I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
Yeah, as crazy as allowing the House of Lords to go over 700!
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Not sure whether they are in your 30m, but young kids get the flu vaccine too, mine has it in a couple of weeks,if included they'll be a large chunk of the number.
Nonetheless, you're probably right the maths is out, £12.6B only pays for about 200k individuals to have £60k each, I think. That sounds very low for the elderly and vulnerable. And then you have to isolate their carers too, of course.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
Not sure if you know, “Socrates” was also a fine Brazilian footballer and star of the 1982 World Cup team.
Believe he was also a medical doctor.
They moaned about the rules of pankration, not that there were many. It was as close to no holds barred as it gets.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
If they find themselves with a minority on the court and all three branches they'll do it anyway though, no?
The problem is that the system is already working a way it wasn't supposed to (party-line senate votes, party-line judges) regulated only by "norms". Inevitably if you can get your way within the rules by breaking a norm, you do, especially if the other side did that previously, so you get an escalation. If one side declines to escalate, they end up with the field permanently tilted against them.
The Dems should tilt the field back to themselves by adding a few judges, then offer to trade back to parity with a permanent fix that stops the escalation, by fixing the constitution to get reasonable results with rules instead of norms.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
I remember listening recently to a debate bemoaning all the muck that had been poured on Cummings and compared it to Neil Ferguson who'd been treated with much less chagrin over his own lockdown breach. Conveniently forgetting that Ferguson resigned with immediate effect.
Surprised no-one picked up on this in the thread header. Apologies if I missed someone who did.
"As can be seen in the breakdown Trump is 14% behind with women but just a point off with men. Trump’s appeals to women, seen in the Tweets above, are a reflection that he fully understands where his problem lies – the question is whether with just 20 days to go he can do something about it.
With an estimated 53% of the electorate women are a bigger block than men so the differing views makes his position even worse. At WH2016 Clinton did capture majority of female voters—54%, according to exit polling"
Clinton won women's votes by 54-41 according to the exit poll, little different to the 54-40 split in the Morning Consult poll shown for Biden.
Clinton lost men's votes by 41-52, so the poll for Biden shows a massive swing in his favour to 48-47.
Does the Morning Consult poll show different gender swings to other recent polls?
I know the accepted wisdom is that there is a swing among suburban women similar to that which led to the Democrat victory in the midterms, but the poll here is showing a different gender swing.
Yes, it is Biden being a lot more acceptable to groups that Trump won handily 4 years ago that is putting him in a strong position. Keeping the lead amongst women that was in part based on a female candidate is quite an achievement too of course but what he is essentially doing there is holding what he inherited.
Strategically it does make sense for Trump to try to chip away at the big lead Biden has among women though.
Is there a gender divide on in-person versus mail-in voting?
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Does that include all NHS staff, who as far as I'm aware are eligible for the flu shot? That's 1.5m people right there.
Ok, let's cut it to 20m. That still means the cost claimed for track and trace (which is nonsense anyway) is 1% of the absurd alternative. It is indeed terrible arithmetic and the laughs should be directed at the people who come up with this nonsense, not their supposed target.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
If they find themselves with a minority on the court and all three branches they'll do it anyway though, no?
The problem is that the system is already working a way it wasn't supposed to (party-line senate votes, party-line judges) regulated only by "norms". Inevitably if you can get your way within the rules by breaking a norm, you do, especially if the other side did that previously, so you get an escalation.
The Dems should tilt the field back to themselves by adding a few judges, then offer to trade back to parity with a permanent fix that stops the escalation, by fixing the constitution to get reasonable results with rules instead of norms.
The fillibuster helped ensure bipartisan reasonable judges rather than partisan extremists.
Requiring a supermajority in the Senate to be confirmed is probably the only way to end this partisan arms race. Whether three quarters of states would go for that is another question.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
Adding 4 is the rubbish idea. I would play safe and make it 5.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
If they find themselves with a minority on the court and all three branches they'll do it anyway though, no?
The problem is that the system is already working a way it wasn't supposed to (party-line senate votes, party-line judges) regulated only by "norms". Inevitably if you can get your way within the rules by breaking a norm, you do, especially if the other side did that previously, so you get an escalation. If one side declines to escalate, they end up with the field permanently tilted against them.
The Dems should tilt the field back to themselves by adding a few judges, then offer to trade back to parity with a permanent fix that stops the escalation, by fixing the constitution to get reasonable results with rules instead of norms.
Constitutional amendments require a supermajority. I expect Biden might offer the GOP something like fixed 10 year justice terms, fixed bench size (11 ?) as an amendment. When they reject it just stack the court anyway.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
Not sure if you know, “Socrates” was also a fine Brazilian footballer and star of the 1982 World Cup team.
Believe he was also a medical doctor.
They moaned about the rules of pankration, not that there were many. It was as close to no holds barred as it gets.
No biting, gouging or going for the balls. And according to a Mary Renault novel, the loser had to not die before the prizegiving, but I dunno what her source is.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
Yeah, as crazy as allowing the House of Lords to go over 700!
I think more than 200 is an excessive House of Lords.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
Adding 4 is the rubbish idea. I would play safe and make it 5.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
No, but whilst Obama was in power they blocked pretty much all his judicial appointments, even introducing bills to cut the size of various federal courts to try and make their obstruction permanent.
The GOP have shat all over 'norms'. Worrying about disturbing norms now is the acme of foolishness as the GOP will ignore whatever restraint the Dems show now and head straight back to fucking the system when the get the Senate back.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year; add in other groups like the NHS staff, and I guess that's where the 30 million comes from. A good decision, though obviously many of those over 50 would not normally be considered either elderly or vulnerable.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
Shakespeare said something very similar, about the years between sixteen(?) and twenty..... fighting, stealing, getting wenches with child and wronging the ancientry.
I've just taken a look at Nate Silver's 538. Trumps approval rating has been at least -10 for the last three years and ten months. How can ANYONE see this as a winning position? It looks to me that they realised they made a mistake in January 2017 and haven't changed their mind since.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
If they find themselves with a minority on the court and all three branches they'll do it anyway though, no?
The problem is that the system is already working a way it wasn't supposed to (party-line senate votes, party-line judges) regulated only by "norms". Inevitably if you can get your way within the rules by breaking a norm, you do, especially if the other side did that previously, so you get an escalation.
The Dems should tilt the field back to themselves by adding a few judges, then offer to trade back to parity with a permanent fix that stops the escalation, by fixing the constitution to get reasonable results with rules instead of norms.
The fillibuster helped ensure bipartisan reasonable judges rather than partisan extremists.
Requiring a supermajority in the Senate to be confirmed is probably the only way to end this partisan arms race. Whether three quarters of states would go for that is another question.
I don't think even a supermajority fixes it once you've normalized simply declining to confirm anybody unless it's in your interests, because if you find yourself with a temporary majority you can simply block a replacement to make your majority permanent.
One thing I think would fix it would be to fill two seats at a time, with only one vote per senator (or whoever). That way they could at worst each pick their own partisan hack, which would balance, or they could make a deal and each pick a non-hack.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
Except Trump has lost key cases even after putting his justices on the bench. The court will have an equilibrium position, especially once Trump has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
Adding 4 is the rubbish idea. I would play safe and make it 5.
The first nominee should so be Merrick Garland.
Of course it will be. I would bet a substantial sum of money that if the court is increased in size then Garland would be the first nominee.
Incidentally I see that ACB refused to answer the questions "Should Trump engage in a peaceful handover of power if he loses the election" during the senate hearings.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
Tell that to my 26 year-old, graduate son, who was unemployed for six months and applied for literally hundreds of jobs before finally starting one on Monday as a labourer in a recycling centre. He had also signed up for a year long course to train as a plumber and has been doing that for a month. Yesterday, after working his 7am to 4.30 pm shift, he got an email from the college saying two people in his class had tested positive for covid and he needed to self-isolate for two weeks. He phoned work this morning to tell them and now no longer has a job. Like millions of others all he’s tried to do is the right thing. Check your privilege, Charles!
1000 likes.
Self-centred my arse!
Daughter wakes up every morning wondering what new rules there will be making her business yet more unviable. Eldest is spending his days looking for work, after losing his job 6 weeks ago. Youngest - just graduated - has just got a job (in food retail) but is applying for others which will stretch him more.
Their futures are uncertain. They’ve complied with the rules. Their lives are constrained and frankly more than a bit shit. They care about their older relatives who are at risk. They don’t need patronising and untrue generalisations by those who have done very well indeed and don’t have the same worries.
Best of luck to SO junior.
Agreed on all counts. From my admittedly partial knowledge of the immediate post university generation, they are remarkably unselfish.
If we are going to make sweeping generalisations about age groups, I’d say that the baby boomer generation is the most selfish generation of all time.
I wrote the other day about how QE has been weaponised to boost the wealth of asset owners (older groups) to the detriment of those that rely on an income (the working young).
Tax policy has for years nailed the working population with sly increases in National Insurance versus the pension triple lock. Fiscal arrangements like ever escalating commuter rail fares versus petrol tax freezes (which admittedly help both groups).
We’ve now got a narrative building that it’s young people being “selfish”. For wanting to travel, socialise, meet future spouses, get the hidden training benefits from in-office working or in-person education.
The growing financial and social crimes being committed against the young are not being countered much at all by any of the political parties, with Starmer now lining up to try and steal the grey vote with his LOCKDOWN NOW rhetoric.
There is a sickness in the structure of our society and economy, an age chasm that at some point is going to snap the system entirely at this rate.
The other massive demographic which is going to defeat Donald Trump are senior citizens. And many of them have already voted. It's worth watching this brief clip from CNN.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
Northern Al is correct. I think they are focusing on the over 65s first.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
Yeah, as crazy as allowing the House of Lords to go over 700!
I think more than 200 is an excessive House of Lords.
Should be turned into a variation on big brother, with TV audiences watching activities in the house and voting people out each week. Would also pay, through the fees from the broadcaster, for the whole thing
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
Except Trump has lost key cases even after putting his justices on the bench. The court will have an equilibrium position, especially once Trump has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
The court will have an equilibrium much more conservative than the country or the law would dictate normally. Just because Trump shits all over even conservatives who go against him, both Justices voting him down and Republicans voting for Biden, doesn't change that the SCOTUS if ACB goes through will be seriously imbalanced.
You can't seriously for one second think that if the shoe was on the other foot and there was a 6-3 liberal majority in the SCOTUS and the GOP felt that it had been improperly gained by outrageous shenanigans . . . and that the GOP then won a clear majority in House, Senate and White House that they would just sit back and face a liberal SCOTUS for decades. Do you honestly believe that?
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
Except Trump has lost key cases even after putting his justices on the bench. The court will have an equilibrium position, especially once Trump has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
He's lost nothing that matters. The only vote of any import that wnet against what the GOP wanted was the ERA being upheld for gay and trans people. Voting Rights have continued to be eroded at an astonishing rate. Even the personal tax returns case he 'lost' had the scope severely curtailed.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
People, as a whole, are terrible with handling large numbers. Our monkey brains didn't evolve to deal with them; our instinct on counting is "None," "One," "Two," "A few," "Several," "Many," "Loads," "Shitloads."
When everything falls in the shitloads category, all the numbers look the same. When "million" or "billion" or "trillion" come along, our instincts fail completely.
It actually circles around to the covid discussion another way - the famous "herd immunity through infection" thing.
Even IF we could unscramble the egg to segregate to do it. Even IF Long Covid didn't exist. Even IF immunity never ever wore off... how long would it take? Assuming no "let it rip" strategy to overload the hospitals (which virtually everyone who tilts towards this idea emphasises is NOT on the cards), we'd need to dripfeed through at a certain maximum infection rate per day. Currently we're going at under 20,000 per day, and that's loads of people and probably sustainable if we levelled off here. It is, coincidentally, heavily focused amongst the youngest (age 16-24) so our hospitalisations rates - which are already comping close to saturation in some areas and causing a lot of non-covid procedures to be postponed - would certainly not be lower than now and as we'd need more in the 24-40, 40-50, and 50-60 brackets to develop it for herd immunity, probably quite a bit worse.
Shitloads of people to get infected, divided by loads per day, leaves... well... I don't know... a month or two? Feels about right?
Nowhere near.
40,000,000 divided by 20,000 gives 2,000 days.
We'd be running that strategy for five and a half years. To halve that time, we'd need to double the infection rate beyond where we are now. To get it down to just a year and a quarter, we'd need to run at the same infection rate we reached at the absolute peak in March/April.
Why the hell don't the Great Barrington people level with us and say how long it would take to achieve it there way - if we accepted the deaths and long covid issues and could somehow work out how to segregate so well?
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
Tell that to my 26 year-old, graduate son, who was unemployed for six months and applied for literally hundreds of jobs before finally starting one on Monday as a labourer in a recycling centre. He had also signed up for a year long course to train as a plumber and has been doing that for a month. Yesterday, after working his 7am to 4.30 pm shift, he got an email from the college saying two people in his class had tested positive for covid and he needed to self-isolate for two weeks. He phoned work this morning to tell them and now no longer has a job. Like millions of others all he’s tried to do is the right thing. Check your privilege, Charles!
Excellent post. Describes the times perfectly. As poignant as Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother'
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
It will be very interesting to see what the court does on the Obamacare case shortly after the election. If there has been a Biden landslide it will be very, very provocative for the court to strike it down.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
Except Trump has lost key cases even after putting his justices on the bench. The court will have an equilibrium position, especially once Trump has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
He's lost nothing that matters. The only vote of any import that wnet against what the GOP wanted was the ERA being upheld for gay and trans people. Voting Rights have continued to be eroded at an astonishing rate. Even the personal tax returns case he 'lost' had the scope severely curtailed.
A Court that can issue Shelby v Holder County as a ruling is a court that is not fit for purpose.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
But has anyone briefed Starmer on the full plan? Now that he's "following the scientists" and everything...
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
Tell that to my 26 year-old, graduate son, who was unemployed for six months and applied for literally hundreds of jobs before finally starting one on Monday as a labourer in a recycling centre. He had also signed up for a year long course to train as a plumber and has been doing that for a month. Yesterday, after working his 7am to 4.30 pm shift, he got an email from the college saying two people in his class had tested positive for covid and he needed to self-isolate for two weeks. He phoned work this morning to tell them and now no longer has a job. Like millions of others all he’s tried to do is the right thing. Check your privilege, Charles!
1000 likes.
Self-centred my arse!
Daughter wakes up every morning wondering what new rules there will be making her business yet more unviable. Eldest is spending his days looking for work, after losing his job 6 weeks ago. Youngest - just graduated - has just got a job (in food retail) but is applying for others which will stretch him more.
Their futures are uncertain. They’ve complied with the rules. Their lives are constrained and frankly more than a bit shit. They care about their older relatives who are at risk. They don’t need patronising and untrue generalisations by those who have done very well indeed and don’t have the same worries.
Best of luck to SO junior.
Agreed on all counts. From my admittedly partial knowledge of the immediate post university generation, they are remarkably unselfish.
If we are going to make sweeping generalisations about age groups, I’d say that the baby boomer generation is the most selfish generation of all time.
I wrote the other day about how QE has been weaponised to boost the wealth of asset owners (older groups) to the detriment of those that rely on an income (the working young).
Tax policy has for years nailed the working population with sly increases in National Insurance versus the pension triple lock. Fiscal arrangements like ever escalating commuter rail fares versus petrol tax freezes (which admittedly help both groups).
We’ve now got a narrative building that it’s young people being “selfish”. For wanting to travel, socialise, meet future spouses, get the hidden training benefits from in-office working or in-person education.
The growing financial and social crimes being committed against the young are not being countered much at all by any of the political parties, with Starmer now lining up to try and steal the grey vote with his LOCKDOWN NOW rhetoric.
There is a sickness in the structure of our society and economy, an age chasm that at some point is going to snap the system entirely at this rate.
Agreed. I'm not one for sweeping generalisations, but if we're going to start pointing fingers then the boomers really are the most disgustingly selfish demographic that has ever existed.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
And of course, due to the nature of COVID, nobody would have any idea at the end of the 2 weeks if it had the desired effect or if longer was still needed.
Frankly, I think it is a piss poor idea and it fails the scientific method.
If the long term plan from the start had been month on, month off, at least with that the number crunchers would have data to go on to be able to model impact...but it would still be terrible on business.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
Northern Al is correct. I think they are focusing on the over 65s first.
Thank you. I'm actually 63, and I've already had mine. Very efficient it was too: summoned to the GP, no queue, had the jab while standing in the corridor. All over in less than two minutes.
Surprised no-one picked up on this in the thread header. Apologies if I missed someone who did.
"As can be seen in the breakdown Trump is 14% behind with women but just a point off with men. Trump’s appeals to women, seen in the Tweets above, are a reflection that he fully understands where his problem lies – the question is whether with just 20 days to go he can do something about it.
With an estimated 53% of the electorate women are a bigger block than men so the differing views makes his position even worse. At WH2016 Clinton did capture majority of female voters—54%, according to exit polling"
Clinton won women's votes by 54-41 according to the exit poll, little different to the 54-40 split in the Morning Consult poll shown for Biden.
Clinton lost men's votes by 41-52, so the poll for Biden shows a massive swing in his favour to 48-47.
Does the Morning Consult poll show different gender swings to other recent polls?
I know the accepted wisdom is that there is a swing among suburban women similar to that which led to the Democrat victory in the midterms, but the poll here is showing a different gender swing.
Yes, it is Biden being a lot more acceptable to groups that Trump won handily 4 years ago that is putting him in a strong position. Keeping the lead amongst women that was in part based on a female candidate is quite an achievement too of course but what he is essentially doing there is holding what he inherited.
@LostPassword That is what I thought when I read the header, there is no change for suburban women.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
We are trying a "circuit break" in central Scotland. Too early to tell yet but we should know whether it has worked in reducing the number of cases in a week or so. This is a real life experiment in UK conditions and I think that the government can wait to see the outcome before going further in England.
So, the question is what are the politicians doing with the time they bought?
Not necessarily just about buying time.
If you have a test, trace, isolate system with a certain capacity, a circuit breaker could reduce cases down low enough to be within that capacity, so that you can control and reduce the disease.
If we had only 1 COVID case a day, presumably even Dido Harding would be able to successfully test, trace and isolate all of that case's contacts.
Whether this circuit breaker will get us within that capacity... no idea but probably not.
Still all about them using their private chums to do the testing etc , they have burned shedloads of money to line their pals pockets. A fraction of that into the existing NHS labs and structures / processes etc would have been 10x better. Being Tories they instinctively think of the private sector and their donor / crook chums and throw money at them.
Yes, it is. Your link includes the following sentence, which you chose to disregard: Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
Knowing where we stand more than a few days in advance has a lot to be said for it, though.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
Tell that to my 26 year-old, graduate son, who was unemployed for six months and applied for literally hundreds of jobs before finally starting one on Monday as a labourer in a recycling centre. He had also signed up for a year long course to train as a plumber and has been doing that for a month. Yesterday, after working his 7am to 4.30 pm shift, he got an email from the college saying two people in his class had tested positive for covid and he needed to self-isolate for two weeks. He phoned work this morning to tell them and now no longer has a job. Like millions of others all he’s tried to do is the right thing. Check your privilege, Charles!
1000 likes.
Self-centred my arse!
Daughter wakes up every morning wondering what new rules there will be making her business yet more unviable. Eldest is spending his days looking for work, after losing his job 6 weeks ago. Youngest - just graduated - has just got a job (in food retail) but is applying for others which will stretch him more.
Their futures are uncertain. They’ve complied with the rules. Their lives are constrained and frankly more than a bit shit. They care about their older relatives who are at risk. They don’t need patronising and untrue generalisations by those who have done very well indeed and don’t have the same worries.
Best of luck to SO junior.
Agreed on all counts. From my admittedly partial knowledge of the immediate post university generation, they are remarkably unselfish.
If we are going to make sweeping generalisations about age groups, I’d say that the baby boomer generation is the most selfish generation of all time.
I wrote the other day about how QE has been weaponised to boost the wealth of asset owners (older groups) to the detriment of those that rely on an income (the working young).
Tax policy has for years nailed the working population with sly increases in National Insurance versus the pension triple lock. Fiscal arrangements like ever escalating commuter rail fares versus petrol tax freezes (which admittedly help both groups).
We’ve now got a narrative building that it’s young people being “selfish”. For wanting to travel, socialise, meet future spouses, get the hidden training benefits from in-office working or in-person education.
The growing financial and social crimes being committed against the young are not being countered much at all by any of the political parties, with Starmer now lining up to try and steal the grey vote with his LOCKDOWN NOW rhetoric.
There is a sickness in the structure of our society and economy, an age chasm that at some point is going to snap the system entirely at this rate.
Agreed. I'm not one for sweeping generalisations, but if we're going to start pointing fingers then the boomers really are the most disgustingly selfish demographic that has ever existed.
They don’t get to choose what is given to them except by voting for the party which gives them the best deal, no party is proposing making them poorer, I’m 67 am I a boomer? The only selfish attitude again is supported by political parties which is lock everybody down, boomers if worried should take their own precautions and let everybody else get on with life.
Yes, it is. Your link includes the following sentence, which you chose to disregard: Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later.
You are desperately trying not to admit you are wrong and I was right. I have followed this flu vaccine story closely and you are talking bollocks.
The NHS & Govt have been quite clear now that because of the shortage there is no availability for 50-64 year olds unless you have an underlying health condition.
"Advice for people aged 50 to 64
If you're aged 50 to 64 and have a health condition that means you're more at risk from flu, you should get your flu vaccine as soon as possible.
Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later."
"Later" ... there is NO availability for 50-64 year olds at the moment, nor for the forseable future. GP surgeries now carry the following message:
"All of our stock of flu vaccines has been allocated and we no longer have any appointments in the drive through and walk in clinics. We will try to keep everyone updated via the website & text/letter should we be allocated any more supplies. In the meantime we suggest that you contact your local pharmacy who may be able to offer you a vaccination."
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
We are trying a "circuit break" in central Scotland. Too early to tell yet but we should know whether it has worked in reducing the number of cases in a week or so. This is a real life experiment in UK conditions and I think that the government can wait to see the outcome before going further in England.
So, the question is what are the politicians doing with the time they bought?
Not necessarily just about buying time.
If you have a test, trace, isolate system with a certain capacity, a circuit breaker could reduce cases down low enough to be within that capacity, so that you can control and reduce the disease.
If we had only 1 COVID case a day, presumably even Dido Harding would be able to successfully test, trace and isolate all of that case's contacts.
Whether this circuit breaker will get us within that capacity... no idea but probably not.
Still all about them using their private chums to do the testing etc , they have burned shedloads of money to line their pals pockets. A fraction of that into the existing NHS labs and structures / processes etc would have been 10x better. Being Tories they instinctively think of the private sector and their donor / crook chums and throw money at them.
Except on testing, the Tories did exactly that, they trusted PHE with testing and PHE failed miserably to increase capacity...not in small part because you can't just magic up things PCR machines.
The Germans were so good because they straight away used a mixture of public and private labs....remember the PCR test itself was developed by a private company in Germany and PHE rejected buying the licence for it, instead repeating the process and wasting another month.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
But has anyone briefed Starmer on the full plan? Now that he's "following the scientists" and everything...
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
Until vaccine and/or community immunity the only choices are between permanent or intermittent lockdown on the one hand or letting it rip on the other hand. The highest tier of the three is nowhere close to being sufficient, and nowhere close to a lockdown and the lower two make almost no difference to the status quo.
10 million + coming and going and interacting with schools is enough on its own to keep the virus spreading, plus 3 million students interacting and coming and going each term.
Of the options the most politically impossible is people of any age dying because they cannot breathe with no ventilator available. It is political suicide. So letting it rip will not happen. Which leaves only one choice: what flavour of lockdown will we prefer.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
Knowing where we stand more than a few days in advance has a lot to be said for it, though.
And you can then fine-tune the beer issue by being bottle-only for part of the cycle. It is important to remember that we are striving for least worst, not even better than the real thing.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
Northern Al is correct. I think they are focusing on the over 65s first.
Thank you. I'm actually 63, and I've already had mine. Very efficient it was too: summoned to the GP, no queue, had the jab while standing in the corridor. All over in less than two minutes.
Stay up to date folks.
Because of the reports last week about the potentially devastating impact of contracting flu and CV-19 at the same time ALL stocks of the flu vaccine are chronically depleted.
This is why even private companies have or are in the process of suspending all new bookings, whether by internet or phone.
It was preventable of course if we had a half competent gov't.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
Knowing where we stand more than a few days in advance has a lot to be said for it, though.
And you can then fine-tune the beer issue by being bottle-only for part of the cycle. It is important to remember that we are striving for least worst, not even better than the real thing.
Indeed. Every business (and indeed shedloads of other activities) in the North West and North East are trying to plan for the next few weeks, having just received a comprehensive set of new regulations restricting their activities, whilst both the media and politics are full of discussion about changing it all again, possibly in just a few days time. London is in a similar position.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
Northern Al is correct. I think they are focusing on the over 65s first.
Thank you. I'm actually 63, and I've already had mine. Very efficient it was too: summoned to the GP, no queue, had the jab while standing in the corridor. All over in less than two minutes.
Stay up to date folks.
Because of the reports last week about the potentially devastating impact of contracting flu and CV-19 at the same time ALL stocks of the flu vaccine are chronically depleted.
This is why even private companies have or are in the process of suspending all new bookings, whether by internet or phone.
It was preventable of course if we had a half competent gov't.
With all the precautions people are taking to restrict social contact, compared to every previous year, I expect that flu will be the least of our worries this winter.
Yes, it is. Your link includes the following sentence, which you chose to disregard: Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
Yes, it is. Your link includes the following sentence, which you chose to disregard: Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later.
You are desperately trying not to admit you are wrong and I was right. I have followed this flu vaccine story closely and you are talking bollocks.
The NHS & Govt have been quite clear now that because of the shortage there is no availability for 50-64 year olds unless you have an underlying health condition.
"Advice for people aged 50 to 64
If you're aged 50 to 64 and have a health condition that means you're more at risk from flu, you should get your flu vaccine as soon as possible.
Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later."
"Later" ... there is NO availability for 50-64 year olds at the moment, nor for the forseable future. GP surgeries now carry the following message:
"All of our stock of flu vaccines has been allocated and we no longer have any appointments in the drive through and walk in clinics. We will try to keep everyone updated via the website & text/letter should we be allocated any more supplies. In the meantime we suggest that you contact your local pharmacy who may be able to offer you a vaccination."
QED.
I wasn't picking a fight - just explaining where the 30 million figure comes from. You're confusing eligibility/intention with availability, but I can't be arsed to argue with you.
... I wrote the other day about how QE has been weaponised to boost the wealth of asset owners (older groups) to the detriment of those that rely on an income (the working young). ...
I'm sorry, but that is simplistic garbage, especially the completely ludicrous 'weaponised' bit.
The objective of QE was to stave off what looked like an impending and utterly disastrous deflationary slump, which would have caused mass unemployment. Those who would have suffered most from that would have been the young. The policy seems to have been remarkably well-judged, in that we have (so far at least) avoided the obvious pitfall of greatly increased inflation.
It is true that it has had the unfortunate side-effect of boosting the nominal value of capital assets. It is also true that that is distorting the economy, and that is a bit of a worry. However, it's frankly barmy to express this as an inter-generational thing. The principal effect of QE is to force interest rates down. Beneficiaries of that are borrowers (skewed toward the youngish, as it happens), and companies (which is the mechanism by which QE has helped stave off mass unemployment), and nation states (allowing them to maintain public spending at rates which would otherwise have been unfeasible). Those who lose out include pensioners - many of who depended on interest from their savings and who now have no low-risk savings/investment options left - and anyone buying an annuity. That's not the younger generations, is it?
Of course to some extent this has been offset for some by the increase in asset prices, but inasmuch as that relates to housing, it's not a bankable gain for most older people. OK, so your house is theoretically worth more. So what, if you're not selling?
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
Except Trump has lost key cases even after putting his justices on the bench. The court will have an equilibrium position, especially once Trump has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
He's lost nothing that matters. The only vote of any import that wnet against what the GOP wanted was the ERA being upheld for gay and trans people. Voting Rights have continued to be eroded at an astonishing rate. Even the personal tax returns case he 'lost' had the scope severely curtailed.
A Court that can issue Shelby v Holder County as a ruling is a court that is not fit for purpose.
Did you see the article I posted yesterday? From it I learnt that Roberts has been agitating against the VRA for decades. Back in the early 80's he campaigned hard to encourage GOP law markers to block the reauthorisation of the VRA. In 1980 the Supreme Court had issued a ruling that had gutted one of the key provisions of the VRA so in '82 Congress passed a law to 'clarify' the language and effectively wipe clean the SC ruling. Roberts was practically begging Senators and Congressmen not to pass it and Reagan not to sign it.
They did pass it and Reagan did sign it.
It makes sense of his otherwise completely non-sensical decision in Shelby County. HE was just gagging for an opportunity to trike down the VRA.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
Primary source required. We know that Socrates said things because Plato and (to a lesser extent) Xenophon tell us about it, and this doesn't appear to be in either.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
But has anyone briefed Starmer on the full plan? Now that he's "following the scientists" and everything...
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
Until vaccine and/or community immunity the only choices are between permanent or intermittent lockdown on the one hand or letting it rip on the other hand. The highest tier of the three is nowhere close to being sufficient, and nowhere close to a lockdown and the lower two make almost no difference to the status quo.
10 million + coming and going and interacting with schools is enough on its own to keep the virus spreading, plus 3 million students interacting and coming and going each term.
Of the options the most politically impossible is people of any age dying because they cannot breathe with no ventilator available. It is political suicide. So letting it rip will not happen. Which leaves only one choice: what flavour of lockdown will we prefer.
The UK has 30k ventilators now. It built Nightingales that went completely unused.
What happened to “squashing the sombrero”? That graph that did the rounds In March that we weren’t trying to reduce the overall number of cases but just stretch them out?
If you look at the graphs of March/April versus now we’re achieving exactly the original goal. A slow increase in cases (and hospitalisation sand deaths) as opposed to the cliff edge of April.
The cat is coming out the bag now with how the lockdown crew want to operate in a post vaccine world... pretty much exactly the same as now, because the vaccine will be insufficiently perfect to satisfy their pursuit of covid purity.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
Except Trump has lost key cases even after putting his justices on the bench. The court will have an equilibrium position, especially once Trump has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
He's lost nothing that matters. The only vote of any import that wnet against what the GOP wanted was the ERA being upheld for gay and trans people. Voting Rights have continued to be eroded at an astonishing rate. Even the personal tax returns case he 'lost' had the scope severely curtailed.
A Court that can issue Shelby v Holder County as a ruling is a court that is not fit for purpose.
Did you see the article I posted yesterday? From it I learnt that Roberts has been agitating against the VRA for decades. Back in the early 80's he campaigned hard to encourage GOP law markers to block the reauthorisation of the VRA. In 1980 the Supreme Court had issued a ruling that had gutted one of the key provisions of the VRA so in '82 Congress passed a law to 'clarify' the language and effectively wipe clean the SC ruling. Roberts was practically begging Senators and Congressmen not to pass it and Reagan not to sign it.
They did pass it and Reagan did sign it.
It makes sense of his otherwise completely non-sensical decision in Shelby County. HE was just gagging for an opportunity to trike down the VRA.
I missed the link but it makes sense.
I don't understand why Roberts is so against the VRA though. It is reprehensible to be in favour of voter suppression and makes a mockery of supposedly being an impartial Justice.
It would be a failure of leadership by Biden not to fix the SCOTUS while he has an opportunity.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
I think the shanigans the Republicans have gotten up to are more than a 'fair wind' but so what if the GOP do that next time? That's next time's problem, the Democrats adding Justices now would be payback for what the Republicans have already done not may theoretically do next time.
The bridge has already been crossed of bending the rules past breaking point, so two need to play at that game. If traditional rules still applied then the Democrats could fillibuster ACB until after the new President is inaugurated, they can't because the GOP have changed the rules. Adding Justices is within the rules.
No it's a rubbish idea which turns into a ridiculous arms race and before you know there bench is 101 and growing.
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
The ridiculous arms race has already begun. You can't just pretend it hasn't.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
Except Trump has lost key cases even after putting his justices on the bench. The court will have an equilibrium position, especially once Trump has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
He's lost nothing that matters. The only vote of any import that wnet against what the GOP wanted was the ERA being upheld for gay and trans people. Voting Rights have continued to be eroded at an astonishing rate. Even the personal tax returns case he 'lost' had the scope severely curtailed.
A Court that can issue Shelby v Holder County as a ruling is a court that is not fit for purpose.
Did you see the article I posted yesterday? From it I learnt that Roberts has been agitating against the VRA for decades. Back in the early 80's he campaigned hard to encourage GOP law markers to block the reauthorisation of the VRA. In 1980 the Supreme Court had issued a ruling that had gutted one of the key provisions of the VRA so in '82 Congress passed a law to 'clarify' the language and effectively wipe clean the SC ruling. Roberts was practically begging Senators and Congressmen not to pass it and Reagan not to sign it.
They did pass it and Reagan did sign it.
It makes sense of his otherwise completely non-sensical decision in Shelby County. HE was just gagging for an opportunity to trike down the VRA.
I missed the link but it makes sense.
I don't understand why Roberts is so against the VRA though. It is reprehensible to be in favour of voter suppression and makes a mockery of supposedly being an impartial Justice.
It would be a failure of leadership by Biden not to fix the SCOTUS while he has an opportunity.
But has anyone briefed Starmer on the full plan? Now that he's "following the scientists" and everything...
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
I did read a while back that Starmer, Ashworth, Falconer, and Thomas-Symonds get the full SAGE papers on Privy Council terms.
They also have the opportunity to ask for briefings from the CMO, CSA, and other SAGE members as and when they would like.
Other shadow ministers receive relevant papers and briefings when a major is announced when it concerns the area they are shadowing.
Given their respective penchant for being prepared I'm fairly certain Starmer is likely to be better briefed on this than the PM.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
It'll end up like the House of Lords Can't blame the Dems if they do add justices after Mitch McConnell's behaviour though. He really does remind me of a human toad (Apologies to toads)
What did the US do wrong, to end up with Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi in charge of the executive and legislative branches of government?
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
Primary source required. We know that Socrates said things because Plato and (to a lesser extent) Xenophon tell us about it, and this doesn't appear to be in either.
According to the source it is and it seems to have been accepted as such for some decades, at least. But whatever, I am not fussed either way.
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
But has anyone briefed Starmer on the full plan? Now that he's "following the scientists" and everything...
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
Until vaccine and/or community immunity the only choices are between permanent or intermittent lockdown on the one hand or letting it rip on the other hand. The highest tier of the three is nowhere close to being sufficient, and nowhere close to a lockdown and the lower two make almost no difference to the status quo.
10 million + coming and going and interacting with schools is enough on its own to keep the virus spreading, plus 3 million students interacting and coming and going each term.
Of the options the most politically impossible is people of any age dying because they cannot breathe with no ventilator available. It is political suicide. So letting it rip will not happen. Which leaves only one choice: what flavour of lockdown will we prefer.
The UK has 30k ventilators now. It built Nightingales that went completely unused.
What happened to “squashing the sombrero”? That graph that did the rounds In March that we weren’t trying to reduce the overall number of cases but just stretch them out?
If you look at the graphs of March/April versus now we’re achieving exactly the original goal. A slow increase in cases (and hospitalisation sand deaths) as opposed to the cliff edge of April.
The cat is coming out the bag now with how the lockdown crew want to operate in a post vaccine world... pretty much exactly the same as now, because the vaccine will be insufficiently perfect to satisfy their pursuit of covid purity.
The two week lockdown would quite clearly last a year. And then if a vaccine comes 'conditions' would be imposed on those wanting their lives back.
This comment piece makes a false claim about Birmingham nightinggale hospital being taken down and closed, which I think is completely untrue.
But this was funny:
"To be fair to Baroness Harding, the poor woman has only been given £12.6 billion to come up with a workable NHS tracking system. With that amount, you could have paid every single elderly and vulnerable person in the UK £60,000 to shield themselves in the Bahamas and used the change to recompense students for their non-existent university experience."
It may seem funny but its absolutely terrible maths and entirely untrue. Its the same terrible mistake as was made earlier in the year with this infamous Tweet being read on TV. https://twitter.com/jsmooth995/status/1235788534067482624
There are 30 million elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Spending £60,000 on each of them would come not to £12.6 billion but instead £1,800,000,000,000 or £1.8 trillion. That's without considering the students.
There aren't 30m elderly or vulnerable.
It depends how you define elderly or vulnerable but that is how many have been considered vulnerable enough to be made eligible for the flu shot.
Everybody over 50 is eligible for the flu shot this year;
Where on earth do you get that from? No they aren't!
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
Had mine yesterday.
Had mine several weeks ago. It was the most efficient process I have come across. All doors already open with a masked person standing at each turning to direct me. First person sprayed my hands (not that I got to touch anything). Needle in the arm and booted out thru a different route again with masked person at each change in direction.
Got to car about 1 minute later not convinced I had actually had the jab!
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
That seems right, and the complaint that lockdowns are temporary, need repeating, are merely delaying something are entirely misconceived. There are plenty of areas of life where repeated temporary fixes are the only, but an adequate, solution to a problem - cleaning your house, or pumping the bilges of your ship, or indeed eating food.
Yes. Keeping serious cases of Covid within NHS capacity (and without having to cease non-Covid care) is the central imperative. If we fail on this, all outcomes (health, social, economic) will be worse than if we succeed. The only way to do it is rigorous distancing, which means restrictions on freedoms and commerce, until the advent of whichever comes first - (i) a test, trace & isolate system which if not world beating is at least functional or (ii) a combination of better treatments and working vaccines sufficient to downgrade the incidence and virulence of the virus to something on a par with flu.
The hope had been that (i) would come first - and in fact would be in place by now - but despite the Johnson rhetoric and bullish promises this is increasingly looking like a unicorn. For whatever reason (political, technical, cultural) we can't manage it. A shame because it means we have to put up with significant restrictions until (ii) comes along, which is likely to be summer 2021 at the earliest. Best to face things honestly, however, so I favour a clear set of national rules and guidelines being implemented now and kept in place for a duration of 6 months. Together with an economic support package for the affected and the vulnerable that errs on the generous side.
I come back to the obvious. The fact that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are so desperate to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court ahead of Nov 3rd tells you they know they've lost. And almost certainly not only the White House but Congress.
I hope Biden adds two more Justices so as to compound the Republican's defeat...
Biden should add 4 justices and 2 States.
Packing the court is a rubbish idea.
It is.
Doing nothing after the Republicans packed the court is a rubbish idea too.
The rebuplicans had a fair wind, they didn't add justices. It just means the next time there's a GOP president and house they'll add 6 more until the bench becomes huge.
It'll end up like the House of Lords Can't blame the Dems if they do add justices after Mitch McConnell's behaviour though. He really does remind me of a human toad (Apologies to toads)
What did the US do wrong, to end up with Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi in charge of the executive and legislative branches of government?
If it wasn't for McConnell and Trump etc then Pelosi is exactly the sort of person who'd make me hope the GOP wins.
But I hope the GOP gets slaughtered at the election this year and regroups back into something more sane so they can come back and get rid of Pelosi in a few years time.
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
Primary source required. We know that Socrates said things because Plato and (to a lesser extent) Xenophon tell us about it, and this doesn't appear to be in either.
According to the source it is and it seems to have been accepted as such for some decades, at least. But whatever, I am not fussed either way.
Your link says: "In that same issue, under the heading “Side Lines,” pp. 5–6, is a summary of the efforts of researchers and scholars to confirm the wording of Socrates, or Plato, but without success. Evidently, the quotation is spurious."
Doctors in Liverpool say those partying in the city do not care people are dying
It is sad but seems succinct
This generation seems extraordinarily self-centred
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
That's a lovely quote. He's a bit old-fashioned, but was a fine footballer.
I had no idea that boring game was around in ancient Greece. I always thought of ancient Greece as a country sparkling with new ideas and interests and philosophies, sweeping away old ideas and shaping the world to come.
Not a bunch of grumpy blokes sitting in the taverna grousing about the offside rule.....
So why misattribute that Victor Meldrew twaddle to Socrates? It's not just that he didn't say it but that he wouldn't in a million years have said it.
Primary source required. We know that Socrates said things because Plato and (to a lesser extent) Xenophon tell us about it, and this doesn't appear to be in either.
I believe current thinking is that it is possible (if the quote was invented in the 20th Century from whole cloth) the quote came from a play which has a caricature of Socrates in it.
That said Plato was know to complain about the Youth in similar terms http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=plat.+rep.+8.562e Why,” I said, “the father habitually tries to resemble the child and is afraid of his sons, and the son likens himself to the father and feels no awe or fear of his parents"
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
But has anyone briefed Starmer on the full plan? Now that he's "following the scientists" and everything...
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
Until vaccine and/or community immunity the only choices are between permanent or intermittent lockdown on the one hand or letting it rip on the other hand. The highest tier of the three is nowhere close to being sufficient, and nowhere close to a lockdown and the lower two make almost no difference to the status quo.
10 million + coming and going and interacting with schools is enough on its own to keep the virus spreading, plus 3 million students interacting and coming and going each term.
Of the options the most politically impossible is people of any age dying because they cannot breathe with no ventilator available. It is political suicide. So letting it rip will not happen. Which leaves only one choice: what flavour of lockdown will we prefer.
The UK has 30k ventilators now. It built Nightingales that went completely unused.
What happened to “squashing the sombrero”? That graph that did the rounds In March that we weren’t trying to reduce the overall number of cases but just stretch them out?
If you look at the graphs of March/April versus now we’re achieving exactly the original goal. A slow increase in cases (and hospitalisation sand deaths) as opposed to the cliff edge of April.
The cat is coming out the bag now with how the lockdown crew want to operate in a post vaccine world... pretty much exactly the same as now, because the vaccine will be insufficiently perfect to satisfy their pursuit of covid purity.
One of the issues is that government has not laid out its plan - whether attempting to eliminate the virus, or to keep to as low as possible, or to keep the NHS numbers below a certain level, or do all this to wait for a vaccine, or whatever. I don't agree with trying to eliminate, in a global world as we are, but at least it would be a stated intent. There has also been a clear shift from squashing to getting as low as possible, but this has not been explicitly stated.
Especially as the 'postponements' are at no cost whatever.
Operations are not being delayed Cancer checks are not being missed in their millions. There is no upsurge in mental illness. Hundreds of thousands are not losing everything.
What's not to like about consequence-free postponements of death for people with an average age of 82 with 2.7 co-morbidities?
How many years is it that we have been waiting for Angela Merkel to force the EU to concede to us?
And now the moment is finally here.
That was what we always understood. Decisions are only made at the final moment.
When do you expect a deal?
November. Finish ratification in December.
Whatever the "deal" is I don't expect any changes to the standards and customs arrangements from 2021. We simply can't put either a physical or organisational border in place in time...
There may be a time when it becomes necessary but the 3 tier system must be given a chance to work before we close down our economy again.
Furthermore, we all know that it is easy to put England/UK into lockdown but far more difficult to come out
The other issue is Boris would struggle to get his party to back a full lockdown
Hopefully the PM will put country before party.
What does that mean in this context? Whatever he wants to do for the country, he needs support from his party to get it through parliament.
Not necessarily. I'm not recommending a Government of National Unity, but cross-party voting on pandemic control is a sensible option.
There are basically three factions in Parliament - lock down harder, start to relax, and tack your way through the middle. The third has been tried for some time and doesn't seemb to be working. There is a substantial Tory backbench group supporting "start to relax", but a much larger majority for "lock down harder". BJ can use it if he wants to.
I'm not against lockdown harder in principle but I want to see a strategy that isn't simply about delaying deaths down the road and acknowledging economic costs.
Is it lockdown until test and trace is working properly? Till we have a vaccine? And how long might that credibly take?
Southam - it saddens me but it's all well and good telling people to self-isolate for two weeks and blaming them for ignoring it but what support have the government offered them for doing so? In an era of zero hours and casual employment this might have been expected.
My understanding of the SAGE approach (leaving aside Starmer's support for it) is to recommend periodic lockdowns of 2-3 weeks to interrupt the spread, which I assume would be a pattern repeating through the winter. There was a suggestion here that it should explicitly be the first two weeks of every odd-numbered month, so we could all plan for it. When the circuit-break ends, the virus would resume expanding, but from a lower level, so we would get a series of bumps through the winter instead of a remorseless rise. And of course it should be accompanied by financial support for those impacted, on the lines of what Sunak has been doing but with the various gaps that have been identified filled in.
Is it a perfect strategy? Probably not - certainly it would further increase the support cost, and there is a risk of binge-socialising in the gaps in between the lockdowns. But it seems to offer a credible and coherent approach, which at present - not being partisan about it but just factual - we do do not appear to have.
You'd be better off paying pubs and restaurants to close until the Spring than expecting them to trade in those conditions.
Easy for someone to write down what they think is a good idea on paper, entirely different to actually put it into practice.
Exactly. 2 weeks off and on trading will simply destroy hospitality. The cost in lost stock - especially beer - would wipe them out.
It’s not even a good idea on paper let alone in reality.
But has anyone briefed Starmer on the full plan? Now that he's "following the scientists" and everything...
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
Until vaccine and/or community immunity the only choices are between permanent or intermittent lockdown on the one hand or letting it rip on the other hand. The highest tier of the three is nowhere close to being sufficient, and nowhere close to a lockdown and the lower two make almost no difference to the status quo.
10 million + coming and going and interacting with schools is enough on its own to keep the virus spreading, plus 3 million students interacting and coming and going each term.
Of the options the most politically impossible is people of any age dying because they cannot breathe with no ventilator available. It is political suicide. So letting it rip will not happen. Which leaves only one choice: what flavour of lockdown will we prefer.
The UK has 30k ventilators now. It built Nightingales that went completely unused.
What happened to “squashing the sombrero”? That graph that did the rounds In March that we weren’t trying to reduce the overall number of cases but just stretch them out?
If you look at the graphs of March/April versus now we’re achieving exactly the original goal. A slow increase in cases (and hospitalisation sand deaths) as opposed to the cliff edge of April.
The cat is coming out the bag now with how the lockdown crew want to operate in a post vaccine world... pretty much exactly the same as now, because the vaccine will be insufficiently perfect to satisfy their pursuit of covid purity.
What happened to the sombrero was two things (TBF they'd mostly already happened by the time English-speaking people were sharing the sombrero gifs but the British and Americans were a bit slow on the uptake)
1) People got data on the fatality and hospitalization rates and found that you'd need an implausibly elongated sombrero 2) Some countries showed that there was a practical middle way between the Chinese-style "if anybody leaves their house they get arrested" and the Iran-style "everybody gets the rona", which the British boffins had previously assumed was impractical due to their ignorance of the existence of Asian democracies
How many years is it that we have been waiting for Angela Merkel to force the EU to concede to us?
And now the moment is finally here.
That was what we always understood. Decisions are only made at the final moment.
When do you expect a deal?
November. Finish ratification in December.
Whatever the "deal" is I don't expect any changes to the standards and customs arrangements from 2021. We simply can't put either a physical or organisational border in place in time...
But we're ready for No Deal. We know this because the government has wagged its finger and told businesses it's their fault if they're not prepared for they don't know what.
Comments
Nonetheless, you're probably right the maths is out, £12.6B only pays for about 200k individuals to have £60k each, I think. That sounds very low for the elderly and vulnerable. And then you have to isolate their carers too, of course.
The problem is that the system is already working a way it wasn't supposed to (party-line senate votes, party-line judges) regulated only by "norms". Inevitably if you can get your way within the rules by breaking a norm, you do, especially if the other side did that previously, so you get an escalation. If one side declines to escalate, they end up with the field permanently tilted against them.
The Dems should tilt the field back to themselves by adding a few judges, then offer to trade back to parity with a permanent fix that stops the escalation, by fixing the constitution to get reasonable results with rules instead of norms.
Catch you all later.
Is there a gender divide on in-person versus mail-in voting?
The Dems got unlucky with the timings of deaths and not controling the senate. That will swing back and it's clear that Gorsuch isn't a Trump toadie and even Kavanaugh has some Independent thought. I don't know what the new person is about but I'm sure she's more than qualified to hold the position.
Requiring a supermajority in the Senate to be confirmed is probably the only way to end this partisan arms race. Whether three quarters of states would go for that is another question.
The Democrats have a small window of opportunity to fix what the GOP have destroyed. If they don't then the Court could have an extreme bias and not be impartial for decades to come given the age of the Justices now.
The GOP have shat all over 'norms'. Worrying about disturbing norms now is the acme of foolishness as the GOP will ignore whatever restraint the Dems show now and head straight back to fucking the system when the get the Senate back.
One thing I think would fix it would be to fill two seats at a time, with only one vote per senator (or whoever). That way they could at worst each pick their own partisan hack, which would balance, or they could make a deal and each pick a non-hack.
My GP surgery and most I know of are only offering it to over 65's unless you are of vulnerable health.
There's a MASSIVE shortage and the only way I can get it is to buy it privately from an ad hoc service. Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug have all suspended private shots.
Mine costs £55 and I have to wait until Nov 21st: the first slot available.
Incidentally I see that ACB refused to answer the questions "Should Trump engage in a peaceful handover of power if he loses the election" during the senate hearings.
I wrote the other day about how QE has been weaponised to boost the wealth of asset owners (older groups) to the detriment of those that rely on an income (the working young).
Tax policy has for years nailed the working population with sly increases in National Insurance versus the pension triple lock. Fiscal arrangements like ever escalating commuter rail fares versus petrol tax freezes (which admittedly help both groups).
We’ve now got a narrative building that it’s young people being “selfish”. For wanting to travel, socialise, meet future spouses, get the hidden training benefits from in-office working or in-person education.
The growing financial and social crimes being committed against the young are not being countered much at all by any of the political parties, with Starmer now lining up to try and steal the grey vote with his LOCKDOWN NOW rhetoric.
There is a sickness in the structure of our society and economy, an age chasm that at some point is going to snap the system entirely at this rate.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/flu-influenza-vaccine/
You can't seriously for one second think that if the shoe was on the other foot and there was a 6-3 liberal majority in the SCOTUS and the GOP felt that it had been improperly gained by outrageous shenanigans . . . and that the GOP then won a clear majority in House, Senate and White House that they would just sit back and face a liberal SCOTUS for decades. Do you honestly believe that?
Our monkey brains didn't evolve to deal with them; our instinct on counting is "None," "One," "Two," "A few," "Several," "Many," "Loads," "Shitloads."
When everything falls in the shitloads category, all the numbers look the same. When "million" or "billion" or "trillion" come along, our instincts fail completely.
It actually circles around to the covid discussion another way - the famous "herd immunity through infection" thing.
Even IF we could unscramble the egg to segregate to do it. Even IF Long Covid didn't exist. Even IF immunity never ever wore off... how long would it take? Assuming no "let it rip" strategy to overload the hospitals (which virtually everyone who tilts towards this idea emphasises is NOT on the cards), we'd need to dripfeed through at a certain maximum infection rate per day. Currently we're going at under 20,000 per day, and that's loads of people and probably sustainable if we levelled off here. It is, coincidentally, heavily focused amongst the youngest (age 16-24) so our hospitalisations rates - which are already comping close to saturation in some areas and causing a lot of non-covid procedures to be postponed - would certainly not be lower than now and as we'd need more in the 24-40, 40-50, and 50-60 brackets to develop it for herd immunity, probably quite a bit worse.
Shitloads of people to get infected, divided by loads per day, leaves... well... I don't know... a month or two? Feels about right?
Nowhere near.
40,000,000 divided by 20,000 gives 2,000 days.
We'd be running that strategy for five and a half years.
To halve that time, we'd need to double the infection rate beyond where we are now.
To get it down to just a year and a quarter, we'd need to run at the same infection rate we reached at the absolute peak in March/April.
Why the hell don't the Great Barrington people level with us and say how long it would take to achieve it there way - if we accepted the deaths and long covid issues and could somehow work out how to segregate so well?
The opposition seem to think they've hit upon a magic policy - one that makes them look tougher than the Government on handling the pandemic, aligns with scientific advice, and will "save jobs and the economy" by virtue of averting the need for a longer lockdown later...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/merkel-calls-for-realism-from-eu-in-brexit-talks-3lqhhnrw3
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/most-comprehensive-flu-programme-in-uk-history-will-be-rolled-out-this-winter
My other half, in her 50s, checked with her GP and they do indeed intend offer her the jab in November.
Frankly, I think it is a piss poor idea and it fails the scientific method.
If the long term plan from the start had been month on, month off, at least with that the number crunchers would have data to go on to be able to model impact...but it would still be terrible on business.
Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later.
That was what we always understood. Decisions are only made at the final moment.
The NHS & Govt have been quite clear now that because of the shortage there is no availability for 50-64 year olds unless you have an underlying health condition.
"Advice for people aged 50 to 64
If you're aged 50 to 64 and have a health condition that means you're more at risk from flu, you should get your flu vaccine as soon as possible.
Other 50- to 64-year-olds will be contacted about a flu vaccine later."
"Later" ... there is NO availability for 50-64 year olds at the moment, nor for the forseable future. GP surgeries now carry the following message:
"All of our stock of flu vaccines has been allocated and we no longer have any appointments in the drive through and walk in clinics. We will try to keep everyone updated via the website & text/letter should we be allocated any more supplies. In the meantime we suggest that you contact your local pharmacy who may be able to offer you a vaccination."
QED.
The Germans were so good because they straight away used a mixture of public and private labs....remember the PCR test itself was developed by a private company in Germany and PHE rejected buying the licence for it, instead repeating the process and wasting another month.
10 million + coming and going and interacting with schools is enough on its own to keep the virus spreading, plus 3 million students interacting and coming and going each term.
Of the options the most politically impossible is people of any age dying because they cannot breathe with no ventilator available. It is political suicide. So letting it rip will not happen. Which leaves only one choice: what flavour of lockdown will we prefer.
Because of the reports last week about the potentially devastating impact of contracting flu and CV-19 at the same time ALL stocks of the flu vaccine are chronically depleted.
This is why even private companies have or are in the process of suspending all new bookings, whether by internet or phone.
It was preventable of course if we had a half competent gov't.
The objective of QE was to stave off what looked like an impending and utterly disastrous deflationary slump, which would have caused mass unemployment. Those who would have suffered most from that would have been the young. The policy seems to have been remarkably well-judged, in that we have (so far at least) avoided the obvious pitfall of greatly increased inflation.
It is true that it has had the unfortunate side-effect of boosting the nominal value of capital assets. It is also true that that is distorting the economy, and that is a bit of a worry. However, it's frankly barmy to express this as an inter-generational thing. The principal effect of QE is to force interest rates down. Beneficiaries of that are borrowers (skewed toward the youngish, as it happens), and companies (which is the mechanism by which QE has helped stave off mass unemployment), and nation states (allowing them to maintain public spending at rates which would otherwise have been unfeasible). Those who lose out include pensioners - many of who depended on interest from their savings and who now have no low-risk savings/investment options left - and anyone buying an annuity. That's not the younger generations, is it?
Of course to some extent this has been offset for some by the increase in asset prices, but inasmuch as that relates to housing, it's not a bankable gain for most older people. OK, so your house is theoretically worth more. So what, if you're not selling?
They did pass it and Reagan did sign it.
It makes sense of his otherwise completely non-sensical decision in Shelby County. HE was just gagging for an opportunity to trike down the VRA.
What happened to “squashing the sombrero”? That graph that did the rounds In March that we weren’t trying to reduce the overall number of cases but just stretch them out?
If you look at the graphs of March/April versus now we’re achieving exactly the original goal. A slow increase in cases (and hospitalisation sand deaths) as opposed to the cliff edge of April.
The cat is coming out the bag now with how the lockdown crew want to operate in a post vaccine world... pretty much exactly the same as now, because the vaccine will be insufficiently perfect to satisfy their pursuit of covid purity.
I don't understand why Roberts is so against the VRA though. It is reprehensible to be in favour of voter suppression and makes a mockery of supposedly being an impartial Justice.
It would be a failure of leadership by Biden not to fix the SCOTUS while he has an opportunity.
For Robert's history with the VRA.
They also have the opportunity to ask for briefings from the CMO, CSA, and other SAGE members as and when they would like.
Other shadow ministers receive relevant papers and briefings when a major is announced when it concerns the area they are shadowing.
Given their respective penchant for being prepared I'm fairly certain Starmer is likely to be better briefed on this than the PM.
The UK is a sovereign nation with its own currency that has always been giving fiscal transfers to the rest of Europe.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Got to car about 1 minute later not convinced I had actually had the jab!
The hope had been that (i) would come first - and in fact would be in place by now - but despite the Johnson rhetoric and bullish promises this is increasingly looking like a unicorn. For whatever reason (political, technical, cultural) we can't manage it. A shame because it means we have to put up with significant restrictions until (ii) comes along, which is likely to be summer 2021 at the earliest. Best to face things honestly, however, so I favour a clear set of national rules and guidelines being implemented now and kept in place for a duration of 6 months. Together with an economic support package for the affected and the vulnerable that errs on the generous side.
But I hope the GOP gets slaughtered at the election this year and regroups back into something more sane so they can come back and get rid of Pelosi in a few years time.
https://twitter.com/arthistorynews/status/1316312323615846400?s=20
That said Plato was know to complain about the Youth in similar terms
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=plat.+rep.+8.562e
Why,” I said, “the father habitually tries to resemble the child and is afraid of his sons, and the son likens himself to the father and feels no awe or fear of his parents"
Operations are not being delayed Cancer checks are not being missed in their millions. There is no upsurge in mental illness. Hundreds of thousands are not losing everything.
What's not to like about consequence-free postponements of death for people with an average age of 82 with 2.7 co-morbidities?
1) People got data on the fatality and hospitalization rates and found that you'd need an implausibly elongated sombrero
2) Some countries showed that there was a practical middle way between the Chinese-style "if anybody leaves their house they get arrested" and the Iran-style "everybody gets the rona", which the British boffins had previously assumed was impractical due to their ignorance of the existence of Asian democracies