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YouGov finds that if given the chance Britain would overwhelmingly vote Trump out – politicalbetting

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  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,428
    isam said:

    It's similar to why Trevor Phillips went from being some kind of Blair Tsar on multiculturalism, to thinking it a terrible idea
    Hang on. What has this got to do with multiculturalism?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,928
    isam said:

    From what I read, it seems Trump has no chance of winning. He was a much bigger price on the morning of the 2016 Election though wasn't he?
    In 2016, he was (to quote 538 at the time) just a normal polling error away from the Presidency. But people didn't believe it, they didn't seem him as a likely winner. And they bet accordingly.

    In 2020, he is *way* more than a normal polling error away from the Presidency. To be a 50/50 shot, he needs to be 2.5% behind or less, and in the poll-of-polls he's 8% or so behind. But this time punters are scarred by 2016.

    Do you believe that the polling error this year will favour the Republicans?

    Do you believe the polling error will also be at least two points more than the previous worst national polling miss of the last half century?

    Now, those two things are clearly quite possible. I'd say it's 50-50 for the first, and perhaps one-in-five (given the pandemic) for the second. Plus, there's the chance that Trump could have an incredibly efficient vote.

    But giving him more than a one-in-eight shot seems gutsy. I've bet on Biden.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,800
    In 2016, Trump won the male vote by 11 and lost the female vote by 13 so a 5 % swing among men and a 5.5% swing among women so it's not much different to last time.

    Trump won White voters by 21 last time so a lead of just 2 is a swing of 9.5% since 2016 so the damage to Trump is among white voters.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Roy_G_Biv said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    LadyG said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    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.
    When I used to have to go to E3, I used to hate it too.

    Now I live here, I love the Santa Monica - Pacific Palisades - Brentwood - Westwood area. I love the closeness of the Ocean. I love the fact that I can go skiing in the morning, and be back at work at 1pm. I love the fact that we can eat outside all year round.

    Large parts of Los Angeles are fantastic. Other parts, like any other city in the world, are not so great.
    E3 is a generally awful experience, luckily all of the SCEE people were put in the Santa Monica Marriott next to the beach due to the Santa Monica studio and it is a very agreeable place. However, LA isn't like other cities in the world. It has third world living conditions in parts of it and it is genuinely lovely in others. America just doesn't agree with me or my own outlook. If someone forced me to live there it would have to be San Diego or Santa Monica, really I'd pick neither.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    There's always been something of a slight suspicion about how Germany count their deaths i think. Not that there's anything fundamentally wrong with it, just that they might do it differently.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    I had a pint with a mate on Sunday. He tested positive today.

    He has no symptoms though, and his wife and daughters tested negative

    Can I ask what prompted his test?
    Yes, a bloke doing some work at his house tested positive
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    LadyG said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    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.
    You said she looks "smug".

    ???
    Yes, not in that post, but I did.

    Smug as in self-satisfied. You can usually recognise someone who is smug with a little smile whilst confidently making self-righteous remarks.

    Smug.
  • tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    There's reason to believe that the UK testing system isn't picking up all the cases; both the ONS survey and the ZOE app put the true incidence in the UK about twice as high as Test'n'Trace does. Yes, the UK is testing lots of people, but it's still managing to miss lots.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177
    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    I’d say we’ve had more cases for longer, hence the larger deaths. The increase in cases in Germany started later than ours.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,147

    Scott_xP said:
    Although on past form Boris will give a week's notice.

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
    In this instance I think not. I presume France is acting on scientific and medical advice that the health system is in danger of collapse. Otherwise it would not be justified. The UK may have to do the same - just as likely to follow the German or Spanish route which is somewhat more nuanced. Either way Scott_xP's spurious Brexit link is both entirely predictable and cheap.
  • alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    But people can't go to work if their kids are at home. That would hurt the economy more.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    It's similar to why Trevor Phillips went from being some kind of Blair Tsar on multiculturalism, to thinking it a terrible idea
    Hang on. What has this got to do with multiculturalism?
    I didn't say it had anything to do with multiculturalism. Phillips went from being a Tsar on multiculturalism to thinking it a bad idea because white people were too scared of being called racist to report Africans killing a child they thought was a witch. The parallel is between that lack of action and that of the security guard in Manchester.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113
    Alistair said:

    isam said:

    From what I read, it seems Trump has no chance of winning. He was a much bigger price on the morning of the 2016 Election though wasn't he?
    Yes, you could get 6/1 on him in 2016.
    I did, it was a good election for me.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    edited October 2020

    isam said:

    It's similar to why Trevor Phillips went from being some kind of Blair Tsar on multiculturalism, to thinking it a terrible idea
    Hang on. What has this got to do with multiculturalism?
    Multi-culturalism, not multi-race.

    In other words, thinking we should celebrate the UK as having a salad bowl of different cultures and values, rather than integrating everyone into a common British culture and set of values.

    I don't think this is the issue here as it happens; it's fear of being branded a racist (the worst possible crime in our society today) can lead.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    From what I read, it seems Trump has no chance of winning. He was a much bigger price on the morning of the 2016 Election though wasn't he?
    In 2016, he was (to quote 538 at the time) just a normal polling error away from the Presidency. But people didn't believe it, they didn't seem him as a likely winner. And they bet accordingly.

    In 2020, he is *way* more than a normal polling error away from the Presidency. To be a 50/50 shot, he needs to be 2.5% behind or less, and in the poll-of-polls he's 8% or so behind. But this time punters are scarred by 2016.

    Do you believe that the polling error this year will favour the Republicans?

    Do you believe the polling error will also be at least two points more than the previous worst national polling miss of the last half century?

    Now, those two things are clearly quite possible. I'd say it's 50-50 for the first, and perhaps one-in-five (given the pandemic) for the second. Plus, there's the chance that Trump could have an incredibly efficient vote.

    But giving him more than a one-in-eight shot seems gutsy. I've bet on Biden.
    I backed him last time, but not for much, at 11/2. I had tiny bets on this market and win £8 no matter what - woohoo!
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,586
    felix said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Although on past form Boris will give a week's notice.

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
    In this instance I think not. I presume France is acting on scientific and medical advice that the health system is in danger of collapse. Otherwise it would not be justified. The UK may have to do the same - just as likely to follow the German or Spanish route which is somewhat more nuanced. Either way Scott_xP's spurious Brexit link is both entirely predictable and cheap.
    ...and apt
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,177

    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    There's reason to believe that the UK testing system isn't picking up all the cases; both the ONS survey and the ZOE app put the true incidence in the UK about twice as high as Test'n'Trace does. Yes, the UK is testing lots of people, but it's still managing to miss lots.
    Sadly the infectious before symptomatic is the elephant in the room. Without that issue Covid would have gone the way of swine flu.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Roy_G_Biv said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    LadyG said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    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.
    When I used to have to go to E3, I used to hate it too.

    Now I live here, I love the Santa Monica - Pacific Palisades - Brentwood - Westwood area. I love the closeness of the Ocean. I love the fact that I can go skiing in the morning, and be back at work at 1pm. I love the fact that we can eat outside all year round.

    Large parts of Los Angeles are fantastic. Other parts, like any other city in the world, are not so great.
    I rather like parts of LA, in the right place in the right sun it can be paradisiacal. The urban ugliness and sprawl is pretty grim, however. As is the homelessness, the guns, the crime.

    When I am there I imagine how exquisite it must have been a hundred or two hundred years ago, when the orange groves stretched to the beaches.

    As for life there, it depends very much on who you know. If you are in the right social circles (as I suspect you are?) LA is full of talented, interesting, clever, unique, fascinating people, and you can have a great time, just as good as New York, London or Paris. If you are in some shit job and you live in a distant suburb it is probably a hellish place, worse than any big European city.

  • alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    I can see the logic; once you close schools, the economic consequences are horrid anyway, because the breeders can't go to work. If a Puritan Lockdown (you can go to school, work or Church, but nothing fun at all) gives R less than 1, so be it. But all those people who pushed the line that "children can't possibly spread the virus" (yes, I am looking at you Johnson) have a lot of explaining to do.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    We cannot shut schools. I'd shut everything else before that.

    This year was a disaster for children that will affect many for their whole lives.

    We cannot risk that again. Even if we have to take 1,000 deaths a day.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,360

    kle4 said:

    LadyG said:

    Jesus Christ. The last sentence cannot be right. Can it?

    https://twitter.com/sebastiennel/status/1321535287529558024?s=21

    Sounds like an inflexibly drafted law if so, and unenforcable without stasi levels of informant reach into the home, but I think with a lot of these measures governments are just trying to show seriousness, whether or not they can enforce.
    If Boris tried the same in the UK, who would be heavily heavily mocked.

    Yet when the same happens in France, or Germany it's all 'well I can see what they're trying to do, very sensible..'
    A lockdown in which schools, industries and workplaces stay open is not a lockdown.

    The issue of whether we can control the virus this winter and at the same time have a functioning society/economy is still being tested. At the moment I don't think there is much evidence that we can. To choose between those two is obviously catastrophic, as is probably to fail to do so. Tough job is politics.

  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    But people can't go to work if their kids are at home. That would hurt the economy more.
    Kind of misses the point. I'm not denying the economy is hurt even more if schools are shut. But the point is that if you are going to do a lockdown, you might as well do it properly if doing it at all.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401

    Mal557 said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/chucklindell/status/1321517036309270533?s=19

    The Texas Supreme Court has already ruled this voting setup legal so this is a quite phenomenal move by the GOP.

    They really are shameless.
    Indeed, and we will see only more of this in the coming days up to and just after the election.
    They must be worried in Texas.

    Similar pattern in Nevada where the GOP probably are going down.

    https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1321478382568177664?s=20
    How did the GOP become such a cesspit of anti-democratic poison?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,147
    kle4 said:

    LadyG said:

    Jesus Christ. The last sentence cannot be right. Can it?

    https://twitter.com/sebastiennel/status/1321535287529558024?s=21

    Sounds like an inflexibly drafted law if so, and unenforcable without stasi levels of informant reach into the home, but I think with a lot of these measures governments are just trying to show seriousness, whether or not they can enforce.
    Sounds a bit like the SNP approach to free speech!
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    felix said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Although on past form Boris will give a week's notice.

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
    In this instance I think not. I presume France is acting on scientific and medical advice that the health system is in danger of collapse. Otherwise it would not be justified. The UK may have to do the same - just as likely to follow the German or Spanish route which is somewhat more nuanced. Either way Scott_xP's spurious Brexit link is both entirely predictable and cheap.
    France had a weaker lockdown than the most stringent parts of the UK until yesterday:

    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1321537772155535360?s=20
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947
    isam said:

    isam said:

    VARchester United - Greenwood was offside there surely?

    Yup, he was more offside than Mane was in the Merseyside derby.
    Very strange

    Rascal jacket on RB's manager
    I see West Ham are away to Liverpool on Saturday.

    You'll take a point there, I'd imagine?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    I can see the logic; once you close schools, the economic consequences are horrid anyway, because the breeders can't go to work. If a Puritan Lockdown (you can go to school, work or Church, but nothing fun at all) gives R less than 1, so be it. But all those people who pushed the line that "children can't possibly spread the virus" (yes, I am looking at you Johnson) have a lot of explaining to do.
    The current chain of infection related to schools is older kids and outside the school gates of primary schools. There's still not much evidence for young children passing it to adults.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    VARchester United - Greenwood was offside there surely?

    Yup, he was more offside than Mane was in the Merseyside derby.
    Very strange

    Rascal jacket on RB's manager
    I see West Ham are away to Liverpool on Saturday.

    You'll take a point there, I'd imagine?
    Haha
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    We cannot shut schools. I'd shut everything else before that.

    This year was a disaster for children that will affect many for their whole lives.

    We cannot risk that again. Even if we have to take 1,000 deaths a day.
    Again i'm not denying that. But a lockdown without shutting schools just leaves an enormous gap for the virus to charge right through. So either do it properly or don't do it at all.
  • kle4 said:

    LadyG said:

    Jesus Christ. The last sentence cannot be right. Can it?

    https://twitter.com/sebastiennel/status/1321535287529558024?s=21

    Sounds like an inflexibly drafted law if so, and unenforcable without stasi levels of informant reach into the home, but I think with a lot of these measures governments are just trying to show seriousness, whether or not they can enforce.
    If Boris tried the same in the UK, who would be heavily heavily mocked.

    Yet when the same happens in France, or Germany it's all 'well I can see what they're trying to do, very sensible..'
    Balderdash I am afraid, how many people have criticised it, compared to how many people have supported it? And even within those the criticism is fierce.

    Bad ideas get rubbished whoever they come from, and this is one of them. That you are making the connection is just a reminder "Boris" comes up with a lot of bad ideas.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,586
    I see the 538 forecast model is now giving just an 11% chance that US voters will vote to make the UK leave transition with No Deal re-elect Trump.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,123

    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    I’d say we’ve had more cases for longer, hence the larger deaths. The increase in cases in Germany started later than ours.
    Fair point. According to Worldometers:

    UK:

    Oct 6 - 14,542 cases
    Oct 27 - 367 deaths

    (c.2.5%)

    Germany:

    Oct 6 - 2,462 cases
    Oct 27 - 81 deaths

    (c. 3.3%)
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,147

    felix said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Although on past form Boris will give a week's notice.

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
    In this instance I think not. I presume France is acting on scientific and medical advice that the health system is in danger of collapse. Otherwise it would not be justified. The UK may have to do the same - just as likely to follow the German or Spanish route which is somewhat more nuanced. Either way Scott_xP's spurious Brexit link is both entirely predictable and cheap.
    France had a weaker lockdown than the most stringent parts of the UK until yesterday:

    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1321537772155535360?s=20
    And the much criticised 'rule of 6' has been adopted subsequently over much of Europe.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    If I had to guess, I'd say the Government will move more areas into Tier 3 over the next 2 weeks.

    It will then take a view of the lay of the land w/c 9th November - if that still hasn't arrested the spread, it might move to more firm national restrictions for 4 weeks from mid-November, and ease up just before Christmas for a week, with the rule of six, before potentially doing it again from 1st January.

    It might even be in its interests to do that for the first 4-6 weeks of January to allow the new Brexit systems to bed-in, assuming the sensible thing of a phased 6-month transition to the new arrangements hasn't been agreed.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994

    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    There's reason to believe that the UK testing system isn't picking up all the cases; both the ONS survey and the ZOE app put the true incidence in the UK about twice as high as Test'n'Trace does. Yes, the UK is testing lots of people, but it's still managing to miss lots.
    Sadly the infectious before symptomatic is the elephant in the room. Without that issue Covid would have gone the way of swine flu.
    It's the invisible elephant in the room.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    felix said:

    felix said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Although on past form Boris will give a week's notice.

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
    In this instance I think not. I presume France is acting on scientific and medical advice that the health system is in danger of collapse. Otherwise it would not be justified. The UK may have to do the same - just as likely to follow the German or Spanish route which is somewhat more nuanced. Either way Scott_xP's spurious Brexit link is both entirely predictable and cheap.
    France had a weaker lockdown than the most stringent parts of the UK until yesterday:

    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1321537772155535360?s=20
    And the much criticised 'rule of 6' has been adopted subsequently over much of Europe.
    Germany has a "rule of 5". Less breeding? ;)
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,800


    How did the GOP become such a cesspit of anti-democratic poison?

    It's all about power - they are desperate to keep the power controlling the White House gives them. At the moment, the GOP faces its first complete shut-out since 2008-10 with the Democrats controlling the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives.

    American conservatives don't like the idea of the "left" being in charge and will resort to anything to prevent it. They can't buy their way to victory so they are resorting to legal chicanery and scare tactics.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    alex_ said:

    felix said:

    felix said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Although on past form Boris will give a week's notice.

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
    In this instance I think not. I presume France is acting on scientific and medical advice that the health system is in danger of collapse. Otherwise it would not be justified. The UK may have to do the same - just as likely to follow the German or Spanish route which is somewhat more nuanced. Either way Scott_xP's spurious Brexit link is both entirely predictable and cheap.
    France had a weaker lockdown than the most stringent parts of the UK until yesterday:

    https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1321537772155535360?s=20
    And the much criticised 'rule of 6' has been adopted subsequently over much of Europe.
    Germany has a "rule of 5". Less breeding? ;)
    Little known fact.

    Sex between four people, in kinky circles, is known as a "kumquat".
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528

    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    There's reason to believe that the UK testing system isn't picking up all the cases; both the ONS survey and the ZOE app put the true incidence in the UK about twice as high as Test'n'Trace does. Yes, the UK is testing lots of people, but it's still managing to miss lots.
    Sadly the infectious before symptomatic is the elephant in the room. Without that issue Covid would have gone the way of swine flu.
    No it isn't, the infectious pre-symptomatic period is 2.5 days out of 5, a good track and trace team can get test results back within the first 3 days of infection as has been shown all across developed nations in APAC. Our issue is that track and trace is basically a disaster here and only contacts 6/10 people and of those very few get a test and even fewer isolate. The key to breaking the isolation chain finding contacts asap, swabbing them and getting them test results overnight so they can isolate as well if they test positive.

    All European countries seem absolutely rubbish at going out and finding cases, all testing systems basically rely on people with symptoms booking a test which means there are at least 4.5 days where people are infectious and not isolating becusee they don't know if they have it. Coupled with rubbish isolation rates in general and we are where we are.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Stocky said:

    Alistair said:

    isam said:

    From what I read, it seems Trump has no chance of winning. He was a much bigger price on the morning of the 2016 Election though wasn't he?
    Yes, you could get 6/1 on him in 2016.
    I did, it was a good election for me.
    My mistake was not laying off my above evens bet on Clinton on the day (in stark contrast to my terrible trading this time out my train in 2016 was extremely skillful/lucky)
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    New thread
  • I see the 538 forecast model is now giving just an 11% chance that US voters will vote to make the UK leave transition with No Deal re-elect Trump.

    I believe a deal has never been nearer by todays report

    It is to be hoped that is true for everyone's sake, especially with covid on the rampage
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    MaxPB said:

    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    There's reason to believe that the UK testing system isn't picking up all the cases; both the ONS survey and the ZOE app put the true incidence in the UK about twice as high as Test'n'Trace does. Yes, the UK is testing lots of people, but it's still managing to miss lots.
    Sadly the infectious before symptomatic is the elephant in the room. Without that issue Covid would have gone the way of swine flu.
    No it isn't, the infectious pre-symptomatic period is 2.5 days out of 5, a good track and trace team can get test results back within the first 3 days of infection as has been shown all across developed nations in APAC. Our issue is that track and trace is basically a disaster here and only contacts 6/10 people and of those very few get a test and even fewer isolate. The key to breaking the isolation chain finding contacts asap, swabbing them and getting them test results overnight so they can isolate as well if they test positive.

    All European countries seem absolutely rubbish at going out and finding cases, all testing systems basically rely on people with symptoms booking a test which means there are at least 4.5 days where people are infectious and not isolating becusee they don't know if they have it. Coupled with rubbish isolation rates in general and we are where we are.
    It may be basic IQ levels. That is to say, if you have a population which on average is basically smart enough for most people to wear masks, wash hands, isolate properly, obey rules of 6, not go to religious festivals, etc, then you will get a good covid outcome.



    The top 8 nations by average IQ are:

    1. Hong Kong (108)

    2. Singapore (108)

    3. South Korea (106)

    4. China (105)

    5. Japan (105)

    6. Taiwan (105)

    7. Iceland (101)

    8. Macau (101)


  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,586
    edited October 2020
    Beto O'Rourke is is trying to persuade Biden to campaign in Texas:

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/28/joe-biden-texas-2020-433088

    But really, what's the point? 91% of 2016 turnout levels have already voted in Texas.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,360
    edited October 2020

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    We cannot shut schools. I'd shut everything else before that.

    This year was a disaster for children that will affect many for their whole lives.

    We cannot risk that again. Even if we have to take 1,000 deaths a day.
    Both shutting schools and 1000 deaths a day (365,000 a year - well over half the normal total) are both politically impossible.

    The politically impossible things are mounting up. An EU aligned and a WTO Brexit are both politically impossible. So are both splitting and holding together the UK. So is uncapped borrowing of trillions for our grandchildren to pay back. So are both steeply raising taxes and failing to do so. So is allowing migration at high levels and banning it. We live in strange times.

    Also impossible are the current odds on Trump winning. But there they are. (I still think he may well win).

  • While voter suppression has been a hallmark of the American right since the foundation of the Republic, practiced by Federalists, Whigs and Republicans (also Southern segregationist Democrats) during my lifetime the GOP has been WAY more restrained or at least subtle in deploying this strategy.

    It is a measure of the desperation of Trumpsky AND the RNC that they are willing to got to unprecedented length carrying it out.

    Keep in mind that millions of Republicans and GOP-leaners do NOT approve of the kind of shenanigans Trumpsky * RNC are currently employing to keep eligible voters from voting.

    My own Daddy Dearest was a strong Republican supporter - but he would find these efforts at disenfranchisement to be FAR beyond the pale.

    Which is why I think that the rampant, massive and shameless efforts at voter suppression by Trumpsky & RNC to be COUNTERPRODUCTIVE.

    They are helping persuade conflicted Republicans that THIS is the year to vote Democratic, in whole or for part of their own ballot.

    AND they are mobilizing Democrats and Independent-swing voters to Get Out and Vote these rascals OUT.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Mal557 said:

    Alistair said:

    https://twitter.com/chucklindell/status/1321517036309270533?s=19

    The Texas Supreme Court has already ruled this voting setup legal so this is a quite phenomenal move by the GOP.

    They really are shameless.
    Indeed, and we will see only more of this in the coming days up to and just after the election.
    They must be worried in Texas.

    Similar pattern in Nevada where the GOP probably are going down.

    https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1321478382568177664?s=20
    How did the GOP become such a cesspit of anti-democratic poison?
    Since they invited the Dixiecrats into their party.

    Until a couple of years ago the GOP was under a decades long running restraining order restricting their use of "poll watchers"
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,320

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    We cannot shut schools. I'd shut everything else before that.

    This year was a disaster for children that will affect many for their whole lives.

    We cannot risk that again. Even if we have to take 1,000 deaths a day.
    If we have a very bad winter, it may prove to have been a mistake to shut schools initially. If that's the case, it would have been better for those who are not at high risk of serious disease to infect each other during the summer when it was more feasible to minimise the spread to people who are more at risk.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513
    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    From what I read, it seems Trump has no chance of winning. He was a much bigger price on the morning of the 2016 Election though wasn't he?
    In 2016, he was (to quote 538 at the time) just a normal polling error away from the Presidency. But people didn't believe it, they didn't seem him as a likely winner. And they bet accordingly.

    In 2020, he is *way* more than a normal polling error away from the Presidency. To be a 50/50 shot, he needs to be 2.5% behind or less, and in the poll-of-polls he's 8% or so behind. But this time punters are scarred by 2016.

    Do you believe that the polling error this year will favour the Republicans?

    Do you believe the polling error will also be at least two points more than the previous worst national polling miss of the last half century?

    Now, those two things are clearly quite possible. I'd say it's 50-50 for the first, and perhaps one-in-five (given the pandemic) for the second. Plus, there's the chance that Trump could have an incredibly efficient vote.

    But giving him more than a one-in-eight shot seems gutsy. I've bet on Biden.
    And you can, of course, add in a hedge on a narrow Trump win, for an overall 2/5 or thereabouts on a Biden win. Which has to be an outstanding risk/reward proposition, a week out from the election.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,928
    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    From what I read, it seems Trump has no chance of winning. He was a much bigger price on the morning of the 2016 Election though wasn't he?
    In 2016, he was (to quote 538 at the time) just a normal polling error away from the Presidency. But people didn't believe it, they didn't seem him as a likely winner. And they bet accordingly.

    In 2020, he is *way* more than a normal polling error away from the Presidency. To be a 50/50 shot, he needs to be 2.5% behind or less, and in the poll-of-polls he's 8% or so behind. But this time punters are scarred by 2016.

    Do you believe that the polling error this year will favour the Republicans?

    Do you believe the polling error will also be at least two points more than the previous worst national polling miss of the last half century?

    Now, those two things are clearly quite possible. I'd say it's 50-50 for the first, and perhaps one-in-five (given the pandemic) for the second. Plus, there's the chance that Trump could have an incredibly efficient vote.

    But giving him more than a one-in-eight shot seems gutsy. I've bet on Biden.
    I backed him last time, but not for much, at 11/2. I had tiny bets on this market and win £8 no matter what - woohoo!
    I don't remember what bets I went into the evening with, but I remember from about 12:30am putting more money on Trump about every five minutes as the markets completely failed to react correctly to the results from Florida.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,928
    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Roy_G_Biv said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    LadyG said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    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.
    When I used to have to go to E3, I used to hate it too.

    Now I live here, I love the Santa Monica - Pacific Palisades - Brentwood - Westwood area. I love the closeness of the Ocean. I love the fact that I can go skiing in the morning, and be back at work at 1pm. I love the fact that we can eat outside all year round.

    Large parts of Los Angeles are fantastic. Other parts, like any other city in the world, are not so great.
    I rather like parts of LA, in the right place in the right sun it can be paradisiacal. The urban ugliness and sprawl is pretty grim, however. As is the homelessness, the guns, the crime.

    When I am there I imagine how exquisite it must have been a hundred or two hundred years ago, when the orange groves stretched to the beaches.

    As for life there, it depends very much on who you know. If you are in the right social circles (as I suspect you are?) LA is full of talented, interesting, clever, unique, fascinating people, and you can have a great time, just as good as New York, London or Paris. If you are in some shit job and you live in a distant suburb it is probably a hellish place, worse than any big European city.

    We had Allison Janney round the other day, does that count as hanging in the right social circles?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,928
    LadyG said:

    MaxPB said:

    tlg86 said:

    Those figures don't pass the sniff test. Either the number of deaths in Germany is too low or the number of positive tests in the UK is too low (I know there's a lag, but the trends have been similar in both countries).
    There's reason to believe that the UK testing system isn't picking up all the cases; both the ONS survey and the ZOE app put the true incidence in the UK about twice as high as Test'n'Trace does. Yes, the UK is testing lots of people, but it's still managing to miss lots.
    Sadly the infectious before symptomatic is the elephant in the room. Without that issue Covid would have gone the way of swine flu.
    No it isn't, the infectious pre-symptomatic period is 2.5 days out of 5, a good track and trace team can get test results back within the first 3 days of infection as has been shown all across developed nations in APAC. Our issue is that track and trace is basically a disaster here and only contacts 6/10 people and of those very few get a test and even fewer isolate. The key to breaking the isolation chain finding contacts asap, swabbing them and getting them test results overnight so they can isolate as well if they test positive.

    All European countries seem absolutely rubbish at going out and finding cases, all testing systems basically rely on people with symptoms booking a test which means there are at least 4.5 days where people are infectious and not isolating becusee they don't know if they have it. Coupled with rubbish isolation rates in general and we are where we are.
    It may be basic IQ levels. That is to say, if you have a population which on average is basically smart enough for most people to wear masks, wash hands, isolate properly, obey rules of 6, not go to religious festivals, etc, then you will get a good covid outcome.



    The top 8 nations by average IQ are:

    1. Hong Kong (108)

    2. Singapore (108)

    3. South Korea (106)

    4. China (105)

    5. Japan (105)

    6. Taiwan (105)

    7. Iceland (101)

    8. Macau (101)


    City states, though, will tend to attract the smartest and repel the dumb, so they probably aren't representative of anything except the immigration of smart people.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,154
    edited October 2020

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    We cannot shut schools. I'd shut everything else before that.

    This year was a disaster for children that will affect many for their whole lives.

    We cannot risk that again. Even if we have to take 1,000 deaths a day.
    If we have a very bad winter, it may prove to have been a mistake to shut schools initially. If that's the case, it would have been better for those who are not at high risk of serious disease to infect each other during the summer when it was more feasible to minimise the spread to people who are more at risk.
    The other option - and it should be considered as a possibility - is that we start staggering learning.

    So, Year 11 and 13 with essential exams are in all the time.

    Other year groups are staggered. So if Year 7 is in, Year 8 isn’t. Year 9 is in, year 10 and 12 aren’t. Then the following week, you swap.

    Messy, and complicated, and obviously very far from ideal for all Sorts of reasons. However - and a big however - it would make it a hell of a lot easier to maintain distance and arrest the spread of the disease that way.

    Plus, it would considerably ease the pressure on teachers, who as I and others have noted are bloody close to breaking point.

    If the Lancet’s report is right (which would admittedly be a dramatic break with recent tradition, but it matches my anecdotal experience in the WM) any attempt at control without dealing with secondary schools at least is going to be a wasted effort - you will have a rampaging pandemic and a trashed economy.

    So it has to be worth at least considering.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513
    .
    ydoethur said:

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    LadyG said:
    "Huge pressure" from who?

    I mean, on the back of "successful" Germany maybe, but "country who have arguably made more of a pigs ear of it than we have" France?
    Now Mutti Angela has done the unpleasant but (let's be blunt) necessary thing, everyone else in Europe has permission to do the same. Macron has seized to opportunity; can Johnson?
    I just think it's all pointless if you don't shut schools. What's the point in an economically catastrophic lockdown, when you are sending children off to superspreader events 5 days a week?
    We cannot shut schools. I'd shut everything else before that.

    This year was a disaster for children that will affect many for their whole lives.

    We cannot risk that again. Even if we have to take 1,000 deaths a day.
    If we have a very bad winter, it may prove to have been a mistake to shut schools initially. If that's the case, it would have been better for those who are not at high risk of serious disease to infect each other during the summer when it was more feasible to minimise the spread to people who are more at risk.
    The other option - and it should be considered as a possibility - is that we start staggering learning.

    So, Year 11 and 13 with essential exams are in all the time.

    Other year groups are staggered. So if Year 7 is in, Year 8 isn’t. Year 9 is in, year 10 and 12 aren’t. Then the following week, you swap.

    Messy, and complicated, and obviously very far from ideal for all Sorts of reasons. However - and a big however - it would make it a hell of a lot easier to maintain distance and arrest the spread of the disease that way.

    Plus, it would considerably ease the pressure on teachers, who as I and others have noted are bloody close to breaking point.

    If the Lancet’s report is right (which would admittedly be a dramatic break with recent tradition, but it matches my anecdotal experience in the WM) any attempt at control without dealing with secondary schools at least is going to be a wasted effort - you will have a rampaging pandemic and a trashed economy.

    So it has to be worth at least considering.
    I’d tend to agree.
    And we need more evidence on primary schools.
  • <

    And you can, of course, add in a hedge on a narrow Trump win, for an overall 2/5 or thereabouts on a Biden win. Which has to be an outstanding risk/reward proposition, a week out from the election.

    You can hedge by backing Biden 46 -49% at 13(!). Covers most of Trumps winning scenarios.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    As I posted yesterday, I thought there was a good chance that, given the huge pressure the testing system is under, there would be an increase in false positives.

    Seems I'm not alone. The pathologist Dr Clare Craig agrees:

    "The laboratories have been under huge pressure to increase throughput whilst also increasing turnaround times. Any pathologist would predict a rise in errors in such a scenario, despite the best efforts of the technicians acting in complete good faith. The type of testing carried out for Covid can quite easily produce false positive results without exceptionally high levels of cleanliness to prevent cross contamination with frequent replacement of protective clothing and frequent cleaning of every area of the laboratory from bench to fridge handles. Any rise in errors causing increased false positives would inevitably lead to the mistaken belief that cases were on the rise."

    https://lockdownsceptics.org/how-covid-deaths-are-over-counted/

    Her article is an absolute belter. Raises serious questions over the stats for deaths from covid which are higher than they should be given the number who are very ill with covid.

    "The only explanation for the significant divergence between the lack of severe cases and a rising death count is that the official statistics are relying on erroneous data."
  • Looking at trends in positive cases:

    France
    14/10/20 22,591
    21/10/20 26,676
    28/10/20 36,437

    Germany
    14/10/20 6,063
    21/10/20 10,457
    28/10/20 16,044

    Italy
    14/10/20 7,331
    21/10/20 15,198
    28/10/20 24,991

    Spain
    14/10/20 13,670
    21/10/20 16,973
    28/10/20 19,675

    UK
    14/10/20 19,724
    21/10/20 26,688
    28/10/20 24,701

    With the UK doing the most testing.

    Whoever would have predicted that the UK would be the most successful this autumn.
  • Looks like Germany's track and trace is struggling:

    https://twitter.com/Thomas_Sparrow/status/1321495572323438593

    Perhaps that's all the fault of Dido Harding as well.

    Or perhaps its pretty much impossible to get a successful track and trace in western countries.
  • Roy_G_BivRoy_G_Biv Posts: 998

    Roy_G_Biv said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    LadyG said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:
    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.
    🤣
    If you disagree I'm sure we'd all be interested in your take?
    I don't agree or disagree. I just find it fucking hilarious that you wrote all that.
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