English Football League clubs have rejected the Premier League's proposed £50m rescue package for League One and Two clubs, saying it "falls some way short" of the required amount.
For those politicians calling for "fix test and trace", my first question would to ask how....need concrete suggestions.
What are the prioritises? More tests? Faster turn around of tests? If so, how? Do we need different tech to totally automate and prioritize who gets tests in the way South Korea does? If so, when can we expect to deliver that by?
And what's the plan to trace faster and better?
And can any of this be addressed in 2 weeks, which seems to be the suggestion?
IMO, there are some improvements around the edges e.g. people going in person to homes to trace. But how scalable is that?
The main issue is once you get above a very low level, you need much higher level of surveillance of your population and you need technology to automate most of it. It took South Korea several years to build this tech and this is from one of the most advanced nations on the planet.
Sack Dido Harding would be a good first step.
Fine, we have done that. Then what....is a genuine question. To me, it seems similar to the suggestion, well all we need to do is a 2 week circuit breaker, job done.
I think the government have again massively overpromised, rather than being honest that unless we are happy for massive state surveillance, contact tracing can only ever be a reactive process that can only do so much.
There is no real quick fix. Even if the government had been super efficient, got the app sorted sooner etc, as I say South Korea took years to build their technological solution in response to the SARS outbreak.
This is the most disappointing thing about the government, they've wasted the summer when they should have been prepping for the winter second wave.
Some of us have been banging on it for months.
Again, I would say the response isn't all negative, but very patchy. Testing has increased, but not enough for the September back to school spike, but seems back to being enough now. PPE seems to have been stockpiled for the winter. Plenty of CPAP and Ventilators. Despite they flawed initial direction, they did get the app done for the 2nd wave.
Absolutely could have done more and better, but my point is I am not convinced the real steps that need to be taken to "fix test and trace" are something that can be built in 6 months. Nobody but South Korea has it. We know the tracking apps are failing to really work in every country they have been deployed.
People are now promising these magic bullets, lets just have a 2 week shutdown or if only I was in charge of the contact tracing it would work.
My take is the reality is, we have to prepare to live with this for another 12 months of this. There is no magic bullet. We need to be honest and realistic about what actually is possible and implement strategies that work across this long time period.
But you write off the circuit breakers as after 2 weeks everything is magically ok.
That is not what SAGE or anyone serious is saying. They say regular 2 week circuit breaks are a way of navigating through the next 12 months that allow either fewer deaths or looser restrictions for most of that period, or a mix of the two.
Leading politicians are arguing for a single 2 week circuit breaker, based on results of the mathematical modelling which don't appear convincing at all.
If they were arguing for regular short lockdowns that is different and more honest about the realities. My personal preference is still for a load of targeted measures which we keep in place regardless of the change in rates for the foreseeable future. Minimize "confusion", no rushes of stop /starts as people dash to the pub for the first time and the last time, make it the new norm.
We will also know which businesses can't survive under this regime and target support to them.
Again stop / start, nobody is quite sure who can make it work under that methodology.
SAGE are very clear "Multiple circuit-breaks might be necessary to maintain low levels of incidence."
If Starmer is calling to follow the science then regular short lockdowns are what the scientists are/were calling for.
For those politicians calling for "fix test and trace", my first question would to ask how....need concrete suggestions.
What are the prioritises? More tests? Faster turn around of tests? If so, how? Do we need different tech to totally automate and prioritize who gets tests in the way South Korea does? If so, when can we expect to deliver that by?
And what's the plan to trace faster and better?
And can any of this be addressed in 2 weeks, which seems to be the suggestion?
IMO, there are some improvements around the edges e.g. people going in person to homes to trace. But how scalable is that?
The main issue is once you get above a very low level, you need much higher level of surveillance of your population and you need technology to automate most of it. It took South Korea several years to build this tech and this is from one of the most advanced nations on the planet.
Sack Dido Harding would be a good first step.
Fine, we have done that. Then what....is a genuine question. To me, it seems similar to the suggestion, well all we need to do is a 2 week circuit breaker, job done.
I think the government have again massively overpromised, rather than being honest that unless we are happy for massive state surveillance, contact tracing can only ever be a reactive process that can only do so much.
There is no real quick fix. Even if the government had been super efficient, got the app sorted sooner etc, as I say South Korea took years to build their technological solution in response to the SARS outbreak.
This is the most disappointing thing about the government, they've wasted the summer when they should have been prepping for the winter second wave.
Some of us have been banging on it for months.
Again, I would say the response isn't all negative, but very patchy. Testing has increased, but not enough for the September back to school spike, but seems back to being enough now. PPE seems to have been stockpiled for the winter. Plenty of CPAP and Ventilators. Despite they flawed initial direction, they did get the app done for the 2nd wave.
Absolutely could have done more and better, but my point is I am not convinced the real steps that need to be taken to "fix test and trace" are something that can be built in 6 months. Nobody but South Korea has it. We know the tracking apps are failing to really work in every country they have been deployed.
People are now promising these magic bullets, lets just have a 2 week shutdown or if only I was in charge of the contact tracing it would work.
My take is the reality is, we have to prepare to live with this for another 12 months of this. There is no magic bullet. We need to be honest and realistic about what actually is possible and implement strategies that work across this long time period.
But you write off the circuit breakers as after 2 weeks everything is magically ok.
That is not what SAGE or anyone serious is saying. They say regular 2 week circuit breaks are a way of navigating through the next 12 months that allow either fewer deaths or looser restrictions for most of that period, or a mix of the two.
Leading politicians are arguing for a single 2 week circuit breaker, based on results of the mathematical modelling which don't appear convincing at all.
If they were arguing for regular short lockdowns that is different and more honest about the realities. My personal preference is still for a load of targeted measures which we keep in place regardless of the change in rates for the foreseeable future. Minimize "confusion", no rushes of stop /starts as people dash to the pub for the first time and the last time, make it the new norm.
We will also know which businesses can't survive under this regime and target support to them.
Again stop / start, nobody is quite sure who can make it work under that methodology.
SAGE are very clear "Multiple circuit-breaks might be necessary to maintain low levels of incidence."
If Starmer is calling to follow the science then regular short lockdowns are what the scientists are/were calling for.
Two different things. They have suggested this as a potential long term coping strategy from the start, but they specifically suggested a single circuit breaker at half term and which Starmer has called for and Sturgeon has kinda of enacted.
English Football League clubs have rejected the Premier League's proposed £50m rescue package for League One and Two clubs, saying it "falls some way short" of the required amount.
Basically because there was zero for the Championship. Its a tricky one as over half the Champ clubs business plan is billionaires gambling £30m a year in the hope to get to the Prem. Not sure what would be fair here at all.
"The documents are sourced through dubiously trustworthy and politically motivated sources, specifically Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is linked to an alleged Russian agent accused of election meddling. While opposition research is nothing new or exclusive to Republicans, it’s possible that the alleged Biden emails were doctored, obtained in a way that was less innocuous than a lost laptop, or leaked with the explicit goal of foreign interference in the US election."
Questions which weren't asked about Trump tax returns.
As those in the Obama White House have stated, Russia doesn't play one side exclusively, it plays both sides against each other.
And of course twitter / facebook had no such issues when Corbyn waved his hacked NHS trade documents....which we now know came from Russian hackers.
I have rather more sympathy with Twitter on this than Facebook - they're pretty aggressive in pulling hacked content from their site, mostly because they've gotten into trouble with people sharing hacked photos of celebrities in various states of undress. If they're doing what they would be doing with any hacked content, according to rules that are applied uniformly, then that's their business. (WRT to the Biden tax returns, the source of the leak is fairly widely known, and it wasn't a hacker.)
Facebook I am much more troubled by. Because they are much more opaque about what content is shown and why.
On the positivity graph, I'm not sure that's correct. For example, on the 12th there were 237,638 tests and 16,933 positive results. That's a rate of 7.1% but the graph shows 16%. I've lost access to the data so I can't see what's going on either.
Is this a tests/people tested difference for the denominator?
Good spot by MaxPB - there was a mistake in the code.
"The documents are sourced through dubiously trustworthy and politically motivated sources, specifically Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is linked to an alleged Russian agent accused of election meddling. While opposition research is nothing new or exclusive to Republicans, it’s possible that the alleged Biden emails were doctored, obtained in a way that was less innocuous than a lost laptop, or leaked with the explicit goal of foreign interference in the US election."
Questions which weren't asked about Trump tax returns.
As those in the Obama White House have stated, Russia doesn't play one side exclusively, it plays both sides against each other.
And of course twitter / facebook had no such issues when Corbyn waved his hacked NHS trade documents....which we now know came from Russian hackers.
I have rather more sympathy with Twitter on this than Facebook - they're pretty aggressive in pulling hacked content from their site, mostly because they've gotten into trouble with people sharing hacked photos of celebrities in various states of undress. If they're doing what they would be doing with any hacked content, according to rules that are applied uniformly, then that's their business. (WRT to the Biden tax returns, the source of the leak is fairly widely known, and it wasn't a hacker.)
Facebook I am much more troubled by. Because they are much more opaque about what content is shown and why.
Twitter didn't pull the NHS documents, screenshots are still there now from blue check marks. My point is they aren't applying the rules consistently.
It wasn't even questioned if the NHS documents were real or had been altered nor people had an issue that they were from a hack. It was deemed in the public interest.
Initially twitter / facebook claimed it was all about stopping the spread of these links to "fake news" sites, which are deliberately made to appear to look like legit well known media outlets but in fact aren't (basically using the techniques of phishing emails).
Thursday brings a Cascade (or even a cascade) of polling from the US. Biden continues to poll strongly in the national contests with an 11-point lead in an NBC News/Washington Post poll and the daily IBD/TIPP giving Biden a 50-42 advantage in a four-way race including Jorgensen and Hawkins. While Biden's number is drifting gently lower, Trump doesn't seem to be benefitting.
State polling continues to perplex - Trafalgar has Biden ahead by only two in Wisconsin while an Insider Advantage poll for our completely impartial friends at the Centre for American Greatness has Biden up 46-43 in Pennsylvania where (among white voters) Trump leads 77-15(!).
Biden continues to lead in Arizona from 3-7 points and enjoys a 15-point advantage in Virginia which Clinton won by five in 2016. Maine Congressional District 2 is one EC vote - Trump won it last time but a new poll has Biden ahead by four which would be a 7.5% swing on 2016. I've moved CD2 back to TCTC.
A relatively better poll for Trump in South Carolina, a state he won by 14 in 2016 and leads by 8 in the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
My prediction is 299-160 to Biden with 79 TCTC.
IBID/TIPP's new national poll has Biden 50% and Trump 42% and Jorgensen and Hawkins combined on 3%, so where are the missing 5%?
If they are all shy Trump's then it would be Biden 50% and Trump 47% and Biden's national lead would be just 1% more than Hillary's and then the state polling makes more sense
"The documents are sourced through dubiously trustworthy and politically motivated sources, specifically Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is linked to an alleged Russian agent accused of election meddling. While opposition research is nothing new or exclusive to Republicans, it’s possible that the alleged Biden emails were doctored, obtained in a way that was less innocuous than a lost laptop, or leaked with the explicit goal of foreign interference in the US election."
Questions which weren't asked about Trump tax returns.
As those in the Obama White House have stated, Russia doesn't play one side exclusively, it plays both sides against each other.
And of course twitter / facebook had no such issues when Corbyn waved his hacked NHS trade documents....which we now know came from Russian hackers.
It is interesting how people like things according to if-my-side-does-them
The Guardian using the phone-messaging-pin-set-to-default trick to read peoples messages.
Assange and Wikileaks were the toast of the left - when they were embarrassing George Bush. When they started embarrassing Obama they lost their luster. And may literally get the death penalty for embracing Hilary Clinton.
"The documents are sourced through dubiously trustworthy and politically motivated sources, specifically Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is linked to an alleged Russian agent accused of election meddling. While opposition research is nothing new or exclusive to Republicans, it’s possible that the alleged Biden emails were doctored, obtained in a way that was less innocuous than a lost laptop, or leaked with the explicit goal of foreign interference in the US election."
Questions which weren't asked about Trump tax returns.
As those in the Obama White House have stated, Russia doesn't play one side exclusively, it plays both sides against each other.
And of course twitter / facebook had no such issues when Corbyn waved his hacked NHS trade documents....which we now know came from Russian hackers.
It is interesting how people like things according to if-my-side-does-them
The Guardian using the phone-messaging-pin-set-to-default trick to read peoples messages.
Assange and Wikileaks were the toast of the left - when they were embarrassing George Bush. When they started embarrassing Obama they lost their luster. And may literally get the death penalty for embracing Hilary Clinton.
Paradise Papers were from a hack, but that's fine, because it is exposing tax dodging and corruption....
Snowdon stuff has put national security at risk, but that appears to be ok too....and he has ended up innnnnn Russia.
On the positivity graph, I'm not sure that's correct. For example, on the 12th there were 237,638 tests and 16,933 positive results. That's a rate of 7.1% but the graph shows 16%. I've lost access to the data so I can't see what's going on either.
Is this a tests/people tested difference for the denominator?
Good spot by MaxPB - there was a mistake in the code.
Revised chart
That looks much better, the positivity rate isn't anywhere near what they're seeing in Europe at the moment and even that feels like it has begun to level off.
Thursday brings a Cascade (or even a cascade) of polling from the US. Biden continues to poll strongly in the national contests with an 11-point lead in an NBC News/Washington Post poll and the daily IBD/TIPP giving Biden a 50-42 advantage in a four-way race including Jorgensen and Hawkins. While Biden's number is drifting gently lower, Trump doesn't seem to be benefitting.
State polling continues to perplex - Trafalgar has Biden ahead by only two in Wisconsin while an Insider Advantage poll for our completely impartial friends at the Centre for American Greatness has Biden up 46-43 in Pennsylvania where (among white voters) Trump leads 77-15(!).
Biden continues to lead in Arizona from 3-7 points and enjoys a 15-point advantage in Virginia which Clinton won by five in 2016. Maine Congressional District 2 is one EC vote - Trump won it last time but a new poll has Biden ahead by four which would be a 7.5% swing on 2016. I've moved CD2 back to TCTC.
A relatively better poll for Trump in South Carolina, a state he won by 14 in 2016 and leads by 8 in the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
My prediction is 299-160 to Biden with 79 TCTC.
IBID/TIPP's new national poll has Biden 50% and Trump 42% and Jorgensen and Hawkins combined on 3%, so where are the missing 5%?
If they are all shy Trump's then it would be Biden 50% and Trump 47% and Biden's national lead would be just 1% more than Hillary's and then the state polling makes more sense
I admire you sticking to your viewpoint.
You were one of the posters who called GE2019 right so I am scared to death you could make it 2 of 2
Thursday brings a Cascade (or even a cascade) of polling from the US. Biden continues to poll strongly in the national contests with an 11-point lead in an NBC News/Washington Post poll and the daily IBD/TIPP giving Biden a 50-42 advantage in a four-way race including Jorgensen and Hawkins. While Biden's number is drifting gently lower, Trump doesn't seem to be benefitting.
State polling continues to perplex - Trafalgar has Biden ahead by only two in Wisconsin while an Insider Advantage poll for our completely impartial friends at the Centre for American Greatness has Biden up 46-43 in Pennsylvania where (among white voters) Trump leads 77-15(!).
Biden continues to lead in Arizona from 3-7 points and enjoys a 15-point advantage in Virginia which Clinton won by five in 2016. Maine Congressional District 2 is one EC vote - Trump won it last time but a new poll has Biden ahead by four which would be a 7.5% swing on 2016. I've moved CD2 back to TCTC.
A relatively better poll for Trump in South Carolina, a state he won by 14 in 2016 and leads by 8 in the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
My prediction is 299-160 to Biden with 79 TCTC.
IBID/TIPP's new national poll has Biden 50% and Trump 42% and Jorgensen and Hawkins combined on 3%, so where are the missing 5%?
If they are all shy Trump's then it would be Biden 50% and Trump 47% and Biden's national lead would be just 1% more than Hillary's and then the state polling makes more sense
I admire you sticking to your viewpoint.
You were one of the posters who called GE2019 right so I am scared to death you could make it 2 of 2
If it helps I have a similiar feeling about the Democrats that I had about the Tories in 2019 before the election
There’s clearly an error in the tables for the Wisconsin poll by Insider Advantage . There’s simply no way Trump leads by 77 to 15 with white voters . You can’t lead by that margin and be behind in a state which has a quite low proportion of non white voters.
And you’re simply never going to see that type of lead in white voters unless it’s non college educated white voters. So they’ve messed up the tables . They’ve also got Biden winning 40% of GOP voters ! The tables are garbage.
I'm not an expert on playing poker. But my understanding is that most hands are never shown; good poker players develop a sense of when to fold.
One side or the other in this seems to be misreading the situation, possibly very badly.
Philip might push all in with a shit hand if he's playing a night of small stakes (in relation to his wealth) poker with friends, for the laugh if he loses or the buzz if everyone else folds. But you don't manage a once in a generation negotiation on the world stage like that, and certainly not if the cost to you of failing is hugely greater than the cost to the other player(s).
Thursday brings a Cascade (or even a cascade) of polling from the US. Biden continues to poll strongly in the national contests with an 11-point lead in an NBC News/Washington Post poll and the daily IBD/TIPP giving Biden a 50-42 advantage in a four-way race including Jorgensen and Hawkins. While Biden's number is drifting gently lower, Trump doesn't seem to be benefitting.
State polling continues to perplex - Trafalgar has Biden ahead by only two in Wisconsin while an Insider Advantage poll for our completely impartial friends at the Centre for American Greatness has Biden up 46-43 in Pennsylvania where (among white voters) Trump leads 77-15(!).
Biden continues to lead in Arizona from 3-7 points and enjoys a 15-point advantage in Virginia which Clinton won by five in 2016. Maine Congressional District 2 is one EC vote - Trump won it last time but a new poll has Biden ahead by four which would be a 7.5% swing on 2016. I've moved CD2 back to TCTC.
A relatively better poll for Trump in South Carolina, a state he won by 14 in 2016 and leads by 8 in the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
My prediction is 299-160 to Biden with 79 TCTC.
IBID/TIPP's new national poll has Biden 50% and Trump 42% and Jorgensen and Hawkins combined on 3%, so where are the missing 5%?
If they are all shy Trump's then it would be Biden 50% and Trump 47% and Biden's national lead would be just 1% more than Hillary's and then the state polling makes more sense
The state polling is consistent with a Biden lead of c. 8%.
"The documents are sourced through dubiously trustworthy and politically motivated sources, specifically Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is linked to an alleged Russian agent accused of election meddling. While opposition research is nothing new or exclusive to Republicans, it’s possible that the alleged Biden emails were doctored, obtained in a way that was less innocuous than a lost laptop, or leaked with the explicit goal of foreign interference in the US election."
Questions which weren't asked about Trump tax returns.
As those in the Obama White House have stated, Russia doesn't play one side exclusively, it plays both sides against each other.
And of course twitter / facebook had no such issues when Corbyn waved his hacked NHS trade documents....which we now know came from Russian hackers.
I have rather more sympathy with Twitter on this than Facebook - they're pretty aggressive in pulling hacked content from their site, mostly because they've gotten into trouble with people sharing hacked photos of celebrities in various states of undress. If they're doing what they would be doing with any hacked content, according to rules that are applied uniformly, then that's their business. (WRT to the Biden tax returns, the source of the leak is fairly widely known, and it wasn't a hacker.)
Facebook I am much more troubled by. Because they are much more opaque about what content is shown and why.
Twitter didn't pull the NHS documents, screenshots are still there now from blue check marks. My point is they aren't applying the rules consistently.
It wasn't even questioned if the NHS documents were real or had been altered nor people had an issue that they were from a hack. It was deemed in the public interest.
Initially twitter / facebook claimed it was all about stopping the spread of these links to "fake news" sites, which are deliberately made to appear to look like legit well known media outlets but in fact aren't (basically using the techniques of phishing emails).
Have you complained to Twitter about those NHS documnts being from a hack? If you have and they don't remove it, it's one thing. The other alternative is simply that no-one has complained.
I worry that this is where we'll be in a couple of weeks because the rules are so unclear and no one knows what's going on.
At current doubling rates, 30,000 would be a slowing down, in a fortnights time.
There's a few areas where the R may already be below 1 and quite a few others where it's approaching 1 so the doubling period is getting longer. What was 5-7 days is now 12-14 days two weeks later.
I worry that this is where we'll be in a couple of weeks because the rules are so unclear and no one knows what's going on.
At current doubling rates, 30,000 would be a slowing down, in a fortnights time.
There's a few areas where the R may already be below 1 and quite a few others where it's approaching 1 so the doubling period is getting longer. What was 5-7 days is now 12-14 days two weeks later.
Indeed, we may have already got R below 1, but because of the lags in measuring things, we may not see if for another three or four weeks.
There’s clearly an error in the tables for the Wisconsin poll by Insider Advantage . There’s simply no way Trump leads by 77 to 15 with white voters . You can’t lead by that margin and be behind in a state which has a quite low proportion of non white voters.
And you’re simply never going to see that type of lead in white voters unless it’s non college educated white voters. So they’ve messed up the tables . They’ve also got Biden winning 40% of GOP voters ! The tables are garbage.
In 2016 Rasmussen had a Clinton poll lead at one point with Trump on 20% of the Black vote.
I worry that this is where we'll be in a couple of weeks because the rules are so unclear and no one knows what's going on.
At current doubling rates, 30,000 would be a slowing down, in a fortnights time.
There's a few areas where the R may already be below 1 and quite a few others where it's approaching 1 so the doubling period is getting longer. What was 5-7 days is now 12-14 days two weeks later.
Indeed, we may have already got R below 1, but because of the lags in measuring things, we may not see if for another three or four weeks.
Hopefully not that long but that is part of the problem with public policy making. The politicians (and scientists) just seem to be hurtling towards loads of different restrictions and then they don't see any immediate change so they go for even more and we over correct.
I'm sure it was discussed earlier, but can anyone explain where Sadiq Khan is sourcing his claims that London hospitalisations are rising worryingly when all published info says nothing of the sort?
I'm sure it was discussed earlier, but can anyone explain where Sadiq Khan is sourcing his claims that London hospitalisations are rising worryingly when all published info says nothing of the sort?
I worry that this is where we'll be in a couple of weeks because the rules are so unclear and no one knows what's going on.
At current doubling rates, 30,000 would be a slowing down, in a fortnights time.
There's a few areas where the R may already be below 1 and quite a few others where it's approaching 1 so the doubling period is getting longer. What was 5-7 days is now 12-14 days two weeks later.
We can only be sure in retrospect, but this looks quite a plausible estimate: R of 1.3
I'm not an expert on playing poker. But my understanding is that most hands are never shown; good poker players develop a sense of when to fold.
One side or the other in this seems to be misreading the situation, possibly very badly.
Philip might push all in with a shit hand if he's playing a night of small stakes (in relation to his wealth) poker with friends, for the laugh if he loses or the buzz if everyone else folds. But you don't manage a once in a generation negotiation on the world stage like that, and certainly not if the cost to you of failing is hugely greater than the cost to the other player(s).
We've not got 7-2 off though, we've got pocket Queens at least.
On topic, assuming that broad trends will have similarities in Holyrood and Westminster, until a black swan turns up Labour's only hope with relation to Scotland is this:
The SNP has essentially taken over Labour's ground in Scotland - the centre left, caring social democracy stuff. There is only space for one party of the centre left, and SNP is the one for now. It may well be that there is a natural alignment between the centre right and the unionist cause anyway in Scotland - I suspect there is. So the Tories are the only candidate for the other party of the two who in the long run can operate in the system.
Labour should therefore pretend to operate in Scotland while knowing that the SNP currently will clean up.
Labour's tactic should be to lose to the SNP in Scotland, and make sure the Tories don't sweep the board instead (that bit is easy).
Then in Westminster to hope that with a fair wind a a Labour government with s and s from SNP can be formed. Obvs the price for this is IndyRef2.
Which they are free to campaign to win on the unionist side, (with Tory help of course) paving the way for the union to be intact long term and Labour/SNP as a regular centre left majority.
It's not great, but if there is a better plan for the pro UK union centre left I don't know what it might be.
The SNP end up where they secretly want to be; in a union, running Scotland, lots of jobs for the boys and girls in Edinburgh and Westminster, subsidised by England and able to wave perpetual grievance around.
I'm sure it was discussed earlier, but can anyone explain where Sadiq Khan is sourcing his claims that London hospitalisations are rising worryingly when all published info says nothing of the sort?
He's a massive, massive c***.
It is like he is an attention whore who is getting irritated at all the attention the North and Scotland are getting so he's jumping up and down going "hey don't forget about me".
I still think the UK recent rises have been skewed massively by University students, whatever the claims that they're a very low proportion. Durham University had 1000 positive tests IN THE LAST WEEK. That compares with "London hotspot Richmond" with 300. A number of which are probably ... students at Durham University. The rate of university spread (which probably only covers a fraction of students) means that they're probably very close to herd immunity already. They'll all have had it before they've even got the chance to spread it to the wider community. And then the numbers might fall dramatically, especially in the relevant university towns.
I worry that this is where we'll be in a couple of weeks because the rules are so unclear and no one knows what's going on.
At current doubling rates, 30,000 would be a slowing down, in a fortnights time.
There's a few areas where the R may already be below 1 and quite a few others where it's approaching 1 so the doubling period is getting longer. What was 5-7 days is now 12-14 days two weeks later.
We can only be sure in retrospect, but this looks quite a plausible estimate: R of 1.3
The hospital admission data runs 5-7 days behind the case data and the case data was showing R of around 1.3 a week ago as confirmed by the Imperial study.
I'm not an expert on playing poker. But my understanding is that most hands are never shown; good poker players develop a sense of when to fold.
One side or the other in this seems to be misreading the situation, possibly very badly.
Philip might push all in with a shit hand if he's playing a night of small stakes (in relation to his wealth) poker with friends, for the laugh if he loses or the buzz if everyone else folds. But you don't manage a once in a generation negotiation on the world stage like that, and certainly not if the cost to you of failing is hugely greater than the cost to the other player(s).
We've not got 7-2 off though, we've got pocket Queens at least.
Nobody's got pocket Qs if the negotiation doesn't get resolved until the last minute. We've already reached the point of no return for many British businesses even if we end up with the best deal in the World.
"The documents are sourced through dubiously trustworthy and politically motivated sources, specifically Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is linked to an alleged Russian agent accused of election meddling. While opposition research is nothing new or exclusive to Republicans, it’s possible that the alleged Biden emails were doctored, obtained in a way that was less innocuous than a lost laptop, or leaked with the explicit goal of foreign interference in the US election."
Questions which weren't asked about Trump tax returns.
As those in the Obama White House have stated, Russia doesn't play one side exclusively, it plays both sides against each other.
And of course twitter / facebook had no such issues when Corbyn waved his hacked NHS trade documents....which we now know came from Russian hackers.
I have rather more sympathy with Twitter on this than Facebook - they're pretty aggressive in pulling hacked content from their site, mostly because they've gotten into trouble with people sharing hacked photos of celebrities in various states of undress. If they're doing what they would be doing with any hacked content, according to rules that are applied uniformly, then that's their business. (WRT to the Biden tax returns, the source of the leak is fairly widely known, and it wasn't a hacker.)
Facebook I am much more troubled by. Because they are much more opaque about what content is shown and why.
Twitter didn't pull the NHS documents, screenshots are still there now from blue check marks. My point is they aren't applying the rules consistently.
It wasn't even questioned if the NHS documents were real or had been altered nor people had an issue that they were from a hack. It was deemed in the public interest.
Initially twitter / facebook claimed it was all about stopping the spread of these links to "fake news" sites, which are deliberately made to appear to look like legit well known media outlets but in fact aren't (basically using the techniques of phishing emails).
Have you complained to Twitter about those NHS documnts being from a hack? If you have and they don't remove it, it's one thing. The other alternative is simply that no-one has complained.
I'm sure it was discussed earlier, but can anyone explain where Sadiq Khan is sourcing his claims that London hospitalisations are rising worryingly when all published info says nothing of the sort?
He's a massive, massive c***.
It is like he is an attention whore who is getting irritated at all the attention the North and Scotland are getting so he's jumping up and down going "hey don't forget about me".
It makes me mad. All the comments he's been making about "we are all (London boroughs)" keen to "go in to this together". Nobody's "keen to go into it", together or otherwise. And what's even stupider is that he claims that he doesn't think Tier 2 will have much effect. If something isn't going to have much effect, you don't agitate to destroy all your businesses to get into it.
I still think the UK recent rises have been skewed massively by University students, whatever the claims that they're a very low proportion. Durham University had 1000 positive tests IN THE LAST WEEK. That compares with "London hotspot Richmond" with 300. A number of which are probably ... students at Durham University. The rate of university spread (which probably only covers a fraction of students) means that they're probably very close to herd immunity already. They'll all have had it before they've even got the chance to spread it to the wider community. And then the numbers might fall dramatically, especially in the relevant university towns.
Leicester Uni documents cases daily, and publishes them here. Not high or rising over the week.
I worry that this is where we'll be in a couple of weeks because the rules are so unclear and no one knows what's going on.
At current doubling rates, 30,000 would be a slowing down, in a fortnights time.
There's a few areas where the R may already be below 1 and quite a few others where it's approaching 1 so the doubling period is getting longer. What was 5-7 days is now 12-14 days two weeks later.
Indeed, we may have already got R below 1, but because of the lags in measuring things, we may not see if for another three or four weeks.
Indeed even if infections have peaked case numbers may continue to rise for a little bit longer if testing and tracing improves and catches a higher percentage of cases and the positivity rate starts to go back down.
On topic, assuming that broad trends will have similarities in Holyrood and Westminster, until a black swan turns up Labour's only hope with relation to Scotland is this:
The SNP has essentially taken over Labour's ground in Scotland - the centre left, caring social democracy stuff. There is only space for one party of the centre left, and SNP is the one for now. It may well be that there is a natural alignment between the centre right and the unionist cause anyway in Scotland - I suspect there is. So the Tories are the only candidate for the other party of the two who in the long run can operate in the system.
Labour should therefore pretend to operate in Scotland while knowing that the SNP currently will clean up.
Labour's tactic should be to lose to the SNP in Scotland, and make sure the Tories don't sweep the board instead (that bit is easy).
Then in Westminster to hope that with a fair wind a a Labour government with s and s from SNP can be formed. Obvs the price for this is IndyRef2.
Which they are free to campaign to win on the unionist side, (with Tory help of course) paving the way for the union to be intact long term and Labour/SNP as a regular centre left majority.
It's not great, but if there is a better plan for the pro UK union centre left I don't know what it might be.
The SNP end up where they secretly want to be; in a union, running Scotland, lots of jobs for the boys and girls in Edinburgh and Westminster, subsidised by England and able to wave perpetual grievance around.
Scottish Labour alternatively could try and win tactical Tory and LD votes in the central belt where the Tories and LDs have no chance and they are the only Unionist alternative to the SNP at Holyrood elections while they would have a better chance of winning over SNP voters at Westminster elections where they are the only national alternative to the Tories
On topic, assuming that broad trends will have similarities in Holyrood and Westminster, until a black swan turns up Labour's only hope with relation to Scotland is this:
The SNP has essentially taken over Labour's ground in Scotland - the centre left, caring social democracy stuff. There is only space for one party of the centre left, and SNP is the one for now. It may well be that there is a natural alignment between the centre right and the unionist cause anyway in Scotland - I suspect there is. So the Tories are the only candidate for the other party of the two who in the long run can operate in the system.
Labour should therefore pretend to operate in Scotland while knowing that the SNP currently will clean up.
Labour's tactic should be to lose to the SNP in Scotland, and make sure the Tories don't sweep the board instead (that bit is easy).
Then in Westminster to hope that with a fair wind a a Labour government with s and s from SNP can be formed. Obvs the price for this is IndyRef2.
Which they are free to campaign to win on the unionist side, (with Tory help of course) paving the way for the union to be intact long term and Labour/SNP as a regular centre left majority.
It's not great, but if there is a better plan for the pro UK union centre left I don't know what it might be.
The SNP end up where they secretly want to be; in a union, running Scotland, lots of jobs for the boys and girls in Edinburgh and Westminster, subsidised by England and able to wave perpetual grievance around.
Scottish Labour alternatively could try and win tactical Tory and LD votes in the central belt where the Tories and LDs have no chance and they are the only Unionist alternative to the SNP at Holyrood elections while they would have a better chance of winning over SNP voters at Westminster elections where they are the only national alternative to the Tories
The state Scottish Labour is in, they’d struggle to pick up tactical votes from the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Thursday brings a Cascade (or even a cascade) of polling from the US. Biden continues to poll strongly in the national contests with an 11-point lead in an NBC News/Washington Post poll and the daily IBD/TIPP giving Biden a 50-42 advantage in a four-way race including Jorgensen and Hawkins. While Biden's number is drifting gently lower, Trump doesn't seem to be benefitting.
State polling continues to perplex - Trafalgar has Biden ahead by only two in Wisconsin while an Insider Advantage poll for our completely impartial friends at the Centre for American Greatness has Biden up 46-43 in Pennsylvania where (among white voters) Trump leads 77-15(!).
Biden continues to lead in Arizona from 3-7 points and enjoys a 15-point advantage in Virginia which Clinton won by five in 2016. Maine Congressional District 2 is one EC vote - Trump won it last time but a new poll has Biden ahead by four which would be a 7.5% swing on 2016. I've moved CD2 back to TCTC.
A relatively better poll for Trump in South Carolina, a state he won by 14 in 2016 and leads by 8 in the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
My prediction is 299-160 to Biden with 79 TCTC.
IBID/TIPP's new national poll has Biden 50% and Trump 42% and Jorgensen and Hawkins combined on 3%, so where are the missing 5%?
If they are all shy Trump's then it would be Biden 50% and Trump 47% and Biden's national lead would be just 1% more than Hillary's and then the state polling makes more sense
The state polling is consistent with a Biden lead of c. 8%.
The battleground state polls actually also have it Biden 49%, Trump 44.5% so with 3rd party candidates again on 3% combined there is again a missing 3.5% which may well be shy Trump's in which case Biden's battleground state lead would only be 1% which would be consistent with a national popular vote lead for Biden of 3% assuming hidden Trump voters in which case the race is almost neck and neck. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states/
Thursday brings a Cascade (or even a cascade) of polling from the US. Biden continues to poll strongly in the national contests with an 11-point lead in an NBC News/Washington Post poll and the daily IBD/TIPP giving Biden a 50-42 advantage in a four-way race including Jorgensen and Hawkins. While Biden's number is drifting gently lower, Trump doesn't seem to be benefitting.
State polling continues to perplex - Trafalgar has Biden ahead by only two in Wisconsin while an Insider Advantage poll for our completely impartial friends at the Centre for American Greatness has Biden up 46-43 in Pennsylvania where (among white voters) Trump leads 77-15(!).
Biden continues to lead in Arizona from 3-7 points and enjoys a 15-point advantage in Virginia which Clinton won by five in 2016. Maine Congressional District 2 is one EC vote - Trump won it last time but a new poll has Biden ahead by four which would be a 7.5% swing on 2016. I've moved CD2 back to TCTC.
A relatively better poll for Trump in South Carolina, a state he won by 14 in 2016 and leads by 8 in the latest New York Times/Siena poll.
My prediction is 299-160 to Biden with 79 TCTC.
IBID/TIPP's new national poll has Biden 50% and Trump 42% and Jorgensen and Hawkins combined on 3%, so where are the missing 5%?
If they are all shy Trump's then it would be Biden 50% and Trump 47% and Biden's national lead would be just 1% more than Hillary's and then the state polling makes more sense
The state polling is consistent with a Biden lead of c. 8%.
The battleground state polls actually also have it Biden 49%, Trump 44.5% so with 3rd party candidates again on 3% combined there is again a missing 3.5% which may well be shy Trump's in which case Biden's battleground state lead would only be 1% which would be consistent with a national popular vote lead for Biden of 3% assuming hidden Trump voters in which case the race is almost neck and neck. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states/
It is not plausible that all 3.5% are shy Trumpers, but continue grasping at straws...
"The documents are sourced through dubiously trustworthy and politically motivated sources, specifically Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is linked to an alleged Russian agent accused of election meddling. While opposition research is nothing new or exclusive to Republicans, it’s possible that the alleged Biden emails were doctored, obtained in a way that was less innocuous than a lost laptop, or leaked with the explicit goal of foreign interference in the US election."
Questions which weren't asked about Trump tax returns.
As those in the Obama White House have stated, Russia doesn't play one side exclusively, it plays both sides against each other.
And of course twitter / facebook had no such issues when Corbyn waved his hacked NHS trade documents....which we now know came from Russian hackers.
I have rather more sympathy with Twitter on this than Facebook - they're pretty aggressive in pulling hacked content from their site, mostly because they've gotten into trouble with people sharing hacked photos of celebrities in various states of undress. If they're doing what they would be doing with any hacked content, according to rules that are applied uniformly, then that's their business. (WRT to the Biden tax returns, the source of the leak is fairly widely known, and it wasn't a hacker.)
Facebook I am much more troubled by. Because they are much more opaque about what content is shown and why.
Twitter didn't pull the NHS documents, screenshots are still there now from blue check marks. My point is they aren't applying the rules consistently.
It wasn't even questioned if the NHS documents were real or had been altered nor people had an issue that they were from a hack. It was deemed in the public interest.
Initially twitter / facebook claimed it was all about stopping the spread of these links to "fake news" sites, which are deliberately made to appear to look like legit well known media outlets but in fact aren't (basically using the techniques of phishing emails).
Have you complained to Twitter about those NHS documnts being from a hack? If you have and they don't remove it, it's one thing. The other alternative is simply that no-one has complained.
Twitter’s actual policy.
“ We don’t condone attempts to compromise or infiltrate computer systems for malicious purposes. As such, we don’t permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets. You also may not threaten to hack or break into someone’s digital information or attempt to incentivize others to do so.”
One other thing about the London announcement. Which feckin' idiot thought "i know, let's introduce it at midnight on Friday???". It's almost as if they want to get TV coverage of people partying madly just before it comes in.
I know I am a bore on this, but why the hell aren't a team from Dept of Health and SAGE in Sweden now asking for all the detail on how they are managing this? Because we aren't.
Why Sweden? That's a nice bit of cherry-picking by isam, but overall Sweden has done quite badly to date, with a high number of deaths per million. We'd do better looking at Norway, or Greece, or Australia, or Germany, or Japan, or Taiwan, or any number of other places for that matter.
Sweden with (when I last looked) the twelfth worst fatality rate in the world isn't an obvious role model for the UK (sixth worst at the time), when you have a couple of hundred other countries to choose from.
I don't think many countries have done everything right, and certainly not Sweden. I think they made the right decision on keeping universities closed. Also their furlough scheme was/is more sustainable than ours (but not necessarily better than Germany etc). They made the same mistake as us on care homes. I also think they made a mistake not locking down when it became apparent the epidemic was going out of control. Ultimately, a lot of people died in Sweden who would still be alive with better virus management, as is the case here.
I am going to make a call out for Rwanda's approach to the epidemic. Genuinely impressive for a not at all wealthy country, as evidenced by a very low death rate.
Yes, what Rwanda has achieved on a broad range of fronts is worthy of admiration, tempered only by the lack of political freedom they have imposed to get much of it done.
I was out there at the time they had decreed that, as from the start of the new school year, all lessons would be in English rather than the previous French. Which caused some predictable challenges and generated a few funny stories, but was driven through with their government's characteristic determination.
Rwanda is the original political dilemma of the benign dictatorship, which may be the best governmental system of all, save for the problem of ensuring political succession to another benign dictator.
Revelation of the day: @IanB2 comes out against democracy.
One other thing about the London announcement. Which feckin' idiot thought "i know, let's introduce it at midnight on Friday???". It's almost as if they want to get TV coverage of people partying madly just before it comes in.
Yeah it's all an attempt by Sadiq to get himself in the news saying everything is awful. He's a gigantic c*** and he's killing this great city.
I'm not an expert on playing poker. But my understanding is that most hands are never shown; good poker players develop a sense of when to fold.
One side or the other in this seems to be misreading the situation, possibly very badly.
Philip might push all in with a shit hand if he's playing a night of small stakes (in relation to his wealth) poker with friends, for the laugh if he loses or the buzz if everyone else folds. But you don't manage a once in a generation negotiation on the world stage like that, and certainly not if the cost to you of failing is hugely greater than the cost to the other player(s).
We've not got 7-2 off though, we've got pocket Queens at least.
Nobody's got pocket Qs if the negotiation doesn't get resolved until the last minute. We've already reached the point of no return for many British businesses even if we end up with the best deal in the World.
Besides, at this point the cards we've got aren't in our pockets any more. They probably never were; the existence of French fishermen was hardly a state secret.
It's possible that the EU have completely misjudged the situation. Anything's possible. But "it's possible" is working awfully hard there, and the poker wisdom of Warren Buffett feels relevant at this point;
"If you can’t find the sucker at the table, you’re it."
On topic, assuming that broad trends will have similarities in Holyrood and Westminster, until a black swan turns up Labour's only hope with relation to Scotland is this:
The SNP has essentially taken over Labour's ground in Scotland - the centre left, caring social democracy stuff. There is only space for one party of the centre left, and SNP is the one for now. It may well be that there is a natural alignment between the centre right and the unionist cause anyway in Scotland - I suspect there is. So the Tories are the only candidate for the other party of the two who in the long run can operate in the system.
Labour should therefore pretend to operate in Scotland while knowing that the SNP currently will clean up.
Labour's tactic should be to lose to the SNP in Scotland, and make sure the Tories don't sweep the board instead (that bit is easy).
Then in Westminster to hope that with a fair wind a a Labour government with s and s from SNP can be formed. Obvs the price for this is IndyRef2.
Which they are free to campaign to win on the unionist side, (with Tory help of course) paving the way for the union to be intact long term and Labour/SNP as a regular centre left majority.
It's not great, but if there is a better plan for the pro UK union centre left I don't know what it might be.
The SNP end up where they secretly want to be; in a union, running Scotland, lots of jobs for the boys and girls in Edinburgh and Westminster, subsidised by England and able to wave perpetual grievance around.
Scottish Labour alternatively could try and win tactical Tory and LD votes in the central belt where the Tories and LDs have no chance and they are the only Unionist alternative to the SNP at Holyrood elections while they would have a better chance of winning over SNP voters at Westminster elections where they are the only national alternative to the Tories
The state Scottish Labour is in, they’d struggle to pick up tactical votes from the Monster Raving Loony Party.
I'm sure it was discussed earlier, but can anyone explain where Sadiq Khan is sourcing his claims that London hospitalisations are rising worryingly when all published info says nothing of the sort?
He's a massive, massive c***.
Your are Billy Butcher and I claim my five dollars.....
On the positivity graph, I'm not sure that's correct. For example, on the 12th there were 237,638 tests and 16,933 positive results. That's a rate of 7.1% but the graph shows 16%. I've lost access to the data so I can't see what's going on either.
Is this a tests/people tested difference for the denominator?
Good spot by MaxPB - there was a mistake in the code.
Revised chart
That looks much better, the positivity rate isn't anywhere near what they're seeing in Europe at the moment and even that feels like it has begun to level off.
I'm not sure that I would call quite such a small group of swallows a summer.
Comments
Keir loses another MP.
incidence."
If Starmer is calling to follow the science then regular short lockdowns are what the scientists are/were calling for.
Facebook I am much more troubled by. Because they are much more opaque about what content is shown and why.
Revised chart
It wasn't even questioned if the NHS documents were real or had been altered nor people had an issue that they were from a hack. It was deemed in the public interest.
Initially twitter / facebook claimed it was all about stopping the spread of these links to "fake news" sites, which are deliberately made to appear to look like legit well known media outlets but in fact aren't (basically using the techniques of phishing emails).
If they are all shy Trump's then it would be Biden 50% and Trump 47% and Biden's national lead would be just 1% more than Hillary's and then the state polling makes more sense
One side or the other in this seems to be misreading the situation, possibly very badly.
The Guardian using the phone-messaging-pin-set-to-default trick to read peoples messages.
Assange and Wikileaks were the toast of the left - when they were embarrassing George Bush. When they started embarrassing Obama they lost their luster. And may literally get the death penalty for embracing Hilary Clinton.
Snowdon stuff has put national security at risk, but that appears to be ok too....and he has ended up innnnnn Russia.
You were one of the posters who called GE2019 right so I am scared to death you could make it 2 of 2
And you’re simply never going to see that type of lead in white voters unless it’s non college educated white voters. So they’ve messed up the tables . They’ve also got Biden winning 40% of GOP voters ! The tables are garbage.
https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1316726651741499393?s=21
See: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-state-polls-can-tell-us-about-the-national-race/
https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1316772944828338178?s=19
https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1316774701365166080?s=09
It really is one rule for us plebs and another for the bosses, isn’t it?
Her offence was even worse than Cummings’. How the hell has she not been prosecuted?
I hope that any passenger on that train who has developed Covid sues her arse off.
The SNP has essentially taken over Labour's ground in Scotland - the centre left, caring social democracy stuff. There is only space for one party of the centre left, and SNP is the one for now. It may well be that there is a natural alignment between the centre right and the unionist cause anyway in Scotland - I suspect there is. So the Tories are the only candidate for the other party of the two who in the long run can operate in the system.
Labour should therefore pretend to operate in Scotland while knowing that the SNP currently will clean up.
Labour's tactic should be to lose to the SNP in Scotland, and make sure the Tories don't sweep the board instead (that bit is easy).
Then in Westminster to hope that with a fair wind a a Labour government with s and s from SNP can be formed. Obvs the price for this is IndyRef2.
Which they are free to campaign to win on the unionist side, (with Tory help of course) paving the way for the union to be intact long term and Labour/SNP as a regular centre left majority.
It's not great, but if there is a better plan for the pro UK union centre left I don't know what it might be.
The SNP end up where they secretly want to be; in a union, running Scotland, lots of jobs for the boys and girls in Edinburgh and Westminster, subsidised by England and able to wave perpetual grievance around.
I mean telling us what tax rates we're allowed or whether we can have state aid obviously isn't it.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1316801262277455872?s=19
https://le.ac.uk/coronavirus/data-statistics?dm_i=I8Y,72T63,1G5ZIW,SL9NV,1
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1316814917123665922
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states/
“ We don’t condone attempts to compromise or infiltrate computer systems for malicious purposes. As such, we don’t permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets. You also may not threaten to hack or break into someone’s digital information or attempt to incentivize others to do so.”
And if it’s still coming it’s hardly ‘soon.’
NEW THREAD
It's possible that the EU have completely misjudged the situation. Anything's possible. But "it's possible" is working awfully hard there, and the poker wisdom of Warren Buffett feels relevant at this point;
"If you can’t find the sucker at the table, you’re it."
The again, you may be Sandor Clegane
How about a bet?