Interesting header @Richard_Nabavi thank you. I used to work with Monte Carlo simulations using a software package called Crystal Ball and from that direct experience I know that the user can get the answer they want using ostensibly tiny little tweaks which are almost impossible to audit unless the auditor really knows what they're doing. The subjectivity is massive. So, although I like to track the models and they add value, I am not particularly guided by them. I'm more guided by the polls and the overall insight - now supported by most objective data - that the great nation of America cannot and will not elect an individual so palpably unfit for the presidency to a second term. You can lay that individual, Donald Trump, right now at 2.3 and it is the bet of a lifetime. Do not do your own research and do not remember that bets can lose as well as win. Just trust me.
"do not remember that bets can lose as well as win" ;-)
Just tried again to get a COVID test. No home tests, no drive-throughs, no walk-throughs.
Waste of time.
But it's world beating? Your experience is fake news, obviously.
Getting worse in Greater Manchester
At around 7pm on Monday, the M.E.N tried to book a test using a number of postcodes from the remaining six boroughs in Greater Manchester.
For a variety of different postcodes in Oldham, Rochdale, Trafford, Tameside, Salford and Stockport the website would not load when trying to book a test.
No matter which options we selected, it was not possible to book a test using any postcode in these boroughs.
We tried refreshing the page, but no tests were showing as available.
In a statement, a spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said that there is currently 'a high demand for tests'.
They said areas with outbreaks are being made a priority.
The statement read: “There is a high demand for tests and to help stop the spread of the virus we are targeting testing capacity at the areas that need it most, including those where there is an outbreak, as well as prioritising at-risk groups.
“We have the capacity to test for coronavirus at an unprecedented scale.
Lucky Greater Manchester isn't a relative hotspot.
I particularly like the comment that "A philosopher might ask whether a probability for a one-off unrepeatable event means anything at all, since it is inherently impossible to falsify " which makes a point that is so often missed by many people (@Wulfrun_Phil I'm looking at you!)
You seem to miss the point that US presidential elections are not one-off unrepeatable events. They recur every four years, often with the same candidate seeking re-election as now. As such I think you can draw on the past track record of forecasters to inform the future, and 538's record was the most accurate (or if you prefer the least inaccurate) in 2016 in that at least they gave Trump an outside but fighting chance when others had written him off. 538 also called every state correctly in 2012. So personally I set a lot of store by Silver's track record.
Then you are essentially arguing from a Bayesian viewpoint, where as Benpointer is arguing from a Frequentist viewpoint.
Rasmussen approval & Trafalgar I guess. But even Rasmussen isn't great for Trump having him 8 behind in the most rural (Outside solid GOP IA and IN) midwest state of WI. I'm not sure Trump is approaching this with analytical rigour
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Without Philadelphia voting in 2016 for example Trump would have won Pennsylvania by 2861985 to 2342416 for Hillary compared to the just 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 he did win the state by.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
Yes. But that was not really my point. My point was that a chunky amount of fraud was sadly to be expected. And the more you prioritize simplicity and speed of delivery the more fraud you will get.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
it's just occurred to me that whether Trump goes now or in 4 years, tradition demands that there will be a Trump presidential library. Given that they'll be destroying as much written evidence as possible, it's just going to consist of thousands of barely literate tweets, isn't it?
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
Many suburban areas of UK cities are Conservative. It's the central parts of cities which are strong Labour.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
Im not sure that the test can tell whether you are a super spreader or not. It just tells if you have any covid in you
Yes. But that was not really my point. My point was that a chunky amount of fraud was sadly to be expected. And the more you prioritize simplicity and speed of delivery the more fraud you will get.
Of course.
They could have been more rigorous to prevent fraud by requiring detailed proof before payments were made . . . and millions could have been made unemployed as a result.
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
I always gave some credence to the "shy Tory" theory in the era of John Major, because it was readily apparent that many Labour voters were willing to display posters showing their support, whereas a Tory window poster or garden stake was a rare thing indeed.
By contrast to the UK Conservatives in that era, in the US the Trump supporters now seem ready to shout their support for him from the rooftops. More likely there are some Democrats who are reluctant to openly express their support for Biden because they feel intimidated.
I also expect the Biden support to firm up on polling day when people who want to show their support for a Green agenda in polls have enough sense to realise that virtue signalling doesn't excuse them from voting directly for the candidate with a hope of defeating the antichrist.
The supporters of that point to the last election when a number of pollsters asked "who do you think your neighbour will vote for?" or "who do you think will win?" and, whereas Clinton would lead the polling, Trump was seen as the winner or whom the neighbours were voting for. The thesis is that it was more acceptable to think your neighbour would vote for him rather than admit it yourself.
You forget that pollsters try and learn from past elections and correct future polls through turnout adjustments and the like. So unless something unique occurs in an election that was not in play in the last one, you can be pretty sure that it will have been factored in to the adjustments made to raw polling.
Pollsters have an unfortunate habit of over-correcting though, on the false assumpton that the same factors which caused them to be wrong in the previous election will be in play in the next one.
So you get a yo-yo effect.
e.g. UK general elections, net Lab minus Con margin in polls compared to the actual result
2005 net Lab overstatement v Con 2010 net Con overstatement v Lab 2015 net Lab overstatement v Con 2017 net Con overstatement v Lab 2019 net Lab overstatement v Con
PS. So don't rely on the 2024 polls overestimating Starmer's support relative to the Conservatives.
it's just occurred to me that whether Trump goes now or in 4 years, tradition demands that there will be a Trump presidential library. Given that they'll be destroying as much written evidence as possible, it's just going to consist of thousands of barely literate tweets, isn't it?
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
Hence the attraction of cheap, rapid, self administered tests. We could be using them already, but I suspect we're taking rather longer assessing their absolute accuracy than would be ideal.
A less sensitive test which gives an immediate result is probably of greater use than a 100% accurate, 100% sensitive test which takes 24 hours. And certainly better than one which takes two or more days.
It's possible that the lower sensitivity doesn't even matter, as it's still likely to catch those who are actually infectious (as opposed to all who are infected).
And there is also an argument for a 7 day isolation period, as more likely to be complied with. Followed by another self-administered test.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
Did he commit the capital offence of acting on Boris's own instructions and thereby making him look silly? Or is he just the convenient fall guy? Or has he just had enough and decided to quit?
Who'd want to join the civil service to work for this Government?
I particularly like the comment that "A philosopher might ask whether a probability for a one-off unrepeatable event means anything at all, since it is inherently impossible to falsify " which makes a point that is so often missed by many people (@Wulfrun_Phil I'm looking at you!)
You seem to miss the point that US presidential elections are not one-off unrepeatable events. They recur every four years, often with the same candidate seeking re-election as now. As such I think you can draw on the past track record of forecasters to inform the future, and 538's record was the most accurate (or if you prefer the least inaccurate) in 2016 in that at least they gave Trump an outside but fighting chance when others had written him off. 538 also called every state correctly in 2012. So personally I set a lot of store by Silver's track record.
Then you are essentially arguing from a Bayesian viewpoint, where as Benpointer is arguing from a Frequentist viewpoint.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
Did he commit the capital offence of acting on Boris's own instructions and thereby making him look silly? Or is he just the convenient fall guy? Or has he just had enough and decided to quit?
Who'd want to join the civil service to work for this Government?
The latter. He’s annoyed at the precedent the government is about to create.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
Im not sure that the test can tell whether you are a super spreader or not. It just tells if you have any covid in you
Agreed. So what was the point of your previous comment then?
We're not going to end up with better Government and a better civil service.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
it's just occurred to me that whether Trump goes now or in 4 years, tradition demands that there will be a Trump presidential library. Given that they'll be destroying as much written evidence as possible, it's just going to consist of thousands of barely literate tweets, isn't it?
Along with a copy of the Mueller Report, the Steele dossier, and several shelves of court records.
Why? Its just a provision for fraud and error? There was bound to be some and a lot of it will be reclaimed.
I bet not much will be reclaimed - you have more faith than me on this. £3.5bn is equiv to over half a penny on income tax.
I remember discussing this with you when the scheme was announced and we both thought it was a fraudsters charter. But against that, it was simple and quick and it did what they wanted it to do, prevented or at least delayed a ton of job losses and gave a 'caring' feel to something that is always (for very good reason) vulnerable to the charge that it doesn't care about such things as unemployment - a Tory government.
Did he commit the capital offence of acting on Boris's own instructions and thereby making him look silly? Or is he just the convenient fall guy? Or has he just had enough and decided to quit?
Who'd want to join the civil service to work for this Government?
The latter. He’s annoyed at the precedent the government is about to create.
Jumped before he was pushed.
Boris hadn't listened and his card was marked once he knew he wasn't on side.
I particularly like the comment that "A philosopher might ask whether a probability for a one-off unrepeatable event means anything at all, since it is inherently impossible to falsify " which makes a point that is so often missed by many people (@Wulfrun_Phil I'm looking at you!)
You seem to miss the point that US presidential elections are not one-off unrepeatable events. They recur every four years, often with the same candidate seeking re-election as now. As such I think you can draw on the past track record of forecasters to inform the future, and 538's record was the most accurate (or if you prefer the least inaccurate) in 2016 in that at least they gave Trump an outside but fighting chance when others had written him off. 538 also called every state correctly in 2012. So personally I set a lot of store by Silver's track record.
Then you are essentially arguing from a Bayesian viewpoint, where as Benpointer is arguing from a Frequentist viewpoint.
Life is Bayesian
Yes I find myself increasingly of that point of view. (probability joke).
We're not going to end up with better Government and a better civil service.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
Rasmussen approval & Trafalgar I guess. But even Rasmussen isn't great for Trump having him 8 behind in the most rural (Outside solid GOP IA and IN) midwest state of WI. I'm not sure Trump is approaching this with analytical rigour
Thanks to the new search I have been able ot go back and have a look at my very confident "Clinton is going to win posts" from this time in 2016.
Reviewing my hubris has actually managed to make me more confident this time out.
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Without Philadelphia voting in 2016 for example Trump would have won Pennsylvania by 2861985 to 2342416 for Hillary compared to the just 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 he did win the state by.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
I'm not sure I buy this analysis tbh. Trump's biggest weakness now comparative to 2016 is with White voters. So although he'll still likely win lots of the counties outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, if Biden can hold his margin down and take counties from 70/30 in 2016 to 55/45 in 2020, that's why Biden will win Pennsylvania. It's basically what Obama did to win it twice.
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Without Philadelphia voting in 2016 for example Trump would have won Pennsylvania by 2861985 to 2342416 for Hillary compared to the just 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 he did win the state by.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
Other towns are also Dem. When I spent a day in the Dem office in Allentown in 2008 we were piling up Dem registrations from Latino voters. Activists had piled in from New Jersey to help out.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
Hence the attraction of cheap, rapid, self administered tests. We could be using them already, but I suspect we're taking rather longer assessing their absolute accuracy than would be ideal.
A less sensitive test which gives an immediate result is probably of greater use than a 100% accurate, 100% sensitive test which takes 24 hours. And certainly better than one which takes two or more days.
It's possible that the lower sensitivity doesn't even matter, as it's still likely to catch those who are actually infectious (as opposed to all who are infected).
And there is also an argument for a 7 day isolation period, as more likely to be complied with. Followed by another self-administered test.
Yes and this -- ease of use, immediate response -- is why we should have temperature testing. Never mind that it is not foolproof, an IR camera is unobtrusive and fast. Some private sector companies use them (and we've seen them mentioned in Amazon adverts, for instance) but they should have been installed at all airports, then all stations, and then all schools.
False positives -- funnel to more sensitive tests (or just send people home because they must be suffering from something). False negatives -- well, without testing, the false negative rate is 100 per cent.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
Hence the attraction of cheap, rapid, self administered tests. We could be using them already, but I suspect we're taking rather longer assessing their absolute accuracy than would be ideal.
A less sensitive test which gives an immediate result is probably of greater use than a 100% accurate, 100% sensitive test which takes 24 hours. And certainly better than one which takes two or more days.
It's possible that the lower sensitivity doesn't even matter, as it's still likely to catch those who are actually infectious (as opposed to all who are infected).
And there is also an argument for a 7 day isolation period, as more likely to be complied with. Followed by another self-administered test.
And, of course, there is no capacity constraint, and catching 70% of most cases is greatly preferable to finding 99% of less than half of them.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
Im not sure that the test can tell whether you are a super spreader or not. It just tells if you have any covid in you
Agreed. So what was the point of your previous comment then?
That positive cases do not necessarily mean more hospital admissions
Did he commit the capital offence of acting on Boris's own instructions and thereby making him look silly? Or is he just the convenient fall guy? Or has he just had enough and decided to quit?
Who'd want to join the civil service to work for this Government?
The latter. He’s annoyed at the precedent the government is about to create.
On the bright side, Bill Barr might be looking for a job in a couple of months' time.
"What do these probabilities mean? A philosopher might ask whether a probability for a one-off unrepeatable event means anything at all, since it is inherently impossible to falsify."
This extract from the article begs a few questions:
1) All events are one off and unrepeatable for the simple reason that all events occur at a particular time, a time which will never recur. (There are other reasons too but that will do).
2) It is possible to falsify a methodology, which is what probabilities rely on. Unless those methodologies were on the whole reliable bookmakers would all be broke. Hills and Ladbrokes and co test out the method every minute of every day, and largely it is clear that odds are significantly more than the random allocation of numbers.
3) My methodology of keeping on believing that horses rated at 100-1 in fact have a significantly higher chance than that of winning when I back them is falsified decisively over many years of experience.
4) If true it would render Sir John Curtice redundant and pointless. So we shouldn't even think of going there.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
it's just occurred to me that whether Trump goes now or in 4 years, tradition demands that there will be a Trump presidential library. Given that they'll be destroying as much written evidence as possible, it's just going to consist of thousands of barely literate tweets, isn't it?
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
Saw it. Saw it with my own eyes. Told a couple of people and they said they'd heard about it too.
I view the US presidential election (like any election) as a quantum mechanical system.
As the voting blocks from each state are either Biden or Trump, they are a fixed quantum.
At the moment we have a quantum field, based on probablilities, but when the outside observation takes place - votes being counted - the quantum field collapses and there is a definitive status.
As another comparision, at the moment the next president is locked in Schrodinger's theoretical box - it is either Biden or Trump (plus some tail end other possibilities). The box contains all possiblities. This is only resolved when the box is opened following the casting of votes.
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Without Philadelphia voting in 2016 for example Trump would have won Pennsylvania by 2861985 to 2342416 for Hillary compared to the just 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 he did win the state by.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
I'm not sure I buy this analysis tbh. Trump's biggest weakness now comparative to 2016 is with White voters. So although he'll still likely win lots of the counties outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, if Biden can hold his margin down and take counties from 70/30 in 2016 to 55/45 in 2020, that's why Biden will win Pennsylvania. It's basically what Obama did to win it twice.
It's the city suburbs that are key - college educated whites rather than all whites. They swung heavily Trump in 2016. Just a tiny swing back to Biden secures the state handily.
We're not going to end up with better Government and a better civil service.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
Cummings doesn't believe in the traditional British civil service model of impartial expert advice, which he refers to as the Blob. He wants people who will do what they're told while he sits in his big chair in front of the big board, wearing his beanie hat and barking orders at his army of "superforecasters" and closet racists hired via his blog. As you say, they will just keep on breaking things until they're kicked out. You will be amazed at how much damage they will do by 2024.
We're not going to end up with better Government and a better civil service.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
My daughter was asked to do this by some customers. She politely refused, pointing out that it was fraud.
She knows of some other nearby establishments who were less scrupulous. Re the furlough payments, all of her claims were made through her accountants who manage her payroll and tax affairs so that everything was above board.
it's just occurred to me that whether Trump goes now or in 4 years, tradition demands that there will be a Trump presidential library. Given that they'll be destroying as much written evidence as possible, it's just going to consist of thousands of barely literate tweets, isn't it?
Along with a copy of the Mueller Report, the Steele dossier, and several shelves of court records.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
What is happening to hospital admissions/spare capacity?
Exactly, it really doesn't matter if people are catching Covid but hospital admissions are not rising.
In terms of schools, children need to be at school.
Hospital admissions may not be rising now, but they most surely will if infections are allowed to continue rising. You've got to stay ahead of the curve if you want to keep disaster at bay.
Yes, I agree that children need to be at school. But then we need to close other areas of life in order to have a chance of keeping them at school without Covid running away again. It's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Once infections are (hopefully!) falling again, we can tentatively reopen pubs, etc.
I dont think that is neccesarily the case. The test we have now is very very good at finding Covid, even if you have a tiny bit in you and you are not infectious at all.
If you get a positive result back, how would you know if you are a superspreader or "not infectious at all"? By the time you know the answer it's three weeks later and it's too late to do anything about it.
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
Hence the attraction of cheap, rapid, self administered tests. We could be using them already, but I suspect we're taking rather longer assessing their absolute accuracy than would be ideal.
A less sensitive test which gives an immediate result is probably of greater use than a 100% accurate, 100% sensitive test which takes 24 hours. And certainly better than one which takes two or more days.
It's possible that the lower sensitivity doesn't even matter, as it's still likely to catch those who are actually infectious (as opposed to all who are infected).
And there is also an argument for a 7 day isolation period, as more likely to be complied with. Followed by another self-administered test.
Yes and this -- ease of use, immediate response -- is why we should have temperature testing. Never mind that it is not foolproof, an IR camera is unobtrusive and fast. Some private sector companies use them (and we've seen them mentioned in Amazon adverts, for instance) but they should have been installed at all airports, then all stations, and then all schools.
False positives -- funnel to more sensitive tests (or just send people home because they must be suffering from something). False negatives -- well, without testing, the false negative rate is 100 per cent.
Temperature testing is pretty poor, though. The rapid tests will pick up the vast majority of those who are infectious; temperature testing will likely miss well over half. But I agree, it's not useless, and ought to be used where practical.
Why the shock? The govt was hosing money around, it was bound to attract liars, crooks and cleverdicks.
And those are just the friends of Dom ......
That's where the government is guilty. There was always going to be a certain amount of fraud by liars and crooks in a largely honesty-based system, but most people are well-meaning and would act honestly, so long as they believed most others were doing so. If, however, you have an atmosphere in which people believe everyone is out for themselves, then there is little incentive to act honestly, and the system breaks down. This is why it was so critical for the government to lead by example.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
We're not going to end up with better Government and a better civil service.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
I remember you asking me (sometime after the Brexit vote) what it would take for me to vote Conservative again.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
it's just occurred to me that whether Trump goes now or in 4 years, tradition demands that there will be a Trump presidential library. Given that they'll be destroying as much written evidence as possible, it's just going to consist of thousands of barely literate tweets, isn't it?
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
My daughter was asked to do this by some customers. She politely refused, pointing out that it was fraud.
She knows of some other nearby establishments who were less scrupulous. Re the furlough payments, all of her claims were made through her accountants who manage her payroll and tax affairs so that everything was above board.
It's like Murphy's Principle: If a fraud can happen it will. The other one worth watching out for is people WFH taking on two (or more) "Full Time" such jobs in the large Bullshit jobs sector, especially that growing part where lots of people make work for each other by sending emails and having Zoom meetings about the emails.
ONS deaths stats out for week ending 28th August 2020
Deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate was 101 or 1.1% of deaths.
Average deaths was up by 791 or 9.6%. That is a massive increase and is due to the failure of the NHS to treat other illnesses other than Covid.
If Covid had caused these excess deaths it would have been all over the news, because it is other illnesses no one is interested. It is a national disgrace they we are letting people die whilst hospital beds remain empty.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
My daughter was asked to do this by some customers. She politely refused, pointing out that it was fraud.
She knows of some other nearby establishments who were less scrupulous. Re the furlough payments, all of her claims were made through her accountants who manage her payroll and tax affairs so that everything was above board.
it's just occurred to me that whether Trump goes now or in 4 years, tradition demands that there will be a Trump presidential library. Given that they'll be destroying as much written evidence as possible, it's just going to consist of thousands of barely literate tweets, isn't it?
Along with a copy of the Mueller Report, the Steele dossier, and several shelves of court records.
And a load of caps.
When the Trump team leaves the White House, they're going to steal all the caps lock keys from the keyboards.
If the government are wasting rapid testing at carehomes then we're going to see a huge rise in cases over the next few weeks as the current testing regime won't be able to keep up with demand. Someone needs to stand up and say that rapid testing can't be wasted on a defensive strategy, they need to be deployed to find cases where they are most likely to break out, not prevent cases from coming into somewhere with older people. The latter is going to be self-defeating as community transmission spirals out of control because we're not finding and isolating people who have it while capacity is wasted at carehomes where people can't really go anyway.
Why are we allowed 30 people in a house at the moment anyway? The limit for weddings is also 30 people but that would be in a typically much greater space with professional staff who can set up a covid secure environment. It is obvious the limit for being in a house should be less than a wedding.
I had no idea we were allowed 30 people in a house and doubt many other people did either so changing the limit probably wont have that much impact.
Greater than 30 people meeting in one house is illegal but the guidelines also say: "It remains the case that you should not socialise indoors in groups of more than two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household) – this includes when dining out or going to the pub"
So up to 30 people but only from two households. I can't think there are many 15+ person households
So it is against the guidelines for 3 work colleagues working from home to have a business meeting in a restaurant that lasts 90 mins? Yet the government insists its safe for them to all work in the same office for 40 hours a week.
Yes, because the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Are we still doing these hypothetical "so you can do x, but not y" scenarios all this time later?
Until we are simply back to normal with no restrictions at all there will always be oddities.
Or people will ignore the guidelines as they dont make sense.
I simply don't understand why pubs, restaurants and the like haven't been closed again, given the evident risks of opening the schools / universities / offices. They are not essential and could possibly be drip-fed financial sustenance by the government while they are closed. Instead, we are running a real risk of losing control of Covid and having to shut everything down again.
Because the major risks are believed to be transmission within homes/private venues. All closing pubs/restaurants does is drive people from one to the other, and with lower levels of social distancing etc
Tons of capacity for antibody tests (pillar 3), but those aren't in demand right now. Another example of a journalist with no understanding of what is actually going on.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
Jones is doing what any lawyer does when a client asks them to do something that is illegal or improper. If they cannot persuade them to change their mind, then they can no longer represent the client. If you’re a barrister or solicitor you dismiss the client. If you’re employed by them, you leave your job.
Jones has acted with integrity. It ‘s nice to see it, for a change.
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
My daughter was asked to do this by some customers. She politely refused, pointing out that it was fraud.
She knows of some other nearby establishments who were less scrupulous. Re the furlough payments, all of her claims were made through her accountants who manage her payroll and tax affairs so that everything was above board.
It's like Murphy's Principle: If a fraud can happen it will. The other one worth watching out for is people WFH taking on two (or more) "Full Time" such jobs in the large Bullshit jobs sector, especially that growing part where lots of people make work for each other by sending emails and having Zoom meetings about the emails.
I wonder about the self employed grant. We took the first but not the second (are turning away work, never been busier). Not everyone will be scrupulous. Will there be a reckoning once year end rolls in?
ONS deaths stats out for week ending 28th August 2020
Deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate was 101 or 1.1% of deaths.
Average deaths was up by 791 or 9.6%. That is a massive increase and is due to the failure of the NHS to treat other illnesses other than Covid.
If Covid had caused these excess deaths it would have been all over the news, because it is other illnesses no one is interested. It is a national disgrace they we are letting people die whilst hospital beds remain empty.
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
Many suburban areas of UK cities are Conservative. It's the central parts of cities which are strong Labour.
Many but not all, even the suburbs of London elected a majority of Labour and LD seats in 2019 for example.
ONS deaths stats out for week ending 28th August 2020
Deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate was 101 or 1.1% of deaths.
Average deaths was up by 791 or 9.6%. That is a massive increase and is due to the failure of the NHS to treat other illnesses other than Covid.
If Covid had caused these excess deaths it would have been all over the news, because it is other illnesses no one is interested. It is a national disgrace they we are letting people die whilst hospital beds remain empty.
Bank holiday in four of the five years in the five year average.
That does not change the stat that Covid was mentioned on only 1.1% of death certificates, and this is supposed to be a pandemic. Flu/influenza accounted for 8.8% of deaths!!!!
We're not going to end up with better Government and a better civil service.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
Things can only get worse. It is now a question of how much damage will be done and how permanent that damage will be.
ONS deaths stats out for week ending 28th August 2020
Deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate was 101 or 1.1% of deaths.
Average deaths was up by 791 or 9.6%. That is a massive increase and is due to the failure of the NHS to treat other illnesses other than Covid.
If Covid had caused these excess deaths it would have been all over the news, because it is other illnesses no one is interested. It is a national disgrace they we are letting people die whilst hospital beds remain empty.
Bank holiday in four of the five years in the five year average.
That does not change the stat that Covid was mentioned on only 1.1% of death certificates, and this is supposed to be a pandemic. Flu/influenza accounted for 8.8% of deaths!!!!
Yes, COVID isn't having much of an effect at the moment. I was addressing you're complaint that people are dying because of COVID mitigations. You're comparing a week without a bank holiday with five weeks of which four did have a bank holiday. So that's why the total deaths looks high v the five year average. This will reverse next week.
Clearly we need to watch the total - and that's what I'm doing - but you have to judge the data on its merits. The increase in Weeks 33 and 34 look to be isolated and may have been due to the hot weather.
If laboratory processing is the 'pinch point', the claimed capacity simply doesn't exist.
There is 370k capacity for all tests, but only 250k for the antigen tests which are in demand right now. Of course why would a political journalist know or care about the difference?
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Without Philadelphia voting in 2016 for example Trump would have won Pennsylvania by 2861985 to 2342416 for Hillary compared to the just 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 he did win the state by.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
I'm not sure I buy this analysis tbh. Trump's biggest weakness now comparative to 2016 is with White voters. So although he'll still likely win lots of the counties outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, if Biden can hold his margin down and take counties from 70/30 in 2016 to 55/45 in 2020, that's why Biden will win Pennsylvania. It's basically what Obama did to win it twice.
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
My daughter was asked to do this by some customers. She politely refused, pointing out that it was fraud.
She knows of some other nearby establishments who were less scrupulous. Re the furlough payments, all of her claims were made through her accountants who manage her payroll and tax affairs so that everything was above board.
It's like Murphy's Principle: If a fraud can happen it will. The other one worth watching out for is people WFH taking on two (or more) "Full Time" such jobs in the large Bullshit jobs sector, especially that growing part where lots of people make work for each other by sending emails and having Zoom meetings about the emails.
I wonder about the self employed grant. We took the first but not the second (are turning away work, never been busier). Not everyone will be scrupulous. Will there be a reckoning once year end rolls in?
I'm self-employed and business has been slacker over the last few months, but not, I think, due particularly to Covid. Nevertheless, HMRC has noticed the drop in my VAT returns and has suggested that I avail myself of the self-employed grant. I haven't, because I'm honest, but I'm sure others may have given in to temptation, especially if they are in financial difficulties.
Not predictable -- that is just the prediction. The actual figure could be anything but the headline writer got a bit excited.
Ok. Guess so. But what I mean is, it was imo to be expected that a non trivial proportion of the total furlough costs - 5% say - would be accounted for by successful fraudulent or borderline fraudulent claims. A figure like that does not, would not, unduly surprise me.
Indeed. All you had to do to claim was give a list of employees and how much cash you wanted. Inevitably would attract outright fraudsters (there are many in the ltd company space) as well as opportunistic unscrupulous fraudsters in significant numbers. Most common frauds will be claiming and having employees still working or claiming and not paying employee in at least 80%.
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Some people are like that. Love to beat the system and get one over on the taxman. Even the Rishi Dishy, the £10 off meals, there were punters getting restaurants to split their bill of £60 into 3 x £20, thus getting £30 off instead of £10, then sharing the ill gotten gains. This is an integral part of our national character. It's why we end up with someone like Boris Johnson as PM.
Blimey how do you know that is what people were doing?
My daughter was asked to do this by some customers. She politely refused, pointing out that it was fraud.
She knows of some other nearby establishments who were less scrupulous. Re the furlough payments, all of her claims were made through her accountants who manage her payroll and tax affairs so that everything was above board.
Interesting thanks.
One establishment was selling £1 burgers by simply taking the £10 off the total price rather than, as it should have been, 50% off up to £10.
If laboratory processing is the 'pinch point', the claimed capacity simply doesn't exist.
A lot of that 370k is antibody testing which is not useful. However, it's clear that the government hasn't properly planned to hit the 1m tests per day target that was set earlier this year, at least there doesn't seem to be evidence of it so far.
We're not going to end up with better Government and a better civil service.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
Things can only get worse. It is now a question of how much damage will be done and how permanent that damage will be.
From here, it is all about how far Tories who have spent years talking about liberty, sovereignty and democracy are prepared to demonstrate they genuinely believe in such concepts. My guess is that very few will as most have already left the former Conservative and Unionist party. I do now think we are in uncharted waters in htis country. I am not sure we can now be certain that the next general election will be entirely free and fair.
Is there a view about the shy Trumper factor? Like people who were embarrassed to say they supported John Major I can imagine that open support of The Donald is social pariah making amongst many groups.
Not supporting him also probably has that effect in hardcore Trump circles. There is a definite defiant circle-the-wagonslaager sense in the Trump camp.
My guess is that this mostly affects safe states either way. If you live in Wisconsin, it won't be hard to find people who agree with your preference, whatever it is.
Even somewhere like Seattle or Boston, Clinton only got 62% so about one in three people youd meet would be Trumpers. Everywhere it will be easy to find people who agree with you.
Big cities in the USA are massively, overwhemingly Democrat -
So more like 1 in 7 people in Boston will be a Trumper and 1 in 10 in Seattle. The rural-urban polarisation of the USA is quite something.
Indeed, if Biden does win Pennsylvania it will almost entirely be down to Philadelphia and likely higher black turnout there and the suburbs, Trump will win the small town and rural parts of the state by a big margin regardless.
Without Philadelphia voting in 2016 for example Trump would have won Pennsylvania by 2861985 to 2342416 for Hillary compared to the just 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 he did win the state by.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
Other towns are also Dem. When I spent a day in the Dem office in Allentown in 2008 we were piling up Dem registrations from Latino voters. Activists had piled in from New Jersey to help out.
Allentown has a population of 121,433, more small city than town
Head of UK government legal department quits over Brexit Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
Comments
Bottlenecks somewhere.
I'm not sure Trump is approaching this with analytical rigour
There will also be a lot of errors as the detail behind the claims was not required and the calculations complex with guidance changing regularly.
Without Philadelphia voting in 2016 for example Trump would have won Pennsylvania by 2861985 to 2342416 for Hillary compared to the just 2,970,733 to 2,926,441 he did win the state by.
Of course in the UK too big cities are largely Labour and market towns and rural areas largely Tory but still not to the extent of the USA
Finding all the cases is only half of the battle. Preventing the spread is the main challenge.
They could have been more rigorous to prevent fraud by requiring detailed proof before payments were made . . . and millions could have been made unemployed as a result.
Speed was prioritised over rigour.
Pollsters have an unfortunate habit of over-correcting though, on the false assumpton that the same factors which caused them to be wrong in the previous election will be in play in the next one.
So you get a yo-yo effect.
e.g. UK general elections, net Lab minus Con margin in polls compared to the actual result
2005 net Lab overstatement v Con
2010 net Con overstatement v Lab
2015 net Lab overstatement v Con
2017 net Con overstatement v Lab
2019 net Lab overstatement v Con
PS. So don't rely on the 2024 polls overestimating Starmer's support relative to the Conservatives.
We could be using them already, but I suspect we're taking rather longer assessing their absolute accuracy than would be ideal.
A less sensitive test which gives an immediate result is probably of greater use than a 100% accurate, 100% sensitive test which takes 24 hours. And certainly better than one which takes two or more days.
It's possible that the lower sensitivity doesn't even matter, as it's still likely to catch those who are actually infectious (as opposed to all who are infected).
And there is also an argument for a 7 day isolation period, as more likely to be complied with. Followed by another self-administered test.
Jonathan Jones said to be ‘very unhappy’ about decision to overwrite pars of Northern Ireland protocol
https://www.ft.com/content/6186bf1c-055b-4de6-a643-4eea763e1b94
Who'd want to join the civil service to work for this Government?
EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Bayesianism
Anyone with a shed of integrity would have done so.
We'll end up with lickspittle toadying Government, and an even worse civil service, which will further reinforce Cummings views on internal obstruction, conspiracy and incompetence and ever escalate it in a spiral effect via the magnificent phenomena of confirmation bias.
This will get worse and worse until they're turfed out.
Boris hadn't listened and his card was marked once he knew he wasn't on side.
(probability joke).
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/08/07/the-conservative-party-is-pursuing-profoundly-un-conservative-policies-so-ive-left-it/
Reviewing my hubris has actually managed to make me more confident this time out.
BREAKING: South Africa's GDP contracted by 51% in the second quarter of 2020
Edit: The ridiculous American notion of annualisation has been used. So actually a 13% contraction or so.
False positives -- funnel to more sensitive tests (or just send people home because they must be suffering from something).
False negatives -- well, without testing, the false negative rate is 100 per cent.
Hope the Chinese ones are OK...
https://twitter.com/fasenfeld/status/1302929922776862721
This extract from the article begs a few questions:
1) All events are one off and unrepeatable for the simple reason that all events occur at a particular time, a time which will never recur. (There are other reasons too but that will do).
2) It is possible to falsify a methodology, which is what probabilities rely on. Unless those methodologies were on the whole reliable bookmakers would all be broke. Hills and Ladbrokes and co test out the method every minute of every day, and largely it is clear that odds are significantly more than the random allocation of numbers.
3) My methodology of keeping on believing that horses rated at 100-1 in fact have a significantly higher chance than that of winning when I back them is falsified decisively over many years of experience.
4) If true it would render Sir John Curtice redundant and pointless. So we shouldn't even think of going there.
5) Biden is extremely good value unless he isn't.
As the voting blocks from each state are either Biden or Trump, they are a fixed quantum.
At the moment we have a quantum field, based on probablilities, but when the outside observation takes place - votes being counted - the quantum field collapses and there is a definitive status.
As another comparision, at the moment the next president is locked in Schrodinger's theoretical box - it is either Biden or Trump (plus some tail end other possibilities). The box contains all possiblities. This is only resolved when the box is opened following the casting of votes.
As you say, they will just keep on breaking things until they're kicked out. You will be amazed at how much damage they will do by 2024.
She knows of some other nearby establishments who were less scrupulous. Re the furlough payments, all of her claims were made through her accountants who manage her payroll and tax affairs so that everything was above board.
The rapid tests will pick up the vast majority of those who are infectious; temperature testing will likely miss well over half. But I agree, it's not useless, and ought to be used where practical.
Well.... definitely not this lot.
Phil isn't here immediately spinning it...
Deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate was 101 or 1.1% of deaths.
Average deaths was up by 791 or 9.6%. That is a massive increase and is due to the failure of the NHS to treat other illnesses other than Covid.
If Covid had caused these excess deaths it would have been all over the news, because it is other illnesses no one is interested. It is a national disgrace they we are letting people die whilst hospital beds remain empty.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending28august2020
When the Trump team leaves the White House, they're going to steal all the caps lock keys from the keyboards.
And no one will care.
Tons of capacity for antibody tests (pillar 3), but those aren't in demand right now. Another example of a journalist with no understanding of what is actually going on.
But is a nonpareil in putting a legal gloss on criminal behaviour.
Jones has acted with integrity. It ‘s nice to see it, for a change.
We took the first but not the second (are turning away work, never been busier).
Not everyone will be scrupulous.
Will there be a reckoning once year end rolls in?
Clearly we need to watch the total - and that's what I'm doing - but you have to judge the data on its merits. The increase in Weeks 33 and 34 look to be isolated and may have been due to the hot weather.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election_in_Pennsylvania
Bush also won Pennsylvania minus Philadelphia in 2000 and 2004, though Obama would have narrowly won it even without Philadelphia in 2008
Cummings wouldn't extradite our top legal adviser.