Has anyone else found that men are more aggressive than usual whilst out and about?
I've been out twice since Friday and have found on both occasions total strangers (both men) be inexplicably rude to me. They both looked intrinsically angry.
Cabin fever from the Rona?
Were you not wearing a mask and/or not 2 metres away from them?
I've seen that as a flashpoint a couple of weekends ago.
I saw the same thing at London Bridge. Bloke going round following people round and who didn't have masks, calling them all the names under the sun.
Has anyone else found that men are more aggressive than usual whilst out and about?
I've been out twice since Friday and have found on both occasions total strangers (both men) be inexplicably rude to me. They both looked intrinsically angry.
Cabin fever from the Rona?
Are you sure you didn't provoke them with a look or a comment?
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
We are playing whack a mole: trying to shut down cases on an ad hoc basis and hoping something will turn up. There may have been talk of defeat in March but did anyone seriously buy it? I think everyone here has always taken an autumn upsurge as a given.
Still don't see what else we could have done. Sweden is an illusion: what it did wasn't very different, the results weren't very different, what differences there were, were because it is Sweden not us. Let it rip theory is a non-starter because of the principle: politics is the art of the possible. You just can't do overwhelmed hospitals, let alone mass graves, even if it is in fact the case that they are side effects of a policy which leads to much lower levels of death and harm. People won't have it.
True.
I'm miffed because the "spit test" that was being trialled in June hasn't appeared to be pursued. Twenty minute results and could be mass-produced.
Even if it gave a handful of false negatives - it would still do the job of shoving down spread and allowing some areas to open up with reduced social distancing. Maybe not nightclubs, or concerts, but pubs and restaurants and cinemas could have reopened with reduced social distancing, and it would have helped shove the spread down a long way.
Schools and universities could have benefited from it as well.
The pooled testing approach and backwards tracing to pick up superspreaders - where's the work on this? Instead we get a curfew that appears to have come about because of an argument between Johnson and Sunak, with questionable benefit at best and very possibly negatives in terms of spread.
This is the sort of work to be done on "learning to live with it."
The risk segmentation approach doesn't really work out in practice (we can't separate out the population to the degree we need), but at least it was an attempt to come up with a "To-Be" state that wasn't "let it rip and don't do the arithmetic as to what would happen," which has become strongly associated with the "we'll just have to learn to live with it" crowd.
Or the "let people make their own choices on what risk they'll accept" option, which runs into the intractable problem that with an infectious disease, people end up necessarily making their choices on what risk they'll force others to take.
Fast, ubiquitous, cheap testing. Pooled testing and backwards tracing. Identifying the highest dispersion scenarios and avoiding those.
That's the pathway to learning to live with it. The danger is that if things keep going the way they are, the politicians will look at the only thing that correlated with going from rapidly rising to decently descending and re-do it.
Has anyone else found that men are more aggressive than usual whilst out and about?
I've been out twice since Friday and have found on both occasions total strangers (both men) be inexplicably rude to me. They both looked intrinsically angry.
Cabin fever from the Rona?
Were you not wearing a mask and/or not 2 metres away from them?
I've seen that as a flashpoint a couple of weekends ago.
I saw the same thing at London Bridge. Bloke going round following people round and who didn't have masks, calling them all the names under the sun.
This was more to an unmasked fellow
'If you're not wearing a mask, then don't come within two metres of me.'
Has anyone else found that men are more aggressive than usual whilst out and about?
I've been out twice since Friday and have found on both occasions total strangers (both men) be inexplicably rude to me. They both looked intrinsically angry.
Cabin fever from the Rona?
Were you not wearing a mask and/or not 2 metres away from them?
I've seen that as a flashpoint a couple of weekends ago.
In the US it's the mask wearers getting murdered, though.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
Overflowing hospitals and unburied dead might have been the result if the government hadn't acted as it did. A complete disaster of a policy, but staving off much worse politically. The Grim Reaper choice may well have been less damaging, but it would have come with all sorts of immediate risk - riots, looting, Gordo on the radio. Where the government are now comes with risks too, but they are much more long term.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
I think this is right. The Bolsonaro was never really an option here even though we are a freedom loving people.
Going back to Texas: On the mid-prices Betfair has Biden winning the presidency at a probability of 64%, and the probability of him winning Texas at 26%. Since we can discount the possibility of him winning Texas but not the presidency, that implies the following probabilities:
Biden gets to 270: 64% Biden wins the presidency but doesn't win Texas: 38% Biden wins the presidency and wins Texas: 26%
Now, dunno about you, but to me that looks inconsistent. The 26% represented by scenarios which include Texas is too high relative to the 38% of a Biden win without Texas.
If I'm right, then either the 64% presidential win is too low, or the 26% Texas win is too high, or both. My gut feel is both, which would mean that betting on Biden to become president and Trump to retain Texas would be a good combination (you're likely to win both, and can't realistically lose both), or, perhaps even better, offset a spread bet on Biden with a bet on Trump retaining Texas. After all, if he wins Texas you've just won 38 points on your spread bet, so you won't be too sorry at losing the fixed-odds bet of Trump retaining it.
Nice one. I like Trump Florida as a bet and (potential) hedge. I can see Florida being his Putney. It's an odd state and I sense it might behave against the tide. I can see big Biden win without Florida, so you win both. And if Trump loses Florida it's likely you have landslide.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In which case Biden would be the first candidate to win a presidential election whilst losing Florida and Ohio since Kennedy in 1960
Another polling plethora confronts us this evening and while it's mostly good news for Biden, one or two signs of caution from me.
Biden's solid leads in Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona remain largely unchanged and I expect the Democrats to flip those states. In Pennsylvania, a Monmouth poll offers an 11-point lead but CNBC/Change Research has just a 4-point advantage. I still think Biden will win PA and consequently the White House but there's still four weeks to go and if a week is a long time in politics, a month is an eternity.
Has Biden peaked too soon or is the landslide about to start rolling?
Florida remains in the TCTC column as far as I'm concerned though two polls give Biden leads of four and six points, the USA Today/Suffolk poll has a tie on 45% (actually Trump is just ahead and that lead widens with the Undecided voters). Is it an outlier - others have cautioned Florida regarding voter registration and the Hispanic factor so I'm happy to leave it where it is for now.
I moved North Carolina into the Blue column yesterday but I've moved it back to TCTC this evening - while most polls now show Biden leading by 2-4 points it remains very close.
Finally, as I like to, a chance to look at those states which are less regularly polled. Clinton won New Mexico by eight in 2016 and Biden leads by 14 according to the latest PPP poll (53-39).
To the Red heartlands and starting with Alabama which is as solid as it gets in the south for the Republicans. In 2016, Trump won by 28 and the latest poll has the President ahead by 20 (57-37) so a typical 4% swing to the Democrats. Utah's 2016 election had a strong local challenge from Evan McMullin who came a close third with 21.5%. Trump beat Clinton by 18 and the latest poll has Trump ahead by 10 (50-40) so another 4% swing to Biden so the notion of an 8-10% national lead seems entirely valid.
I've not commented on the CNN poll which would be a blowout with Biden up 57-41. While not quite as large, it would be comparable to Reagan's 59-41 demolition of Mondale in 1984. That won Reagan 525 of the 538 EC votes.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
I think Biden will also win Arizona but I'm not confident beyond that (not that he would need it but the spread players might). Don't forget the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska and Biden could easily win a couple more EC votes.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
Overflowing hospitals and unburied dead might have been the result if the government hadn't acted as it did. A complete disaster of a policy, but staving off much worse politically. The Grim Reaper choice may well have been less damaging, but it would have come with all sorts of immediate risk - riots, looting, Gordo on the radio. Where the government are now comes with risks too, but they are much more long term.
I'm sensing that of all those things it is "Gordo on the radio" that would have troubled you the most. Fair enough. He's not to all tastes. But you know what I think - when it all went pear we were lucky he was there. He was made for that moment.
What is the most realistic extreme result for the Democrats in the House and Senate, if a Biden landslide leads to a massive Democrat wave? One thing that often happens in US Presidential elections is vote splitting, but maybe not so relevant if Biden wins on the back of large turnout increases from his supporters.
Going back to Texas: On the mid-prices Betfair has Biden winning the presidency at a probability of 64%, and the probability of him winning Texas at 26%. Since we can discount the possibility of him winning Texas but not the presidency, that implies the following probabilities:
Biden gets to 270: 64% Biden wins the presidency but doesn't win Texas: 38% Biden wins the presidency and wins Texas: 26%
Now, dunno about you, but to me that looks inconsistent. The 26% represented by scenarios which include Texas is too high relative to the 38% of a Biden win without Texas.
If I'm right, then either the 64% presidential win is too low, or the 26% Texas win is too high, or both. My gut feel is both, which would mean that betting on Biden to become president and Trump to retain Texas would be a good combination (you're likely to win both, and can't realistically lose both), or, perhaps even better, offset a spread bet on Biden with a bet on Trump retaining Texas. After all, if he wins Texas you've just won 38 points on your spread bet, so you won't be too sorry at losing the fixed-odds bet of Trump retaining it.
Nice one. I like Trump Florida as a bet and (potential) hedge. I can see Florida being his Putney. It's an odd state and I sense it might behave against the tide. I can see big Biden win without Florida, so you win both. And if Trump loses Florida it's likely you have landslide.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In which case Biden would be the first candidate to win a presidential election whilst losing Florida and Ohio since Kennedy in 1960
Right. History in the making one way or the other.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
I think Biden will also win Arizona but I'm not confident beyond that (not that he would need it but the spread players might). Don't forget the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska and Biden could easily win a couple more EC votes.
Indeed, if Biden holds the Hillary states and wins Michigan and Pennsylvania but no further 2016 Trump states and adds NE02 it would be a 269 269 tie in the EC
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
I think Biden will also win Arizona but I'm not confident beyond that (not that he would need it but the spread players might). Don't forget the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska and Biden could easily win a couple more EC votes.
My gut says that Trump holds Florida and Arizona (the latter is based on spending some time in rural Arizona, and is rather at odds with the polls). However, I don't see him coming close in New Mexico, New Hampshire or Nevada.
I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Ohio and Iowa flip to the Dems. I think there's a tendency to miss just how much the Midwest has missed out on the last four years of US economic growth. (It's a great mystery why Trump did so little to help the region that propelled him to victory, while pursuing policies that mostly benefits people on the Coasts.)
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
All these measures do is postpone the inevitable at a vast cost, monetary and human, as we are seeing now.
We know much more about the virus, we know who it really affects and who it doesn't, so why make the same huge mistakes again?
Why not spend the 15bn from test and trace on super-protections for care homes and the elderly?
Going back to Texas: On the mid-prices Betfair has Biden winning the presidency at a probability of 64%, and the probability of him winning Texas at 26%. Since we can discount the possibility of him winning Texas but not the presidency, that implies the following probabilities:
Biden gets to 270: 64% Biden wins the presidency but doesn't win Texas: 38% Biden wins the presidency and wins Texas: 26%
Now, dunno about you, but to me that looks inconsistent. The 26% represented by scenarios which include Texas is too high relative to the 38% of a Biden win without Texas.
If I'm right, then either the 64% presidential win is too low, or the 26% Texas win is too high, or both. My gut feel is both, which would mean that betting on Biden to become president and Trump to retain Texas would be a good combination (you're likely to win both, and can't realistically lose both), or, perhaps even better, offset a spread bet on Biden with a bet on Trump retaining Texas. After all, if he wins Texas you've just won 38 points on your spread bet, so you won't be too sorry at losing the fixed-odds bet of Trump retaining it.
Nice one. I like Trump Florida as a bet and (potential) hedge. I can see Florida being his Putney. It's an odd state and I sense it might behave against the tide. I can see big Biden win without Florida, so you win both. And if Trump loses Florida it's likely you have landslide.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In which case Biden would be the first candidate to win a presidential election whilst losing Florida and Ohio since Kennedy in 1960
Right. History in the making one way or the other.
What's your prediction now? Trump loss but close?
On current polling a narrow Biden EC win and a bigger Biden popular vote win
Biden flailing throwing money at longshots because he needs a miracle.
Desperately trying to convert the legions of shy Trumpers who are going to turn Virginia red
Sorry @not_on_fire, I've been out for a couple of hours. Good to see you and @Alistair with your usual goodwill
On your point, no, I am not going to say it favours Trump and I wouldn't. I'll repeat it again as I have ad nauseam, I have not bet money, apart from with @kinabalu, on this race because I have no idea what will happen. I'd be happy to bet on Biden if I thought he would win.
Anyway, on your article. I can't see the piece because of GDPR but some questions / points:
1. Did Biden just buy his slots now or in advance? The title suggests the ads have just started. US TV advertising is usually sold upfront (i.e. you commit to spend in advance) or spot (pretty much at that time). In an election year, because the date is known in advance and with this being a record year for spend, you would expect campaigns to book in advance. If Biden is buying now i.e. spot, then yes, that suggests he thinks in with a chance because prices would typically be expensive so you need a good reason to buy;
"The Biden campaign has booked $5.2 million in Texas for the month of October so far. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, has spent nothing there. That likely means Republicans think they have enough of a cushion and believe Trump will win there anyway. It can also mean that the campaign is having to ration its resources with money being stretched."
4. As important is which markets he is buying? I couldn't see but there are a fair few House marginals in Texas so is the spending more for Biden or the House seats. I'd note the talk of the Dems taking the TX Senate seat seems to have faded away (Cornyn seems to be high single digit upwards ahead);
5. $6m is actually not much in the scheme of things. Total political spending is expected to be c. $11bn.
Going back to Texas: On the mid-prices Betfair has Biden winning the presidency at a probability of 64%, and the probability of him winning Texas at 26%. Since we can discount the possibility of him winning Texas but not the presidency, that implies the following probabilities:
Biden gets to 270: 64% Biden wins the presidency but doesn't win Texas: 38% Biden wins the presidency and wins Texas: 26%
Now, dunno about you, but to me that looks inconsistent. The 26% represented by scenarios which include Texas is too high relative to the 38% of a Biden win without Texas.
If I'm right, then either the 64% presidential win is too low, or the 26% Texas win is too high, or both. My gut feel is both, which would mean that betting on Biden to become president and Trump to retain Texas would be a good combination (you're likely to win both, and can't realistically lose both), or, perhaps even better, offset a spread bet on Biden with a bet on Trump retaining Texas. After all, if he wins Texas you've just won 38 points on your spread bet, so you won't be too sorry at losing the fixed-odds bet of Trump retaining it.
Nice one. I like Trump Florida as a bet and (potential) hedge. I can see Florida being his Putney. It's an odd state and I sense it might behave against the tide. I can see big Biden win without Florida, so you win both. And if Trump loses Florida it's likely you have landslide.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In which case Biden would be the first candidate to win a presidential election whilst losing Florida and Ohio since Kennedy in 1960
Right. History in the making one way or the other.
What's your prediction now? Trump loss but close?
On current polling a narrow Biden EC win and a bigger Biden popular vote win
Thanks. That's where I thought you were. I sense something big which is why I'm keeping my supremacy bet going. At least for now.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
Overflowing hospitals and unburied dead might have been the result if the government hadn't acted as it did. A complete disaster of a policy, but staving off much worse politically. The Grim Reaper choice may well have been less damaging, but it would have come with all sorts of immediate risk - riots, looting, Gordo on the radio. Where the government are now comes with risks too, but they are much more long term.
I'm sensing that of all those things it is "Gordo on the radio" that would have troubled you the most. Fair enough. He's not to all tastes. But you know what I think - when it all went pear we were lucky he was there. He was made for that moment.
Clearly not, but I don't relish hearing his voice. I have long thought that he in part made the disaster, but there are elements of that time that suggest that after having lit the blue touchpaper he and others made some decent attempts to damp down the fire.
Whatever the history though there is no reasonable existence for us all if we're lectured by Gordon Brown.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
All these measures do is postpone the inevitable at a vast cost, monetary and human, as we are seeing now.
We know much more about the virus, we know who it really affects and who it doesn't, so why make the same huge mistakes again?
Why not spend the 15bn from test and trace on super-protections for care homes and the elderly?
Wait.
Wearing a mask on public transport is "vast human cost"?
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
I think Biden will also win Arizona but I'm not confident beyond that (not that he would need it but the spread players might). Don't forget the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska and Biden could easily win a couple more EC votes.
My gut says that Trump holds Florida and Arizona (the latter is based on spending some time in rural Arizona, and is rather at odds with the polls). However, I don't see him coming close in New Mexico, New Hampshire or Nevada.
I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Ohio and Iowa flip to the Dems. I think there's a tendency to miss just how much the Midwest has missed out on the last four years of US economic growth. (It's a great mystery why Trump did so little to help the region that propelled him to victory, while pursuing policies that mostly benefits people on the Coasts.)
I'm with you on FL and AZ. I actually think he will win NV (my thinking there is that a state so heavily dependent on tourism and events will want to get things back to normal ASAP which favours Trump). I think he has a chance in NH, I don't think he does in NM (although BLM and Hispanics have clashed there). Given CO wasn't that far out last time, I would have that as an outside bet.
If he does lose states, then I am thinking Iowa and Wisconsin, mainly because of the impact of his sanctions against China on the agricultural community there. That doesn't really play out in Ohio (I think he will be fine there).
Still thinking - despite @not_on_fire's comments - that VA could be surprisingly close.
There's nothing wrong with saying "We have to lean to live with Covid". Twitter has lost the plot.
It's for lying about flu deaths, I would think, not saying we have to learn to live with Covid.
How many people do you think die of flu every year globally?
"No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!"
I think the problem phrase is "far less lethal".
Oh right I see.
Well that is true too for certain populations.
The under 15s are more likely to die of the flu than COVID for example.
But the under 15s is not "most populations". Trump is saying that Covid is far less lethal than flu in most populations. You can see why Twitter have a problem with that within their policy.
Am I alone in being quite unimpressed by Rishi Sunak?
He's the John Major de nos jours and I can quite see him as the alternative to Boris Johnson once the latter steps down/is forced out (delete as appropriate).
He's likeable but I've seen bits of MDF in B&Q with more charisma and personality. Fair enough, we can't all be flamboyant peddlers of pie-in-the-sky optimism like the Prime Minister and after years of Boris's bluff and bluster, a more managerialist approach might not go amiss.
Party Conference speeches fall into two categories - those which say things the audience wants to hear and those which don't. The latter include Theresa May's "nasty party" speech and Kinnock's bravura takedown of Militant. When you have a majority of 80 just after an election, you have an opportunity to explore the unpalatable and not be afraid to say some unpleasant things to your audience (both inside and outside the hall).
Sunak, of course, ducked all this and decided to witter on about "balancing the books". Now, this may please the activists (even those who advocate continued borrowing) but it's a platitude which doesn't just require suspending credibility as much as dangling it 10,000 feet above the Grand Canyon on a very thin and fraying rope.
Laura K opined Sunak had offered no mechanism as to HOW said books were to be balanced. The Lafferites will demand tax cuts and obviously everyone is in favour of tax rises as long as it isn't their taxes being raised. The NHS is sacrosanct as are other public services including, one imagines, the Police and armed forces so it's back to welfare (goodbye triple lock) but then we also have the "plan" to reform adult social care which Johnson has been on the brink of publishing for months .
Sunak could have been more honest but that would have involved him taking a modicum of political risk. Talking about tax rises may not go down well with the Conservative faithful but it's an honest conversation to have with an electorate that may now be wondering what the final bill for Covid-19 is going to be and how it will be paid (both by them and by future generations).
Has anyone else found that men are more aggressive than usual whilst out and about?
I've been out twice since Friday and have found on both occasions total strangers (both men) be inexplicably rude to me. They both looked intrinsically angry.
Cabin fever from the Rona?
Were you not wearing a mask and/or not 2 metres away from them?
I've seen that as a flashpoint a couple of weekends ago.
I saw the same thing at London Bridge. Bloke going round following people round and who didn't have masks, calling them all the names under the sun.
Sean’s walkabouts don’t usually stray that far south?
This has been the most surprising aspect to me, despite a huge rise in the infection rate over the last couple of weeks we're not seeing a resulting rise in the death rate. Not yet anyway. Even the hospitalisation rate doesn't seem as bad as it should be.
It's pretty much bang on when you correct the case rate last time for all the cases that weren't counted due to the collapse in testing. We've reached about 1/8th of last time, and at worst the doubling rate is also twice as long.
Biden flailing throwing money at longshots because he needs a miracle.
Watching where people throw money has always seemed an odd premise, predicated as it is on the idea campaigns surely know better than we do what the situation is, which strikes me as unlikely. When they get it right it's probably just chance.
In this case it may well be the Biden camp has money to burn, so Texas is as good a place as any to do so. In terms of winning the Presidency, it's unimportant. If Texas does flip, he's already home and dry. The bragging rights are colossal though.
Texas is getting Bluer by the year. Putting effort into Texas forces Trump to put more in - and I believe Biden has a full war chest, and the Trump campaign doesn't.
Even if he doesn't win Texas, the effort will help Democratic candidates for office within the state and build good will with the party there.
It's not inevitable that continues forever though.
I expect Texas will end up much like Florida - as a key swing state.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
I think Biden will also win Arizona but I'm not confident beyond that (not that he would need it but the spread players might). Don't forget the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska and Biden could easily win a couple more EC votes.
My gut says that Trump holds Florida and Arizona (the latter is based on spending some time in rural Arizona, and is rather at odds with the polls). However, I don't see him coming close in New Mexico, New Hampshire or Nevada.
I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Ohio and Iowa flip to the Dems. I think there's a tendency to miss just how much the Midwest has missed out on the last four years of US economic growth. (It's a great mystery why Trump did so little to help the region that propelled him to victory, while pursuing policies that mostly benefits people on the Coasts.)
Do you think the polls in AZ are just wrong, or that there will be a late swing to Trump? The unpopularity of McSally can’t be helping him.
Has anyone else found that men are more aggressive than usual whilst out and about?
I've been out twice since Friday and have found on both occasions total strangers (both men) be inexplicably rude to me. They both looked intrinsically angry.
Cabin fever from the Rona?
Were you not wearing a mask and/or not 2 metres away from them?
I've seen that as a flashpoint a couple of weekends ago.
I saw the same thing at London Bridge. Bloke going round following people round and who didn't have masks, calling them all the names under the sun.
Sean’s walkabouts don’t usually stray that far south?
He was very angry, animated and looked as though he was on drugs so......
Am I alone in being quite unimpressed by Rishi Sunak?
He's the John Major de nos jours and I can quite see him as the alternative to Boris Johnson once the latter steps down/is forced out (delete as appropriate).
He's likeable but I've seen bits of MDF in B&Q with more charisma and personality. Fair enough, we can't all be flamboyant peddlers of pie-in-the-sky optimism like the Prime Minister and after years of Boris's bluff and bluster, a more managerialist approach might not go amiss.
Party Conference speeches fall into two categories - those which say things the audience wants to hear and those which don't. The latter include Theresa May's "nasty party" speech and Kinnock's bravura takedown of Militant. When you have a majority of 80 just after an election, you have an opportunity to explore the unpalatable and not be afraid to say some unpleasant things to your audience (both inside and outside the hall).
Sunak, of course, ducked all this and decided to witter on about "balancing the books". Now, this may please the activists (even those who advocate continued borrowing) but it's a platitude which doesn't just require suspending credibility as much as dangling it 10,000 feet above the Grand Canyon on a very thin and fraying rope.
Laura K opined Sunak had offered no mechanism as to HOW said books were to be balanced. The Lafferites will demand tax cuts and obviously everyone is in favour of tax rises as long as it isn't their taxes being raised. The NHS is sacrosanct as are other public services including, one imagines, the Police and armed forces so it's back to welfare (goodbye triple lock) but then we also have the "plan" to reform adult social care which Johnson has been on the brink of publishing for months .
Sunak could have been more honest but that would have involved him taking a modicum of political risk. Talking about tax rises may not go down well with the Conservative faithful but it's an honest conversation to have with an electorate that may now be wondering what the final bill for Covid-19 is going to be and how it will be paid (both by them and by future generations).
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
Overflowing hospitals and unburied dead might have been the result if the government hadn't acted as it did. A complete disaster of a policy, but staving off much worse politically. The Grim Reaper choice may well have been less damaging, but it would have come with all sorts of immediate risk - riots, looting, Gordo on the radio. Where the government are now comes with risks too, but they are much more long term.
I'm sensing that of all those things it is "Gordo on the radio" that would have troubled you the most. Fair enough. He's not to all tastes. But you know what I think - when it all went pear we were lucky he was there. He was made for that moment.
Clearly not, but I don't relish hearing his voice. I have long thought that he in part made the disaster, but there are elements of that time that suggest that after having lit the blue touchpaper he and others made some decent attempts to damp down the fire.
Whatever the history though there is no reasonable existence for us all if we're lectured by Gordon Brown.
Quite so. I forget if the last Intervention in the Scottish Independence Debate was No. 3,214 or 3,215.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
There's nothing wrong with saying "We have to lean to live with Covid". Twitter has lost the plot.
It's for lying about flu deaths, I would think, not saying we have to learn to live with Covid.
How many people do you think die of flu every year globally?
"No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!"
I think the problem phrase is "far less lethal".
Oh right I see.
Well that is true too for certain populations.
The under 15s are more likely to die of the flu than COVID for example.
But the under 15s is not "most populations". Trump is saying that Covid is far less lethal than flu in most populations. You can see why Twitter have a problem with that within their policy.
Well they were the first ones I checked and that covers several populations from 0-1 years, 2-3 etc. Under 40 has a very low fatality rate for COVID, so I expect it is true of these populations too. 40-50 is probably similar and 50+ is worse for COVID.
I doubt Twitter bothered considered this though, just saw it was Trump and censored it straight away.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
Oh right, I predict that will make almost zero difference to the presidential election.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
I think Biden will also win Arizona but I'm not confident beyond that (not that he would need it but the spread players might). Don't forget the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska and Biden could easily win a couple more EC votes.
My gut says that Trump holds Florida and Arizona (the latter is based on spending some time in rural Arizona, and is rather at odds with the polls). However, I don't see him coming close in New Mexico, New Hampshire or Nevada.
I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Ohio and Iowa flip to the Dems. I think there's a tendency to miss just how much the Midwest has missed out on the last four years of US economic growth. (It's a great mystery why Trump did so little to help the region that propelled him to victory, while pursuing policies that mostly benefits people on the Coasts.)
I'm with you on FL and AZ. I actually think he will win NV (my thinking there is that a state so heavily dependent on tourism and events will want to get things back to normal ASAP which favours Trump). I think he has a chance in NH, I don't think he does in NM (although BLM and Hispanics have clashed there). Given CO wasn't that far out last time, I would have that as an outside bet.
If he does lose states, then I am thinking Iowa and Wisconsin, mainly because of the impact of his sanctions against China on the agricultural community there. That doesn't really play out in Ohio (I think he will be fine there).
Still thinking - despite @not_on_fire's comments - that VA could be surprisingly close.
I've been tracking the Morning Consult state level Presidential approval/disapproval numbers, and New Hampshire looks really ugly for the President - he's at something like -15 net. Virginia, where he was -7, looks like a much more likely flip. (Nevada was in the middle, -9 or -10).
My trek through New Mexico suggests is that it is not fertile country for Trump, for three reasons: (1) it's much more urban than Arizona (Albuquerque and Santa Fe are close to half the population between them), (2) it's much more Hispanic (especially in rural areas), and (3) it's state level politics (unlike AZ) is dominated by the Dems *and* the people are generally happy with their Governor and state legislatures. Plus there's gut: simply, rural New Mexico didn't have many Trump posters, which was a complete contrast to Arizona.
Am I alone in being quite unimpressed by Rishi Sunak?
He's the John Major de nos jours and I can quite see him as the alternative to Boris Johnson once the latter steps down/is forced out (delete as appropriate).
He's likeable but I've seen bits of MDF in B&Q with more charisma and personality. Fair enough, we can't all be flamboyant peddlers of pie-in-the-sky optimism like the Prime Minister and after years of Boris's bluff and bluster, a more managerialist approach might not go amiss.
Party Conference speeches fall into two categories - those which say things the audience wants to hear and those which don't. The latter include Theresa May's "nasty party" speech and Kinnock's bravura takedown of Militant. When you have a majority of 80 just after an election, you have an opportunity to explore the unpalatable and not be afraid to say some unpleasant things to your audience (both inside and outside the hall).
Sunak, of course, ducked all this and decided to witter on about "balancing the books". Now, this may please the activists (even those who advocate continued borrowing) but it's a platitude which doesn't just require suspending credibility as much as dangling it 10,000 feet above the Grand Canyon on a very thin and fraying rope.
Laura K opined Sunak had offered no mechanism as to HOW said books were to be balanced. The Lafferites will demand tax cuts and obviously everyone is in favour of tax rises as long as it isn't their taxes being raised. The NHS is sacrosanct as are other public services including, one imagines, the Police and armed forces so it's back to welfare (goodbye triple lock) but then we also have the "plan" to reform adult social care which Johnson has been on the brink of publishing for months .
Sunak could have been more honest but that would have involved him taking a modicum of political risk. Talking about tax rises may not go down well with the Conservative faithful but it's an honest conversation to have with an electorate that may now be wondering what the final bill for Covid-19 is going to be and how it will be paid (both by them and by future generations).
He seems to be very popular with lefties, maybe because they think he's the most left-wing Tory currently in an important position in the government. I don't know whether that's true.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
Oh right, I predict that will make almost zero difference to the presidential election.
Sure no effect on the Presidential but he is in a tight as fuck Senate race. Every basis point counts.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
He might get in still off the back of a strong Biden performance but the race will be close now between him and Thillis.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
All these measures do is postpone the inevitable at a vast cost, monetary and human, as we are seeing now.
We know much more about the virus, we know who it really affects and who it doesn't, so why make the same huge mistakes again?
Why not spend the 15bn from test and trace on super-protections for care homes and the elderly?
Wait.
Wearing a mask on public transport is "vast human cost"?
Closing karaoke bars is "vast human cost"?
You lack, what's the word..., perspective.
To today's "entitled" generation, not being able to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, even if it's explained to you in words of one syllable that IT'S TO SAVE LIVES, is "vast human cost", completely unacceptable, a breach of human rights, and just cause for "screaming and screaming until I'm sick."
He has closed down Llandudno and yet allows English visitors to pass through the 4 border counties and holiday in Gwynedd
I know nothing of Welsh politics, but Drakeford gets slagged off so often here that I was surprised to see him as one of only three politicians with positive ratings (Sturgeon was another, so perhaps it's a reaction to perceived problems in UK governance?).
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
In a normal election this would be a problem. In this one? I mean... who would even notice?
I have US TV at the moment, caught a Barbara Bollier Advert - had to look her up to realise she was running as a Democrat. Had a Trump supporting farmer endorsing her
I guess you can't win in Kansas on an AOC Green new deal ticket.
He has closed down Llandudno and yet allows English visitors to pass through the 4 border counties and holiday in Gwynedd
I know nothing of Welsh politics, but Drakeford gets slagged off so often here that I was surprised to see him as one of only three politicians with positive ratings (Sturgeon was another, so perhaps it's a reaction to perceived problems in UK governance?).
This board leans quite a lot more to the right than the electorate.
There's nothing wrong with saying "We have to lean to live with Covid". Twitter has lost the plot.
It's for lying about flu deaths, I would think, not saying we have to learn to live with Covid.
How many people do you think die of flu every year globally?
"No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!"
I think the problem phrase is "far less lethal".
Oh right I see.
Well that is true too for certain populations.
The under 15s are more likely to die of the flu than COVID for example.
But the under 15s is not "most populations". Trump is saying that Covid is far less lethal than flu in most populations. You can see why Twitter have a problem with that within their policy.
Well they were the first ones I checked and that covers several populations from 0-1 years, 2-3 etc. Under 40 has a very low fatality rate for COVID, so I expect it is true of these populations too. 40-50 is probably similar and 50+ is worse for COVID.
I doubt Twitter bothered considered this though, just saw it was Trump and censored it straight away.
This is from the CDC website as of 30 Sept this year. Compare column 1 (Covid deaths) with the last column (all deaths involving flu with or without Covid).
You will see that the only age groups where deaths from flu exceed those from Covid are 1-14. In other age groups deaths from Covid greatly exceed those involving flu.
He has closed down Llandudno and yet allows English visitors to pass through the 4 border counties and holiday in Gwynedd
I know nothing of Welsh politics, but Drakeford gets slagged off so often here that I was surprised to see him as one of only three politicians with positive ratings (Sturgeon was another, so perhaps it's a reaction to perceived problems in UK governance?).
No reason why you shouldn’t pass through those counties, if not stopping can’t see why that makes him a disgrace.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
He might get in still off the back of a strong Biden performance but the race will be close now between him and Thillis.
This one might be a bit more serious. He is a Reserve Lt-Col and, apparently, if he committed his affair when he was on active duty, it's a breach of military rules. The fact that, unlike the first one, he has pulled out of the debate is making me think he might be at risk on that front. In which case, I can't see how he continues.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
Oh right, I predict that will make almost zero difference to the presidential election.
Sure no effect on the Presidential but he is in a tight as fuck Senate race. Every basis point counts.
This forecast model has NC as the most likely tipping point state at a 31.8% chance. Currently D+3.9 and a 71.2% chance of a Democrat victory.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
In a normal election this would be a problem. In this one? I mean... who would even notice?
Could easily cost the Dems locally, but Nationally? Won't be noticed.
Am I alone in being quite unimpressed by Rishi Sunak?
He's the John Major de nos jours and I can quite see him as the alternative to Boris Johnson once the latter steps down/is forced out (delete as appropriate).
He's likeable but I've seen bits of MDF in B&Q with more charisma and personality. Fair enough, we can't all be flamboyant peddlers of pie-in-the-sky optimism like the Prime Minister and after years of Boris's bluff and bluster, a more managerialist approach might not go amiss.
Party Conference speeches fall into two categories - those which say things the audience wants to hear and those which don't. The latter include Theresa May's "nasty party" speech and Kinnock's bravura takedown of Militant. When you have a majority of 80 just after an election, you have an opportunity to explore the unpalatable and not be afraid to say some unpleasant things to your audience (both inside and outside the hall).
Sunak, of course, ducked all this and decided to witter on about "balancing the books". Now, this may please the activists (even those who advocate continued borrowing) but it's a platitude which doesn't just require suspending credibility as much as dangling it 10,000 feet above the Grand Canyon on a very thin and fraying rope.
Laura K opined Sunak had offered no mechanism as to HOW said books were to be balanced. The Lafferites will demand tax cuts and obviously everyone is in favour of tax rises as long as it isn't their taxes being raised. The NHS is sacrosanct as are other public services including, one imagines, the Police and armed forces so it's back to welfare (goodbye triple lock) but then we also have the "plan" to reform adult social care which Johnson has been on the brink of publishing for months .
Sunak could have been more honest but that would have involved him taking a modicum of political risk. Talking about tax rises may not go down well with the Conservative faithful but it's an honest conversation to have with an electorate that may now be wondering what the final bill for Covid-19 is going to be and how it will be paid (both by them and by future generations).
He did the 8.10 slot on Today. He was perfectly fine, which makes him a superstar compared with some of his colleagues. But no more than fine, and the flat refusal to talk about how the books would balance because it wasn't a Budget speech grated after a while.
John Major he ain't; Winchester College to Downing Street is not as compelling as starting the journey in Brixton, and he hasn't put in the hours of justifying his beliefs to a hostile audience and it shows.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
All these measures do is postpone the inevitable at a vast cost, monetary and human, as we are seeing now.
We know much more about the virus, we know who it really affects and who it doesn't, so why make the same huge mistakes again?
Why not spend the 15bn from test and trace on super-protections for care homes and the elderly?
Wait.
Wearing a mask on public transport is "vast human cost"?
Closing karaoke bars is "vast human cost"?
You lack, what's the word..., perspective.
I suppose a jobsworth berating a woman being comforted by her own son at her husband's funeral is outside your definition of 'vast human cost'
I suppose a million women missing cancer checks is outside your definition of 'vast human cost'
This board leans quite a lot more to the right than the electorate.
I don't know about that but there seem to be a lot more database analysts, system analysts, business analysts and information analysts than you normally find given the wide-ranging and informed discussion on the merits of spreadsheets, databases and the like.
He has closed down Llandudno and yet allows English visitors to pass through the 4 border counties and holiday in Gwynedd
I know nothing of Welsh politics, but Drakeford gets slagged off so often here that I was surprised to see him as one of only three politicians with positive ratings (Sturgeon was another, so perhaps it's a reaction to perceived problems in UK governance?).
Link ?
Drakeford is easily the worst of the 4 leaders of the UK's nations.
Fortunately for him, he is up against a Tory leader (Paul Davies) who -- remarkably -- is even poorer.
(FWIW, Labour should have elected Eluned Morgan in 2018, and the Tories should have elected Suzy Davies. But women always come last in leadership elections in Wales).
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
In a normal election this would be a problem. In this one? I mean... who would even notice?
Could easily cost the Dems locally, but Nationally? Won't be noticed.
It'll be noticed nationally if it makes the difference between Mitch McConnell remaining Senate Majority Leader or not.
I can see how these tweets will encourage his base but I really can't see how they will convert any undecided voters. Perhaps he's simply going for diffferential turnout and encouraging his base? Probably.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
In a normal election this would be a problem. In this one? I mean... who would even notice?
Could easily cost the Dems locally, but Nationally? Won't be noticed.
Sorry, I meant for Biden's chances in NC. My guess it will depend on whether this was kno0wn about at the DNC level and whether they deliberately kept quiet
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
All these measures do is postpone the inevitable at a vast cost, monetary and human, as we are seeing now.
We know much more about the virus, we know who it really affects and who it doesn't, so why make the same huge mistakes again?
Why not spend the 15bn from test and trace on super-protections for care homes and the elderly?
Wait.
Wearing a mask on public transport is "vast human cost"?
Closing karaoke bars is "vast human cost"?
You lack, what's the word..., perspective.
I suppose a jobsworth berating a woman being comforted by her own son at her husband's funeral is outside your definition of 'vast human cost'
I suppose a million women missing cancer checks is outside your definition of 'vast human cost'
You lack, what's the word.......humanity.
Do you do anything other than build strawmen to punch? Because RS said none of that. If you want to actually do more than grandstand then you need to put the effort in.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
In a normal election this would be a problem. In this one? I mean... who would even notice?
Could easily cost the Dems locally, but Nationally? Won't be noticed.
Sorry, I meant for Biden's chances in NC. My guess it will depend on whether this was kno0wn about at the DNC level and whether they deliberately kept quiet
Hard to tell. It's never helpful, and in a tight contest could make all the difference. Then again did that kind of thing hamper Trump, or Boris? Really don't know, but definitely not a plus point.
He has closed down Llandudno and yet allows English visitors to pass through the 4 border counties and holiday in Gwynedd
I know nothing of Welsh politics, but Drakeford gets slagged off so often here that I was surprised to see him as one of only three politicians with positive ratings (Sturgeon was another, so perhaps it's a reaction to perceived problems in UK governance?).
This board leans quite a lot more to the right than the electorate.
This board is full of high earners, with a high iq, an interest in and knowledge of stats and political theory. It's a great place to hang out but a slice of society it ain't.
Which is something worth remembering when people give betting tips. The fastest horse wins, not the smartest.
He did the 8.10 slot on Today. He was perfectly fine, which makes him a superstar compared with some of his colleagues. But no more than fine, and the flat refusal to talk about how the books would balance because it wasn't a Budget speech grated after a while.
John Major he ain't; Winchester College to Downing Street is not as compelling as starting the journey in Brixton, and he hasn't put in the hours of justifying his beliefs to a hostile audience and it shows.
Like most analogies it doesn't stand up to close inspection.
The parallel between Sunak and Major is more about the contrast between them and their predecessors.
His comment about the books balancing was a significant political gaffe and he will spend much of the next few months trying to explain how he will achieve that.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
He has closed down Llandudno and yet allows English visitors to pass through the 4 border counties and holiday in Gwynedd
I know nothing of Welsh politics, but Drakeford gets slagged off so often here that I was surprised to see him as one of only three politicians with positive ratings (Sturgeon was another, so perhaps it's a reaction to perceived problems in UK governance?).
This board leans quite a lot more to the right than the electorate.
I think MexicanPete is a Labour Party supporter in Wales and he has been very critical of Drakeford. I think ValleyBoy is a Labour Party supporter in Wales and he has expressed similar views.
I don't know where you are located, but if you are not actually in Wales, I expect you know feck all about Welsh politics.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
Shoulda got an injunction, then?
That sort of nonsense is only possible in British courts I think. Least ours don't interfere (negatively) with elections.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
In a normal election this would be a problem. In this one? I mean... who would even notice?
Could easily cost the Dems locally, but Nationally? Won't be noticed.
It'll be noticed nationally if it makes the difference between Mitch McConnell remaining Senate Majority Leader or not.
Yes. So it depends how well they are doing nationally. I had the local contest down as one they would lose but might win. Now I'd call it a probable lose. Annoying for them, but there are other seats they can pick up to compensate.
If this is even vaguely correct, then my forecasts for Arizona and Florida will (of course) be completely wrong.
For such a weak candidate, Biden also ironically is turning into the platonic ideal for what the Democrats want in presidential contests.
He cuts into the GOP's lead among white voters while bringing out other groups in droves. We're four weeks out, yes, and he sure isn't doing that by himself, but still.
There's nothing wrong with saying "We have to lean to live with Covid". Twitter has lost the plot.
It's for lying about flu deaths, I would think, not saying we have to learn to live with Covid.
How many people do you think die of flu every year globally?
"No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!"
I think the problem phrase is "far less lethal".
Oh right I see.
Well that is true too for certain populations.
The under 15s are more likely to die of the flu than COVID for example.
But the under 15s is not "most populations". Trump is saying that Covid is far less lethal than flu in most populations. You can see why Twitter have a problem with that within their policy.
Well they were the first ones I checked and that covers several populations from 0-1 years, 2-3 etc. Under 40 has a very low fatality rate for COVID, so I expect it is true of these populations too. 40-50 is probably similar and 50+ is worse for COVID.
I doubt Twitter bothered considered this though, just saw it was Trump and censored it straight away.
This is from the CDC website as of 30 Sept this year. Compare column 1 (Covid deaths) with the last column (all deaths involving flu with or without Covid).
You will see that the only age groups where deaths from flu exceed those from Covid are 1-14. In other age groups deaths from Covid greatly exceed those involving flu.
Fair enough, so it looks like if he said "some populations" rather than "most" he would have been alright.
Although there's no case fatality rate stats on that image, so it's hard to compare exactly.
I wonder if Twitter will be as stringent on other posters on there.
He has had a hilariously chaste Sexting scandal. Everyone had got over it. Now there's another affair revealed. Everyone is now assuming there must be a string of infidelity. What other secrets? Maybe love child's?
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
In a normal election this would be a problem. In this one? I mean... who would even notice?
Could easily cost the Dems locally, but Nationally? Won't be noticed.
Sorry, I meant for Biden's chances in NC. My guess it will depend on whether this was kno0wn about at the DNC level and whether they deliberately kept quiet
Hard to tell. It's never helpful, and in a tight contest could make all the difference. Then again did that kind of thing hamper Trump, or Boris? Really don't know, but definitely not a plus point.
Bush Snr of course won Florida in 1992 despite losing the election overall to Bill Clinton and Nixon also won Florida in 1960 despite the Kennedy victory overall, it is even possible Trump could hold Ohio as well on current polling but Biden still wins by holding the Hillary states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
I think Biden will also win Arizona but I'm not confident beyond that (not that he would need it but the spread players might). Don't forget the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska and Biden could easily win a couple more EC votes.
My gut says that Trump holds Florida and Arizona (the latter is based on spending some time in rural Arizona, and is rather at odds with the polls). However, I don't see him coming close in New Mexico, New Hampshire or Nevada.
I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Ohio and Iowa flip to the Dems. I think there's a tendency to miss just how much the Midwest has missed out on the last four years of US economic growth. (It's a great mystery why Trump did so little to help the region that propelled him to victory, while pursuing policies that mostly benefits people on the Coasts.)
I'm with you on FL and AZ. I actually think he will win NV (my thinking there is that a state so heavily dependent on tourism and events will want to get things back to normal ASAP which favours Trump). I think he has a chance in NH, I don't think he does in NM (although BLM and Hispanics have clashed there). Given CO wasn't that far out last time, I would have that as an outside bet.
If he does lose states, then I am thinking Iowa and Wisconsin, mainly because of the impact of his sanctions against China on the agricultural community there. That doesn't really play out in Ohio (I think he will be fine there).
Still thinking - despite @not_on_fire's comments - that VA could be surprisingly close.
I've been tracking the Morning Consult state level Presidential approval/disapproval numbers, and New Hampshire looks really ugly for the President - he's at something like -15 net. Virginia, where he was -7, looks like a much more likely flip. (Nevada was in the middle, -9 or -10).
My trek through New Mexico suggests is that it is not fertile country for Trump, for three reasons: (1) it's much more urban than Arizona (Albuquerque and Santa Fe are close to half the population between them), (2) it's much more Hispanic (especially in rural areas), and (3) it's state level politics (unlike AZ) is dominated by the Dems *and* the people are generally happy with their Governor and state legislatures. Plus there's gut: simply, rural New Mexico didn't have many Trump posters, which was a complete contrast to Arizona.
FiveThirtyEight gives Biden a 98% chance of winning Virginia with Biden winning by an average of 12 points. Whilst one shouldn't hang off Nate Silver's every word, it would be truly astonishing if Trump won there.
Two more national polls have appeared on RNC and they both give it as Biden +10. Change Research don't rate highly and have a Democrat lean but SurveyUSA are A-Grade with a negligible lean and have to be taken seriously.
It's beginning to look like there's a definite swing to Biden starting with the debate and continuing through Trump's illness.
14.5K cases today an doubling, I think, in less than 10 days means Chris Whitty's non-prediction of 50K cases a day in October is quite plausible now
It's March all over again isn't it?
The extra precautions people are taking now are offset by the increased virus transmission during the flu season.
Without a vaccine we're looking at a lockdown every 6 months or so or are going to have to learn to live with the virus.
Lockdown every six months means what for the economy? five, six million unemployed permanently?
Until we can parachute them all into Boris's green jobs, of course.
Well yes I don't agree with the lockdowns, but if we're in the same position as we were in March I can't see why they wouldn't pursue the same policy.
Well I can see why they cannot pursue the came policy
They do not have any money left.
Well quite.
But it shows what a failure the last lockdown was in hindsight if we're back in the exact same position again 6 months later.
It's not the exact same position, yet.
No, its a worse position.
Its worse because a gargantuan amount of resource has gone into 'defeating' something that, in the end, cannot be 'defeated'.
In short, what I have been calling it since March. The worst policy decision by any British government, ever.
'Worst policy decision' ever?
The reality is that there is no "defeating", there is "managing". And if you do nothing (as happened in NYC or Milan at the start of the outbreak), then you end up with hospitals overflowing and the dead piling up and ambulances through the night.
Now, would we have done better following the Swedish model - probably. But it's hard to see that would have been very different. Their economy did worse than their neighbours, and resulted in a higher death rate, and they're now implementing what look pretty much like local lockdowns in Stockholm.
The right policy, throughout, has been not to "let it rip", because the reality is that human beings will end up de facto locking down anyway (and that will be worse than simply managing it), but to find the right mix of policies that limit its spread. I've enumerated them on here many times before, but it's not complex: you ban the highest risk activities, and you implement sensible precautions on others such as masks on public transport.
All these measures do is postpone the inevitable at a vast cost, monetary and human, as we are seeing now.
We know much more about the virus, we know who it really affects and who it doesn't, so why make the same huge mistakes again?
Why not spend the 15bn from test and trace on super-protections for care homes and the elderly?
Wait.
Wearing a mask on public transport is "vast human cost"?
Closing karaoke bars is "vast human cost"?
You lack, what's the word..., perspective.
I suppose a jobsworth berating a woman being comforted by her own son at her husband's funeral is outside your definition of 'vast human cost'
I suppose a million women missing cancer checks is outside your definition of 'vast human cost'
You lack, what's the word.......humanity.
Did you actually read what I wrote? Or are you just railing against me on principle?
I said - and have always said - that you need to have a consistent set of policies that minimise restrictions and economic impact, without allowing the virus to spiral out of control.
That is:
Prohibitions of very high risk activities (karaoke, night clubs, indoor sporting events) Moderate restrictions in other high risk areas (so, mask wearing on public transport)
This is, pretty much, the situation in Japan.
If you could let me know how cancer checks would be cancelled, that would be great.
Comments
'If you're not wearing a mask, then don't come within two metres of me.'
In which case Biden would be the first candidate to win a presidential election whilst losing Florida and Ohio since Kennedy in 1960
Another polling plethora confronts us this evening and while it's mostly good news for Biden, one or two signs of caution from me.
Biden's solid leads in Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona remain largely unchanged and I expect the Democrats to flip those states. In Pennsylvania, a Monmouth poll offers an 11-point lead but CNBC/Change Research has just a 4-point advantage. I still think Biden will win PA and consequently the White House but there's still four weeks to go and if a week is a long time in politics, a month is an eternity.
Has Biden peaked too soon or is the landslide about to start rolling?
Florida remains in the TCTC column as far as I'm concerned though two polls give Biden leads of four and six points, the USA Today/Suffolk poll has a tie on 45% (actually Trump is just ahead and that lead widens with the Undecided voters). Is it an outlier - others have cautioned Florida regarding voter registration and the Hispanic factor so I'm happy to leave it where it is for now.
I moved North Carolina into the Blue column yesterday but I've moved it back to TCTC this evening - while most polls now show Biden leading by 2-4 points it remains very close.
Finally, as I like to, a chance to look at those states which are less regularly polled. Clinton won New Mexico by eight in 2016 and Biden leads by 14 according to the latest PPP poll (53-39).
To the Red heartlands and starting with Alabama which is as solid as it gets in the south for the Republicans. In 2016, Trump won by 28 and the latest poll has the President ahead by 20 (57-37) so a typical 4% swing to the Democrats. Utah's 2016 election had a strong local challenge from Evan McMullin who came a close third with 21.5%. Trump beat Clinton by 18 and the latest poll has Trump ahead by 10 (50-40) so another 4% swing to Biden so the notion of an 8-10% national lead seems entirely valid.
I've not commented on the CNN poll which would be a blowout with Biden up 57-41. While not quite as large, it would be comparable to Reagan's 59-41 demolition of Mondale in 1984. That won Reagan 525 of the 538 EC votes.
What's your prediction now? Trump loss but close?
I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Ohio and Iowa flip to the Dems. I think there's a tendency to miss just how much the Midwest has missed out on the last four years of US economic growth. (It's a great mystery why Trump did so little to help the region that propelled him to victory, while pursuing policies that mostly benefits people on the Coasts.)
We know much more about the virus, we know who it really affects and who it doesn't, so why make the same huge mistakes again?
Why not spend the 15bn from test and trace on super-protections for care homes and the elderly?
On your point, no, I am not going to say it favours Trump and I wouldn't. I'll repeat it again as I have ad nauseam, I have not bet money, apart from with @kinabalu, on this race because I have no idea what will happen. I'd be happy to bet on Biden if I thought he would win.
Anyway, on your article. I can't see the piece because of GDPR but some questions / points:
1. Did Biden just buy his slots now or in advance? The title suggests the ads have just started. US TV advertising is usually sold upfront (i.e. you commit to spend in advance) or spot (pretty much at that time). In an election year, because the date is known in advance and with this being a record year for spend, you would expect campaigns to book in advance. If Biden is buying now i.e. spot, then yes, that suggests he thinks in with a chance because prices would typically be expensive so you need a good reason to buy;
2. Biden has been buying adverts in Texas since July at least (https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/890753387/with-polls-showing-a-close-race-joe-biden-goes-on-the-airwaves-in-texas?t=1602006804079);
3. The $6m is not that much different from the $5.2m expected in mid-September (https://www.npr.org/2020/09/15/912663101/biden-is-outspending-trump-on-tv-and-just-6-states-are-the-focus-of-the-campaign - scroll down to point 9). It is worth noting the following from the article:
"The Biden campaign has booked $5.2 million in Texas for the month of October so far. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, has spent nothing there. That likely means Republicans think they have enough of a cushion and believe Trump will win there anyway. It can also mean that the campaign is having to ration its resources with money being stretched."
4. As important is which markets he is buying? I couldn't see but there are a fair few House marginals in Texas so is the spending more for Biden or the House seats. I'd note the talk of the Dems taking the TX Senate seat seems to have faded away (Cornyn seems to be high single digit upwards ahead);
5. $6m is actually not much in the scheme of things. Total political spending is expected to be c. $11bn.
Well that is true too for certain populations.
The under 15s are more likely to die of the flu than COVID for example.
https://time.com/5392916/donald-trump-usfl-football-for-a-buck/
https://twitter.com/WisdenCricket/status/1313506419631681536
Whatever the history though there is no reasonable existence for us all if we're lectured by Gordon Brown.
Wearing a mask on public transport is "vast human cost"?
Closing karaoke bars is "vast human cost"?
You lack, what's the word..., perspective.
If he does lose states, then I am thinking Iowa and Wisconsin, mainly because of the impact of his sanctions against China on the agricultural community there. That doesn't really play out in Ohio (I think he will be fine there).
Still thinking - despite @not_on_fire's comments - that VA could be surprisingly close.
He's the John Major de nos jours and I can quite see him as the alternative to Boris Johnson once the latter steps down/is forced out (delete as appropriate).
He's likeable but I've seen bits of MDF in B&Q with more charisma and personality. Fair enough, we can't all be flamboyant peddlers of pie-in-the-sky optimism like the Prime Minister and after years of Boris's bluff and bluster, a more managerialist approach might not go amiss.
Party Conference speeches fall into two categories - those which say things the audience wants to hear and those which don't. The latter include Theresa May's "nasty party" speech and Kinnock's bravura takedown of Militant. When you have a majority of 80 just after an election, you have an opportunity to explore the unpalatable and not be afraid to say some unpleasant things to your audience (both inside and outside the hall).
Sunak, of course, ducked all this and decided to witter on about "balancing the books". Now, this may please the activists (even those who advocate continued borrowing) but it's a platitude which doesn't just require suspending credibility as much as dangling it 10,000 feet above the Grand Canyon on a very thin and fraying rope.
Laura K opined Sunak had offered no mechanism as to HOW said books were to be balanced. The Lafferites will demand tax cuts and obviously everyone is in favour of tax rises as long as it isn't their taxes being raised. The NHS is sacrosanct as are other public services including, one imagines, the Police and armed forces so it's back to welfare (goodbye triple lock) but then we also have the "plan" to reform adult social care which Johnson has been on the brink of publishing for months .
Sunak could have been more honest but that would have involved him taking a modicum of political risk. Talking about tax rises may not go down well with the Conservative faithful but it's an honest conversation to have with an electorate that may now be wondering what the final bill for Covid-19 is going to be and how it will be paid (both by them and by future generations).
https://nsjonline.com/article/2020/10/cunningham-cancels-appearance-after-second-allegation/
Nowt like forward planning for every eventuality.
There is no money left.
If he's trespassing in the Whitehouse after Biden gets inaugurated 21 January then the Secret Service would remove him - and they don't mess around.
And as we all know from British politics a serial philander has no chance of being elected.
I doubt Twitter bothered considered this though, just saw it was Trump and censored it straight away.
Is he the one with the really tame "sexting" the other day?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/oct/06/donald-trump-coronavirus-covid-19-masks-joe-biden-election-white-house-live-updates
My trek through New Mexico suggests is that it is not fertile country for Trump, for three reasons: (1) it's much more urban than Arizona (Albuquerque and Santa Fe are close to half the population between them), (2) it's much more Hispanic (especially in rural areas), and (3) it's state level politics (unlike AZ) is dominated by the Dems *and* the people are generally happy with their Governor and state legislatures. Plus there's gut: simply, rural New Mexico didn't have many Trump posters, which was a complete contrast to Arizona.
I guess you can't win in Kansas on an AOC Green new deal ticket.
Compare column 1 (Covid deaths) with the last column (all deaths involving flu with or without Covid).
You will see that the only age groups where deaths from flu exceed those from Covid are 1-14. In other age groups deaths from Covid greatly exceed those involving flu.
https://projects.jhkforecasts.com/senate-forecast/
John Major he ain't; Winchester College to Downing Street is not as compelling as starting the journey in Brixton, and he hasn't put in the hours of justifying his beliefs to a hostile audience and it shows.
I suppose a million women missing cancer checks is outside your definition of 'vast human cost'
You lack, what's the word.......humanity.
Drakeford is easily the worst of the 4 leaders of the UK's nations.
Fortunately for him, he is up against a Tory leader (Paul Davies) who -- remarkably -- is even poorer.
(FWIW, Labour should have elected Eluned Morgan in 2018, and the Tories should have elected Suzy Davies. But women always come last in leadership elections in Wales).
I can see how these tweets will encourage his base but I really can't see how they will convert any undecided voters. Perhaps he's simply going for diffferential turnout and encouraging his base? Probably.
Which is something worth remembering when people give betting tips. The fastest horse wins, not the smartest.
The parallel between Sunak and Major is more about the contrast between them and their predecessors.
His comment about the books balancing was a significant political gaffe and he will spend much of the next few months trying to explain how he will achieve that.
I don't know where you are located, but if you are not actually in Wales, I expect you know feck all about Welsh politics.
He cuts into the GOP's lead among white voters while bringing out other groups in droves. We're four weeks out, yes, and he sure isn't doing that by himself, but still.
Although there's no case fatality rate stats on that image, so it's hard to compare exactly.
I wonder if Twitter will be as stringent on other posters on there.
It's beginning to look like there's a definite swing to Biden starting with the debate and continuing through Trump's illness.
I said - and have always said - that you need to have a consistent set of policies that minimise restrictions and economic impact, without allowing the virus to spiral out of control.
That is:
Prohibitions of very high risk activities (karaoke, night clubs, indoor sporting events)
Moderate restrictions in other high risk areas (so, mask wearing on public transport)
This is, pretty much, the situation in Japan.
If you could let me know how cancer checks would be cancelled, that would be great.