see how condemning the other violence that is also happening is "neutral", it is anti-violence.
There is violence on all sides currently and has been all year. It needs to stop. I think the President of the United States of America should be someone who can use the Oval Office to try and stop the violence on all sides and bring Americans together. Do you agree with that?
Yes, but on the cold-blooded campaign issue I think Casino is correct - the balance of risk is clearly against appearing to be neutral between law-enforcement officials and rioters. There are plentiful horrible examples of law-enforcement officials flagrantly breaking the law, but you don't have to be very right-wing to feel that ultimately riots are a bad thing and the police should stop them.
Trump made a widely-criticised mistake in saying "There were good people on both sides" when racists killed someone, and Biden needs to cover his flank by being ostentatiously anti-riot. Democrats need to be hard-headed, even cynical, in working out the voting impact in this situation. Nobody is going to vote Trump because Biden is seen as a bit too pro-law enforcement.
Thanks Nick. I appreciate that. That's precisely my point.
It's good that someone of such a different political position can see that
I notice that PBers are no longer providing the US covid data.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
What?
Not that I have provided the data, but I have been following it. The predicted death toll to 30/11/20 has been increasing regularly still. It is now predicted to be 317,000 and has always been upwards.
What is also noticeable is that as the prediction becomes out of date you can compare the actual to the prediction up to the current date. The prediction has always been under performing the actual (hence the regular increase in the prediction). Yesterday's actual is already 4000 ahead of the last prediction for yesterday.
The peak in US deaths happened in April.
Now on PB we were regularly showed data which suggested a huge increase in deaths was imminent.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
I have, mercifully, almost no experience of claiming out of work benefits, but I am assuming that anybody who finds themselves trying to obtain them is going to have to jump through the following hoops:
1. Handing over all their bank account details to be picked over by a stranger. If they've more than about tuppence ha'penny in savings then they will presumably be told to fuck off until they've burnt through it all before coming back. 2. Filling out a couple of hundred pages of forms detailing their entire life history, then waiting two or three months in absolute poverty whilst the claim chugs its way through the system. 3. They will then receive a pittance, in return for which they will have to file paperwork proving that they have spent forty hours each week searching and applying for jobs (of which there are precious few to be had, and those that are around will attract several thousand applicants each.) Failure to provide evidence that whoever assesses it deems adequate results in immediate withdrawal of payments.
Or something very like that, anyway. As you said, a lot of previously well-to-do and self-reliant middle-class types are about to find themselves being treated like dirt in exchange for a weekly purse of loose change. There will be an immense chorus of agonized wailing - and then, next year or the one after (I don't know the precise mechanics of the system,) old people will get something like a 15% pension uplift because nobody dared to touch the triple lock. Good luck to Boris and Rishi with explaining all that away.
What a snide comment about pensions. Thatcher almost privatised the system out of existence. (Other developed countries incl the USA retain a state earnings-related pension system.)
The result in the UK is that 35-40% of over-65s live on £6,700 per yr if born before 1951, £8,800 if born later. The former can raise it to £8,800 by demeaning themselves and claiming Pension Credit. Many don't.
I challenge any PB user to live on that derisory sum. The triple lock is slowly increasing the basic pension to just about what a person needs to live on (excluding housing costs).
The average pensioner has the same post tax and housing income as the average worker. Why should the pensioners get a 15% state pension boost next year at the expense of the workers?
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
There is also a massive problem with flats resulting from EWS1 legislation. At least 600,000 flats rendered worthless. Many of them bought by young first time buyers.
Covered by Newsnight, LBC and the Spectator last week.
I notice that PBers are no longer providing the US covid data.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
What?
Not that I have provided the data, but I have been following it. The predicted death toll to 30/11/20 has been increasing regularly still. It is now predicted to be 317,000 and has always been upwards.
What is also noticeable is that as the prediction becomes out of date you can compare the actual to the prediction up to the current date. The prediction has always been under performing the actual (hence the regular increase in the prediction). Yesterday's actual is already 4000 ahead of the last prediction for yesterday.
The US death toll is still staggeringly high, running at well over a thousand per day on week days compared to the UK in single digits since we fixed the methodology.
On a deaths per capita basis the USA is fast catching up with France and on current trends will overtake the UK on deaths per capita soon.
Which is remarkable when you think how socially distanced the USA is. England has a population density of about 440 per square km, the USA has a population density of 35.7 per sq km. But the USA is likely to end up with more deaths per capita by the end of this.
Its because the USA is so large that covid took longer to spread around the country.
So states which weren't affected in April were in the summer.
The population density only matters where people live - if you compare the population density of where 80% of the English population lives compared to the population density of where 80% of the US population lives you will get much closer numbers.
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.
This is overkill. I can think of lots of differences between him and an actual full blown fascist, not least of which would be arbitrary detention, trial and execution of opponents, suspension of democracy and military conscription and aggression.
His rhetoric is dangerous, divisive and nasty and he's a threat to the future integrity of the US Constitution but if you want him out - keep it in proportion for now.
Well they are good points, but with several of them I feel that is simply because he can't (yet).
He clearly (from his actions and what he has said) has no issue with the suspension of democracy if he could (while appearing democratic). I really can't see him batting an eyelid at suppressing his opponents again from what we have seen. I agree there is little evidence of external aggression, rather he is an isolationist.
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
There is also a massive problem with flats resulting from EWS1 legislation. At least 600,000 flats rendered worthless. Many of them bought by young first time buyers.
Covered by Newsnight, LBC and the Spectator last week.
Just to chuck another random thought into the mix, does anyone suspect that a house price crash is coming this Winter?
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
There is also a massive problem with flats resulting from EWS1 legislation. At least 600,000 flats rendered worthless. Many of them bought by young first time buyers.
Covered by Newsnight, LBC and the Spectator last week.
Its a scandal but they are not worthless, Id buy one with a reasonable discount applied. They are just not mortgage-able at the moment as opposed to worthless.
This place really is a Biden echo chamber. Criticise the democrat campaign at your peril.
The personal insults come thick and fast.
Yesterday Casino demanded that Biden condemn the protests.
I posted a video clip of Biden doing just that
In response Casino called me a twat.
It was a weak video condemning violence "on all sides" - Corbynite equivocation rather than the weeks of lawlessness we've seen in these cities all summer.
And, sorry, but you ARE a twat. You're so partial on this it's off the scale and you deny and refuse to engage on any view to the contrary.
You've even implied I'm a secret Trump supporter just because I'm had the temerity to criticise Biden's approach.
There's only one person here helping a Trump victory. And it's not me.
I notice that PBers are no longer providing the US covid data.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
What?
Not that I have provided the data, but I have been following it. The predicted death toll to 30/11/20 has been increasing regularly still. It is now predicted to be 317,000 and has always been upwards.
What is also noticeable is that as the prediction becomes out of date you can compare the actual to the prediction up to the current date. The prediction has always been under performing the actual (hence the regular increase in the prediction). Yesterday's actual is already 4000 ahead of the last prediction for yesterday.
The peak in US deaths happened in April.
Now on PB we were regularly showed data which suggested a huge increase in deaths was imminent.
That didn't happen.
And likewise the reports of US data have ceased.
The US peak may have been April but that's not how it has been on a state by state basis.
In 2018 to 2019 the government is forecast to spend £222 billion on the social security system in the UK, £2 billion lower in real terms than in 2017 to 2018.
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
Lol - I have no idea how much they should pay or where they are getting any of this money from. Remember that they spent years insisting Labour had bankrupted the UK and that Byrne was factually correct with his "comedy" note that there is no money left. Yet they keep finding another trillion to spend and yet normal folk out there are going to be in deep deep financial trouble.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
I signed on in the 1980s and again in the early 1990s. The system was never generous, but I don't remember it being punitive in the way it is now. A lot of people who do not consider themselves feckless, workshy, spongers - and who aren't - are set for a huge shock.
I have, mercifully, almost no experience of claiming out of work benefits, but I am assuming that anybody who finds themselves trying to obtain them is going to have to jump through the following hoops:
1. Handing over all their bank account details to be picked over by a stranger. If they've more than about tuppence ha'penny in savings then they will presumably be told to fuck off until they've burnt through it all before coming back. 2. Filling out a couple of hundred pages of forms detailing their entire life history, then waiting two or three months in absolute poverty whilst the claim chugs its way through the system. 3. They will then receive a pittance, in return for which they will have to file paperwork proving that they have spent forty hours each week searching and applying for jobs (of which there are precious few to be had, and those that are around will attract several thousand applicants each.) Failure to provide evidence that whoever assesses it deems adequate results in immediate withdrawal of payments.
Or something very like that, anyway. As you said, a lot of previously well-to-do and self-reliant middle-class types are about to find themselves being treated like dirt in exchange for a weekly purse of loose change. There will be an immense chorus of agonized wailing - and then, next year or the one after (I don't know the precise mechanics of the system,) old people will get something like a 15% pension uplift because nobody dared to touch the triple lock. Good luck to Boris and Rishi with explaining all that away.
What a snide comment about pensions. Thatcher almost privatised the system out of existence. (Other developed countries incl the USA retain a state earnings-related pension system.)
The result in the UK is that 35-40% of over-65s live on £6,700 per yr if born before 1951, £8,800 if born later. The former can raise it to £8,800 by demeaning themselves and claiming Pension Credit. Many don't.
I challenge any PB user to live on that derisory sum. The triple lock is slowly increasing the basic pension to just about what a person needs to live on (excluding housing costs).
The average pensioner has the same post tax and housing income as the average worker. Why should the pensioners get a 15% state pension boost next year at the expense of the workers?
But that ignores those on the minimum state pension.
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.
Your own silly posts on the US election (see "Nazis" upthread) shows why you're totally unqualified to comment on the fact that 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.
It's almost as if you're not really interested in discussing the optimum campaigning strategy for Biden to win and eject Trump but more interested in feeling good about yourself and signalling your own values.
Fine. We can discount your posts accordingly.
where is the polling or focus groups showing he is going over like a bucket of cold sick? You complain about confirmation bias but you seem to be talking about your own preferences a lot.
I want Trump to lose, dipstick.
I've never said you wanted him to win.
I said you are presenting what you want Biden to do as being the only true way of Biden winning and any other approach is invalid.
Comments
Have a good morning.
I wonder what first attracted "American patriots" to fascist German imagery?
£119 billion is forecast to be within the welfare cap, and £103 billion outside the welfare cap. In 2017 to 2018 £122 billion of expenditure was within the welfare cap, and £102 billion was outside.
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how much more the government should be spending on social security payments.
And where the extra money should come from.
As a school governor I used to trade ticking a particular box for advice - a few Travellers of Irish Decent do wonders for a school's budget.
However, just looked in my diary and realised that Aug. BH last year was when England had that amazing one-wicket victory in the Test, and Leach scored 1 out of the 70 needed.
It was hot, too!
A tie? I wore one every day for the first 7 or so years in this industry and in a few periods since but usage has noticeably dropped, even on customer sites. Wore one for my Zoom interview that bagged my contractor job and it felt strange! A sharp suit and tie can not just look very smart but make you feel smart (ooh, suits you sir!) - but it is a little overly formal in 2020. Will be interesting to see what business dress code is in Romania when I go out to see the client...
This place is certainly very anti-Trump, but it isn't exactly dropping its panties for Biden as an individual, or even overflowing with optimists that Trump has no chance.
I don't see how that equals an echo chamber.
I just read about Yousef Saleem. Trump demanded the death penalty for his conviction. Trump apparently lobbied for a guilty verdict pre-trial, for the rape of a (white) woman in Central Park. Some years later Saleem was exonerated and the true perpetrator convicted.
I assume that this is because the predicted surge in deaths didn't happen.
I think there's a general consensus that a tsunami wave of unemployment approaches - the only question is how high it will be - and it's going to take out a lot of middle-aged, middle-income people as well as the young and those scraping by on the minimum wage. Most of those middle-aged people are going to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs, will have little in the way of savings, will struggle to find another job and may not even be able to delay calamity with sub-prime loans (I set off on this train of thought when I read, by chance, that Amigo is the latest junk lender to find itself in severe difficulty.)
So, when you've got one major asset - your home - and you're unable to service the debt on it, then the only choice is to make a fire sale. And there are only going to be a finite number of buyers for whom the sellers will have to compete, and they're going to know that the sellers are desperate. So prices implode.
Falling house prices also equal negative equity, possibly the only concept in British politics even more toxic than asking old people to pay for stuff. We all know what negative equity did to the Major Government.
Still, for anybody sitting on a pile of cash, it'll be a great time to pick up a cheap house.
- https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/the-centre-of-american-politics-has-collapsed-fkz29tblq. Very relevant to today’s header.
and
- https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/religious-orthodoxy-is-rooted-in-fear-of-women-ks9k5tvbd.
Gorgeous weather here - with that early autumn light, crisp and clear . It reminds me of the light in the Rockies. It has really lifted my spirits as I am still quite ill with a nasty infection (not CV) I caught a week ago, the same one I had over Xmas. Nothing good about it at all. Still a diet of high fever, no food and strong antibiotics has led to me losing 7 kilos. Though it’s a bit of a drastic way to diet ...... 🤒
The local hospital was very quick and efficient. Not many people in A&E but no difference from what it was back in December. They’ve been CV-free for a while, which is a mercy.
Anyway, I can justify watching TV at silly hours and for those of a certain age “Born Free” is now on. A happy childhood memory.
The government could - and you are the kind of poster who won't get this as a problem - just keep telling people how much £ they have spent that UC is fair and they should go find a job. That may have worked when the mass jobless were non-Tory voting working people. Now the jobless will increasingly be middle class Tory leaning people who believed your message about the largesse of the social security system.
People tend to pay more attention when it impacts them rather than other people.
All those urban flats which have been built in recent years might lack a market.
https://twitter.com/mikegove12/status/1300353962479153152
I’m expecting the Chancellor to provicde whatever encouragement* is necessary to banks, in order to prevent domestic foreclosures on primary residences. Be that moving people to interest-only mortgages, allowing long payment holidays or even extending extra loans where equity exists within existing mortgages.
*We bailed you lot out at the last recession, now it’s your turn to help us out.
We know Trump is a cynical arsehole deeply unfit for office. The issue is what's the most effective electoral strategy to eject him.
My contention is that Biden needs to come out explicitly against rioters and looters - who believe they have the cause of righteousness on their side -and back law & order in a clear address, and not just either be neutral ("I condemn all forms of violence") or just send out tweets supporting BLM protests.
It's about winning over the swing voters in the swing states, where his leads are far narrower and protecting himself against a dangerous narrative developing in the campaign.
https://election.usc.edu/
Biden 53, Trump 40.5, up 0.5 for Trump and down 0.5 for Biden (back to where they were the day before yesterday).
Where has Trump? When has Trump come out against far-right violence explicitly and unequivocally? When has Trump come out against Police violence explicitly and unequivocally?
Or do you only ask Biden to do it? Even though he has and Trump hasn't?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
There is violence on all sides currently and has been all year. It needs to stop. I think the President of the United States of America should be someone who can use the Oval Office to try and stop the violence on all sides and bring Americans together. Do you agree with that?
If HMRC and the government wish to really cut costs I can save them billions there and yes some people landlords would scream but investment conditions and change and investments will go up and down.
Not that I have provided the data, but I have been following it. The predicted death toll to 30/11/20 has been increasing regularly still. It is now predicted to be 317,000 and has always been upwards.
What is also noticeable is that as the prediction becomes out of date you can compare the actual to the prediction up to the current date. The prediction has always been under performing the actual (hence the regular increase in the prediction). Yesterday's actual is already 4000 ahead of the last prediction for yesterday.
And, sorry, but you ARE a twat. You're so partial on this it's off the scale and you deny and refuse to engage on any view to the contrary.
You've even implied I'm a secret Trump supporter just because I'm had the temerity to criticise Biden's approach.
There's only one person here helping a Trump victory. And it's not me.
They really don’t like being under the spotlight to decide a nakedly political outcome, and tend to go for speed over principle. That doesn’t mean they’d cave to a blatant Trump fix, but it is a concern.
The other piece of evidence is the narrower leads Biden has in the state opinion polls, some not comparing favourably to Hillary at a similar stage.
The dangers of a "Biden: soft on law & order" narrative developing should be obvious. But it seems some on here would rather put their fingers in their ears and just condemn Trump instead.
What's pretty clear is that the meltdown in the US health system, as predicted by some, didn't happen.
But in this case, there is no indication of that being about to happen, and they certainly wouldn’t be giving sneak peeks to the FDA, still less Trump.
The story is much more likely about the (single blinded) UK P2/3 trial which started in May, don’t you think ?
Trump should be condemned
Yes it is an issue that Biden will seem soft on law and order. I am sure that is one of the reasons behind Trumps actions and I am sure everyone understand that.
1. Handing over all their bank account details to be picked over by a stranger. If they've more than about tuppence ha'penny in savings then they will presumably be told to fuck off until they've burnt through it all before coming back.
2. Filling out a couple of hundred pages of forms detailing their entire life history, then waiting two or three months in absolute poverty whilst the claim chugs its way through the system.
3. They will then receive a pittance, in return for which they will have to file paperwork proving that they have spent forty hours each week searching and applying for jobs (of which there are precious few to be had, and those that are around will attract several thousand applicants each.) Failure to provide evidence that whoever assesses it deems adequate results in immediate withdrawal of payments.
Or something very like that, anyway. As you said, a lot of previously well-to-do and self-reliant middle-class types are about to find themselves being treated like dirt in exchange for a weekly purse of loose change. There will be an immense chorus of agonized wailing - and then, next year or the one after (I don't know the precise mechanics of the system,) old people will get something like a 15% pension uplift because nobody dared to touch the triple lock. Good luck to Boris and Rishi with explaining all that away.
On a deaths per capita basis the USA is fast catching up with France and on current trends will overtake the UK on deaths per capita soon.
Which is remarkable when you think how socially distanced the USA is. England has a population density of about 440 per square km, the USA has a population density of 35.7 per sq km. But the USA is likely to end up with more deaths per capita by the end of this.
In those days they would help with mortgages.
Now on UC you are not entitled to help with mortgage interest for 9 months.
There could be a lot of repossessions if this continues
Trump made a widely-criticised mistake in saying "There were good people on both sides" when racists killed someone, and Biden needs to cover his flank by being ostentatiously anti-riot. Democrats need to be hard-headed, even cynical, in working out the voting impact in this situation. Nobody is going to vote Trump because Biden is seen as a bit too pro-law enforcement.
The difference is that Corbyn was condemning 'all sides' when there was only one issue to discuss. That's not the case here and hasn't been all year. You're acting as if only one side is being violent here - do you actually believe that? Do you think the protests are happening in a peaceful vacuum?
It might possibly be (just might) that I understand the mindset and thinking of a typical WWC American swing-state voter on this, being of the Right and sharing some of their views and concerns, and am therefore better able to comment on how Biden's campaign and messaging goes down with them than you are.
The evidence is the narrower polling in the swing states and the sizeable lead Trump has on law & order. It's an obvious line of attack that Trump is going to ruthlessly exploit Biden's weaknesses on weaknesses he has.
It's no good for a core voter of Biden's to say "but..but HE HAS!!" it's all about perceptions amongst the voters that matter and you, I'm afraid, are not one of them as you think Trump is the antichrist and would wade through blood to vote against him anyway.
It's ok. Once you wake up, and Biden does accordingly, so he actually wins , rather than just runs a campaign that makes you feel good about yourself, youu can thank me later.
His rhetoric is dangerous, divisive and nasty and he's a threat to the future integrity of the US Constitution but if you want him out - keep it in proportion for now.
Where the UK has done best is in running clinical trials (far more organised than in the US, where the numerous chaotic hydroxychloroquine efforts were both inconclusive and seriously hampered recruitment for other trials), and in vaccine development.
Both were largely owing to infrastructure and work already in place - but government does get serious credit for prompt and generous funding.
Their work in leading international vaccine funding programs is also to be applauded (and is not unconnected with the strength of the now to be abolished Dept of International Development).
Biden co-chair blasts Trump: ‘He needs to own this moment’
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/30/biden-trump-cedric-richmond-black-voters-405315
I pay a load of tax and get little back in return.
I can accept that as I think people should show some personal responsibility for their own finances.
And one of the reasons I feel like that is because I was unemployed during the 1990s - an experience which has encouraged me to be financially secure ever since.
The result in the UK is that 35-40% of over-65s live on £6,700 per yr if born before 1951, £8,800 if born later. The former can raise it to £8,800 by demeaning themselves and claiming Pension Credit. Many don't.
I challenge any PB user to live on that derisory sum. The triple lock is slowly increasing the basic pension to just about what a person needs to live on (excluding housing costs).
Then wait 5 weeks as a new claimant.
God forbid you have a house and a mortgage, as you will get no help if out of work for 9 months.Unlike renters who get housing benefit.
Some of the newly out of work middle class house buyers with a mortgage will have a rude awakening.
"No, he isn't! Look at this tweet!! The mask has slipped: you Trump supporter."
What I get is stuff like this: Hmm, not really seeing it.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/michigan/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/wisconsin/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/pennsylvania/
I know there was a graph *comparing to Hillary at the same stage* where right around this time Hillary was doing really well, so she had leads in the (incorrect, as it turned out) mid-west polls. But that doesn't really show you that the issue is working for Trump now - it's not as if everyone expected Biden to follow the exact Hillary Clinton trajectory. Oh, I think everybody understands how it *could* work. If you'd told me this story a year ago, before there was any polling about how people saw BLM protests and so on, I'd have said a bunch of protests leading up to the election was exactly the kind of thing that made Trump win.
But the polling seems to say that support for BLM is now quite broad (probably because people saw the police violence footage on social media); And when it's flared up previously, it seems to be bad for Trump, not good - probably partly because he's considered a party to it (ie he's backing the violent white nationalist side) and partly simply because he's the incumbent president, and the voters don't like chaos, so if they see chaos, they'll want to change their president.
Desperately sad article on the dangers inherent with the second wave and the complacency which allowed it to happen in Spain. Should be compulsory reading the in the UK.
I suppose the local authorities might buy some which have been repossessed.
Though that might not increase the value of neighbouring properties.
Biden needs to come out and lead his radical sidd: directly address his own side that that isn't the answer. And say that law & order is important, even if very serious police reform is needed.
It's the biggest question mark hanging over him and he needs to address it head on.
Admit that I am about 2/3 of the way through the 86 episodes of "Spooks".
Currently the Yanks have conned the British into blowing up a train in Iran, in order to justify an invasion.
Mr Trump would be delighted.
Surprisingly they seem to kill off virtually all the MI5 Officers within 3 or 4 series. Did an expensive clause kick in in actors contracts at that point?
You don’t seem to like them.
It's good that someone of such a different political position can see that
Now on PB we were regularly showed data which suggested a huge increase in deaths was imminent.
That didn't happen.
And likewise the reports of US data have ceased.
The average pensioner has the same post tax and housing income as the average worker. Why should the pensioners get a 15% state pension boost next year at the expense of the workers?
Covered by Newsnight, LBC and the Spectator last week.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/homes-unsellable-for-10-years-unsafe-cladding/
So states which weren't affected in April were in the summer.
The population density only matters where people live - if you compare the population density of where 80% of the English population lives compared to the population density of where 80% of the US population lives you will get much closer numbers.
He clearly (from his actions and what he has said) has no issue with the suspension of democracy if he could (while appearing democratic). I really can't see him batting an eyelid at suppressing his opponents again from what we have seen. I agree there is little evidence of external aggression, rather he is an isolationist.
Come on, name names.
Georgia
Arizona
I said you are presenting what you want Biden to do as being the only true way of Biden winning and any other approach is invalid.