All those saying "it's only £60m" aren't the chancellor.
He is a bright guy with some kind of political radar and, as chancellor, is privy to any number of economic forecasts of this spending plan vs that spending plan.
The amount of money given out in the last few months has been extraordinary (witness the latest borrowing figures) and at some point, someone has to say "enough".
So was the scheme too generous to start with (not so politically savvy, maybe); and was Manchester's £5m the place to draw the line? Perhaps.
But the straw has to come at some point and I'm sure national destabilisation was not portrayed as a tail event in many of his forecasts.
We borrowed £37bn in September. I'm honestly not sure what difference £5m extra would really make. It's such a nothing amount of money.
The problem is that assuming we get a vaccine soon, all the eyewatering sums on the furlough scheme and test and trace will disappear. If the Government starts providing free school meals in the school holidays that will then presumably be forever (as they won't be able to take it away at the end of the pandemic without getting horrible headlines)
One of the biggest mistakes the government (I think driven by behavioural experts) is to keep promising the sunny uplands are only a few months away, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I know Witty said at the beginning this could be for years, but then all the focus of announcements was just wait a few weeks we will get antibody testing, we will get the app, we will get a vaccine etc etc etc.
All the evidence - from the generosity of the original furlough scheme (compared both with other countries and what they feel sensible to offer now), through the cessation of widescale testing early in the first wave, the alacrity with which people were encouraged to go back to work and book their holidays - suggests that the mistake our government made was to believe this would indeed be a short lived pandemic.
Well we can trace the initial testing problem to Hancock believing PHE / Witty claims that they had identified 100% accurate antibody tests would be with us in a few weeks and that we didn't need to do 100,000s of PCR tests.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
All those saying "it's only £60m" aren't the chancellor.
He is a bright guy with some kind of political radar and, as chancellor, is privy to any number of economic forecasts of this spending plan vs that spending plan.
The amount of money given out in the last few months has been extraordinary (witness the latest borrowing figures) and at some point, someone has to say "enough".
So was the scheme too generous to start with (not so politically savvy, maybe); and was Manchester's £5m the place to draw the line? Perhaps.
But the straw has to come at some point and I'm sure national destabilisation was not portrayed as a tail event in many of his forecasts.
We borrowed £37bn in September. I'm honestly not sure what difference £5m extra would really make. It's such a nothing amount of money.
The problem is that assuming we get a vaccine soon, all the eyewatering sums on the furlough scheme and test and trace will disappear. If the Government starts providing free school meals in the school holidays that will then presumably be forever (as they won't be able to take it away at the end of the pandemic without getting horrible headlines)
One of the biggest mistakes the government (I think driven by behavioural experts) is to keep promising the sunny uplands are only a few months away, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I know Witty said at the beginning this could be for years, but then all the focus of announcements was just wait a few weeks we will get antibody testing, we will get the app, we will get a vaccine etc etc etc.
All the evidence - from the generosity of the original furlough scheme (compared both with other countries and what they feel sensible to offer now), through the cessation of widescale testing early in the first wave, the alacrity with which people were encouraged to go back to work and book their holidays - suggests that the mistake our government made was to believe this would indeed be a short lived pandemic.
If only there were some signal that Boris Johnson wasn't good at thinking nine months ahead.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Not sure I agree with that, but I do still have two concerns with masks: firstly, I think it probable that some people who know they have the virus think it`s ok to go out if wearing a mask and, secondly, the commonly seen masks are made of single-use plastics. An environmental disaster which will linger for hundreds of years. These masks should be banned worldwide.
The Swedish case figures are stunningly good. When even places that seemed to be doing well, such as Germany, are slowly seeing a second wave.
Have Sweden actually changed their general level of restrictions at all? Or at least did they ever open up from their originally imposed level (i'm aware that they've been tightening in some areas? Most of their deaths were because they screwed up Care Homes.
Maybe they've simply managed to successfully target the most dangerous vectors of spread, rather than clamping down on everything.
Of course it's not only Sweden who have taken this approach. Places like Japan have done likewise.
The trouble with the "lockdown" (lite) policies is that they notionally aim for zero Covid whilst leaving huge holes. If you are going to leave huge holes then it makes no sense to have very harsh restrictions, including of things which will only have a peripheral impact.
The health/economy trade off won't be the same in every pub. But we are effectively treating all pubs as the same. Similarly why close all "non-essential" shops under eg. Welsh lockdown rules. Non essential shops can function without being remotely dangerous spreading vectors, if they take reasonable precautions. Why shut them down then?
I tend to agree. But the real, behavioural, problem with lockdowns is that the mostly affect the behaviour (and livelihoods) of those who were willing to take sensible precautions anyway, whilst those willing to engage in more risky behaviours either ignore or find ways around the restrictions.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
It's the entire desperation to believe in something. "Following the science" isn't really about data, tables, graphs, and figures, despite that being what the public perceive it to be (mainly because the scientifically illiterate members of the media who are the loudest on the subject perceive it to be that).
It's about using a functioning bullshit detector so that you can't fool yourself with either wishful thinking or adhering to a favourite hypothesis (or being fooled by feeling 'ownership' of a concept and wanting to 'defend' it - or by perceiving that holding to a single position shows 'strength'*)
*Because science involves genuinely attempting to disprove hypotheses and refusing to be too attached, when someone says that 'they've always believed/known this', I tend to think, "Okay - but you COULD still be right, I guess"
When people post that they've 'researched' something online, I do wonder:
1 - Did you carry out a detailed literature search, uncover the breadth of studies indicating various possible answers, compare them for confounding factors, assess each one for what could or could not have been missed or incorrectly added and derive an outcome? or 2 - Did you look around online until you found a number or graph that said what you wanted it to say, refuse to question it in any way, and present it as gospel truth?
(Three guesses as to which of them has near-100% outcomes. And the first two don't count)
Neil is one of the Narnia believers who want for it to have been possible that if we'd ignored it, it would have all gone away - and thus Sweden MUST have had virtually no restrictions and had life go on as normal and MUST have been all but unaffected by the virus, PROVING that if we'd done the same, we'd have all been fine.
When written down like that, it's obviously all mince, and Toby Youngite True Believers will insist that's not what they mean at all, but every time they bring it up, it's with exactly that subtext.
Fabulous, Andy. I know not all of those who bridle at restrictions are covid denialists but lots of them are and it wastes so much of everybody's time and digital real estate having to wade though it. Please do a header so that at least as regards PB it can all be thrashed out and sorted in one thread. Harrowing, I know, but the pay off for success will be well worth it.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Except for the first thirteen years of his life he lived in Labour squalor.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Remind me again of what happened to child poverty under Blair and Brown? And then what happened to it under Dave/May/Shagger...
“The independent statistics confirm that, under this Prime Minister, child poverty is down, pensioner poverty is down, inequality is down, and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.”....
....The verdict
Despite the rhetoric from the opposition benches, the official statistics do not support the view that income inequality has worsened since David Cameron became Prime Minister.
Indeed, the Gini index – perhaps, rightly or wrongly, the most commonly used measure of income inequality – is now at its lowest since the mid-1980s.
The Swedish case figures are stunningly good. When even places that seemed to be doing well, such as Germany, are slowly seeing a second wave.
Have Sweden actually changed their general level of restrictions at all? Or at least did they ever open up from their originally imposed level (i'm aware that they've been tightening in some areas? Most of their deaths were because they screwed up Care Homes.
Maybe they've simply managed to successfully target the most dangerous vectors of spread, rather than clamping down on everything.
Of course it's not only Sweden who have taken this approach. Places like Japan have done likewise.
The trouble with the "lockdown" (lite) policies is that they notionally aim for zero Covid whilst leaving huge holes. If you are going to leave huge holes then it makes no sense to have very harsh restrictions, including of things which will only have a peripheral impact.
The health/economy trade off won't be the same in every pub. But we are effectively treating all pubs as the same. Similarly why close all "non-essential" shops under eg. Welsh lockdown rules. Non essential shops can function without being remotely dangerous spreading vectors, if they take reasonable precautions. Why shut them down then?
I tend to agree. But the real, behavioural, problem with lockdowns is that the mostly affect the behaviour (and livelihoods) of those who were willing to take sensible precautions anyway, whilst those willing to engage in more risky behaviours either ignore or find ways around the restrictions.
Well that's been an issue throught. Govt and Scientists telling us that if we all follow whatever rules are in place at the time then things will probably be OK. Then when a sizeable minority refuse to follow the rules, the response is that the rules need to be tightened NOT that better ways need to be found to get the minority to comply. Because they don't comply with the tighter rules either and not much gets any bettter.
Until i suppose you reach complete lockdown, where the refuseniks just become too obvious and too easy to target for enforcement.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Except for the first thirteen years of his life he lived in Labour squalor.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Rashford would be a great asset for the Conservatives in 2032. Sunak's lustre in the Red Wall seats might have worn thin after two full terms, and Rashford could at least deliver Greater Manchester to him.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Except for the first thirteen years of his life he lived in Labour squalor.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Rashford would be a great asset for the Conservatives in 2032. Sunak's lustre in the Red Wall seats might have worn thin after two full terms, and Rashford could at least deliver Greater Manchester to him.
P.S. I have made the assumption that the FTPA is no more.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Lol what a load of drivel.
People just get fed up with millionaires who want to tax the poor sods on the till at Asda more to pay for stuff they want, all while they happily use all manner of schemes to minimise the tax they pay.
A lockdown or circuit breaker isn’t going to achieve anything in the long term unless there is a better system in place once the lockdown or circuit breaker is over
True.
What is Drakeford doing & Starmer proposing to do over the period of the actual and proposed lockdowns?
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
All those saying "it's only £60m" aren't the chancellor.
He is a bright guy with some kind of political radar and, as chancellor, is privy to any number of economic forecasts of this spending plan vs that spending plan.
The amount of money given out in the last few months has been extraordinary (witness the latest borrowing figures) and at some point, someone has to say "enough".
So was the scheme too generous to start with (not so politically savvy, maybe); and was Manchester's £5m the place to draw the line? Perhaps.
But the straw has to come at some point and I'm sure national destabilisation was not portrayed as a tail event in many of his forecasts.
We borrowed £37bn in September. I'm honestly not sure what difference £5m extra would really make. It's such a nothing amount of money.
The problem is that assuming we get a vaccine soon, all the eyewatering sums on the furlough scheme and test and trace will disappear. If the Government starts providing free school meals in the school holidays that will then presumably be forever (as they won't be able to take it away at the end of the pandemic without getting horrible headlines)
One of the biggest mistakes the government (I think driven by behavioural experts) is to keep promising the sunny uplands are only a few months away, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I know Witty said at the beginning this could be for years, but then all the focus of announcements was just wait a few weeks we will get antibody testing, we will get the app, we will get a vaccine etc etc etc.
All the evidence - from the generosity of the original furlough scheme (compared both with other countries and what they feel sensible to offer now), through the cessation of widescale testing early in the first wave, the alacrity with which people were encouraged to go back to work and book their holidays - suggests that the mistake our government made was to believe this would indeed be a short lived pandemic.
If only there were some signal that Boris Johnson wasn't good at thinking nine months ahead.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Lol what a load of drivel.
People just get fed up with millionaires who want to tax the poor sods on the till at Asda more to pay for stuff they want, all while they happily use all manner of schemes to minimise the tax they pay.
I'll be happy to be proved wrong when the Tories graciously announce that of course they will feed hungry kids through the holidays.
You and I both know they won't. And why they won't.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
I have no idea why we are not giving the Oxford Vaccine to care home residents now. Its highly unlikely that it will be dangerous to them and it is highly likely to protect them from Covid. If they get Covid there is a high chance they will die.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Except for the first thirteen years of his life he lived in Labour squalor.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Remind me again of what happened to child poverty under Blair and Brown? And then what happened to it under Dave/May/Shagger...
“The independent statistics confirm that, under this Prime Minister, child poverty is down, pensioner poverty is down, inequality is down, and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.”....
....The verdict
Despite the rhetoric from the opposition benches, the official statistics do not support the view that income inequality has worsened since David Cameron became Prime Minister.
Indeed, the Gini index – perhaps, rightly or wrongly, the most commonly used measure of income inequality – is now at its lowest since the mid-1980s.
Aren´t you forgetting the input of the Lib Dems who were in the government for five years? It was their measures that had most impact of reducing inequality - and then the heartless Tories put everything into reverse again.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
I agree on the objective facts that the rational decision will be to take the vaccine, but do think @YBarddCwsc is right that a few scare stories could have an effect on take up. Some percentage of those taking the vaccine will suffer serious adverse events in the days, weeks and months that follow - take millions of people and some percentage will have adverse events whatever they do, the vast majority/all will not be linked to the vaccine. But sections of the press will lap up stories of parents/relatives blaming event X on the vaccine, even if there is no basis for such a claim.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Except for the first thirteen years of his life he lived in Labour squalor.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Remind me again of what happened to child poverty under Blair and Brown? And then what happened to it under Dave/May/Shagger...
“The independent statistics confirm that, under this Prime Minister, child poverty is down, pensioner poverty is down, inequality is down, and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.”....
....The verdict
Despite the rhetoric from the opposition benches, the official statistics do not support the view that income inequality has worsened since David Cameron became Prime Minister.
Indeed, the Gini index – perhaps, rightly or wrongly, the most commonly used measure of income inequality – is now at its lowest since the mid-1980s.
Aren´t you forgetting the input of the Lib Dems who were in the government for five years? It was their measures that had most impact of reducing inequality - and then the heartless Tories put everything into reverse again.
Fake news, it was entirely down to my boys Dave and George.
All those saying "it's only £60m" aren't the chancellor.
He is a bright guy with some kind of political radar and, as chancellor, is privy to any number of economic forecasts of this spending plan vs that spending plan.
The amount of money given out in the last few months has been extraordinary (witness the latest borrowing figures) and at some point, someone has to say "enough".
So was the scheme too generous to start with (not so politically savvy, maybe); and was Manchester's £5m the place to draw the line? Perhaps.
But the straw has to come at some point and I'm sure national destabilisation was not portrayed as a tail event in many of his forecasts.
We borrowed £37bn in September. I'm honestly not sure what difference £5m extra would really make. It's such a nothing amount of money.
The problem is that assuming we get a vaccine soon, all the eyewatering sums on the furlough scheme and test and trace will disappear. If the Government starts providing free school meals in the school holidays that will then presumably be forever (as they won't be able to take it away at the end of the pandemic without getting horrible headlines)
One of the biggest mistakes the government (I think driven by behavioural experts) is to keep promising the sunny uplands are only a few months away, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I know Witty said at the beginning this could be for years, but then all the focus of announcements was just wait a few weeks we will get antibody testing, we will get the app, we will get a vaccine etc etc etc.
All the evidence - from the generosity of the original furlough scheme (compared both with other countries and what they feel sensible to offer now), through the cessation of widescale testing early in the first wave, the alacrity with which people were encouraged to go back to work and book their holidays - suggests that the mistake our government made was to believe this would indeed be a short lived pandemic.
Well we can trace the initial testing problem to Hancock believing PHE / Witty claims that they had identified 100% accurate antibody tests would be with us in a few weeks and that we didn't need to do 100,000s of PCR tests.
Antibody tests really were the dog that didn't bark, they were supposed to be a gamechanger and now they're available . . . but nobody wants them or takes them because they're just not very meaningful.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
We don't know they're safe in the short to medium term, that is part of the trial and the trial is incomplete.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
If you look at China I think it is pretty certain they have vaccinated a lot of their population already
PB Tories don't seem to be talking about PMQs so I will assume Johnson lost
Didn't see it. Johnson is a tosser but unless SKS starts recording some tangible wins then I'm not sure what he's in the seat for. We are all fixated on 2024 but Johnson can call a GE whenever he damn well pleases and he will choose a time of maximum benefit for the Cons.
It would be a shame (for Lab) if SKS was only 2yrs into his 4yr election strategy when an election was called.
I am not sure, I don't particularly want a Labour government (tho a moderate competent one would have to be preferable to this bunch of lightweights), but I think Starmer simply has to exude an air of competence in the same way as Major did (before the ERM fiasco!). Johnson hangs himself almost every day. Most of the public don't notice as they are not that interested, but the narrative of incompetence and crassness will gradually filter through to the electorate. I think even at 2 years in most if not all the red wall seats will be gagging to kick out their new MPs. The Tories need a period of opposition to weed out the mad scum that has taken over the asylum. Speaking of which, has anyone heard anything of Mark Francois recently?
1) The delivery of an effective track and trace system has been stunningly inept. Estonia had this in place in August for a tiny fraction of the UK cost, and such technology is totally scaleable, so there is no excuse for the £12 billion fiasco. 2) The rules are too confusing, mostly too draconian (except masks which are all over the shop) 3) Specific confidence in the government is falling sharply- Barnard Castle was little short of the ERM crisis for undermining trust in the government. 4) A growing sense of F¤¤¤ you across the board.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Except for the first thirteen years of his life he lived in Labour squalor.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Remind me again of what happened to child poverty under Blair and Brown? And then what happened to it under Dave/May/Shagger...
“The independent statistics confirm that, under this Prime Minister, child poverty is down, pensioner poverty is down, inequality is down, and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.”....
....The verdict
Despite the rhetoric from the opposition benches, the official statistics do not support the view that income inequality has worsened since David Cameron became Prime Minister.
Indeed, the Gini index – perhaps, rightly or wrongly, the most commonly used measure of income inequality – is now at its lowest since the mid-1980s.
Aren´t you forgetting the input of the Lib Dems who were in the government for five years? It was their measures that had most impact of reducing inequality - and then the heartless Tories put everything into reverse again.
The LibDems achieved a great deal by forcing upon the Tories measures that reduced income inequality, but this was undermined by the inexorable effects of QE which have so dramatically increased the inequality of wealth.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
If you look at China I think it is pretty certain they have vaccinated a lot of their population already
If that were the case, why do they reimpose strict lockdowns whenever there is any sign of an outbreak?
A lockdown or circuit breaker isn’t going to achieve anything in the long term unless there is a better system in place once the lockdown or circuit breaker is over
True.
What is Drakeford doing & Starmer proposing to do over the period of the actual and proposed lockdowns?
If that is right, doesn't it just go to demonstrate Nippy's awesome strategy.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
We don't know they're safe in the short to medium term, that is part of the trial and the trial is incomplete.
By short to medium I mean the duration since they have been administered - and this we know.
PB Tories don't seem to be talking about PMQs so I will assume Johnson lost
Didn't see it. Johnson is a tosser but unless SKS starts recording some tangible wins then I'm not sure what he's in the seat for. We are all fixated on 2024 but Johnson can call a GE whenever he damn well pleases and he will choose a time of maximum benefit for the Cons.
It would be a shame (for Lab) if SKS was only 2yrs into his 4yr election strategy when an election was called.
I am not sure, I don't particularly want a Labour government (tho a moderate competent one would have to be preferable to this bunch of lightweights), but I think Starmer simply has to exude an air of competence in the same way as Major did (before the ERM fiasco!). Johnson hangs himself almost every day. Most of the public don't notice as they are not that interested, but the narrative of incompetence and crassness will gradually filter through to the electorate. I think even at 2 years in most if not all the red wall seats will be gagging to kick out their new MPs. The Tories need a period of opposition to weed out the mad scum that has taken over the asylum. Speaking of which, has anyone heard anything of Mark Francois recently?
Yes he (SKS) is fixated atm of being a statesman good of the nation at heart politician and I can understand that. I also understand that the opposition doesn't have to spell out its policies until just before a GE but I think to motivate whatever constitutes "the base" of Lab supporters he will have to be more combative and exude a "let me at it" which, for all Corbyn's faults (many, many) he certainly had in spades.
A lockdown or circuit breaker isn’t going to achieve anything in the long term unless there is a better system in place once the lockdown or circuit breaker is over
True.
What is Drakeford doing & Starmer proposing to do over the period of the actual and proposed lockdowns?
Drakeford will continue living in his miniature hut at the bottom of his garden with a large stash of Caerffili cheese.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
1) The delivery of an effective track and trace system has been stunningly inept. Estonia had this in place in August for a tiny fraction of the UK cost, and such technology is totally scaleable, so there is no excuse for the £12 billion fiasco. 2) The rules are too confusing, mostly too draconian (except masks which are all over the shop) 3) Specific confidence in the government is falling sharply- Barnard Castle was little short of the ERM crisis for undermining trust in the government. 4) A growing sense of F¤¤¤ you across the board.
Again, comparing apples and oranges. In Estonia, they have for years had the infrastructure where personal data is shared across the whole state system. You basically enter your details once and every government department, your doctor etc can see it. Its great doing business there because you can get everything done online and you don't have to keep repeating yourself.
So "track and trace", was simply bolted onto these systems and doesn't require anywhere near the leg work, as the state already has access to all the personal info they need.
However, are people in the UK going to accept that, when they wouldn't accept an ID card with a much more limited database. Its like saying why didn't we copy South Korea, firstly they have a very different idea about what the state should be allowed to do and secondly they spend 5 years building their tech infrastructure to do this (after SARS outbreak).
Should the UK be more like Estonia, IMO yes, but not sure the British public will be so happy.
PB Tories don't seem to be talking about PMQs so I will assume Johnson lost
Didn't see it. Johnson is a tosser but unless SKS starts recording some tangible wins then I'm not sure what he's in the seat for. We are all fixated on 2024 but Johnson can call a GE whenever he damn well pleases and he will choose a time of maximum benefit for the Cons.
It would be a shame (for Lab) if SKS was only 2yrs into his 4yr election strategy when an election was called.
I am not sure, I don't particularly want a Labour government (tho a moderate competent one would have to be preferable to this bunch of lightweights), but I think Starmer simply has to exude an air of competence in the same way as Major did (before the ERM fiasco!). Johnson hangs himself almost every day. Most of the public don't notice as they are not that interested, but the narrative of incompetence and crassness will gradually filter through to the electorate. I think even at 2 years in most if not all the red wall seats will be gagging to kick out their new MPs. The Tories need a period of opposition to weed out the mad scum that has taken over the asylum. Speaking of which, has anyone heard anything of Mark Francois recently?
Talking of the loons in the Tory asylum, it seems they still aren't taking their medicaments:
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
And his career is quite short, and could be even shorter if Jordan Pickford launches another potential career assault again him.
Plus in your head Marcus Rashford pays no tax I'm guessing.
He will have his money funnelled through a company so he only pays Capital Gains Tax.
Over his career of 15 years he will earn over £100 million. Do you think he will have to have a testimonial so that he can buy a pub?
They should report his earnings in units of childrens' meals from now on.
Rashford who earns approximately 200,000 childrens' meals a month, demands the government does more to help those worse off than himself.
What is wrong with you guys; I thought you approved of free market capitalism?
It is a mystery why so many Brexiteers get so upset like Marcus Rashford.
People earning that kind of money are supposed to either be city financier types (Tory) or stupid footballers (Labour). When you get an intelligent footballer its a threat. Especially Rashford who (a) grew up in Tory squalor and (b) is determined to use his role as a public figure and role model to speak out for the kids still living in Tory squalor.
The key words are Tory squalor. Because to the right, they can't have this truth held up for examination. Because they *like* squalor. Because they couldn't give a rat fuck about kids growing up dirt poor like Rashford did. After all, kids have been going hungry for years, so why should they have to do anything about it now?
Except for the first thirteen years of his life he lived in Labour squalor.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Remind me again of what happened to child poverty under Blair and Brown? And then what happened to it under Dave/May/Shagger...
“The independent statistics confirm that, under this Prime Minister, child poverty is down, pensioner poverty is down, inequality is down, and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.”....
....The verdict
Despite the rhetoric from the opposition benches, the official statistics do not support the view that income inequality has worsened since David Cameron became Prime Minister.
Indeed, the Gini index – perhaps, rightly or wrongly, the most commonly used measure of income inequality – is now at its lowest since the mid-1980s.
Partial at best. Using internationally comparable estimates from the World Bank, the Gini coefficient for the UK increased from 28.4 in 1979 to 36.3 in 1995 and 37.0 in 1999 (data for 1997 not available). By 2010 it had declined to 34.4 but by 2016 (last year data are available) had risen to 34.8 (having fallen to to 33.2 in 2012, so on a clearly rising trajectory). For a sense of where we sit globally, the US in 2016 was 41.1, France and Germany both 31.9 and Finland 27.1.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
If you look at China I think it is pretty certain they have vaccinated a lot of their population already
If that were the case, why do they reimpose strict lockdowns whenever there is any sign of an outbreak?
I just looked at the pictures from their Golden Week recently. Absolutely no social distancing at all, thousands of people in small areas.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now...
Well from the study reported this morning, we know that around 2% of those infected have serious problems at least three months later. If there were anything like that incidence of vaccine related events (and many tens of thousands of volunteers have been vaccinated some months since), at least one of the vaccine trials would have been halted permanently.
Clearly it's going to be a long while before we have accurate long term data on either thing, but I don't think it unreasonable to postulate the balance of risk is greatly in one direction.
I don't think the BBC reported King's study (which is based on data for those who signed up for the Zoe app) has been fully published yet, but at least one other has.
Having made a few thousand as the markets fell as a Trump victory dawned four years back, I am naturally looking at whether there might be a similar opportunity this year.
The problem is that the question this time is certainty. In the apparently likely circumstance of a convincing Biden win, or the less likely of a Trump re-election, US markets will be resilient (difficult to expect much of a further rise from currently high US valuations). In the Biden case in anticipation of Democrat spending/investment and in the Trump case because he’s been good news for the Dow heretofore.
In an uncertain scenario - a close election, a contested election, an election that goes to the courts or where Trump and his militia decide to reject - markets will plunge.
My current expectation is that Biden will do well and therefore there probably isn’t a betting opportunity on the night.
The optimum scenario is one in which there is some surprising early sign that the election could be close - or early reaction from Trump that points to trouble ahead - sending markets down before a convincing Biden win recovers all the losses. That’s what I’ll be looking for on the night.
So abolish the barbaric relic of jury trials - I don't mind whether you modernise to trial by judge only, or go back (slightly) in time to trial by immersion. An historic and wholly beneficial reform which would leave Johnson with just the one positive item in the legacy.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
Hats off. Confessing a change of mind on here is as rare as a purple banana.
To reciprocate - I'm not quite as sold on "circuit breaker" as I was at first.
YouGov with its glorious cross breaks confirms that "already voteds" break 70/28 for Biden although, again, we don't have a clear idea of if that is cannabalising the on day vote.
So abolish the barbaric relic of jury trials - I don't mind whether you modernise to trial by judge only, or go back (slightly) in time to trial by immersion. An historic and wholly beneficial reform which would leave Johnson with just the one positive item in the legacy.
I don't think availability of juries is the cause for these delays. It's more the lack of public money sloshing around in the justice system.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
If you look at China I think it is pretty certain they have vaccinated a lot of their population already
If that were the case, why do they reimpose strict lockdowns whenever there is any sign of an outbreak?
I just looked at the pictures from their Golden Week recently. Absolutely no social distancing at all, thousands of people in small areas.
So abolish the barbaric relic of jury trials - I don't mind whether you modernise to trial by judge only, or go back (slightly) in time to trial by immersion. An historic and wholly beneficial reform which would leave Johnson with just the one positive item in the legacy.
I don't think availability of juries is the cause for these delays. It's more the lack of public money sloshing around in the justice system.
Well, it can't help. You can have a judge-only, single defendant trial and stay within the rule of 6.
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
I agree on the objective facts that the rational decision will be to take the vaccine, but do think @YBarddCwsc is right that a few scare stories could have an effect on take up. Some percentage of those taking the vaccine will suffer serious adverse events in the days, weeks and months that follow - take millions of people and some percentage will have adverse events whatever they do, the vast majority/all will not be linked to the vaccine. But sections of the press will lap up stories of parents/relatives blaming event X on the vaccine, even if there is no basis for such a claim.
Agreed. My point was that, in comparison with say MMR, the individual odds for refusing the vaccine look far worse, even if you think you're only going to get a mild case of Covid, given what seems to be the quite serious 'long Covid' effects for quite a large number of those who do.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
So abolish the barbaric relic of jury trials - I don't mind whether you modernise to trial by judge only, or go back (slightly) in time to trial by immersion. An historic and wholly beneficial reform which would leave Johnson with just the one positive item in the legacy.
Given just how many YerHonners are absolute melts, trial by judge only might be a mistake.
So abolish the barbaric relic of jury trials - I don't mind whether you modernise to trial by judge only, or go back (slightly) in time to trial by immersion. An historic and wholly beneficial reform which would leave Johnson with just the one positive item in the legacy.
I don't think availability of juries is the cause for these delays. It's more the lack of public money sloshing around in the justice system.
Well, it can't help. You can have a judge-only, single defendant trial and stay within the rule of 6.
I don't know anything about this personally, but legal Twitter seems to think that the main issue is the lack of facilities - i.e. court rooms and that this isn't caused purely by COVID-19 - delays have been endemic for years.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
Thousands = 10^3
The vaccine will be administered to millions 10^6, maybe billions 10^9.
Suppose the risk is 10^(-4). Now do the maths. You would need a sample of millions before the risk becomes evident. Also, the risk is almost certainly correlated with properties that correlate with a bad outcome from COVID.
I am (to state the obvious) not an anti-vaxxer (although one of my favourite scientists was).
But, there are going to be difficulties persuading people to take the vaccine. Especially if the persuasion is left up to Mr Boris Johnson.
A blonde mop appears on the TV screen.
A harrumph, "Good, you've got the jolly old vaccine". He grimaces a little as he is injected. "Just like a good glass of Bolly", he boostered.
"World beating, Olympics, Winston Churchill", he spluttered.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
Absolutely, compare kids from the 1970s to now. As i said earlier food now is cheaper than ever.
Empty calories are cheaper but healthy nutritious food is beyond the reach of many. Put that together with parents working long hours and a lack of knowledge about cooking (which is endemic right across British society) and you have fat but undernourished kids. It's tragic.
PB Tories don't seem to be talking about PMQs so I will assume Johnson lost
Didn't see it. Johnson is a tosser but unless SKS starts recording some tangible wins then I'm not sure what he's in the seat for. We are all fixated on 2024 but Johnson can call a GE whenever he damn well pleases and he will choose a time of maximum benefit for the Cons.
It would be a shame (for Lab) if SKS was only 2yrs into his 4yr election strategy when an election was called.
I am not sure, I don't particularly want a Labour government (tho a moderate competent one would have to be preferable to this bunch of lightweights), but I think Starmer simply has to exude an air of competence in the same way as Major did (before the ERM fiasco!). Johnson hangs himself almost every day. Most of the public don't notice as they are not that interested, but the narrative of incompetence and crassness will gradually filter through to the electorate. I think even at 2 years in most if not all the red wall seats will be gagging to kick out their new MPs. The Tories need a period of opposition to weed out the mad scum that has taken over the asylum. Speaking of which, has anyone heard anything of Mark Francois recently?
Talking of the loons in the Tory asylum, it seems they still aren't taking their medicaments:
The article perhaps underestimates the real trouble that a vaccine could bring.
"A vaccine doesn't have to be 100 per cent effective, but it doesn't need to be to bring the disease under control."
If the vaccine is even slightly dangerous -- in the sense that there are some unforeseen side effects for some people, or it does not protect everyone or some unfortunate people go on to develop COVID -- then the take-up is going to be modest.
I think it is likely that the vaccine will have some serious long-term side-effects for some people, and it will fail to protect some people -- especially if it is rolled out to many millions.
It will just take a few stories of people who were "killed by the vaccine" in the Daily Mail, and Piers Morgan ranting furiously about incompetent scientists & pharma companies, for there to be panic & thence poor take-up.
Bluntly, many people will perceive that it is not in their interests to take such a vaccine -- although it is the wider interest of the nation. It is the classic prisoner's dilemma.
They may well prefer to trust their own cautiousness rather than a vaccine.
It didn't, after all, take much to cause panic about MMR, which is a much better tested vaccine.
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
Given that the disease has existed for under a year, and the vaccine does not even yet exist, I am surprised there are any data to say "It's pretty certain already that none of the vaccines in trials have anything like the serious long term effects of Covid." You may be right, but there are no data.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
Sorry - the vaccines (candidates) DO exist and many thousands of people have had them administered, with little evidence of harm (trials get stopped if bad things happen). So we do know that the candidates are safe in the short to medium term. We don't yet know how efficacious they are.
If you look at China I think it is pretty certain they have vaccinated a lot of their population already
If that were the case, why do they reimpose strict lockdowns whenever there is any sign of an outbreak?
I just looked at the pictures from their Golden Week recently. Absolutely no social distancing at all, thousands of people in small areas.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
Absolutely, compare kids from the 1970s to now. As i said earlier food now is cheaper than ever.
Empty calories are cheaper but healthy nutritious food is beyond the reach of many. Put that together with parents working long hours and a lack of knowledge about cooking (which is endemic right across British society) and you have fat but undernourished kids. It's tragic.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
Absolutely, compare kids from the 1970s to now. As i said earlier food now is cheaper than ever.
Empty calories are cheaper but healthy nutritious food is beyond the reach of many. Put that together with parents working long hours and a lack of knowledge about cooking (which is endemic right across British society) and you have fat but undernourished kids. It's tragic.
"Empty calories are cheaper but healthy nutritious food is beyond the reach of many."
That really isn't true. Porridge for instance is dirt cheap, far cheaper than any box cereal, even Aldi / Lidl own. Vegetables are also incredibly cheap. Also you can meal prep a whole week of food in a hour or two, and it can be whacked in the microwave to reheat it.
I think it is more an issue of knowledge / education / planning.
It has become the it thing for the middle class to do the whole meal prep thing, including the young gym bunnies, rather when I was growing up in parents didn't have much money and it was what they did to make ends meet. My mum was from a very poor background, but was taught how to do all this via her mum and school. Still does it today out of habit.
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
Judging by the kids I see walking around town, giving them more food is the last thing the government should be doing.
That made me chuckle
The hungry kids aren't chucking. Their parents aren't chuckling. Their teachers aren't chuckling. But yeah, some obese kids means that the hungry kids don't exist.
Children in poverty weigh more than average and are far more like to be obese:
Sky said Darren Lumsden's face inking of the number 88 was in memory of the year his late father Trevor lost his life - and nothing to do with a code, fashioned around the numerical order of letters in the alphabet, meaning Heil Hitler.
But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.
If there was ever an example of why there needs to be grown ups put back in charge of the Conservative Party instead of these far right Brexit-Party-Lite nutters then this is yet another example.
I like the comment on the last thread that Marcus Rashford is "pretty well off"
He earns a million quid a month.
The rhetorical device of understatement is a new one on you, then ?
Wait until NerysHughes finds out that Rashford advocates mask wearing.
Any logiical person would see that I have been proved right on mask wearing, it has not helped at all.
In regards to Marcus Rashford I have no idea why he was given an MBE . If he managed to persuade his fellow premiership footballers to give up 1% of their salaries to feed children then he would deserve it.
You still pursuing with the mask thing I see. I`ve gone the other way, I used to think that it protected other people rather than the wearer, but I now think it does both. I don`t mind wearing a mask, seems the smallest evil in the scheme of things, and if it gets people to be slightly less fearful then goodo.
I base my views on evidence. Compare mask free Sweden to mask wearing Spain.
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
Link, no proof
Spain has had enforced mask wearing in public for months, look at last weekends figures
Nothing to do with masks all to do with mixing at home and schools, large % of cases in 9-19 age bracket but serious hotspots in Catalonia and Nevarra cases coming down in Madrid there are no weekend figures just three days on Monday. I reLly don’t understand your problem, I’ll continue to wear my mask to respect others and potentially reduce viral load, apart from the fact I have to or be thrown out the shop, hospital etc and get fined.
Comments
Your last sentence sums up the problems with masks, people are less fearful when they wear them, they do not socially distance like they did before masks became mandatory. That was always my concern and it has been proved right.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54622059
The short term balance of risk, as well as the long terms one, is greatly in favour of a vaccine - even from the entirely selfish viewpoint of an individual.
He made his money under Dave's brilliant Premiership onwards.
Ranging from the airports.
https://www.thelocal.se/20200706/swedish-airports-ask-passengers-to-wear-face-masks
I cannot believe the program producers fell for that!
....The verdict
Despite the rhetoric from the opposition benches, the official statistics do not support the view that income inequality has worsened since David Cameron became Prime Minister.
Indeed, the Gini index – perhaps, rightly or wrongly, the most commonly used measure of income inequality – is now at its lowest since the mid-1980s.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-surprising-truth-inequality
Until i suppose you reach complete lockdown, where the refuseniks just become too obvious and too easy to target for enforcement.
Long term effects require studies over the ... err ... long term.
If you're middle-aged, reasonably healthy with no co-morbidites, you might like to know what the long-term risk to your health is from Long Covid because it might affect your behaviour now.
If the risk is very low, you might be more inclined to go to out to a restaurant, etc. But, there are no data on what the risks -- long-term -- to your health are, and so everyone is naturally cautious.
I think the Long Covid risks are unknowable given the position we are at now.
I think the same about a vaccine. "All vaccines kill some people", said Robert May.
The Covid vaccine will kill some people, and there will be Daily Mail panic.
People just get fed up with millionaires who want to tax the poor sods on the till at Asda more to pay for stuff they want, all while they happily use all manner of schemes to minimise the tax they pay.
Biden 53% (-)
Trump 43% (-)
Changes with 5th October. I.e. no change.
True.
What is Drakeford doing & Starmer proposing to do over the period of the actual and proposed lockdowns?
You and I both know they won't. And why they won't.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden_vs_jorgensen_vs_hawkins-7225.html
Battleground states Biden 49.2% Trump 45.2%
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states/
https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1318883560833638400
1) The delivery of an effective track and trace system has been stunningly inept. Estonia had this in place in August for a tiny fraction of the UK cost, and such technology is totally scaleable, so there is no excuse for the £12 billion fiasco.
2) The rules are too confusing, mostly too draconian (except masks which are all over the shop)
3) Specific confidence in the government is falling sharply- Barnard Castle was little short of the ERM crisis for undermining trust in the government.
4) A growing sense of F¤¤¤ you across the board.
https://twitter.com/kirkkorner/status/1318905791412391936
https://tinyurl.com/yy7b7nrs
Nothing sums up Drakeford more than the quote that I "quite rightly want to go on being careful and cautious."
Drakeford is a control freak. I have sometimes wondered -- impudently & imprudently -- about Drakeford's home life.
And his son, serving an eight and a half year prison sentence for rape & paedophile grooming.
Of those 63% more than half (well 51%) have already voted.
There is an implicit turnout calculation you can do from that.
So "track and trace", was simply bolted onto these systems and doesn't require anywhere near the leg work, as the state already has access to all the personal info they need.
However, are people in the UK going to accept that, when they wouldn't accept an ID card with a much more limited database. Its like saying why didn't we copy South Korea, firstly they have a very different idea about what the state should be allowed to do and secondly they spend 5 years building their tech infrastructure to do this (after SARS outbreak).
Should the UK be more like Estonia, IMO yes, but not sure the British public will be so happy.
https://twitter.com/ABridgen/status/1318878705217929223
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/world/asia/china-tourism-covid.html
If there were anything like that incidence of vaccine related events (and many tens of thousands of volunteers have been vaccinated some months since), at least one of the vaccine trials would have been halted permanently.
Clearly it's going to be a long while before we have accurate long term data on either thing, but I don't think it unreasonable to postulate the balance of risk is greatly in one direction.
I don't think the BBC reported King's study (which is based on data for those who signed up for the Zoe app) has been fully published yet, but at least one other has.
Multi-organ impairment in low-risk individuals with long COVID
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.14.20212555v1
The problem is that the question this time is certainty. In the apparently likely circumstance of a convincing Biden win, or the less likely of a Trump re-election, US markets will be resilient (difficult to expect much of a further rise from currently high US valuations). In the Biden case in anticipation of Democrat spending/investment and in the Trump case because he’s been good news for the Dow heretofore.
In an uncertain scenario - a close election, a contested election, an election that goes to the courts or where Trump and his militia decide to reject - markets will plunge.
My current expectation is that Biden will do well and therefore there probably isn’t a betting opportunity on the night.
The optimum scenario is one in which there is some surprising early sign that the election could be close - or early reaction from Trump that points to trouble ahead - sending markets down before a convincing Biden win recovers all the losses. That’s what I’ll be looking for on the night.
To reciprocate - I'm not quite as sold on "circuit breaker" as I was at first.
My point was that, in comparison with say MMR, the individual odds for refusing the vaccine look far worse, even if you think you're only going to get a mild case of Covid, given what seems to be the quite serious 'long Covid' effects for quite a large number of those who do.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/23/outdated-views-rape-judges-training-appeal
https://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/lessons-to-be-learned-after-judge-criticised-for-obsolescent-views
Obviously from Australia, but you can imagine some judges in this country being this arseholic.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/aussie-judge-cruel-insulting-humiliating-and-rude-towards-lawyers
Thousands = 10^3
The vaccine will be administered to millions 10^6, maybe billions 10^9.
Suppose the risk is 10^(-4). Now do the maths. You would need a sample of millions before the risk becomes evident. Also, the risk is almost certainly correlated with properties that correlate with a bad outcome from COVID.
I am (to state the obvious) not an anti-vaxxer (although one of my favourite scientists was).
But, there are going to be difficulties persuading people to take the vaccine. Especially if the persuasion is left up to Mr Boris Johnson.
A blonde mop appears on the TV screen.
A harrumph, "Good, you've got the jolly old vaccine". He grimaces a little as he is injected. "Just like a good glass of Bolly", he boostered.
"World beating, Olympics, Winston Churchill", he spluttered.
https://www.nhs.uk/news/obesity/children-poorer-backgrounds-more-affected-rise-childhood-obesity/
Kill them with kindness.
You can be fat and yet malnourished.
https://twitter.com/TheCut/status/1318895987302215680
https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com/news/international/2020/10/20/73645/breaking-news-spain-considers-curfews-fight-new-coronavirus-wave.html
That really isn't true. Porridge for instance is dirt cheap, far cheaper than any box cereal, even Aldi / Lidl own. Vegetables are also incredibly cheap. Also you can meal prep a whole week of food in a hour or two, and it can be whacked in the microwave to reheat it.
I think it is more an issue of knowledge / education / planning.
It has become the it thing for the middle class to do the whole meal prep thing, including the young gym bunnies, rather when I was growing up in parents didn't have much money and it was what they did to make ends meet. My mum was from a very poor background, but was taught how to do all this via her mum and school. Still does it today out of habit.
These days it doesn't seem quite such a good deal.
Biden 49% (-)
Trump 46% (+2)
Changes from 15th October.
Biden 52% (+1)
Trump 43% (+3)
Changes from 18th October.