So, if 0.8% at least of tests are false positives, that implies we had a sustained period of -0.2% as the real figure.
I'm really not sure how that could even work.
So your fp rate must be 0.6% or lower. It can never be higher than your total positive.
the fp isn't a stable figure i would say looking at the causes of an fp on rna test
If the false positive rate can be whatever you need it to be to make all positive results false then it's impossible for any evidence to convince you that there's a problem with covid-19.
It's bizarre that this argument continues even as the number of hospitalizations increases.
Aaaah, false positive hospitalisations. How are now receiving the wrong treatment because of it.
This incorrect treatment will probably kill them.
So any rise in deaths will also be false positives.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
The background isn't evidence. And if it was the Cathedral I'm just a little surprised. Is Carrie an RC?
Come on...are you really suggesting that is a virtual background? Unless somebody produces similar video evidence of Boris in Italy at the same time, the weight of evidence is at the time he was supposedly in Italy, he was in fact he was sitting in cabinet office doing live zoom conference.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
We truly are living in a time of where somehow people are losing the ability to have rational logical thought processes en mass.
It seems easier for people to wrap themselves in their own reality, and construct a worldview which fits what they want.
I've noticed that the government's headline hospital admission figure is a 7-day moving average that's a couple of weeks out of date. The data tab under https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/healthcare gives figures for England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Once these are added up, the 7-day moving average for hospital admissions looks like this...
I didn't know Lebedev had a dog named after our prime minister, although when you consider how the Tory party is awash with Roubles it's not surprising.
At least the dog only gargles its own balls. Probably.
There are so many stories out there, I don't even know what you are referring to but it sounds gross! Maybe it's covered by a superinjunction somewhere - perhaps Johnson has his own separate branch of the judiciary devoted full time to covering up his alleged indiscretions. What a sordid mess of a man he is.
No of positive tests in London has fallen by 27% in the last week...
That's interesting.
London had a very low infection rate in June and July and it was speculated that it had reached a 20% infection rate giving effective herd immunity.
Perhaps London needed a 'top up' to reach that.
There was a lot of speculation like that from people who wanted to believe the disease wasn't very dangerous, but I don't think the serology tests found anything remotely like it?
Current Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) calculated at < 0.5%, down from about 1% earlier in the epidemic. This is largely due to better treatments and a younger healthier profile of people being infected, on my understanding. The younger profile may not continue to hold in the "second wave", which may result in the IFR going back up again a bit - evidence in France and Spain of secondary infections spreading to older more vulnerable people. Speculation, as far as I am aware with limited evidence, that the virus may have mutated into something less deadly.
Worth pointing out that an IFR of 0.3% results in about 200 000 deaths in the UK if there are no interventions. It's still a deadly disease and we do have collective and individual choices that can reduce the death toll a lot.
I wonder if new restrictions would cause more harm than good. Not economically (although that's vital too) but in terms of other diseases and medical conditions not being treated.
Not sure how much influence foreign holidays have on it. Do the people of Bolton or Bradford really go on many more trips than those of Cambridge or West Oxfordshire or wherever have very low infection rates?
Mancs are famous for their holidays!
Can we kill this West Oxfordshire canard? Our infection rate is only a wee bit below average (we're about the 400th least infected constituency out of 650), and I'd say that's because: - we've got a very high rate of biggish back gardens - we're blessed with hugely easy access to open, footpath-saturated, countryside owned by other people. Most household-to-household conversations happen in the middle of a field, surrounded by dogs, at 6 ft distances - a very large proportion of pubs and restaurants have good outdoor capacity: if we eat or drink out it's mostly in beer-gardens and on terraces - we're a tad oldish, and don't holiday in Ibiza. If we go away, our evenings aren't spent at raves but outside a Tuscan caff or a Greek zacharoplastion. - Bluntly: we're anti-social.
Somewhat snobbish view of overseas holidays, as in any country the party resorts exist whereas the rest of the country has lots to offer, Spain isn't just Ibiza and discos, just as pleasant as Tuscany or other such European locations.
I wonder if new restrictions would cause more harm than good. Not economically (although that's vital too) but in terms of other diseases and medical conditions not being treated.
So, if 0.8% at least of tests are false positives, that implies we had a sustained period of -0.2% as the real figure.
I'm really not sure how that could even work.
So your fp rate must be 0.6% or lower. It can never be higher than your total positive.
the fp isn't a stable figure i would say looking at the causes of an fp on rna test
If the false positive rate can be whatever you need it to be to make all positive results false then it's impossible for any evidence to convince you that there's a problem with covid-19.
It's bizarre that this argument continues even as the number of hospitalizations increases.
Aaaah, false positive hospitalisations. How are now receiving the wrong treatment because of it.
This incorrect treatment will probably kill them.
So any rise in deaths will also be false positives.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
From the Repubblica article, the evidence for the return on Monday morning from Perugia to Northolt is strong. The 2pm Friday claim by an anonymous source, ie not in the press statement by the Airport, is a lot weaker. There was a flight from Farnborough on Saturday morning that he might have been on.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Wrong. Most Americans are social liberals (witness Clinton's popular vote win in 2016, and Biden's very likely win in 2020 regardless of the electoral college result), but most of them don't live in the small rural states that the Senate gives an outsize voice to.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
The background isn't evidence. And if it was the Cathedral I'm just a little surprised. Is Carrie an RC?
Come on...are you really suggesting that is a virtual background? Unless somebody produces similar video evidence of Boris in Italy at the same time, the weight of evidence is at the time he was supposedly in Italy, he was in fact he was sitting in cabinet office doing live zoom conference.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
We truly are living in a time of where somehow people are losing the ability to have rational logical thought processes en mass.
It seems easier for people to wrap themselves in their own reality, and construct a worldview which fits what they want.
I must admit that Mr U is making some good points and shaking my faith in the holiday story!
Mr 43 is bolstering my view, though!
We do need something from the place where the baptism took place, though. Surely if it was Westminster Cathedral the records should be publicly available?
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
From the Repubblica article, the evidence for the return on Monday morning from Perugia to Northolt is strong. The 2pm Friday claim by an anonymous source, ie not in the press statement by the Airport, is a lot weaker. There was a flight from Farnborough on Saturday morning that he might have been on.
"According to sources from Perugia airport, the return plane was supposed to take off at 7.45 am that day. However, apparently there was a problem because it took off 40 minutes later than the scheduled time."
So according to that, he couldn't have been back in Downing Street Monday morning....but he was photographed there.
But COVID-19 isn't the only medical condition in the world, and I do question whether a lockdown would cause more harm than good if imposed in a nationwide scale.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
The background isn't evidence. And if it was the Cathedral I'm just a little surprised. Is Carrie an RC?
Come on...are you really suggesting that is a virtual background? Unless somebody produces similar video evidence of Boris in Italy at the same time, the weight of evidence is at the time he was supposedly in Italy, he was in fact he was sitting in cabinet office doing live zoom conference.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
We truly are living in a time of where somehow people are losing the ability to have rational logical thought processes en mass.
It seems easier for people to wrap themselves in their own reality, and construct a worldview which fits what they want.
As always with these things whether or not Shagger went off on a mystery weekend to Perrugia isn't the issue. Its that with his reputation it was believable. Its not people willing to believe outrageous slanders. Its that the PM has done outrageous already, has lied about outrageous. Has been sacked for it...
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Wrong. Most Americans are social liberals (witness Clinton's popular vote win in 2016, and Biden's very likely win in 2020 regardless of the electoral college result), but most of them don't live in the small rural states that the Senate gives an outsize voice to.
They aren't, they do not support partial birth abortion and abortion on demand for instance, they do not want uncontrolled immigration and nor do they want to take down all the statues of key figures from US history. You also missed Reagan's, the Bushes popular vote and EC wins and Trump's EC win as well as the fact the Republicans won big majorities in the House, where seats are allocated by population, from 2010 to 2018.
At most they are social moderates, not liberals and even if most do not live in rural areas, most Americans don't live in New York, California and Massachussetts and DC either
So, if 0.8% at least of tests are false positives, that implies we had a sustained period of -0.2% as the real figure.
I'm really not sure how that could even work.
So your fp rate must be 0.6% or lower. It can never be higher than your total positive.
the fp isn't a stable figure i would say looking at the causes of an fp on rna test
If the false positive rate can be whatever you need it to be to make all positive results false then it's impossible for any evidence to convince you that there's a problem with covid-19.
It's bizarre that this argument continues even as the number of hospitalizations increases.
"Upper bound" is an impenetrably difficult concept.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
The background isn't evidence. And if it was the Cathedral I'm just a little surprised. Is Carrie an RC?
Come on...are you really suggesting that is a virtual background? Unless somebody produces similar video evidence of Boris in Italy at the same time, the weight of evidence is at the time he was supposedly in Italy, he was in fact he was sitting in cabinet office doing live zoom conference.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
We truly are living in a time of where somehow people are losing the ability to have rational logical thought processes en mass.
It seems easier for people to wrap themselves in their own reality, and construct a worldview which fits what they want.
I must admit that Mr U is making some good points and shaking my faith in the holiday story!
This is part of the problem Johnson has created for himself and the rest of the tory party. He is such a dishonest degenerate fucc boi that nobody believes him even on those rare occasions when he is telling the truth.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
From the Repubblica article, the evidence for the return on Monday morning from Perugia to Northolt is strong. The 2pm Friday claim by an anonymous source, ie not in the press statement by the Airport, is a lot weaker. There was a flight from Farnborough on Saturday morning that he might have been on.
"According to sources from Perugia airport, the return plane was supposed to take off at 7.45 am that day. However, apparently there was a problem because it took off 40 minutes later than the scheduled time."
So according to that, he couldn't have been back in Downing Street Monday morning....but he was photographed there.
This is either attempted cover up of the century for a perfectly legal couple of days in Italy or nonsense.
It's a double bluff to cover up the fact they have teleporter technology and Boris was on Mars negotiating with the Venusians to sell of sites of special scientific interest.
So in 10 mins we have established there is photographic evidence of Boris inside #10 on both Friday afternoon (when the article allegeds he was in Italy) and on the steps of #10 on Monday morning (when the article allegeds he was still stuck in Italy).
And there are eye witnesses willing to say he was in church for a baptism on the Saturday.
Journalists who think he is lying and there is a big cover up better have some more convincing evidence.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
From the Repubblica article, the evidence for the return on Monday morning from Perugia to Northolt is strong. The 2pm Friday claim by an anonymous source, ie not in the press statement by the Airport, is a lot weaker. There was a flight from Farnborough on Saturday morning that he might have been on.
"According to sources from Perugia airport, the return plane was supposed to take off at 7.45 am that day. However, apparently there was a problem because it took off 40 minutes later than the scheduled time."
So according to that, he couldn't have been back in Downing Street Monday morning....but he was photographed there.
This is either attempted cover up of the century for a perfectly legal couple of days in Italy or nonsense.
This reminds me of the October surprise stuff in the US.
When it was pointed out that George Bush (senior) would have had to travel at Mach 4.5 (literally) to attend an alleged meeting and still be back in Washington to be filmed in front of multiple reporters.... The response was an attempt to get the USAF to account for the location of all it's SR-71s....
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
No, lockdown is "only leave the house once to go shopping or exercise". If the pubs are still open then it's not lockdown.
It's still a lockdown as far as most people are concerned.
And in the only example of Covid on a navy ship, sailors died.
It wasn't the only example. HMS QE has had it as well.
She sailed for GROUPEX this week with a complement of 1,700. When the RN were trying to stop the carriers from getting cancelled they swore blind the carrier + air wing would take to sea with less than 700 crew.
Why don’t we sell the carriers to the Japanese ? They have more use for them, they can afford them, and they might even have the aircraft to fly off them.
Why is he getting involved with this stuff. His social media team needs to stay out of these unnecessary arguments and concentrate on closing the gap with Trump on the economy.
Why is he getting involved with this stuff. His social media team needs to stay out of these unnecessary arguments and concentrate on closing the gap with Trump on the economy.
You think Joe Biden controls what goes on his own Twitter....about as likely as Jezza did. It will simply be some excitable staffer freelancing.
I thought baby-truthers would have been where this sort of thing stopped but virtual-zoom-background-truthers is really altogether a very different kettle of herring.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
The solution is for a Dem House and Senate to pass a simple majority vote granting the accession of the 31 states of Mexico, plus an extra one for Mexico City.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
No, lockdown is "only leave the house once to go shopping or exercise". If the pubs are still open then it's not lockdown.
It's still a lockdown as far as most people are concerned.
What's the point of going to the pub on your own?
Can't you openly go to the pub with 5 of your mates? And if not, you all go on your own. Anyone going to the pub is mingling with scores of people - why are strangers safer than friends and family?
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
No, lockdown is "only leave the house once to go shopping or exercise". If the pubs are still open then it's not lockdown.
It's still a lockdown as far as most people are concerned.
What's the point of going to the pub on your own?
Well actually, I love going to the pub on my own after work. Couple of pints and a read of the paper in peace. Can't be beaten.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
There is one thing the Democrats might be able to do.
It would be to encourage the growth of the cities in the lower population states. If they can see cities in Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, even Idaho, grow then they will change the rural/urban balance in those states and put Democrats in a better place for the Senate.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
No, lockdown is "only leave the house once to go shopping or exercise". If the pubs are still open then it's not lockdown.
It's still a lockdown as far as most people are concerned.
What's the point of going to the pub on your own?
Can't you openly go to the pub with 5 of your mates? And if not, you all go on your own. Anyone going to the pub is mingling with scores of people - why are strangers safer than friends and family?
Sure you can, but on individual tables away from each other?
It seems like it's in Labour's interest to vote for Brady's amendment.
It's in Labour's interest to vote with the right wing fringe of the Tory party who want no more restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus?
What an interesting view!
If it's on the concept of confirmatory votes, you could make two arguments in their favour. One is the general principle that Bernard Wolley expressed as "you know, in a democracy, shouldn't we talk about things a bit?" The other is that, come the actual votes, it would give Labour an opportunity to look responsible and supportive and make the Conservatives look divided.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
Why is he getting involved with this stuff. His social media team needs to stay out of these unnecessary arguments and concentrate on closing the gap with Trump on the economy.
In 2016 The Republican Govenor of North Carolina lost the election because, in part, of a sweeping anti-LGBT laws he passed.
Why is he getting involved with this stuff. His social media team needs to stay out of these unnecessary arguments and concentrate on closing the gap with Trump on the economy.
You think Joe Biden controls his own Twitter....about as likely as Jezza did.
Yes, it's the social media team but why are they putting his name to this kind of stuff. He's not going to win any more votes on the left, statements like this just irritate the conservative Polack community and loads of them live in swing states. They need to concentrate on the economy and showing that Trump doesn't know what he's doing.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
The background isn't evidence. And if it was the Cathedral I'm just a little surprised. Is Carrie an RC?
Come on...are you really suggesting that is a virtual background? Unless somebody produces similar video evidence of Boris in Italy at the same time, the weight of evidence is at the time he was supposedly in Italy, he was in fact he was sitting in cabinet office doing live zoom conference.
Furthermore, there will have been plenty of officials. If it is some elaborate lie, journalists have enough sources within those ranks, that a simple call would be enough to confirm or deny he was actually in the cabinet office at that time.
We truly are living in a time of where somehow people are losing the ability to have rational logical thought processes en mass.
It seems easier for people to wrap themselves in their own reality, and construct a worldview which fits what they want.
As always with these things whether or not Shagger went off on a mystery weekend to Perrugia isn't the issue. Its that with his reputation it was believable. Its not people willing to believe outrageous slanders. Its that the PM has done outrageous already, has lied about outrageous. Has been sacked for it...
Not just sacked for it but sacked for it on multiple occasions.
@HYUFD the federal government in the US is much larger than anything the founding fathers anticipated. The original “United States” was envisaged as more of a union of little countries (i.e. States) much like the EU rather than what it is now. The federal government was supposed to only get involved in things that it didn’t make sense for the states to do separately, for example the Postal Service. There’s a reason why this is mentioned in the constitution.
There’s certainly legitimate criticisms of the current Senate/House system when viewed in the context of how the US functions *now* rather than *then*.
Your “left liberal whining” nonsense is just that.
Why is he getting involved with this stuff. His social media team needs to stay out of these unnecessary arguments and concentrate on closing the gap with Trump on the economy.
You think Joe Biden controls his own Twitter....about as likely as Jezza did.
Yes, it's the social media team but why are they putting his name to this kind of stuff. He's not going to win any more votes on the left, statements like this just irritate the conservative Polack community and loads of them live in swing states. They need to concentrate on the economy and showing that Trump doesn't know what he's doing.
It's a tweet on twitter.com, it's aimed at people on twitter.
The adds on healthcare and the economy aimed at people in the swing states are playing non-stop in... the swing states.
Funny how the same names come bouncing back round. Sky just had on Lord Barker, talking about aluminium and is chairman of EN+, founded by Oleg Deripaska.
I thought that name sounds familiar...of course he is the bloke Mandelson was very friendly with when Pete had sway over aluminium import tariffs into the EU and of course famously spent the summer on a yacht with him and George Osborne one evening came to dinner.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
As a business I can save a fortune if I don't need to rent offices. So why would I force my staff to travel when I can save money by not asking them to.
Why is he getting involved with this stuff. His social media team needs to stay out of these unnecessary arguments and concentrate on closing the gap with Trump on the economy.
In 2016 The Republican Govenor of North Carolina lost the election because, in part, of a sweeping anti-LGBT laws he passed.
He's already got all of those votes and now he's pissing off nationalistic Polish Americans. Trump leads on the economy, Biden needs to attack Trump's record there and close that gap.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
If the House also had a say in the nominating of Supreme Court justices then this argument would perhaps be defensible. But it doesn't, so it's irrelevant and nonsesnical.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
And in the only example of Covid on a navy ship, sailors died.
It wasn't the only example. HMS QE has had it as well.
She sailed for GROUPEX this week with a complement of 1,700. When the RN were trying to stop the carriers from getting cancelled they swore blind the carrier + air wing would take to sea with less than 700 crew.
Why don’t we sell the carriers to the Japanese ? They have more use for them, they can afford them, and they might even have the aircraft to fly off them.
The Japanese are building their own (Izumo class).
The UK has 18 x F-35B. 3 in the OEU in California (where they will stay forever due to export restrictions on orange wired instrumented a/c), 6 in the OCU and 9 in 617.
They have generated 5 a/c for the GROUPEX and have had to borrow to 10 (plus crew) from VMFA-211 of the USMC. That came with a very high price including a completely separate IT network on the ship that is US only. 5 out of 7 LRIP 15 jets got cancelled for cost purposes so we might get to 48 by 2030.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
It’s working exactly as intended, as a check and balance on the small rural states being dictated to by the large coastal states.
If Democrats want a majority in the Senate, they need to convince people in more states.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
Why does this reality change if a load of private companies get guaranteed income from running the railways?
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
The problem is a culture of management. Not within the railways themselves, but in the government. Mind you, the neglect of the non-TGV stuff in France is quite shocking, in places.
The "We have to live with it and build herd immunity" crowd - have they actually gone through the numbers?
If around 10% of the UK have had it and got sustained immunity (not guaranteed; it may wear off over time. Acquired immunity is less long-lasting than vaccinated immunity), then about 6 million are "done."
60 million left.
With no restrictions, R0 in the UK is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 (and we want to get back to no restrictions), we need 65-70% immune. Somewhere between 43 million and 47 million. In short, we need a further 40 million infections (give or take). Ah, but what about cross-immunity? Or T-cells, or something? I'm sure someone said that some people were inherently immune, or fought it off without producing antibodies?
Firstly, if you never produced antibodies, you may have had a very mild dose that never ended up producing acquired immunity. You need to be infected again to get into the herd immunity threshold. Secondly, these estimates tend to run into problems with occurrences like when a bunch of people were trapped on a fishing boat, and 90% of those with no antibodies already present got covid.
But let's take that as a possible best case. Maybe half to three-quarters of the 40 million will need to be infected in the end.
That's still 20 million to 30 million. If we're really lucky; 40 million+ if we're not.
The IFR is low for many demographics if they get treatment when needed. We cannot flood the NHS with much beyond the level we already saw at the peak. So we need to spread them out. Which means we need a level of restrictions.
Fortunately, this will happen naturally, even without the new restrictions. As @rcs1000 says "when people hear sirens, they stay home." We'd see an Arizona-like scenario, but going in cycles. People get less worried, they go out, the rate spikes, they get scared, they stay in, the infection rate bobs up and down in waves. Over a couple of years until it runs its course. If it's 10 million per year, that's two years (in the best case).
Restaurants, cinemas, hotels, etc - they are so screwed under this scenario, it's unreal. The economy is down and badly scarred. If we go for "let's live with it and push for herd immunity," then get ready for the New Normal. It'll last until 2022 or 2023.
(Hopefully, we'll then not find out that acquired immunity decays over a couple of years)
Anyway - that's the scenario under that plan. Personally, I strongly prefer the "vaccinate people" plan, and providing restrictions and controlled economic slowdown. because, as with IT networks, a controlled shutdown is followed by a controlled restart.
If you want repeated lockdowns then say so.
But can you tell us what level of infections/deaths you want these lockdowns to be implemented at ?
And can you tell us what level of damage to people's health, the economy and society in general you are willing for lockdowns to cause ?
To save a thread full of people talking past each other it's probably useful if when you use the word "lockdown" you define what you mean by it. I don't have a strong opinion about what it should mean but people seem to have quite a wide range of things in mind.
Quite so.
To me a 'lockdown' is what we had in April.
For some, especially the media, a 'lockdown' is any sort of new restriction.
Andy produced a new phrase - 'restrictions and controlled economic slowdown' - which seemed to me like a euphemism for an pre-planned lockdown.
In the North East, households are not allowed to mix at all. No rule of 6, no nothing.
That's a "lockdown".
No, lockdown is "only leave the house once to go shopping or exercise". If the pubs are still open then it's not lockdown.
It's still a lockdown as far as most people are concerned.
What's the point of going to the pub on your own?
Can't you openly go to the pub with 5 of your mates? And if not, you all go on your own. Anyone going to the pub is mingling with scores of people - why are strangers safer than friends and family?
If pubs, shops and non-essential workplaces are open at all, then it’s not a lockdown.
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
The facts are not in dispute. The founding fathers split the difference by making the House (more or less) fair and the Senate unfair - or at least not democratic as we normally understand the term (every voter having equal weight in deciding the outcome). It's not whining to say so.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
It’s working exactly as intended, as a check and balance on the small rural states being dictated to by the large coastal states.
If Democrats want a majority in the Senate, they need to convince people in more states.
Sure, you’re not wrong, but that doesn’t mean it’s fair. There’s certainly legitimate criticisms, and arguments in support too.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
I know you worship the "founding fathers" as god-like beings, but I don't, and your account of their motivation is just stupid propaganda.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
More seriously....seems like a load of journos aren't doing any checking before twattering.
But the lie is out there and be there forever on the internet.
From the Repubblica article, the evidence for the return on Monday morning from Perugia to Northolt is strong. The 2pm Friday claim by an anonymous source, ie not in the press statement by the Airport, is a lot weaker. There was a flight from Farnborough on Saturday morning that he might have been on.
"According to sources from Perugia airport, the return plane was supposed to take off at 7.45 am that day. However, apparently there was a problem because it took off 40 minutes later than the scheduled time."
So according to that, he couldn't have been back in Downing Street Monday morning....but he was photographed there.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
I was being a little sarcastic about the Swedish model working.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
The over by Christmas reporting and words from Johnson was deeply irresponsible
Doesn't sound like government are very hopeful that the Oxford vaccine trial with report back positively in a few weeks.
The Americans think it may not reach the 50% effectiveness threshold they have for vaccines aiui. We may end up waiting an additional 6 months for the nasal spray version of the same vaccine to be trialled because that looks more effective and has fewer side effects, but it's only just started recruiting for PI trials.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
Why does this reality change if a load of private companies get guaranteed income from running the railways?
It's £130m over 18 months. I'm not sure this is a huge concern.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
The over by Christmas reporting and words from Johnson was deeply irresponsible
Doesn't sound like government are very hopeful that the Oxford vaccine trial with report back positively in a few weeks.
Expectation management? Under promise and over deliver?
It depends on the level of immunity the vaccine gives - if it is 60% (say) then, after the whole population has had it, it will take a while for the virus to die out. And then you will be getting re-infection from the parts of the world that don't have universal vaccination.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
You forgot to add up-until-very-recently lifelong conservative campaigner and party member who is the new DG.
As a matter of interest why are you opposed to transparency of participants in political discussions
I'm not opposed to it, I'm opposed to partial, one-sided, hypocritcal shit.
Interesting that John Ashton going on another rant against Boris on Sky just mentioned the Perugia allegaton and Kay Burley immediately interupted him and stopped him and said that's been denied and there is no evidence for that.
Funny how John Ashton keeps coming on the media being introduced as "Former Public Health Director" and never introduced as "lifelong Socialist, campaigner and Labour Party member".
Do you know of anyone introduced as life long conservative campaigner and party member?
It is happening on the BBC across the political divide
Never heard it name a few then
It is happening on the the BBC under the new DG and I expect it to become common in the media, as it should
Should a BBC reporter/presenter/participant who has direct, even historical links to a political party, including candidature for a party have a disclosure rider attached to their name.
Say High Pym (former LD candidate) Andrew Neil (former Chair of LSE Conservatives) and on Strictly, Jacqui Smith (former Labour Home Secretary)?
In the context of a political discussion absolutely but not entertainment programmes like strictly
I think it is too cumbersome. We must just assume that Pym and Neil are professional enough to demonstrate balance.
In both those cases I agree but cannot say the same for many others
So only Labour presenters?
No to all where it should apply - I support declarations across the whole political spectrum
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
Why does this reality change if a load of private companies get guaranteed income from running the railways?
It's £130m over 18 months. I'm not sure this is a huge concern.
If the railways can't make a profit without government help, they have no business being run by the private sector. That's the reality
But Sir Michael Holden, former train operator and Network Rail executive, told the BBC Today programme the new plan was “the worst possible arrangement to run the railways”.
He said: "We’ve got the dead hand of government on the helm, controlling all of the detailed decisions of the railway, and yet they're still paying private-sector operators to run the railway for them.”
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
The facts are not in dispute. The founding fathers split the difference by making the House (more or less) fair and the Senate unfair - or at least not democratic as we normally understand the term (every voter having equal weight in deciding the outcome). It's not whining to say so.
Also Congress used to expand in size as the population increased. This stopped at the start of the 1900s when rural reps freaked out and refused to authorise a size increase. It is a blatantly obvious gerrymander in favour of rural power that is very much not supported by the constitition
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
I was being a little sarcastic about the Swedish model working.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
I think your ring fence is full of holes.
--AS
"Protective bubbles round the elderly" is the sort of thing that looks fantastic in a consultant's spreadsheet, but it's not workable with real people.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
It’s working exactly as intended, as a check and balance on the small rural states being dictated to by the large coastal states.
If Democrats want a majority in the Senate, they need to convince people in more states.
So if the Democrats want a majority they should represent the minority, like the Republicans already do. Hmmm, great solution
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
The facts are not in dispute. The founding fathers split the difference by making the House (more or less) fair and the Senate unfair - or at least not democratic as we normally understand the term (every voter having equal weight in deciding the outcome). It's not whining to say so.
The US constitution (and much of the system) can be seen as an attempted re-write of the UK.
- The constitution itself was suppose to enumerate all the rights, constitutional law etc in one place. - The Senate was supposed to be the replacement for the House of Lords - 2 senior sage types* appointed by each state to provide a calming influence on the politicians in the House of Representatives. Electing senators came later. - Election of officials at every level. Think on how the Squirearchy used to work in the UK...
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
It's the same system that TfL use for the overground very successfully. There are inbuilt penalties for late running and loss of contract clauses for poor service levels. There have been years where the private consortium running the overground has ended up making no money because of lateness and staffing issues resulting in major fines.
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
It’s working exactly as intended, as a check and balance on the small rural states being dictated to by the large coastal states.
If Democrats want a majority in the Senate, they need to convince people in more states.
So if the Democrats want a majority they should represent the minority, like the Republicans already do. Hmmm, great solution
The Democrats had a Senate majority from 2006 to 2014
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
I was being a little sarcastic about the Swedish model working.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
I think your ring fence is full of holes.
--AS
"Protective bubbles round the elderly" is the sort of thing that looks fantastic in a consultant's spreadsheet, but it's not workable with real people.
One thing that actually worked was the staff at care homes living* on site, in isolation with the residents.
Comments
This incorrect treatment will probably kill them.
So any rise in deaths will also be false positives.
The logic is sound.
It seems easier for people to wrap themselves in their own reality, and construct a worldview which fits what they want.
Once these are added up, the 7-day moving average for hospital admissions looks like this...
from the https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports
I wonder if new restrictions would cause more harm than good. Not economically (although that's vital too) but in terms of other diseases and medical conditions not being treated.
- we've got a very high rate of biggish back gardens
- we're blessed with hugely easy access to open, footpath-saturated, countryside owned by other people. Most household-to-household conversations happen in the middle of a field, surrounded by dogs, at 6 ft distances
- a very large proportion of pubs and restaurants have good outdoor capacity: if we eat or drink out it's mostly in beer-gardens and on terraces
- we're a tad oldish, and don't holiday in Ibiza. If we go away, our evenings aren't spent at raves but outside a Tuscan caff or a Greek zacharoplastion.
- Bluntly: we're anti-social.
Somewhat snobbish view of overseas holidays, as in any country the party resorts exist whereas the rest of the country has lots to offer, Spain isn't just Ibiza and discos, just as pleasant as Tuscany or other such European locations.
The autopsies will be false positives.
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307886028179546112?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307885462183436289?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307867635158265856?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307839016646184960?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307839808962785281?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307841325878972416?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307842386773643264?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1307840615099502592?s=20
Mr 43 is bolstering my view, though!
We do need something from the place where the baptism took place, though. Surely if it was Westminster Cathedral the records should be publicly available?
So according to that, he couldn't have been back in Downing Street Monday morning....but he was photographed there.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1307942148319457280?s=19
This is either attempted cover up of the century for a perfectly legal couple of days in Italy or nonsense.
But COVID-19 isn't the only medical condition in the world, and I do question whether a lockdown would cause more harm than good if imposed in a nationwide scale.
At most they are social moderates, not liberals and even if most do not live in rural areas, most Americans don't live in New York, California and Massachussetts and DC either
And: try reading the article.
"Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
*citation required
--AS
For what it's worth, I doubt he was in Italy but I can totally see based on Johnson's history why nobody trusts him
And there are eye witnesses willing to say he was in church for a baptism on the Saturday.
Journalists who think he is lying and there is a big cover up better have some more convincing evidence.
When it was pointed out that George Bush (senior) would have had to travel at Mach 4.5 (literally) to attend an alleged meeting and still be back in Washington to be filmed in front of multiple reporters.... The response was an attempt to get the USAF to account for the location of all it's SR-71s....
What's the point of going to the pub on your own?
They have more use for them, they can afford them, and they might even have the aircraft to fly off them.
What an interesting view!
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
It would be to encourage the growth of the cities in the lower population states. If they can see cities in Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, even Idaho, grow then they will change the rural/urban balance in those states and put Democrats in a better place for the Senate.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
The over by Christmas reporting and words from Johnson was deeply irresponsible
There’s certainly legitimate criticisms of the current Senate/House system when viewed in the context of how the US functions *now* rather than *then*.
Your “left liberal whining” nonsense is just that.
The adds on healthcare and the economy aimed at people in the swing states are playing non-stop in... the swing states.
I thought that name sounds familiar...of course he is the bloke Mandelson was very friendly with when Pete had sway over aluminium import tariffs into the EU and of course famously spent the summer on a yacht with him and George Osborne one evening came to dinner.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
The UK has 18 x F-35B. 3 in the OEU in California (where they will stay forever due to export restrictions on orange wired instrumented a/c), 6 in the OCU and 9 in 617.
They have generated 5 a/c for the GROUPEX and have had to borrow to 10 (plus crew) from VMFA-211 of the USMC. That came with a very high price including a completely separate IT network on the ship that is US only. 5 out of 7 LRIP 15 jets got cancelled for cost purposes so we might get to 48 by 2030.
If Democrats want a majority in the Senate, they need to convince people in more states.
There’s certainly legitimate criticisms, and arguments in support too.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
Expectation management? Under promise and over deliver?
Now, what have some of us missed as a result of focussing on this story.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
I think your ring fence is full of holes.
--AS
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
He said: "We’ve got the dead hand of government on the helm, controlling all of the detailed decisions of the railway, and yet they're still paying private-sector operators to run the railway for them.”
Absolutely spot on
- The constitution itself was suppose to enumerate all the rights, constitutional law etc in one place.
- The Senate was supposed to be the replacement for the House of Lords - 2 senior sage types* appointed by each state to provide a calming influence on the politicians in the House of Representatives. Electing senators came later.
- Election of officials at every level. Think on how the Squirearchy used to work in the UK...
* Yes, I know.
That's the end of that then
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
Wow, what a priority
https://twitter.com/Jess_Sargeant/status/1307976587518906373?s=20
* In some cases camping in the garden