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In March 92% of CON members thought Johnson was handling the COVID19 crisis well – that’s now down t
In March 92% of CON members thought Johnson was handling the COVID19 crisis well – that’s now down to just 28% – politicalbetting.com
The above data comes from the latest monthly survey by Conservative Home and shows a dramatic decline in the assessment of party members of Johnson’s handling of the crisis.
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If it is the former, he his in the position of upsetting people on both extremes which, when it is the BBC, lefties say proves the beeb are right. I doubt they'll say the same here though
Then there is the other wing of Tory support which thinks the measures are far too authoritarian.
So Johnson is walking a fine line and is in a very difficult situation. Seems to me that he has antagonised both wings.
I don't think it is a traditional left right split, even if it is tempting or even comforting to see it as such.
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2020/10/our-monthly-survey-finds-support-for-a-swedish-style-covid-policy-is-up-from-about-a-third-of-party-activists-to-almost-half.html
Second wave turns out to be a blip caused by freshers flu and back to school?
The double-whammy is that if Covid falls off the radar, what will he use to distract from the continuing disaster of Brexit?
I prefer the German system but as a non-Tory my view doesn't count.
Govt unwisely raised expectations things would go back to normal much earlier than was even vaguely plausible.
Boris's replacement will face the challenges of a leader who inherited a country that had Corbynism for a while.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1311993719047020545
Given actions were immediately taken its impossible to know what would have happened otherwise.
A hundred lines to remind you!
Now the line is that the rule of 6 and 10pm curfew are authoritarian measures and overkill.
Its hard to keep up. I just wish Parliament was scrutinising these measures more and they weren't made just by Ministers.
Would be encouraging if largely voluntary action was sufficient to keep a lid on this while pressure on the hospitals was relatively low.
With Covid off the radar, he needs to get moving on Brexit.
It may be equally valid to argue local tightening of restrictions in combination with more stringent enforcement and greater public awareness have combined to slow the growth of the virus.
We are still a long way above the midsummer numbers and those arguing for a rapid relaxation of restrictions need to explain how and why doing so would not lead to a renewed surge in cases.
With the onset of autumn and the consequent return to more indoor socialising the risk of the virus spreading remains very evident and we have no idea how it will develop in the next 3-6 months.
Things are good. Its because we are slaughtering natives
Things are bad We aren't slaughtering enough natives
Things got better. Increased native slaughtering clearly worked.
Things didn;t get better. Increased native slaughtering 'stopped things worsening even more' We clearly underestimated how angry the gods were.
Does this mean we can slack off on native slaughtering again?
Gradually, but we must't go to far or Aztecs will die.
- New restrictions brought in and Government scientists tell the public that it's surging and warn them how bad it could get if it continued at its fastest observed rate - while emphasising they don't expect it to be that bad -
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- Infections continue to ramp up for a while, slowing, and start to fall in exactly the time frame you'd expect if the warnings and restrictions were responsible -
- Conclusion: It just happened on its own and there's no way the warnings and restrictions could have had anything to do with it -
Sure.
Infections go up? The measures are useless! Infections go down? The measures are unnecessary!
It seems to me that the measures are proving to be teetering on the edge of sufficient, but, as Stodge says, it could well get tougher as winter approaches. We certainly can't afford to reduce restrictions yet.
I am glad we were able to socialise and enjoy summer far more than we would have done under a continued lockdown. I can accept that some further restrictions were needed to reduce the risk and size of a big second wave.
They are certainly making a lot of mistakes but not sure this is one.
They were to guard against there not being an upsurge. No upsurge after no activity would have broken the government's iron link between government action and virus prevalence.
How can they ever do nothing from here on in, following their logic?
But it looks like our rate of increase is slowing a little.
Has he tweeted much lately?
To then jump to "These couldn't have had any effect and the reduction was exactly what would have happened without them" would seem to be the less likely hypothesis and would require greater evidence than "I've decided it didn't happen like that."
If the level of spread suddenly dropped like a rock instantly after the speech and far sooner than the effects of any warning or restrictions would allow, we could switch to the simplest hypothesis being that they were unnecessary.
Which it didn't, so we couldn't, so they weren't.
The 10pm restriction is an odd one, though, as its effect is going to be to close a lot of businesses without compensation:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54369809
Possibly the same way they went around gradually lightening the restrictions when the rate of infections kept falling?
Or does that not follow from the "it's all a government conspiracy to impose totally unnecessary restrictions on our way of life just because they have a mysterious need to do so which is somehow shared with so many governments worldwide, don't look at the virus, that's got nothing to do with it?"
(Is this the latest stuff on the Toby Young site? Aka "lockdownsceptics"?)
Certainly it will be impossible to prove to certain PBers that anything other than full blown hardcore lockdownism would be wrong.
Quite a few people would rather die of COVID than do that.
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1311975396993269762?s=20
They've said Trump is still carrying out his duties. Pence only becomes acting President if Trump becomes incapacitated.
https://twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/1312005965286461442?s=20
We can amelerioate the effects of almightly nature. But we cannot, and never will be able to, control it.
We get oil from Scottish seas because there were forests there once. Our valleys were glaciers.
That's climate change, right there.
In this case, I agree the "let it rip" and "hide until next May" mobs are equally nuts but in different ways. However, you get a lot of uncertainty and frustration if you hit the gas hard as soon as there's a bit of clear road ahead, only to have to slam on the brakes when you realise you're about to smash into the car in front.
😇
https://twitter.com/simulacrax/status/1311772844364361728?s=20
No voter under a certain age, has ever heard of Labour in Scotland. And for everyone else their memories don't go back far enough to remember them.
I think, however, that the restrictions are poorly targeted and ignorant of the risk profile of various groups.
The human response to the natural event merely decides how many and of what character the casualties are. We may have lost more eighty year olds with two-comorbidities by not locking down.
But how many younger people have we consigned to unnecessary deaths in other ways by doing so?
https://twitter.com/BristOliver/status/1312008701008662531
If C is Clark Kent and you dislike Clark Kent but are happy to vote for Superman or Bruce Wayne then you are not obliged to vote for either B or Clark Kent. You can write in Superman, or you can write in Bruce Wayne. Here your vote would be spoilt if you do that, there it would be counted.
For the wider public, by-election holds are boring. If Ferrier does stand down and the SNP win a seat they won with reasonable ease only a year ago, so what? A few people in the bubble will go "oh, Starmer should've done better!" but the public don't give a sh*t.
If, however, Labour gain the seat, it's news which is actually of interest and will be trumpeted (prematurely but still) as a Labour resurgence in Scotland. That IS of interest beyond the bubble.
In general, it is almost always a pain in the arse to have to defend a by-election, and a good opportunity to be able to give it a go from second place.
It could be problematic for Labour if they had to look behind them in this seat to a well-placed third party in the seat, but they don't.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-s-winning-voter-registration-battle-against-biden-key-states-n1241674
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-campaign-resume-person-canvassing-key-battleground-states-n1241722
On the principle that you should look at what somebody does for how they truly feel, not what they say, the second one is perhaps more interesting. Not only is a change from the previous approach but look at where they are canvassing:
"Beginning this weekend, the Biden campaign will send out several hundred volunteers to reach voters in Nevada, Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, with the efforts expanding, in a phased approach, to 17 battleground states, one official said."
Now, I may be looking at things from a skewed angle and there are maybe logistical reasons involved, but I don't know why the Biden campaign would have Nevada and NH as two of their first states for this approach unless (a) they think numbers are tight here and / or (b) they recognise the election might be tight and therefore even states with 4-5 electoral votes might be crucial.
Seriously, that entire worldview is laughable - that strange and inexplicable phenomena govern our world like the effects of capricious gods.
Is this some strange trolling or joke?
Someone called Semmelweiss made some rather important discoveries in the 1800s. Something called the Germ Theory of Disease came along. And one of the bigger steps in changing behaviours in order to control disease outbreaks was carried out by someone called Florence Nightingale (you may have heard of her) who produced excellent data visualisations to convince some decision-makers of the way to deal with disease outbreaks in hospitals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgUstrmJzyc
Better to stick to arguing against overly, or poorly targeted, authoritarian measures on philosophical grounds - i.e. through points of principle. Seeking to re-look at the balance between health considerations and other considerations (freedoms and economics and non-Covid health and psychological considerations) is a perfectly arguable line to take.
The lockdowns and restrictions work to reduce spread, but many of them (full lockdown especially) are crude and poorly targeted, including restrictions on things that have minimal or no effect.
The curfew, especially, seems to be either minimal in effect or counterproductive.
Others (reducing numbers of people you can socialise with - which would prevent superspreader events) should be a lot more effective.
Unfortunately, your stance appears comparatively rare. Too many seem to go straight to denial that covid has an effect, or could be serious, or that restrictions could have any discernible effect (we've seen a bunch of the latter on here just now, insistent that the restrictions could have had nothing to do with the downturn and at least one person scoffing at the idea that diseases could be prevented or controlled at all)
Nippy has already said all the right things at the right time.
And other viruses. such as influenza, still kill. Right now, more than COVID.