On the current numbers, Europe is utterly f**ked with this virus. (and that includes us).
Yet people are still insisting that we, with infection rates below other areas still getting it worse, have some form of immunity that will make it all go away completely any day now.
Sorry I thought Europe had it sorted. Europe locked down longest. Europe locked down hardest. Europe locked down smartest. Europe locked down maskiest.
And yet. Here we are
This time around though, the markets are much more sensitive to lockdown restrictions, because they have seen how lockdowns destroy economies. They have seen how two week lockdowns turn into six months ones over night. And they know, that even in the richer states, Europe has no effing money left.
By Friday, Europe could be looking at a full blown economic depression, lasting years, with all the accompanying woes. Enormous unemployment. serial unrest. Severe suppression of liberty. Disintegrating social fabric.
The cure is killing the patient.
The only type of lockdown that works is the sort they had in South Korea, China, etc, and that level of authoritarianism and compliance isn't possible in western societies.
The key isn't lockdown. The key is track and trace that works so that chains of infection are broken quickly. We simply cannot tolerate the level of ineptitude shown in that respect any more. It is no longer funny.
It seems that we cannot manage it. That is the depressing conclusion I hate to draw but am on the verge of.
No European, North American or Latin American country has "managed" this. Yet many Asian countries have. That is the true mystery.
The outlier of big developed "Western Style" countries that are plugged into the world transit system is Australia. They have most of the disadvantages of the European countries in regards to importing Covid (in fact much closer and better direct connections with ground zero) and several very large dense cities.
Australia unplugged itself from the world transit system in March. Residents are banned from going abroad, foreigners from visiting and the return to Australia of Australian nationals is limited by mandatory quarantine on arrival capacity. There are tens of thousands of Australians who want to go home, but can't.
Australia also closed the borders INTERNALLY: you were unable to get in and out of Western Australia from the Northern Territory, Tasmania was virtually sealed off, no one could cross from Vic to NSW etc
This must have been very helpful and explains, in part, their success
But this is only possible in a massive country with widely dispersed populations and relatively few internal border crossings.
I think one of the mistakes the UK government made, which credit to Mr Tesco's can't sell oven gloves in Wales did, was not to restrict people unnecessary movements to within a few miles of home, especially as we released the lockdown. We really didn't need 100,000s of people piling down to Brighton and Bournemouth.
Brighton and Bournemouth don't seem to have a higher than average incidence of the virus, although of course it could be that people passed it to each other there before going back to their home areas, without necessarily causing a problem in those places themselves.
AIUI experts have looked for any evidence that the crowded beach scenes in the spring and early summer led to subsequent outbreaks, but failed to find any. More inside/outside evidence. And also, some of the beach scenes looked packed in, photographed horizontally from a distance, whereas on the beach individual groups were often keeping apart from others.
If you ask them if they want consistency they will say yes. If you ask them if local/regional rules should be devolved to local people who understand their situation the best they will also say yes.
Yes, it's one of those situations where asking the question is pretty pointless.
On the current numbers, Europe is utterly f**ked with this virus. (and that includes us).
Yet people are still insisting that we, with infection rates below other areas still getting it worse, have some form of immunity that will make it all go away completely any day now.
Sorry I thought Europe had it sorted. Europe locked down longest. Europe locked down hardest. Europe locked down smartest. Europe locked down maskiest.
And yet. Here we are
This time around though, the markets are much more sensitive to lockdown restrictions, because they have seen how lockdowns destroy economies. They have seen how two week lockdowns turn into six months ones over night. And they know, that even in the richer states, Europe has no effing money left.
By Friday, Europe could be looking at a full blown economic depression, lasting years, with all the accompanying woes. Enormous unemployment. serial unrest. Severe suppression of liberty. Disintegrating social fabric.
The cure is killing the patient.
The only type of lockdown that works is the sort they had in South Korea, China, etc, and that level of authoritarianism and compliance isn't possible in western societies.
The key isn't lockdown. The key is track and trace that works so that chains of infection are broken quickly. We simply cannot tolerate the level of ineptitude shown in that respect any more. It is no longer funny.
It seems that we cannot manage it. That is the depressing conclusion I hate to draw but am on the verge of.
No European, North American or Latin American country has "managed" this. Yet many Asian countries have. That is the true mystery.
The outlier of big developed "Western Style" countries that are plugged into the world transit system is Australia. They have most of the disadvantages of the European countries in regards to importing Covid (in fact much closer and better direct connections with ground zero) and several very large dense cities.
Australia unplugged itself from the world transit system in March. Residents are banned from going abroad, foreigners from visiting and the return to Australia of Australian nationals is limited by mandatory quarantine on arrival capacity. There are tens of thousands of Australians who want to go home, but can't.
Australia also closed the borders INTERNALLY: you were unable to get in and out of Western Australia from the Northern Territory, Tasmania was virtually sealed off, no one could cross from Vic to NSW etc
This must have been very helpful and explains, in part, their success
But this is only possible in a massive country with widely dispersed populations and relatively few internal border crossings.
I think one of the mistakes the UK government made, which credit to Mr Tesco's can't sell oven gloves in Wales did, was not to restrict people unnecessary movements to within a few miles of home, especially as we released the lockdown. We really didn't need 100,000s of people piling down to Brighton and Bournemouth.
Maybe, but I've just been down in Cornwall where they were all terrified that the huge influx of holidaymakers after lockdown (and the surge was massive and prolonged, because most British tourists could or would not go abroad) would inevitably lead to a sharp rise in Covid cases in Cornwall.
Yet it hasn't happened at all. Cornwall is still almost Covid-free.
This virus is a bloody mysterious little bastard. It never behaves QUITE how you expect
It is interesting, because we know that the European getaway to sunny climbs has caused spread both in that country and across Europe. Maybe as the Cornish are always wary of the Grockles, they already have a built in mechanism to avoid the plague bringers.
It spreads eagerly when people mix indoors, but not outdoors. Most of the patterns we are seeing can be so explained. Where there has been spread arising from summer travel, it’s been to spots with lively nightlife.
Yes I think that's true. I also wonder about spending 2-3hrs in an airport with 1000s of other people, compared to going to Cornwall in your car.
For sure, air travel is a risk, likely both in airports and the inside the planes. Wasn’t there a study released just this week that showed as much?
I have thought this must be true since the spring, since the chances of holidaymakers to Italy and Spain both chancing upon and having prolonged indoor contact with the then handfuls (proportionately) of positive cases in those countries seemed way to small to explain the number of people flying back who contracted the virus.
Also note how Europe almost closed down air travel, and recovered from the first wave, whilst the US didn’t, and didn’t.
The decision by all nations to have a European summer holiday season was absolutely mental. All those months of lockdown and border closures and then you just encourage everybody from across Europe to travel in small metal tubes to intermingle with 1000s of others from every corner of Europe.
I did wonder if we'd get to the point where the only place you were allowed to get your family together would be on a flight to Spain.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
McCain would probably have won the popular vote against Gore in 2000 as would Kasich against Hillary in 2016 and Bush of course did win the popular vote in 2004, the GOP could win the popular vote if it had to pick a more moderate candidate but for now it knows the EC gives it the luxury of picking a populist right candidate who can still win
None of which change the fact that the GOP will have lost the PV in 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections and frankly that indicates a broken democracy to me.
The differences between London compared to the peak (and to a lesser extent other areas in the south) and the rest of the country (including Scotland/Wales etc) is quite stark!
The second wave in Northern Ireland already looks worse than the first.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
It is if you assume the President should be the most popular person in all 50 states.
If you assume - as the writers of the Constitution did - that power derives from the people, and is organised from them via the States who voluntarily cede it to the centre for reasons of efficiency, and that Washington and the Federal Government are therefore beholden to those states and has actually only got quite limited powers (there were huge rows about whether to have a national bank, FFS) it makes much more sense.
Appropriate in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous after the Civil War. Ludicrous in the post Depression age of a highly centralised federal government.
Which only goes to show the Constitution is an outdated joke that should be replaced.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
As bad as, hypothetically, someone who flouted the original lockdown yet still advocates tighter restrictions for others?
The differences between London compared to the peak (and to a lesser extent other areas in the south) and the rest of the country (including Scotland/Wales etc) is quite stark!
Bloody hell at Wales, looks like they will hit the same peak as the first wave, despite not being able to buy clingfilm in Tescos.
Coming out of their firebreak with the numbers in hospital still very large is a big call.
Of course this is comparison with the peak in March/April - so it does depend to some extent on how stretched the situation was under that previous peak.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
Justin Trudeau is PM of Canada despite losing the popular vote at the last election.
I have a feeling if Trump wins the electoral college but loses the popular vote the media won't be mentioning this.... can't risk suggesting the great Justin is an illegitimate winner like Trump.
What's the betting these last right through to 2021? Maybe Spring 2021?
Horrific
Just about to go into Tier 3 here. No one I have spoken to expects us to be allowed out of it until the spring. Apart from anything no minister can articulate what the strategy is or criteria for leaving it other than blather about protecting the NHS. If that is the goal then it is Tier 3 until the winter is over. There is always going to be pressure on beds from now until, say, March.
The escape strategy is the vaccine
Yep, nations are staking everything on it. Wealth, liberties the lot. Biggest bet in history. FFS pray it pays off.
Except one.
“It’s a big mistake to sit down and say ‘we should just wait for a vaccine’. It will take much longer than we think. And in the end, we don’t know how good a vaccine it will be. It’s another reason to have a sustainable policy in place.”
Argentina's experience shows that long lockdowns aren't sustainable
And Melbourne's shows they are. So ... ???
Melbourne shows no such thing. The virus is still with us, and still virulent. Even Australia is ultimately praying for a vaccine.
If there is no vaccine, Australia will have to keep the borders closed, AND do statewide lockdowns once again when the virus spreads again - as it inevitably will. And on and on and on. Forever?
That is NOT sustainable, economically, even for a very wealthy, isolated nation like Oz.
Sustainable for a while, I mean. Not for years and years. ATM we are firefighting until medical advances put more tools in our box.
I am impressed that Trafalgar manages to find the pro-Trump 18-24 sample in every single one of their polls.
Every single one that they have published cross breaks for the 18-24 sample is prod Trump.
Just, amazing consistency.
Spooky. It's almost as if they don't actually poll anybody.
I bit like my biochemistry practicals I never did, but nevertheless handed in my results. Worked out what they should be, then added in random variations to the results so that the average came out to close to, but not exactly, where it should be.
The biggest mystery at the moment is why is London doing so well compared to other densely populated areas in the UK? Maybe it's the younger population.
The differences between London compared to the peak (and to a lesser extent other areas in the south) and the rest of the country (including Scotland/Wales etc) is quite stark!
The second wave in Northern Ireland already looks worse than the first.
And whilst we focus on Wales, haven't NI been in a circuit break for 2-3 weeks now?
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
It is if you assume the President should be the most popular person in all 50 states.
If you assume - as the writers of the Constitution did - that power derives from the people, and is organised from them via the States who voluntarily cede it to the centre for reasons of efficiency, and that Washington and the Federal Government are therefore beholden to those states and has actually only got quite limited powers (there were huge rows about whether to have a national bank, FFS) it makes much more sense.
Appropriate in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous after the Civil War. Ludicrous in the post Depression age of a highly centralised federal government.
Which only goes to show the Constitution is an outdated joke that should be replaced.
National Popular Vote amendment came very, very close to passing in the 1970s
On the current numbers, Europe is utterly f**ked with this virus. (and that includes us).
Yet people are still insisting that we, with infection rates below other areas still getting it worse, have some form of immunity that will make it all go away completely any day now.
Sorry I thought Europe had it sorted. Europe locked down longest. Europe locked down hardest. Europe locked down smartest. Europe locked down maskiest.
And yet. Here we are
This time around though, the markets are much more sensitive to lockdown restrictions, because they have seen how lockdowns destroy economies. They have seen how two week lockdowns turn into six months ones over night. And they know, that even in the richer states, Europe has no effing money left.
By Friday, Europe could be looking at a full blown economic depression, lasting years, with all the accompanying woes. Enormous unemployment. serial unrest. Severe suppression of liberty. Disintegrating social fabric.
The cure is killing the patient.
The only type of lockdown that works is the sort they had in South Korea, China, etc, and that level of authoritarianism and compliance isn't possible in western societies.
The key isn't lockdown. The key is track and trace that works so that chains of infection are broken quickly. We simply cannot tolerate the level of ineptitude shown in that respect any more. It is no longer funny.
It seems that we cannot manage it. That is the depressing conclusion I hate to draw but am on the verge of.
No European, North American or Latin American country has "managed" this. Yet many Asian countries have. That is the true mystery.
The outlier of big developed "Western Style" countries that are plugged into the world transit system is Australia. They have most of the disadvantages of the European countries in regards to importing Covid (in fact much closer and better direct connections with ground zero) and several very large dense cities.
Australia unplugged itself from the world transit system in March. Residents are banned from going abroad, foreigners from visiting and the return to Australia of Australian nationals is limited by mandatory quarantine on arrival capacity. There are tens of thousands of Australians who want to go home, but can't.
Australia also closed the borders INTERNALLY: you were unable to get in and out of Western Australia from the Northern Territory, Tasmania was virtually sealed off, no one could cross from Vic to NSW etc
This must have been very helpful and explains, in part, their success
But this is only possible in a massive country with widely dispersed populations and relatively few internal border crossings.
I think one of the mistakes the UK government made, which credit to Mr Tesco's can't sell oven gloves in Wales did, was not to restrict people unnecessary movements to within a few miles of home, especially as we released the lockdown. We really didn't need 100,000s of people piling down to Brighton and Bournemouth.
Maybe, but I've just been down in Cornwall where they were all terrified that the huge influx of holidaymakers after lockdown (and the surge was massive and prolonged, because most British tourists could or would not go abroad) would inevitably lead to a sharp rise in Covid cases in Cornwall.
Yet it hasn't happened at all. Cornwall is still almost Covid-free.
This virus is a bloody mysterious little bastard. It never behaves QUITE how you expect
It is interesting, because we know that the European getaway to sunny climbs has caused spread both in that country and across Europe. Maybe as the Cornish are always wary of the Grockles, they already have a built in mechanism to avoid the plague bringers.
It spreads eagerly when people mix indoors, but not outdoors. Most of the patterns we are seeing can be so explained. Where there has been spread arising from summer travel, it’s been to spots with lively nightlife.
Yes I think that's true. I also wonder about spending 2-3hrs in an airport with 1000s of other people, compared to going to Cornwall in your car.
For sure, air travel is a risk, likely both in airports and the inside the planes. Wasn’t there a study released just this week that showed as much?
I have thought this must be true since the spring, since the chances of holidaymakers to Italy and Spain both chancing upon and having prolonged indoor contact with the then handfuls (proportionately) of positive cases in those countries seemed way to small to explain the number of people flying back who contracted the virus.
Also note how Europe almost closed down air travel, and recovered from the first wave, whilst the US didn’t, and didn’t.
The decision by all nations to have a European summer holiday season was absolutely mental. All those months of lockdown and border closures and then you just encourage everybody from across Europe to travel in small metal tubes to intermingle with 1000s of others from every corner of Europe.
I did wonder if we'd get to the point where the only place you were allowed to get your family together would be on a flight to Spain.
I contemplated a family meet up in the canaries but reckon it will all have changed before we even got there. Things are moving fast in Spain and it’s becoming difficult to keep up.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
It is if you assume the President should be the most popular person in all 50 states.
If you assume - as the writers of the Constitution did - that power derives from the people, and is organised from them via the States who voluntarily cede it to the centre for reasons of efficiency, and that Washington and the Federal Government are therefore beholden to those states and has actually only got quite limited powers (there were huge rows about whether to have a national bank, FFS) it makes much more sense.
Appropriate in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous after the Civil War. Ludicrous in the post Depression age of a highly centralised federal government.
Which only goes to show the Constitution is an outdated joke that should be replaced.
National Popular Vote amendment came very, very close to passing in the 1970s
But it didn’t.
So they are still stuck in the eighteenth century.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
It is if you assume the President should be the most popular person in all 50 states.
If you assume - as the writers of the Constitution did - that power derives from the people, and is organised from them via the States who voluntarily cede it to the centre for reasons of efficiency, and that Washington and the Federal Government are therefore beholden to those states and has actually only got quite limited powers (there were huge rows about whether to have a national bank, FFS) it makes much more sense.
Appropriate in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous after the Civil War. Ludicrous in the post Depression age of a highly centralised federal government.
Which only goes to show the Constitution is an outdated joke that should be replaced.
National Popular Vote amendment came very, very close to passing in the 1970s
Coming close to passing the Senate is one thing. Unlikely to have got through the States though?
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Midweek polling mischief and a melange of information with which to contend on the final Wednesday of the 2020 US election campaigns.
Starting with the Presidential campaigns and the see-saw (or teeter-totter) is very much in evidence. On one end, we have the now daily Rasmussen offering putting Trump up 48-47. That would be a swing of 1.5% to Trump since 2016. On the other end, we have YouGov for the Economist which has Biden ahead 54-43, a 4.5% to the challenger.
This weekly poll has remained remarkably consistent over the past weeks with Biden consistently 9-11 points ahead. Biden leads in all regions now including the south while Trump's strength remains among less well-educated whites.
In the middle we have both Emerson and the daily rolling IBD/TIPP polls which have Biden ahead 50-45 so a 1.5% swing to the challenger.
To the State polls and in Wisconsin, a Marquette Law School poll has Biden maintaining a 5-point advantage.
To contrast, Trafalgar has Biden ahead by a point while an ABC News/Washington Post poll has a colossal 17-point Biden advantage.
In North Carolina, a poll by Harper Research for the conservative think-tank Civitas has Biden ahead by a point. As with Trafalgar, we are seeing conservative pollsters publishing polls to suggest the race is tightening as a way to galvanise the Trump vote into believing a victory can still be theirs.
Two new polls still suggest Michigan is safe for Biden but of far more interest is a Monmouth poll in Georgia putting Biden up 50-46
Monmouth are a respected pollster and the move in the past month is Trump down 2 and Biden up 4. I'm not quite ready to put Georgia in the Blue column yet but I'm moving that way.
Big Biden leads in Maine and Virginia are no great surprise but in Maine Congressional District 2 , a new poll by Colby College puts Biden ahead 46-42.
Oddly enough, the Maine CD2 numbers have been remarkably consistent from this pollster through the last three months. Apart from a single low-sample poll from the Bangor Daily News which had an 8-point Trump lead, every other poll has shown Biden ahead and I'm putting Maine CD-2 in the Blue column.
Finally, a poll from yesterday which came in too late for inclusion in yesterday's look. A poll for WHO-TV13 has Biden ahead 50-46, a two -point improvement for the challenger on last month's equivalent. Iowa is like Georgia now leaning toward Biden but it's staying TCTC for now.
The map is 285-163 for Biden with 90 TCTC and on how I see it from the polling, I'm at 328-210.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
How have you got close enough at the appropriate moments to determine whether they’re ummm, faking it?
The biggest mystery at the moment is why is London doing so well compared to other densely populated areas in the UK? Maybe it's the younger population.
Thing is, the difference between doing well and doing not so well can be 2 weeks.
The biggest mystery at the moment is why is London doing so well compared to other densely populated areas in the UK? Maybe it's the younger population.
London R is about 1.3. The cases scaled to 100K population look like this -
On the current numbers, Europe is utterly f**ked with this virus. (and that includes us).
Yet people are still insisting that we, with infection rates below other areas still getting it worse, have some form of immunity that will make it all go away completely any day now.
Sorry I thought Europe had it sorted. Europe locked down longest. Europe locked down hardest. Europe locked down smartest. Europe locked down maskiest.
And yet. Here we are
This time around though, the markets are much more sensitive to lockdown restrictions, because they have seen how lockdowns destroy economies. They have seen how two week lockdowns turn into six months ones over night. And they know, that even in the richer states, Europe has no effing money left.
By Friday, Europe could be looking at a full blown economic depression, lasting years, with all the accompanying woes. Enormous unemployment. serial unrest. Severe suppression of liberty. Disintegrating social fabric.
The cure is killing the patient.
The only type of lockdown that works is the sort they had in South Korea, China, etc, and that level of authoritarianism and compliance isn't possible in western societies.
The key isn't lockdown. The key is track and trace that works so that chains of infection are broken quickly. We simply cannot tolerate the level of ineptitude shown in that respect any more. It is no longer funny.
It seems that we cannot manage it. That is the depressing conclusion I hate to draw but am on the verge of.
No European, North American or Latin American country has "managed" this. Yet many Asian countries have. That is the true mystery.
The outlier of big developed "Western Style" countries that are plugged into the world transit system is Australia. They have most of the disadvantages of the European countries in regards to importing Covid (in fact much closer and better direct connections with ground zero) and several very large dense cities.
Australia unplugged itself from the world transit system in March. Residents are banned from going abroad, foreigners from visiting and the return to Australia of Australian nationals is limited by mandatory quarantine on arrival capacity. There are tens of thousands of Australians who want to go home, but can't.
Australia also closed the borders INTERNALLY: you were unable to get in and out of Western Australia from the Northern Territory, Tasmania was virtually sealed off, no one could cross from Vic to NSW etc
This must have been very helpful and explains, in part, their success
But this is only possible in a massive country with widely dispersed populations and relatively few internal border crossings.
I think one of the mistakes the UK government made, which credit to Mr Tesco's can't sell oven gloves in Wales did, was not to restrict people unnecessary movements to within a few miles of home, especially as we released the lockdown. We really didn't need 100,000s of people piling down to Brighton and Bournemouth.
Maybe, but I've just been down in Cornwall where they were all terrified that the huge influx of holidaymakers after lockdown (and the surge was massive and prolonged, because most British tourists could or would not go abroad) would inevitably lead to a sharp rise in Covid cases in Cornwall.
Yet it hasn't happened at all. Cornwall is still almost Covid-free.
This virus is a bloody mysterious little bastard. It never behaves QUITE how you expect
All makes perfect sense if you hypothesise that almost all transmission is via airborne transmission and inside. So schools, universities and households. And other non socially distanced indoor venues.
The current favoured forms of lockdowns/restrictions focus almost entirely on clamping down on the latter, leaving the former 3 untouched. Unlike March/April when only households were left untouched. Which in isolation isn't that much of a problem, because there is limited route that the virus can get in to any single household in absence of the other factors.
I was critical of allowing extensive overseas holidays without a quarantine system.
And I don’t think it will surprise anyone that I am deeply sceptical of efficacy of measures taken to protect people in schools.
But the first, with hindsight, was manageable, and the second was a necessary gamble even though it’s clearly not worked.
What remains crass, inexcusable and truly unforgivable was the failure to keep uni tuition online until at least the New Year.
I can't agree more with your first paragraph, add to that the declaration from high that "it is your patriotic duty to go to the pub" and we had a vector cocktail that was world beating.
Your point regarding online learning until at least New Year is more troublesome for me, with two sons at Uni, both left high and dry, and between them with a tuition fee bill of £18250. In each case, neither has seen a lecturer, other than on a screen since March. In both instances tuition from March to June was almost invisible. Although a reasonably workable alternative doesn't quickly come to mind.
The biggest mystery at the moment is why is London doing so well compared to other densely populated areas in the UK? Maybe it's the younger population.
Thing is, the difference between doing well and doing not so well can be 2 weeks.
Worksop's clearly been a covid furnace the past week.
In North Carolina, a poll by Harper Research for the conservative think-tank Civitas has Biden ahead by a point. As with Trafalgar, we are seeing conservative pollsters publishing polls to suggest the race is tightening as a way to galvanise the Trump vote into believing a victory can still be theirs.
I get the impression that Trafalgar have had to invent some old, never previously published, polls to create this narrative!
What will be interesting is the reaction of a covid-fatigued public to the news that despite the delivery of a vaccine they may still have another 6 months plus of the same levels of restrictions to suck up until the vaccine is rolled out in any vaguely meaningful numbers.
It shouldn't take six months to be vaguely meaningful.
If there's any efficacy to the vaccine then simply rolling it out at care homes (which can be done reasonably rapidly) will make a tremendous difference on figures and risks of hospital capacity.
So how quickly after a vaccine is announced do you foresee the end of the tier system, the end of masks in public, the end of social distancing, total normality? Just out of curiosity.
No idea. Maybe a year for an end to all of it including masks?
But if we can see an end to regions going into Tier 3 - and more regions going from Tier 3 to Tier 2 instead, or Tier 2 to Tier 1 instead etc - then that would be progress.
It needs careful messaging; "This seems like a dark hour, and it will seem dark for a while, but the dawn is coming..." But messaging and inspiration is meant to be what the current top team are good at, aren't they? It's not easy; remember Norman Lamont and "green shoots of economic spring"? But Churchill could have done it. Religious communicators do it; "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it" is all about the bad times not being forever.
Now our current society, and current Prime Minister aren't great at that; instant gratification is much more our and his style. Tough luck. It's a tricky lesson we all need to learn.
Churchill: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
Johnson [September]: "We'll be back to normal by Christmas"
The biggest mystery at the moment is why is London doing so well compared to other densely populated areas in the UK? Maybe it's the younger population.
London R is about 1.3. The cases scaled to 100K population look like this -
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
How have you got close enough at the appropriate moments to determine whether they’re ummm, faking it?
Ooo what a thought! No, sadly not. Just going by what I see on the telly.
Think they might be staying together for the kids. Like Bryan Ferry and Jerry Hall.
On the current numbers, Europe is utterly f**ked with this virus. (and that includes us).
Yet people are still insisting that we, with infection rates below other areas still getting it worse, have some form of immunity that will make it all go away completely any day now.
Sorry I thought Europe had it sorted. Europe locked down longest. Europe locked down hardest. Europe locked down smartest. Europe locked down maskiest.
And yet. Here we are
This time around though, the markets are much more sensitive to lockdown restrictions, because they have seen how lockdowns destroy economies. They have seen how two week lockdowns turn into six months ones over night. And they know, that even in the richer states, Europe has no effing money left.
By Friday, Europe could be looking at a full blown economic depression, lasting years, with all the accompanying woes. Enormous unemployment. serial unrest. Severe suppression of liberty. Disintegrating social fabric.
The cure is killing the patient.
The only type of lockdown that works is the sort they had in South Korea, China, etc, and that level of authoritarianism and compliance isn't possible in western societies.
The key isn't lockdown. The key is track and trace that works so that chains of infection are broken quickly. We simply cannot tolerate the level of ineptitude shown in that respect any more. It is no longer funny.
It seems that we cannot manage it. That is the depressing conclusion I hate to draw but am on the verge of.
No European, North American or Latin American country has "managed" this. Yet many Asian countries have. That is the true mystery.
The outlier of big developed "Western Style" countries that are plugged into the world transit system is Australia. They have most of the disadvantages of the European countries in regards to importing Covid (in fact much closer and better direct connections with ground zero) and several very large dense cities.
Australia unplugged itself from the world transit system in March. Residents are banned from going abroad, foreigners from visiting and the return to Australia of Australian nationals is limited by mandatory quarantine on arrival capacity. There are tens of thousands of Australians who want to go home, but can't.
Australia also closed the borders INTERNALLY: you were unable to get in and out of Western Australia from the Northern Territory, Tasmania was virtually sealed off, no one could cross from Vic to NSW etc
This must have been very helpful and explains, in part, their success
But this is only possible in a massive country with widely dispersed populations and relatively few internal border crossings.
I think one of the mistakes the UK government made, which credit to Mr Tesco's can't sell oven gloves in Wales did, was not to restrict people unnecessary movements to within a few miles of home, especially as we released the lockdown. We really didn't need 100,000s of people piling down to Brighton and Bournemouth.
Maybe, but I've just been down in Cornwall where they were all terrified that the huge influx of holidaymakers after lockdown (and the surge was massive and prolonged, because most British tourists could or would not go abroad) would inevitably lead to a sharp rise in Covid cases in Cornwall.
Yet it hasn't happened at all. Cornwall is still almost Covid-free.
This virus is a bloody mysterious little bastard. It never behaves QUITE how you expect
From what I recall from my visits, the Cornish avoid the places where the tourists go - in normal times because of the hideous (for Cornwall) prices.
So I can well believe that some pubs were packed with tourists. And the only locals were behind the bar....
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
The biggest mystery at the moment is why is London doing so well compared to other densely populated areas in the UK? Maybe it's the younger population.
London R is about 1.3. The cases scaled to 100K population look like this -
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
How have you got close enough at the appropriate moments to determine whether they’re ummm, faking it?
Ooo what a thought! No, sadly not. Just going by what I see on the telly.
Think they might be staying together for the kids. Like Bryan Ferry and Jerry Hall.
"Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said."
Can't read the whole article (£), but what's the issue? If someone issues a threat of violence against me because of my sexuality, does it matter that whether it's an in-law round the dinner table versus a stranger in a pub?
Read the entire Scottish Hate Crime bill, it is all-encompassing.
Even the Scottish POLICE don't like it
"the Scottish Police Federation has warned that the proposals would force officers to "police what people think or feel" which it says would "devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public"."
Ok, I'm open to arguments about whether or not certain things should be judged a crime, and I'm not making a case either way. But I do rather think that threats ought to be taken seriously, I hope you agree with that bit? If you do, my question was whether it should make a difference that it's in a home versus in public.
To use an analogy (and I'm sorry it's such an evocative one, but it is the easiest one to hand), if a man forces a stranger into sex against their will, it's rape. If a man forces his spouse into sex against their will, it's still rape. It is perfectly legitimate, in fact necessary, for the law to extend into people's homes in at least some circumstances.
So just because some clown does not like what you say or think in your own home , the police can come and burst your door down and arrest you for a hate crime. What kind of nutters are walking the streets.
Uh, no Malcolm, nothing like what I was saying. I was simply asking from a criminal point of view whether there's a difference between what is said and done at home versus what is done in public. I find your keenness to defend free speech... stirring, but if you read back you'll see that you got a bit overexcited about something you only imagined.
LOL, I am all for free speech , far too many of these pseudo nazi types nowadays want to control what we do , what we say , etc. It is unlikely family or friends will be committing hate crimes in your house. Sure the thought police would be able to make it one mind you.
The biggest mystery at the moment is why is London doing so well compared to other densely populated areas in the UK? Maybe it's the younger population.
London R is about 1.3. The cases scaled to 100K population look like this -
If the cases are high, hospitalisations will follow....
They may well do. But they haven't... yet. The point was just to compare the relative differences between London compared to the peak and other parts of the country. And of course London are under Tier 2 restrictions.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
"Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said."
Can't read the whole article (£), but what's the issue? If someone issues a threat of violence against me because of my sexuality, does it matter that whether it's an in-law round the dinner table versus a stranger in a pub?
Read the entire Scottish Hate Crime bill, it is all-encompassing.
Even the Scottish POLICE don't like it
"the Scottish Police Federation has warned that the proposals would force officers to "police what people think or feel" which it says would "devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public"."
Ok, I'm open to arguments about whether or not certain things should be judged a crime, and I'm not making a case either way. But I do rather think that threats ought to be taken seriously, I hope you agree with that bit? If you do, my question was whether it should make a difference that it's in a home versus in public.
To use an analogy (and I'm sorry it's such an evocative one, but it is the easiest one to hand), if a man forces a stranger into sex against their will, it's rape. If a man forces his spouse into sex against their will, it's still rape. It is perfectly legitimate, in fact necessary, for the law to extend into people's homes in at least some circumstances.
So just because some clown does not like what you say or think in your own home , the police can come and burst your door down and arrest you for a hate crime. What kind of nutters are walking the streets.
Uh, no Malcolm, nothing like what I was saying. I was simply asking from a criminal point of view whether there's a difference between what is said and done at home versus what is done in public. I find your keenness to defend free speech... stirring, but if you read back you'll see that you got a bit overexcited about something you only imagined.
LOL, I am all for free speech , far too many of these pseudo nazi types nowadays want to control what we do , what we say , etc. It is unlikely family or friends will be committing hate crimes in your house. Sure the thought police would be able to make it one mind you.
And history shows where this leads. Parents or grandparents express "old fashioned" views in their own homes. It becomes known via schools and teachers report this to the relevant authorities. Children become unwitting accessories to the law putting their relatives in legal jeopardy.
The electoral college ebbs and flows. It won't have an R lean forever.
You need to read Whiteshift by Professor Eric Kauffman.
Basically, the longer minorities are in a country the more they tend to integrate into the mainstream and adopt their politics. So, by 2200, Whites will be a clear minority in the USA but mixed-race/minority Americans will choose to pick up much of their political traditions.
There are signs this is happening now with Hispanics in the same way it did with Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and Jews during the 20th Century compared to the original WASP archetype of a R American.
A human is a human and a brain is a brain - it's what you do with it that counts.
"Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said."
Can't read the whole article (£), but what's the issue? If someone issues a threat of violence against me because of my sexuality, does it matter that whether it's an in-law round the dinner table versus a stranger in a pub?
Read the entire Scottish Hate Crime bill, it is all-encompassing.
Even the Scottish POLICE don't like it
"the Scottish Police Federation has warned that the proposals would force officers to "police what people think or feel" which it says would "devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public"."
Ok, I'm open to arguments about whether or not certain things should be judged a crime, and I'm not making a case either way. But I do rather think that threats ought to be taken seriously, I hope you agree with that bit? If you do, my question was whether it should make a difference that it's in a home versus in public.
To use an analogy (and I'm sorry it's such an evocative one, but it is the easiest one to hand), if a man forces a stranger into sex against their will, it's rape. If a man forces his spouse into sex against their will, it's still rape. It is perfectly legitimate, in fact necessary, for the law to extend into people's homes in at least some circumstances.
So just because some clown does not like what you say or think in your own home , the police can come and burst your door down and arrest you for a hate crime. What kind of nutters are walking the streets.
Uh, no Malcolm, nothing like what I was saying. I was simply asking from a criminal point of view whether there's a difference between what is said and done at home versus what is done in public. I find your keenness to defend free speech... stirring, but if you read back you'll see that you got a bit overexcited about something you only imagined.
LOL, I am all for free speech , far too many of these pseudo nazi types nowadays want to control what we do , what we say , etc. It is unlikely family or friends will be committing hate crimes in your house. Sure the thought police would be able to make it one mind you.
Yeah, and I'm with you on that. Anyone phoning the police because they're offended can fuck righteously off. And I agree that most of the time you aren't going to face threats from your inlaws round the breakfast bar.
"Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said."
Can't read the whole article (£), but what's the issue? If someone issues a threat of violence against me because of my sexuality, does it matter that whether it's an in-law round the dinner table versus a stranger in a pub?
Read the entire Scottish Hate Crime bill, it is all-encompassing.
Even the Scottish POLICE don't like it
"the Scottish Police Federation has warned that the proposals would force officers to "police what people think or feel" which it says would "devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public"."
Ok, I'm open to arguments about whether or not certain things should be judged a crime, and I'm not making a case either way. But I do rather think that threats ought to be taken seriously, I hope you agree with that bit? If you do, my question was whether it should make a difference that it's in a home versus in public.
To use an analogy (and I'm sorry it's such an evocative one, but it is the easiest one to hand), if a man forces a stranger into sex against their will, it's rape. If a man forces his spouse into sex against their will, it's still rape. It is perfectly legitimate, in fact necessary, for the law to extend into people's homes in at least some circumstances.
So just because some clown does not like what you say or think in your own home , the police can come and burst your door down and arrest you for a hate crime. What kind of nutters are walking the streets.
Uh, no Malcolm, nothing like what I was saying. I was simply asking from a criminal point of view whether there's a difference between what is said and done at home versus what is done in public. I find your keenness to defend free speech... stirring, but if you read back you'll see that you got a bit overexcited about something you only imagined.
LOL, I am all for free speech , far too many of these pseudo nazi types nowadays want to control what we do , what we say , etc. It is unlikely family or friends will be committing hate crimes in your house. Sure the thought police would be able to make it one mind you.
And history shows where this leads. Parents or grandparents express "old fashioned" views in their own homes. It becomes known via schools and teachers report this to the relevant authorities. Children become unwitting accessories to the law putting their relatives in legal jeopardy.
Given the number of people reporting each other to the police for Facebook hate crimes.... Does anyone really think this will end well?
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
It is if you assume the President should be the most popular person in all 50 states.
If you assume - as the writers of the Constitution did - that power derives from the people, and is organised from them via the States who voluntarily cede it to the centre for reasons of efficiency, and that Washington and the Federal Government are therefore beholden to those states and has actually only got quite limited powers (there were huge rows about whether to have a national bank, FFS) it makes much more sense.
Appropriate in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous after the Civil War. Ludicrous in the post Depression age of a highly centralised federal government.
Which only goes to show the Constitution is an outdated joke that should be replaced.
National Popular Vote amendment came very, very close to passing in the 1970s
Coming close to passing the Senate is one thing. Unlikely to have got through the States though?
It had enough support in the states, that's why the whole process moved forward to begin with.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
Constructing fanciful narratives about the royals, and dreaming about the Queen coming to tea, are at the core of what it means to be British.
I do think that for an Englishman with a rural centre of gravity, year-round exile to a LA mansion is the perfect vision of hell.
"Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said."
Can't read the whole article (£), but what's the issue? If someone issues a threat of violence against me because of my sexuality, does it matter that whether it's an in-law round the dinner table versus a stranger in a pub?
Read the entire Scottish Hate Crime bill, it is all-encompassing.
Even the Scottish POLICE don't like it
"the Scottish Police Federation has warned that the proposals would force officers to "police what people think or feel" which it says would "devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public"."
Ok, I'm open to arguments about whether or not certain things should be judged a crime, and I'm not making a case either way. But I do rather think that threats ought to be taken seriously, I hope you agree with that bit? If you do, my question was whether it should make a difference that it's in a home versus in public.
To use an analogy (and I'm sorry it's such an evocative one, but it is the easiest one to hand), if a man forces a stranger into sex against their will, it's rape. If a man forces his spouse into sex against their will, it's still rape. It is perfectly legitimate, in fact necessary, for the law to extend into people's homes in at least some circumstances.
So just because some clown does not like what you say or think in your own home , the police can come and burst your door down and arrest you for a hate crime. What kind of nutters are walking the streets.
Uh, no Malcolm, nothing like what I was saying. I was simply asking from a criminal point of view whether there's a difference between what is said and done at home versus what is done in public. I find your keenness to defend free speech... stirring, but if you read back you'll see that you got a bit overexcited about something you only imagined.
LOL, I am all for free speech , far too many of these pseudo nazi types nowadays want to control what we do , what we say , etc. It is unlikely family or friends will be committing hate crimes in your house. Sure the thought police would be able to make it one mind you.
And history shows where this leads. Parents or grandparents express "old fashioned" views in their own homes. It becomes known via schools and teachers report this to the relevant authorities. Children become unwitting accessories to the law putting their relatives in legal jeopardy.
Given the number of people reporting each other to the police for Facebook hate crimes.... Does anyone really think this will end well?
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
They are a bunch of entitled dinosaurs that need to be swept into the history books.
All of them.
The idea of position and privilege and influence based on an accident of birth is absurd. Even chimpanzees have a better system...
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
Constructing fanciful narratives about the royals, and dreaming about the Queen coming to tea, are at the core of what it means to be British.
I do think that for an Englishman with a rural centre of gravity, year-round exile to a LA mansion is the perfect vision of hell.
I think there's many Englishmen even in urban areas, such as Epping, who would agree.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
It is if you assume the President should be the most popular person in all 50 states.
If you assume - as the writers of the Constitution did - that power derives from the people, and is organised from them via the States who voluntarily cede it to the centre for reasons of efficiency, and that Washington and the Federal Government are therefore beholden to those states and has actually only got quite limited powers (there were huge rows about whether to have a national bank, FFS) it makes much more sense.
Appropriate in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous after the Civil War. Ludicrous in the post Depression age of a highly centralised federal government.
Which only goes to show the Constitution is an outdated joke that should be replaced.
National Popular Vote amendment came very, very close to passing in the 1970s
Coming close to passing the Senate is one thing. Unlikely to have got through the States though?
It had enough support in the states, that's why the whole process moved forward to begin with.
The electoral college ebbs and flows. It won't have an R lean forever.
You need to read Whiteshift by Professor Eric Kauffman.
Basically, the longer minorities are in a country the more they tend to integrate into the mainstream and adopt their politics. So, by 2200, Whites will be a clear minority in the USA but mixed-race/minority Americans will choose to pick up much of their political traditions.
There are signs this is happening now with Hispanics in the same way it did with Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and Jews during the 20th Century compared to the original WASP archetype of a R American.
A human is a human and a brain is a brain - it's what you do with it that counts.
Culture is amazingly resilient if constantly reinforced. Experiments with chimps shows that lessons learned by just one monkey and witnessed by others can be adopted by the whole group. Thereafter, the chimps in the group can be replaced one by one with new chimps until there are none of the original chimps left, let alone the sole chimp who did the physical learning, and the culture remains.
The culture of success in the US are constantly reinforced across many media, including the generally liberal MSM. And even if the policies and politics of the MSM are not in line with the GOPs, there celebration of success does reinforce the basics of that underly essentially right-of-centre politics.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
How have you got close enough at the appropriate moments to determine whether they’re ummm, faking it?
Ooo what a thought! No, sadly not. Just going by what I see on the telly.
Think they might be staying together for the kids. Like Bryan Ferry and Jerry Hall.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
How have you got close enough at the appropriate moments to determine whether they’re ummm, faking it?
Ooo what a thought! No, sadly not. Just going by what I see on the telly.
Think they might be staying together for the kids. Like Bryan Ferry and Jerry Hall.
I thought Bryan ditched Mrs Murdoch PDQ. Jerry Ferry was never on the cards. She of course fell into the arms of Sir Mick, whilst he claimed, of Jerry, everyone was allowed one mistake in life. Bryan did infact marry Lucy Helmore, mother of Otis. Well there's another two mistakes!
Uh oh, is there a danger that this effectively criminalises people joining said clubs? They could get hoist by their own petard here. [/not a legal expert]
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
The numbers are pretty good for Camilla however, who would have thought 15 years ago she would be as popular as Prince Harry and now far more popular than Harry's wife and Prince Andrew.
The British public are still not her greatest fans but they no longer loathe her as they did after Diana died
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
Constructing fanciful narratives about the royals, and dreaming about the Queen coming to tea, are at the core of what it means to be British.
I do think that for an Englishman with a rural centre of gravity, year-round exile to a LA mansion is the perfect vision of hell.
It is - and you could be right. My wife predicts divorce too. For them, I mean.
But many are rooting for it, let's be honest. She is "not right for our Harry" etc. You know exactly what I mean. I know you do.
"Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said."
Can't read the whole article (£), but what's the issue? If someone issues a threat of violence against me because of my sexuality, does it matter that whether it's an in-law round the dinner table versus a stranger in a pub?
Read the entire Scottish Hate Crime bill, it is all-encompassing.
Even the Scottish POLICE don't like it
"the Scottish Police Federation has warned that the proposals would force officers to "police what people think or feel" which it says would "devastate the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public"."
Ok, I'm open to arguments about whether or not certain things should be judged a crime, and I'm not making a case either way. But I do rather think that threats ought to be taken seriously, I hope you agree with that bit? If you do, my question was whether it should make a difference that it's in a home versus in public.
To use an analogy (and I'm sorry it's such an evocative one, but it is the easiest one to hand), if a man forces a stranger into sex against their will, it's rape. If a man forces his spouse into sex against their will, it's still rape. It is perfectly legitimate, in fact necessary, for the law to extend into people's homes in at least some circumstances.
So just because some clown does not like what you say or think in your own home , the police can come and burst your door down and arrest you for a hate crime. What kind of nutters are walking the streets.
Uh, no Malcolm, nothing like what I was saying. I was simply asking from a criminal point of view whether there's a difference between what is said and done at home versus what is done in public. I find your keenness to defend free speech... stirring, but if you read back you'll see that you got a bit overexcited about something you only imagined.
LOL, I am all for free speech , far too many of these pseudo nazi types nowadays want to control what we do , what we say , etc. It is unlikely family or friends will be committing hate crimes in your house. Sure the thought police would be able to make it one mind you.
And history shows where this leads. Parents or grandparents express "old fashioned" views in their own homes. It becomes known via schools and teachers report this to the relevant authorities. Children become unwitting accessories to the law putting their relatives in legal jeopardy.
Reminds me of a great Billy Connelly skit about school kids swearing and the other parents knowing who started it ...
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
How have you got close enough at the appropriate moments to determine whether they’re ummm, faking it?
Ooo what a thought! No, sadly not. Just going by what I see on the telly.
Think they might be staying together for the kids. Like Bryan Ferry and Jerry Hall.
Deleted, because someone will wilfully misunderstand
I think that could apply to just about any post on here by just about anyone.
Yes, except in this case the wilful misunderstanding could centre around something thinking I was accusing a certain MP of being a dogger, and since that MP is a QC (and because I certainly didn't mean it in that way), I'm erring on the side of nope.
Indeed. The big test for leaders is what do they do if things continue to get worse. We tried to keep our schools open at the start of all this and it's understandable that they were shut back then. But now? It's a massive call either way.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
How have you got close enough at the appropriate moments to determine whether they’re ummm, faking it?
Ooo what a thought! No, sadly not. Just going by what I see on the telly.
Think they might be staying together for the kids. Like Bryan Ferry and Jerry Hall.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
They are a bunch of entitled dinosaurs that need to be swept into the history books.
All of them.
The idea of position and privilege and influence based on an accident of birth is absurd. Even chimpanzees have a better system...
I am no Royalist, a bit of a republican infact. But I can counter your argument with three words. "President Boris Johnson".
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
I'm not projecting, unless you think to disagree with you is projecting? Fair enough on W&K.
I think there's clear evidence that:
(a) Meghan is very ambitious and found the Royal Family and its rules stifling - this seems typical of Americans who have Disney-like fantasies about what British royalty is actually like - duty, not being waited on hand & foot (b) There are too many stories from close family and friends (and ex-friends) of Meghan to ignore, including those that worked for and with her that point to her being a bit of a diva and rather self-centred (c) H&M both want to have their cake and eat it with the media. This is for slightly different reasons. For her, I think she is ambitious and wants herself presented in a certain way - note how she regularly invites them in, and leaks to those in favour, including cooperating on books, but sues those she doesn't like. Harry has a more visceral anger against the media (due to the tragedy of his mother) and basically hates them, but also realises he needs them to do good too - he is more interested in charity and sports than politics. (d) Harry is getting love and understanding from Meghan, who he's clearly besotted with, that he feels he didn't ever get from his own family. I have no reason to believe this isn't genuine - I note he looks at her quite a bit more than she looks at him, but not more than that. (e) Harry and William are estranged from one another and no longer close, and this is a tragedy for both. He also misses his mates in the UK and army life. I think he still has deep emotional issues he needs to work through. (f) Both Harry and Meghan were unhappy with their royal status for different reasons. Meghan because it constrained her and didn't allow her to do what she wanted. Harry because he still harbours some resentment of royal life and the media circus around it, and to some extent he was unhappy because she was too. They both largely assume any criticism *must* be racism, which then has a tendency to politicise opinion on them. (g) HMQ bent over backwards to try and find a solution for both Harry and Meghan, who weren't and aren't directly in line to the throne, and could have had a quiet life but still with a distinct role like Sophie/Edward, Kents etc. This wasn't enough for either (and I suspect Meghan a tad more) because they wanted to have their cake and eat it.
I hope there is a happy ending, but it will depend on them both developing a level of self-awareness and, quite frankly, I think Harry needs help.
For me , although there are lots of permutations, who wins the election will come down to two states, FL and PA. If Biden wins FL he's going to win, end of. If he loses, though there may be some ups and downs , I think it will come down to PA. I still think the national polls are reflecting more that Biden is doing better in places like TX and GA but I don't expect him to win either or NC. AZ I think he will. I am pretty confident he will win MI and WI but I have real doubts about PA, yes he's about 5% up but the mood music there seems so volatile. So I think if it comes down to PA (which I think it will as i suspect Trump will win FL just), we may have to wait a while to know who's won and can expect some shenanigans over postal votes. So much against my personal wishes I really can see Trump falling over the line, despite losing the popular vote by more than 2016 and only just getting past 270 this time. Now I need a stiff drink
This is my exact fear – and my forecast – although I think in that scenario, it ends up 269-269?
The one prediction I want to make is that I think Biden wins Georgia in almost all circumstances.
Well if that happens he is in the White House.
What makes you so confident?
(P.S. I share others' scepticism about a PA Biden win)
I think the failed (but slim) Stacey Abrams election attempt will drive further turnout in favour of the Dems.
Look at Fulton County - Atlanta - 344,876 votes so far. That’s 80% of the 2016 turnout already.
There is a plausible scenario whereby Biden underperforms in the rustbelt but arrives in the White House via the sunbelt.
I see Ladbrokes now have Trump favourite to win FL at 8/11
And as Florida goes, so goes the presidency, generally. But stop bothering people with facts.
That is simply not true, but then facts never really seem to impinge much on your world view. Biden could easily win whilst losing Florida
Sorry but this is balls, Florida has picked the winner since 1996, and almost every time before that. After Ohio it is the state that best represents the diversity, both economically and demographically, of the whole US. If your message has failed in Florida, it's really quite unlikely it will work in the other states you need to flip.
Ohio is going to be safe R, and Florida may not be far behind.
The point under discussion is that because Florida has generally voted for the winner Biden can't win if he loses Florida. That's absolute bollox.
Yes, Florida is far from essential for Biden which is just as well because I suspect he will lose it. In the past it has been pivotal but that honour belongs to Pennsylvania now. Difficult for either to win without PA although more so Trump than Biden. Nate S did a good piece on this:
My guess is that Biden will win with PA plus one or two from Ariz/Geo/Iowa/NC. That should do it because I just don't see Trump getting close in any of the States leaning more Biden's way than PA - i.e. Nev/Mic/Minn/Wisc etc. They are all looking pretty solid.
It therefore no longer looks to me a question of whether Biden wins, but by how much. I'm reckoning a modest distance, but it could easily stretch because Ariz/Geo etc are all on a knife edge.
And then there's always Texas!
Pretty much agree with that.
If Trump manages to win the Presidency again despite losing the popular vote the the GOP will have once won the popular vote only once in the last 8 contests. Any reasonable person would conclude that the system is broken. I think the GOP know they will struggle to win at the popular vote and so spend so much energy on surpressing their opponent's votes. The US really is moving into quasi-democracy status.
The American system is like our system - the national vote tally is a point of interest but isn't really relevant. The winning post in America is 270 electoral votes - the number of votes cast to secure those EC votes doesn't really matter much.
Its a stupid stupid system. But like the absurdities thrown up by our own First Past the Post you can;t say its broken.
Justin Trudeau is PM of Canada despite losing the popular vote at the last election.
In a Parliamentary system, even in a proportional voting system, which Canada is not, the leader of the party that has plurality of votes gets first chance, so JT got a whisker under 40% of the vote, and he therefore got first chance. Sure, the Libs (and NDP) were down in seats (though the Grits were barely down in vote percentage) and the Tories and the Bloc were up, but not by enough to get the Tories into Sussex Drive.
So in short, as in the UK, the leader of the largest minority wins.
At least in a proportional system the PM generally has to lead a coalition representing the majority of votes. Now we are stuck with a UK government elected on 42% of the vote, and now supported by a fair deal less than that.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
Constructing fanciful narratives about the royals, and dreaming about the Queen coming to tea, are at the core of what it means to be British.
I do think that for an Englishman with a rural centre of gravity, year-round exile to a LA mansion is the perfect vision of hell.
I think there's many Englishmen even in urban areas, such as Epping, who would agree.
Englishmen in London too. LA is my idea of personal hell having been there more than a few times.
That's more like it. If you don't need papers to move about it doesn't count.
Don't worry folks. In Brexit Britain you are still free to infect your friends by entirely coincidentally finding yourself adjacent to them in the pub whilst having Pasty, Chips and 5 pints of Stella for lunch.
I have no issue with either of them, but it's very hard to escape the conclusion that they (or Harry at least) wants all the attention of being royal with none of the intrusion. Which is something I imagine many people have sympathy with, but is also not what they want from their royals.
It doesn't help that Harry and Meghan are lecturing us on what awful racists we are, from a $10m mansion in sunny southern California, while we sit in the chilly drizzle listening to their bilge
They are only going to get more unpopular from here on. It is very sad. I predicted they would become like Edward and Mrs Simpson, quietly loathed by Brits as they partied in their Bahamas mansion, and so it is proving.
Harry has made a tragic error. She will divorce him in a few years.
He soooo obviously wants to be drinking beer and playing polo in the English rain with his army chums, and she has so obviously got everything she wanted out of the transaction, that it seems a shame they don't dispense with the few years.
Hmm not sure. I sense their marriage is MILES happier than William and Kate's. Those two look utterly miserable and faking it the whole time to me.
Eh? I don't see that at all.
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
I think you're projecting on the H&M front. Seeing what you feel ought to be the case. I was kidding re W&K - just to illustrate how many others are doing what I think you have just done. The projecting. H&M have "rejected us" and it must be the fault of "that woman" who has corrupted "our Harry".
I'm not projecting, unless you think to disagree with you is projecting? Fair enough on W&K.
I think there's clear evidence that:
(a) Meghan is very ambitious and found the Royal Family and its rules stifling - this seems typical of Americans who have Disney-like fantasies about what British royalty is actually like - duty, not being waited on hand & foot (b) There are too many stories from close family and friends (and ex-friends) of Meghan to ignore, including those that worked for and with her that point to her being a bit of a diva and rather self-centred (c) H&M both want to have their cake and eat it with the media. This is for slightly different reasons. For her, I think she is ambitious and wants herself presented in a certain way - note how she regularly invites them in, and leaks to those in favour, including cooperating on books, but sues those she doesn't like. Harry has a more visceral anger against the media (due to the tragedy of his mother) and basically hates them, but also realises he needs them to do good too - he is more interested in charity and sports than politics. (d) Harry is getting love and understanding from Meghan, who he's clearly besotted with, that he feels he didn't ever get from his own family. I have no reason to believe this isn't genuine - I note he looks at her quite a bit more than she looks at him, but not more than that. (e) Harry and William are estranged from one another and no longer close, and this is a tragedy for both. He also misses his mates in the UK and army life. I think he still has deep emotional issues he needs to work through. (f) Both Harry and Meghan were unhappy with their royal status for different reasons. Meghan because it constrained her and didn't allow her to do what she wanted. Harry because he still harbours some resentment of royal life and the media circus around it, and to some extent he was unhappy because she was too. They both largely assume any criticism *must* be racism, which then has a tendency to politicise opinion on them. (g) HMQ bent over backwards to try and find a solution for both Harry and Meghan, who weren't and aren't directly in line to the throne, and could have had a quiet life but still with a distinct role like Sophie/Edward, Kents etc. This wasn't enough for either (and I suspect Meghan a tad more) because they wanted to have their cake and eat it.
I hope there is a happy ending, but it will depend on them both developing a level of self-awareness and, quite frankly, I think Harry needs help.
Comments
If you assume - as the writers of the Constitution did - that power derives from the people, and is organised from them via the States who voluntarily cede it to the centre for reasons of efficiency, and that Washington and the Federal Government are therefore beholden to those states and has actually only got quite limited powers (there were huge rows about whether to have a national bank, FFS) it makes much more sense.
Appropriate in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous after the Civil War. Ludicrous in the post Depression age of a highly centralised federal government.
Which only goes to show the Constitution is an outdated joke that should be replaced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP-FqtPFSV0
What next? DRoss for First Minister?
https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-covid-ofsted-inspector-visit-closes-school
For this, Amanda Spielmann should be immediately sacked.
(Not that she should ever have been appointed given she makes Cummings look sane, intelligent and well-informed.)
So they are still stuck in the eighteenth century.
https://twitter.com/RealCarlAllen/status/1321343112153829376?s=20
Midweek polling mischief and a melange of information with which to contend on the final Wednesday of the 2020 US election campaigns.
Starting with the Presidential campaigns and the see-saw (or teeter-totter) is very much in evidence. On one end, we have the now daily Rasmussen offering putting Trump up 48-47. That would be a swing of 1.5% to Trump since 2016. On the other end, we have YouGov for the Economist which has Biden ahead 54-43, a 4.5% to the challenger.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/nzc8dt85gn/econTabReport.pdf
This weekly poll has remained remarkably consistent over the past weeks with Biden consistently 9-11 points ahead. Biden leads in all regions now including the south while Trump's strength remains among less well-educated whites.
In the middle we have both Emerson and the daily rolling IBD/TIPP polls which have Biden ahead 50-45 so a 1.5% swing to the challenger.
To the State polls and in Wisconsin, a Marquette Law School poll has Biden maintaining a 5-point advantage.
https://law.marquette.edu/poll/
To contrast, Trafalgar has Biden ahead by a point while an ABC News/Washington Post poll has a colossal 17-point Biden advantage.
In North Carolina, a poll by Harper Research for the conservative think-tank Civitas has Biden ahead by a point. As with Trafalgar, we are seeing conservative pollsters publishing polls to suggest the race is tightening as a way to galvanise the Trump vote into believing a victory can still be theirs.
Two new polls still suggest Michigan is safe for Biden but of far more interest is a Monmouth poll in Georgia putting Biden up 50-46
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_GA_102820/
Monmouth are a respected pollster and the move in the past month is Trump down 2 and Biden up 4. I'm not quite ready to put Georgia in the Blue column yet but I'm moving that way.
Big Biden leads in Maine and Virginia are no great surprise but in Maine Congressional District 2 , a new poll by Colby College puts Biden ahead 46-42.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2020/Wave-4-Topline-Final.pdf
Oddly enough, the Maine CD2 numbers have been remarkably consistent from this pollster through the last three months. Apart from a single low-sample poll from the Bangor Daily News which had an 8-point Trump lead, every other poll has shown Biden ahead and I'm putting Maine CD-2 in the Blue column.
Finally, a poll from yesterday which came in too late for inclusion in yesterday's look. A poll for WHO-TV13 has Biden ahead 50-46, a two -point improvement for the challenger on last month's equivalent. Iowa is like Georgia now leaning toward Biden but it's staying TCTC for now.
The map is 285-163 for Biden with 90 TCTC and on how I see it from the polling, I'm at 328-210.
Your point regarding online learning until at least New Year is more troublesome for me, with two sons at Uni, both left high and dry, and between them with a tuition fee bill of £18250. In each case, neither has seen a lecturer, other than on a screen since March. In both instances tuition from March to June was almost invisible. Although a reasonably workable alternative doesn't quickly come to mind.
Johnson [September]: "We'll be back to normal by Christmas"
Think they might be staying together for the kids. Like Bryan Ferry and Jerry Hall.
So I can well believe that some pubs were packed with tourists. And the only locals were behind the bar....
Harry looks angry and lost, although clearly enthralled by Meghan, and she looks, well, smug.
William and Kate seem like a typically happy married couple whenever I see them, they were both besotted with each other from first sight and they have three children to prove it.
It is unlikely family or friends will be committing hate crimes in your house. Sure the thought police would be able to make it one mind you.
Basically, the longer minorities are in a country the more they tend to integrate into the mainstream and adopt their politics. So, by 2200, Whites will be a clear minority in the USA but mixed-race/minority Americans will choose to pick up much of their political traditions.
There are signs this is happening now with Hispanics in the same way it did with Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and Jews during the 20th Century compared to the original WASP archetype of a R American.
A human is a human and a brain is a brain - it's what you do with it that counts.
I do think that for an Englishman with a rural centre of gravity, year-round exile to a LA mansion is the perfect vision of hell.
All of them.
The idea of position and privilege and influence based on an accident of birth is absurd. Even chimpanzees have a better system...
The culture of success in the US are constantly reinforced across many media, including the generally liberal MSM. And even if the policies and politics of the MSM are not in line with the GOPs, there celebration of success does reinforce the basics of that underly essentially right-of-centre politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EbR0ckb40
https://twitter.com/AnneliseBorges/status/1321532040525864960
The British public are still not her greatest fans but they no longer loathe her as they did after Diana died
But many are rooting for it, let's be honest. She is "not right for our Harry" etc. You know exactly what I mean. I know you do.
Unless there are a lot more votes on the day, bringing the overall turnout well above 2016, then Biden almost certainly has enough votes in the bag.
*Not a surprise gain, I know
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1321533365242253312?s=21
BBC News - Covid-19: Nottinghamshire tier 3 to feature 9pm alcohol rule
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-54717821
The Texas Supreme Court has already ruled this voting setup legal so this is a quite phenomenal move by the GOP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NSQI51dppg&ab_channel=hankgwe
I think there's clear evidence that:
(a) Meghan is very ambitious and found the Royal Family and its rules stifling - this seems typical of Americans who have Disney-like fantasies about what British royalty is actually like - duty, not being waited on hand & foot
(b) There are too many stories from close family and friends (and ex-friends) of Meghan to ignore, including those that worked for and with her that point to her being a bit of a diva and rather self-centred
(c) H&M both want to have their cake and eat it with the media. This is for slightly different reasons. For her, I think she is ambitious and wants herself presented in a certain way - note how she regularly invites them in, and leaks to those in favour, including cooperating on books, but sues those she doesn't like. Harry has a more visceral anger against the media (due to the tragedy of his mother) and basically hates them, but also realises he needs them to do good too - he is more interested in charity and sports than politics.
(d) Harry is getting love and understanding from Meghan, who he's clearly besotted with, that he feels he didn't ever get from his own family. I have no reason to believe this isn't genuine - I note he looks at her quite a bit more than she looks at him, but not more than that.
(e) Harry and William are estranged from one another and no longer close, and this is a tragedy for both. He also misses his mates in the UK and army life. I think he still has deep emotional issues he needs to work through.
(f) Both Harry and Meghan were unhappy with their royal status for different reasons. Meghan because it constrained her and didn't allow her to do what she wanted. Harry because he still harbours some resentment of royal life and the media circus around it, and to some extent he was unhappy because she was too. They both largely assume any criticism *must* be racism, which then has a tendency to politicise opinion on them.
(g) HMQ bent over backwards to try and find a solution for both Harry and Meghan, who weren't and aren't directly in line to the throne, and could have had a quiet life but still with a distinct role like Sophie/Edward, Kents etc. This wasn't enough for either (and I suspect Meghan a tad more) because they wanted to have their cake and eat it.
I hope there is a happy ending, but it will depend on them both developing a level of self-awareness and, quite frankly, I think Harry needs help.
So in short, as in the UK, the leader of the largest minority wins.
At least in a proportional system the PM generally has to lead a coalition representing the majority of votes. Now we are stuck with a UK government elected on 42% of the vote, and now supported by a fair deal less than that.
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1321138590789726209?s=20