There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Generally this kind of thing happens gradually. There's a lot of attention on voter suppression and legal ratfuckery in this cycle, but that's not because it's new, it's mainly because Trump says the quiet part out loud. Voting access is gradually getting better, and what used to be shockingly bad voting machines and audit trails are getting gradually better.
Trump loses, judges who were appointed for their hackishness at that precise moment get more into the whole judge thing and less into the hack thing, others retire and get replaced, Dems add some new states, EC-related demographic trends come and go. Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried.
Currently Trumpism appears nasty and dangerous but also *powerful*. If Trump loses comprehensively it will look increasingly *ridiculous*, as Brexit already does. The GOP will still have a Trumpist element but for all its faults the US system can correct very quickly; You're only a single primary from a quite different GOP - or rather, the same GOP, but with different strains in the ascendant.
"Populism seems to be in decline everywhere, its appeal is mostly proportional to the length of time since it was last tried."
A typical liberal globalist response which views it as an aberration. It's just as I predicted: those that say this have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
You will get populism again (be it of the far-left or far-right variety) unless mainstream parties address the root concerns that drive it - namely, concerns about economic stagnation, intergenerational inequality and mass migration.
Well, under this current populist government we are getting economic stagnation and intergenerational inequality. Plus their immigration policy is to let in people from all around the world and keep out Europeans.
Populists are rarely any better, but the centrists need to put their own house in order to beat them. OTOH, perhaps the rest of the century will be so grim for Western peoples (compared to what we were used to) that no one can hope to get elected without selling snake oil.
Centrist governments depend on the average member of the electorate having a reasonably secure job with a reasonable salary and owning their own home, if they do not then inevitably they will shift to populists of the right and left
Utterly deranged comment with loads of upvotes. Says it all really.
Interesting ... Trying to find the original Hitler quote I searched on the name "Hitler" to no avail. Then searched for "So did" and found it straight away. Is this Firefox censoring inappropriate searches?
Some pointless bickering about partisan point scoring again - who bloody cares right now.
Never mind the all regions not national lockdown not lockdown. At some point in December Shagger will be faced with a harsh reality. If he unlocks the country back to Tier 1 to allow Christmas to take place, then the pox is going to run rampant again in January. If he doesn't unlock for Christmas then he faces mass disobedience of the law as people say "fuck this" and have what might be a last Christmas with elderly relatives before the pox runs rampant again in January.
And then we have the elephant in the room - students. University populations have been very effective pox incubators. And its increasingly clear that younger people may not suffer much from pox but can certainly spread it to people who do. And they all want home for Christmas. With Granny.
So, lock down the students? Who will enforce that? Let them home with the inevitable massive spike and deaths? Which negates the purpose of the coming Bonfire Month not lockdown lockdown.
Its very very easy to hurl rocks at these tossers in government - especially when they keep handing out rocks and painting targets on themselves. But we could have Tony Blair himself in office right now and this would still be a shit show because there are no right answers and a myriad of wrong ones.
I think this is a tempting conclusion for people trying to be fair and recognise nuance, but I don't think it is true. Here are some of the countries with a rolling average of under 100 positive tests per day:
Australia Cameroon Haiti New Zealand Taiwan Vietnam Thailand Ghana Jamaica Senegal Singapore Uruguay
Different levels of wealth, some islands and some not, some big and some small, all on different continents. COVID can be beaten, and once it is the economic cost of keeping it beaten is far lower than the price we are about to pay. Failure isn't inevitable.
That doesn't seem a fair comparison at all. You can get to under 100 positive tests per day by ... err, doing very little testing. I would expect a fair comparison is one that looks at comparable countries, in terms of wealth, population density, age demographics. That is, the comparison should be to France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands (adjusted of course for population size).
And of course, we can compare the devolved governments (Scotland, Wales, N Ireland) to England.
Of those countries, apart from Germany, the UK is pretty much slap in the middle of a very undistinguished group of failures.
Utterly deranged comment with loads of upvotes. Says it all really.
Interesting ... Trying to find the original Hitler quote I searched on the name "Hitler" to no avail. Then searched for "So did" and found it straight away. Is this Firefox censoring inappropriate searches?
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
Movember is the only one of those I'd disagree with. Halloween can be done the final week of October it doesn't take a month but growing a moustache takes time, (most people at least) can't do that properly in a weekend.
Final week of October? Halloween isn't a season, it's a day.
If Halloween falls on a Wednesday it's entirely reasonable to have a Halloween Party on the Saturday beforehand. Nothing unreasonable about that whatsoever.
When did Halloween become a 'thing' for anyone over the age of 7?
Do people need yet another justification for getting shitfaced?
The only upside is the yummy mummies in witches outfits.
Belgium 1,002 deaths/1m on worldometer, joining Peru and San Marino.
I’m glad I read that twice. I was appalled at San Marino’s death rate until I realised the figure was per capita.
Does anyone know why Belgium is doing so badly? Heck, they’re even doing worse than we are and that must take some effort.
I'm not sure they're doing enough testing - the positivity rate in Liege is 41% - across England its 6-7%, with "hot spots" in the teens.
what exactly is testing achieving? Hospitalisations and death I get to some extent although deaths are being inflated due to the dying with covid not of it , however testing generally is achieving nothing in controlling the illlness is it?
If its leading to isolation and contact tracing then it may be helping to slow the spread - especially if its picking up asymptomatic carriers via contacts. Guernsey now has 10 known cases - all in quarantine, all identified via test, track & trace, except for the initial case (which is a worry).
I understand that the 10 cases were related on one individual who came back from the mainland having tested positive, and then visited her (I think) relations on the Island before the end of the quarantine period.
Given there will be more cows than people there it is absolutely useless as a measure for countries.
Out by a factor of over 20 (what is it with Nats & Numbers?)
Also population density is around 3 times Belgium's so we must be doing something right.
It's not difficult. The virus doesn't "blow on the wind" - it moves with people. So control the movement of people, control the virus. Something the UK has failed to do, but successful countries like NZ, Australia, Singapore, Japan & South Korea (and Guernsey) have all done.
Hi Carlotta. Do you know if Sark is allowing visitors at the moment?
Same quarantine rules as Guernsey - test on arrival, then 14 days self quarantine, robustly policed with fines up to £10,000 for breaches.
I guess the hotels are open then but I wonder how you quarantine in a hotel there?
I love Sark. It used to be my favourite place.
But aren't folks there a bit, well - sarky?
It used to be full of seasonal workers who drive the horse and carts and work in the local bars and hotels. The locals are invariably very rich indeed. It's a tax haven. So the locals use their houses as accommodation addresses. The owner of the local bike shop was director of several hundred businesses and also ran one of the local cafes and was the Island constable. It's like a cross between Whisky Galore and Local Hero. But the real attraction is that there are no cars. Everyone uses bicycles or walks and the hotels use tractors to pick up their guests. Oh and the government is feudal
Bit out of date Roger. The "Sark Lark" was shut down years ago and the "feudal government" has been replaced by democracy and elections (ironically the Sarkees having voted in a referendum to keep feudalism - democracy imposed against the will of the people...)
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not when Corbyn and Len have set up a true socialist party.
It will be another CUK. If they can’t get people like me then how do they intend to win?
The reality is that Labour voters and members support Keir and think Corbyn was bad. There simply isn’t enough support for him.
My two brothers and all their friends would join, as would large numbers of the N London Labour Party, you fail to realize that true socialist control of the party is more important than winning elections.
So, the ultimate goal is total control of an unelectable party?
They don't care about electability. Being smug and self-righteous will do.
The self-regarding orgy of Corbyn tribute tweets post-defeat last year was instructive and deeply depressing. It was all about how Corbyn made the tweeter feel about themselves. This didn't just include the ground troops (who often react in that sort of way in all parties in truth) but a lot of newer MPs and so on.
There was very little sense that there are a group of people in whose interest the Labour Party was formed to act, and who they'd let down.
I know there are a lot of Labour members who were Corbyn supporters but quietly feel that way and accept the point - and the election of Starmer suggests there may be quite a few. But the sheer volume of voices of people who didn't give a damn as long as they personally felt righteous was a bit dismal.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Some pointless bickering about partisan point scoring again - who bloody cares right now.
Never mind the all regions not national lockdown not lockdown. At some point in December Shagger will be faced with a harsh reality. If he unlocks the country back to Tier 1 to allow Christmas to take place, then the pox is going to run rampant again in January. If he doesn't unlock for Christmas then he faces mass disobedience of the law as people say "fuck this" and have what might be a last Christmas with elderly relatives before the pox runs rampant again in January.
And then we have the elephant in the room - students. University populations have been very effective pox incubators. And its increasingly clear that younger people may not suffer much from pox but can certainly spread it to people who do. And they all want home for Christmas. With Granny.
So, lock down the students? Who will enforce that? Let them home with the inevitable massive spike and deaths? Which negates the purpose of the coming Bonfire Month not lockdown lockdown.
Its very very easy to hurl rocks at these tossers in government - especially when they keep handing out rocks and painting targets on themselves. But we could have Tony Blair himself in office right now and this would still be a shit show because there are no right answers and a myriad of wrong ones.
I think this is a tempting conclusion for people trying to be fair and recognise nuance, but I don't think it is true. Here are some of the countries with a rolling average of under 100 positive tests per day:
Australia Cameroon Haiti New Zealand Taiwan Vietnam Thailand Ghana Jamaica Senegal Singapore Uruguay
Different levels of wealth, some islands and some not, some big and some small, all on different continents. COVID can be beaten, and once it is the economic cost of keeping it beaten is far lower than the price we are about to pay. Failure isn't inevitable.
That doesn't seem a fair comparison at all. You can get to under 100 positive tests per day by ... err, doing very little testing. I would expect a fair comparison is one that looks at comparable countries, in terms of wealth, population density, age demographics. That is, the comparison should be to France, Germany, Spain, Italy,Belgium andf teh Netherlands (adjsuted of course for population size).
And of course, we can compare the devolved governments (Scotland, Wales, N Ireland) to England.
Of those countries, apart from Germany, the UK is pretty much slap in the middle of a very undistinguished group of failures.
These countries have barely any deaths, and are mostly doing plenty of testing (the exceptions being ones who don't need to because cases have been low for ages). I don't care if other countries are failing and I don't think it excuses our failure. My point is that a range of places have succeeded, and we could too. Vietnam has more people than we do, Singapore is more densely populated, Thailand isn't an island. We can point to things which make it harder for us but they apply to other places which have overcome those.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
Movember is the only one of those I'd disagree with. Halloween can be done the final week of October it doesn't take a month but growing a moustache takes time, (most people at least) can't do that properly in a weekend.
Final week of October? Halloween isn't a season, it's a day.
If Halloween falls on a Wednesday it's entirely reasonable to have a Halloween Party on the Saturday beforehand. Nothing unreasonable about that whatsoever.
When did Halloween become a 'thing' for anyone over the age of 7?
Do people need yet another justification for getting shitfaced?
The only upside is the yummy mummies in witches outfits.
Utterly deranged comment with loads of upvotes. Says it all really.
Interesting ... Trying to find the original Hitler quote I searched on the name "Hitler" to no avail. Then searched for "So did" and found it straight away. Is this Firefox censoring inappropriate searches?
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
Movember is the only one of those I'd disagree with. Halloween can be done the final week of October it doesn't take a month but growing a moustache takes time, (most people at least) can't do that properly in a weekend.
Yeah, I know, it's just I get spammed with it on my work email and with ads on my social media feeds too.
There are far too many "days", "weeks" and "months" now that feel almost semi-compulsory to buy into.
Getting a bit fed up with it.
Oh sure but I just tune them out. I feel no compulsion to buy into them. Some of them like Dry January or Sober October go against my beliefs - I'm not a drunk but I find telling people to essentially avoid struggling hospitality businesses for a month as a form of fundraising to be despicable.
I did Movember about five years ago, my wife didn't like the moustache and asked me the following year not to do it again that's all the reason I've ever needed to never do it again.
I find it easy to tune out and ignore these pesterings.
Some people follow "Sober October" with "Can't Remember November".
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
As Ronnie Barker said, when doing his spoof BR ad:
‘Due to unforeseen circumstances, winter has arrived this year.’
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
I am still interested as to why it was policy for those really badly affected in the tier 3 locations, in the north, to be able to survive on 66% of wages but that suddenly it changed to 80% once southern regions were also going to be under severe lockdown ?
What changed, either 66% was enough or it was not.
Either there was enough money for 80% for the tier 3 areas or there was not.
The only thing that seems to changed is it is no longer just northern cities being screwed by the government so they changed the policy.
Some pointless bickering about partisan point scoring again - who bloody cares right now.
Never mind the all regions not national lockdown not lockdown. At some point in December Shagger will be faced with a harsh reality. If he unlocks the country back to Tier 1 to allow Christmas to take place, then the pox is going to run rampant again in January. If he doesn't unlock for Christmas then he faces mass disobedience of the law as people say "fuck this" and have what might be a last Christmas with elderly relatives before the pox runs rampant again in January.
And then we have the elephant in the room - students. University populations have been very effective pox incubators. And its increasingly clear that younger people may not suffer much from pox but can certainly spread it to people who do. And they all want home for Christmas. With Granny.
So, lock down the students? Who will enforce that? Let them home with the inevitable massive spike and deaths? Which negates the purpose of the coming Bonfire Month not lockdown lockdown.
Its very very easy to hurl rocks at these tossers in government - especially when they keep handing out rocks and painting targets on themselves. But we could have Tony Blair himself in office right now and this would still be a shit show because there are no right answers and a myriad of wrong ones.
I think this is a tempting conclusion for people trying to be fair and recognise nuance, but I don't think it is true. Here are some of the countries with a rolling average of under 100 positive tests per day:
Australia Cameroon Haiti New Zealand Taiwan Vietnam Thailand Ghana Jamaica Senegal Singapore Uruguay
Different levels of wealth, some islands and some not, some big and some small, all on different continents. COVID can be beaten, and once it is the economic cost of keeping it beaten is far lower than the price we are about to pay. Failure isn't inevitable.
That doesn't seem a fair comparison at all. You can get to under 100 positive tests per day by ... err, doing very little testing. I would expect a fair comparison is one that looks at comparable countries, in terms of wealth, population density, age demographics. That is, the comparison should be to France, Germany, Spain, Italy,Belgium andf teh Netherlands (adjsuted of course for population size).
And of course, we can compare the devolved governments (Scotland, Wales, N Ireland) to England.
Of those countries, apart from Germany, the UK is pretty much slap in the middle of a very undistinguished group of failures.
These countries have barely any deaths, and are mostly doing plenty of testing (the exceptions being ones who don't need to because cases have been low for ages). I don't care if other countries are failing and I don't think it excuses our failure. My point is that a range of places have succeeded, and we could too. Vietnam has more people than we do, Singapore is more densely populated, Thailand isn't an island. We can point to things which make it harder for us but they apply to other places which have overcome those.
Trying to transform our culture and system of government into that of a South East Asian country would be the work of generations.
Even I'm finding the Spitfire/1940 worship remarkably tedious and facile now.
Indeed. It was 80 years ago. When I was a schoolkid it was living memory, many of my friends' fathers served and mine had his house bombed. But 80 years previously? We certainly didn't fetishise the Boer War. It's time we moved on.
I wouldn't say move on, it's a proud part of our history and fine to celebrate it, but I agree on fetishisation.
I just think it's massively overdone - to be honest, I'm fed up of so many things being overdone these days: Pride (lasting nearly 2 months this year - it used to just be a weekend), Stoptober, BHM turned up to 11, Movember, Poppies in early October, Halloween lasting a month, Christmas starting in September, Spitfires all year round..
Just stop it. Jeez.
Movember is the only one of those I'd disagree with. Halloween can be done the final week of October it doesn't take a month but growing a moustache takes time, (most people at least) can't do that properly in a weekend.
Yeah, I know, it's just I get spammed with it on my work email and with ads on my social media feeds too.
There are far too many "days", "weeks" and "months" now that feel almost semi-compulsory to buy into.
Getting a bit fed up with it.
Oh sure but I just tune them out. I feel no compulsion to buy into them. Some of them like Dry January or Sober October go against my beliefs - I'm not a drunk but I find telling people to essentially avoid struggling hospitality businesses for a month as a form of fundraising to be despicable.
I did Movember about five years ago, my wife didn't like the moustache and asked me the following year not to do it again that's all the reason I've ever needed to never do it again.
I find it easy to tune out and ignore these pesterings.
Some people follow "Sober October" with "Can't Remember November".
HYUFD: you miss my point, really the Trumps are not worried by the Constitution, it is power they want. Everything else can go to ........
So what, they cannot overturn the US constitution without a 2/3 majority in Congress and the states and the armed forces and the police and the SC and the FBI etc affirm an oath of loyalty to defend the constitution above all else
And we now have a Supreme Court with three Trump appointees in a 6-3 conservative majority to tell us what the constitution means.
So what they are all justices and legal scholars, none of them are going to read into the Constitution what is not there on any interpretation ie Trump cannot just dismiss and suspend Congress on a whim, we have an unwritten Constitution based on the sovereignty of Crown in parliament, the US constitution however is written down and sacrosanct and even the most conservative judges like Clarence Thomas will not ignore what is clearly written down in it
People's assessment of the chances of this stuff happening seems to me to be strongly correlated to their level of concern if it did happen.
In plainer English -
Those who don't much care if Trump steals the election think the risk of him doing so is minimal.
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
Someone was saying that Starmer had no chance because he was so boring. I really can't think of a time in the recent past where the concept of 'boring' would be an easier sell as the US are about to find out. One of the great unused posters of recent times was Brown's 'Not Flash Just Gordon'. It was perfect.
Belgium 1,002 deaths/1m on worldometer, joining Peru and San Marino.
I’m glad I read that twice. I was appalled at San Marino’s death rate until I realised the figure was per capita.
Does anyone know why Belgium is doing so badly? Heck, they’re even doing worse than we are and that must take some effort.
I'm not sure they're doing enough testing - the positivity rate in Liege is 41% - across England its 6-7%, with "hot spots" in the teens.
what exactly is testing achieving? Hospitalisations and death I get to some extent although deaths are being inflated due to the dying with covid not of it , however testing generally is achieving nothing in controlling the illlness is it?
If its leading to isolation and contact tracing then it may be helping to slow the spread - especially if its picking up asymptomatic carriers via contacts. Guernsey now has 10 known cases - all in quarantine, all identified via test, track & trace, except for the initial case (which is a worry).
I understand that the 10 cases were related on one individual who came back from the mainland having tested positive, and then visited her (I think) relations on the Island before the end of the quarantine period.
Given there will be more cows than people there it is absolutely useless as a measure for countries.
Out by a factor of over 20 (what is it with Nats & Numbers?)
Also population density is around 3 times Belgium's so we must be doing something right.
It's not difficult. The virus doesn't "blow on the wind" - it moves with people. So control the movement of people, control the virus. Something the UK has failed to do, but successful countries like NZ, Australia, Singapore, Japan & South Korea (and Guernsey) have all done.
The entire population is a little bigger than Ayr , a small town. It is an island, a tiny one. It bears no resemblance to a country with borders, large cities or airports etc and so cannot be used in any way as a comparison.
And yet its followed the same strategies as other, much larger, countries which have also proved successful. New Zealand big enough for you?
Once again in the arsehole of nowhere and totally different to UK, very rural , and isolated, nothing at all like UK. Remote isolated islands can get away with it , just a little bit harder in heavily populated developed countries in Europe.
So "it's all to difficult" and "there's nothing to learn".
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
Someone was saying that Starmer had no chance because he was so boring. I really can't think of a time in the recent past where the concept of 'boring' would be an easier sell as the US are about to find out. One of the great unused posters of recent times was Brown's 'Not Flash Just Gordon'. It was perfect.
Well, it would have been but for Gordon’s own considerable imperfections.
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
Campaign finance reform (to recriminalise bribery) Quadrilateral amendment (to prevent gerrymandering) Reinforcement of states' rights and separation of church and state
100s of millions of people to choose from, and the choice if between the big orange child liar and this old bloke who make it through the day without forgetting half the stuff he is supposed to say and blurts out garbled nonsense.
And then you look at the candidates who didn't make it like Mayor Pete or even Andrew Yang, very smart, fit and healthy, energetic individuals.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
This is the Twitter post of a party that knows it has lost the argument and is losing to Labour badly.
He means "worse than the donkeys in the Tory party leadership expected". Of course he has to pretend that no one else expected it either, but everyone knows it's not true.
Every single one of the graphs that were shown yesterday could have been drawn showing exactly the same thing two weeks ago. The only exception would have been the "R" rates, and some of the up-to-date figures on case numbers, both of which actually work against the lockdown narratives.
It truly is bizarre.
I can only think that Boris has believed the bollox about infections in London doubling every 3.3 days.
HYUFD: you miss my point, really the Trumps are not worried by the Constitution, it is power they want. Everything else can go to ........
So what, they cannot overturn the US constitution without a 2/3 majority in Congress and the states and the armed forces and the police and the SC and the FBI etc affirm an oath of loyalty to defend the constitution above all else
And we now have a Supreme Court with three Trump appointees in a 6-3 conservative majority to tell us what the constitution means.
So what they are all justices and legal scholars, none of them are going to read into the Constitution what is not there on any interpretation ie Trump cannot just dismiss and suspend Congress on a whim, we have an unwritten Constitution based on the sovereignty of Crown in parliament, the US constitution however is written down and sacrosanct and even the most conservative judges like Clarence Thomas will not ignore what is clearly written down in it
Have you seen the 3 vote dissent in the Pennslyvania case? 3 SCOTUS justices saying that ballots posted by election day but received after should be separated out, counted, and then possibly binned if they would 'change the result'. When judges think votes should be counted or not based on who will win if they are, to say nothing of considering the result to exist separately from the ballots, they aren't acting as legal scholars they are acting as partisan actors. There's no reason to believe they wouldn't be willing to be overtly partisan in other way.
There is nothing in the constitution specifically about ballot counting so where the constitution is vague then justices will interpret it based on their ideological view.
However the constitution is specific under Article 1 that "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives" and that cannot be interpreted any other way.
The Constitution is specific about almost nothing, purely by virtue of it being fairly short. The Second Amendment is a great example, and all the cases about the First Amendment. There are a dozen ways to interpret:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
For example, the Court's ruling that that sentence meant restrictions on corporate funding of political campaigns/adverts were unconstitutional that had a huge impact on American politics. Here's another example, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The Court ruled that this didn't mean gerrymanders which were intended to dilute the voting power of certain races were unconstitutional. There is literally nothing which cannot be interpreted in way which allows Trump or someone else to do what they want. Good faith is required in any system of rules and interpretation, if it leaves then no system can survive.
No, the constitution is specific about there being a Congress, a President and their powers under Articles I and II and the judicial powers of the Supreme Court and lower courts under Article III and the powers of the States under Article IV and the procedure for constitutional amendments ie requiring 2/3 of Congress or the States to propose and 3/4 of state legislatues to ratify under Article V with Article VI affirming the supremacy of the Constitution as the law of the land and Article VII confirming its ratification process.
Those are the sole Articles of the Constitution and sacrosanct and unchallengeable.
You have quoted amendments which are not core Articles of the Constitution and therefore irrelevant to the separation of powers and therefore also open to interpretation as to their extent so again your point is completely irrelevant to your absurd argument that Trump can suspend Congress and rule as a dictator, he can't as Article I of the Constitution makes clear there has to be a Congress and its powers and those of the Presidency as set out under Article II.
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
Someone was saying that Starmer had no chance because he was so boring. I really can't think of a time in the recent past where the concept of 'boring' would be an easier sell as the US are about to find out. One of the great unused posters of recent times was Brown's 'Not Flash Just Gordon'. It was perfect.
Problem with that one was that he was "Just Gordon" a useless egotistical half mad moronic no user.
The witches in the Scottish play, as they are otherwise known...
Arizona is going to be much closer than 6% and could go either way, as for FL as i mentioned earlier another A rated pollster today has Trump +2 so its really a total toss up which for me favours Trump, I hope I'm wrong but i suspect he's holding on, The other two NYT state polls I think arent far off though I still feel its possible that Trump can edge PA (and no thats not just based on his crowd sizes, thousands would follow him into the pits of hell, thats baked in already)
The problem with a complete lockdown that doesn't include proper risk assessment to allow social activities that represent so serious risk to the effect on the progression of the virus (particularly outdoor activities - such as theme parks, zoos, botanical gardens(!) - as well as some more marginal ones) is that you increase the amount of risky social activities that occur. The reason? Because people who wish to get round the rules will concentrate on those with little chances of being caught. And that means socialising indoors in private residences. And so you actually increase the cost to the government and economy whilst potentially increasing health risk.
Indeed.
And stopping the low risk activities will leave people with more time for other things.
So instead of some blokes going for a round of golf together they might instead watch football on TV together.
Some pointless bickering about partisan point scoring again - who bloody cares right now.
Never mind the all regions not national lockdown not lockdown. At some point in December Shagger will be faced with a harsh reality. If he unlocks the country back to Tier 1 to allow Christmas to take place, then the pox is going to run rampant again in January. If he doesn't unlock for Christmas then he faces mass disobedience of the law as people say "fuck this" and have what might be a last Christmas with elderly relatives before the pox runs rampant again in January.
And then we have the elephant in the room - students. University populations have been very effective pox incubators. And its increasingly clear that younger people may not suffer much from pox but can certainly spread it to people who do. And they all want home for Christmas. With Granny.
So, lock down the students? Who will enforce that? Let them home with the inevitable massive spike and deaths? Which negates the purpose of the coming Bonfire Month not lockdown lockdown.
Its very very easy to hurl rocks at these tossers in government - especially when they keep handing out rocks and painting targets on themselves. But we could have Tony Blair himself in office right now and this would still be a shit show because there are no right answers and a myriad of wrong ones.
I think this is a tempting conclusion for people trying to be fair and recognise nuance, but I don't think it is true. Here are some of the countries with a rolling average of under 100 positive tests per day:
Australia Cameroon Haiti New Zealand Taiwan Vietnam Thailand Ghana Jamaica Senegal Singapore Uruguay
Different levels of wealth, some islands and some not, some big and some small, all on different continents. COVID can be beaten, and once it is the economic cost of keeping it beaten is far lower than the price we are about to pay. Failure isn't inevitable.
That doesn't seem a fair comparison at all. You can get to under 100 positive tests per day by ... err, doing very little testing. I would expect a fair comparison is one that looks at comparable countries, in terms of wealth, population density, age demographics. That is, the comparison should be to France, Germany, Spain, Italy,Belgium andf teh Netherlands (adjsuted of course for population size).
And of course, we can compare the devolved governments (Scotland, Wales, N Ireland) to England.
Of those countries, apart from Germany, the UK is pretty much slap in the middle of a very undistinguished group of failures.
These countries have barely any deaths, and are mostly doing plenty of testing (the exceptions being ones who don't need to because cases have been low for ages). I don't care if other countries are failing and I don't think it excuses our failure. My point is that a range of places have succeeded, and we could too. Vietnam has more people than we do, Singapore is more densely populated, Thailand isn't an island. We can point to things which make it harder for us but they apply to other places which have overcome those.
Age demographics is a substantial part of this. The median age of Vietnam is 30.5. Sure, the UK is an island, but it needs to import substantial amounts of food. Someone has to drive or fly the food into the country. There is no particular advantage to being an island in such circumstances.
Sorry, but you won't learn anything by comparing a whole bundle of different countries, in which there are a whole bundle of different effects going on.
It is not a controlled experiment, it is just a supermarket trolley.
100s of millions of people to choose from, and the choice if between the big orange child liar and this old bloke who make it through the day without forgetting half the stuff he is supposed to say and blurts out garbled nonsense.
And then you look at the candidates who didn't make it like Mayor Pete or even Andrew Yang, very smart, fit and healthy, energetic individuals.
Democratic primary voters picked them and created the final choice of Biden and Sanders, though none of the polling showed Buttigieg doing any better against Trump than Biden and in most cases showed him doing slightly worse.
I'm horrified at the way I'm wishing my life away.
Makes me think of the Adam Sandler movie Click.
A lot of us would be tempted to "fast forward" through 2020 were it possible to do so.
I worked out it's 7 and a half months since this all kicked off, and 5 to the end of March, when hopefully we will be looking at a more certain and positive future with warmer weather to look forward to, and vaccines. So 60% of the way through it. Bracing myself for the new lockdown and presumably going back to working from home 5 days a week, I have recently been going to the office on Fridays which makes a nice change. Already have two pub trips booked for Monday and Wednesday.
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
Someone was saying that Starmer had no chance because he was so boring. I really can't think of a time in the recent past where the concept of 'boring' would be an easier sell as the US are about to find out. One of the great unused posters of recent times was Brown's 'Not Flash Just Gordon'. It was perfect.
Problem with that one was that he was "Just Gordon" a useless egotistical half mad moronic no user.
Utterly deranged comment with loads of upvotes. Says it all really.
Interesting ... Trying to find the original Hitler quote I searched on the name "Hitler" to no avail. Then searched for "So did" and found it straight away. Is this Firefox censoring inappropriate searches?
There's a typo.
Ah .. Bang goes the conspiracy theory.
Trump wont' win PA or the election (if he does) based on rally sizes, that % of the devoted have always been baked in, it will be decided on how many of those not at the rallies vote for him. So those from 2016 who stay with him and those of what is going to clearly be an increased voting number who do. Trump will always have huge rallies even if he was running at 35% not 45%
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
I am still interested as to why it was policy for those really badly affected in the tier 3 locations, in the north, to be able to survive on 66% of wages but that suddenly it changed to 80% once southern regions were also going to be under severe lockdown ?
What changed, either 66% was enough or it was not.
Either there was enough money for 80% for the tier 3 areas or there was not.
The only thing that seems to changed is it is no longer just northern cities being screwed by the government so they changed the policy.
You answered your own question - “southern regions”.
100s of millions of people to choose from, and the choice if between the big orange child liar and this old bloke who make it through the day without forgetting half the stuff he is supposed to say and blurts out garbled nonsense.
And then you look at the candidates who didn't make it like Mayor Pete or even Andrew Yang, very smart, fit and healthy, energetic individuals.
Democratic primary voters picked them and created the final choice of Biden and Sanders, though none of the polling showed Buttigieg doing any better against Trump than Biden and in most cases showed him doing slightly worse.
I am simply lamenting the choice. The system has enabled two individuals are really unfit to be president to be the choice. I also understand why the more centrist Democrat supporters rallied around to deny Sanders.
100s of millions of people to choose from, and the choice if between the big orange child liar and this old bloke who make it through the day without forgetting half the stuff he is supposed to say and blurts out garbled nonsense.
And then you look at the candidates who didn't make it like Mayor Pete or even Andrew Yang, very smart, fit and healthy, energetic individuals.
Democratic primary voters picked them and created the final choice of Biden and Sanders, though none of the polling showed Buttigieg doing any better against Trump than Biden and in most cases showed him doing slightly worse.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
I am still interested as to why it was policy for those really badly affected in the tier 3 locations, in the north, to be able to survive on 66% of wages but that suddenly it changed to 80% once southern regions were also going to be under severe lockdown ?
What changed, either 66% was enough or it was not.
Either there was enough money for 80% for the tier 3 areas or there was not.
The only thing that seems to changed is it is no longer just northern cities being screwed by the government so they changed the policy.
You answered your own question - “southern regions”.
Is that a geographical reference or are you calling them arses?
I honestly don't know now. COVID has turned over the apple cart. The polling seems to be showing that people aren't put off by the Biden policy platform that is essentially copied from Sanders, despite by American standards it is very left wing.
I wonder if somebody might mischievously ask Johnson if he is in a support bubble with anyone? Bearing in mind that he would need to be to stay with Carrie if she's not living in Downing Street.
100s of millions of people to choose from, and the choice if between the big orange child liar and this old bloke who make it through the day without forgetting half the stuff he is supposed to say and blurts out garbled nonsense.
And then you look at the candidates who didn't make it like Mayor Pete or even Andrew Yang, very smart, fit and healthy, energetic individuals.
Democratic primary voters picked them and created the final choice of Biden and Sanders, though none of the polling showed Buttigieg doing any better against Trump than Biden and in most cases showed him doing slightly worse.
I am simply lamenting the choice. The system has enabled two individuals are really unfit to be president to be the choice. I also understand why the more centrist Democrat supporters rallied around to deny Sanders.
The Democrats picked the candidate who was best placed to beat Trump, that is all and that was clearly Biden.
Buttigieg may well have been a better President and could well have been a candidate against a generic non Trump Republican and could well be the candidate in 2024 against Pence if Trump is re elected and therefore ineligible to run again but this year beating Trump was the sole concern
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
They probably will.
But if that's a fall in 16-29 year olds infecte while every older age profile is seeing increasing rates then that isn't progress.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
My job was made redundant timed to the end of the Furlough scheme. The Pox has utterly broken the business plan for the SME I worked for until yesterday, but jobs were maintained thanks to Furlough. With the Halloween end of the scheme we let 3 people go myself included.
Happily I had already decided to jump off the sinking ship, but at the point they advised me they were going to pull the plug I still didn't have my new gig nailed down. So I got lucky. The other two? Not so lucky. An extension of the Furlough would have made the difference between them being employed still and being unemployed instead.
Age demographics is a substantial part of this. The median age of Vietnam is 30.5. Sure, the UK is an island, but it needs to import substantial amounts of food. Someone has to drive or fly the food into the country. There is no particular advantage to being an island in such circumstances.
Sorry, but you won't learn anything by comparing a whole bundle of different countries, in which there are a whole bundle of different effects going on.
It is not a controlled experiment, it is just a supermarket trolley.
So what is your theory for how those countries have such low rates of COVID? They are just lucky? My point of taking a bundle of very different countries is that they can't all have the same lucky advantage, so clearly it isn't something inherent to those countries which we cannot replicate.
You say Vietnam is young, but we are younger than South Korea which has barely 100 cases per day. We aren't much older then New Zealand, Australia, or Thailand.
There is nothing these success stories have which we couldn't replicate. So we should. We should study them, learn how they've done it, and apply it here. Countries have differences, for sure, but those differences aren't what is stopping us. And the fact that countries which have nothing common to all of them have succeeded shows that.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
I am still interested as to why it was policy for those really badly affected in the tier 3 locations, in the north, to be able to survive on 66% of wages but that suddenly it changed to 80% once southern regions were also going to be under severe lockdown ?
What changed, either 66% was enough or it was not.
Either there was enough money for 80% for the tier 3 areas or there was not.
The only thing that seems to changed is it is no longer just northern cities being screwed by the government so they changed the policy.
You answered your own question - “southern regions”.
Which is exactly why enormous levels of devolution are so badly needed to free us from the one sided nation we are stuck in.
I wonder if somebody might mischievously ask Johnson if he is in a support bubble with anyone? Bearing in mind that he would need to be to stay with Carrie if she's not living in Downing Street.
She could be in a support bubble with him couldn't she? If she is staying by herself with an infant that would be covered.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
My job was made redundant timed to the end of the Furlough scheme. The Pox has utterly broken the business plan for the SME I worked for until yesterday, but jobs were maintained thanks to Furlough. With the Halloween end of the scheme we let 3 people go myself included.
Happily I had already decided to jump off the sinking ship, but at the point they advised me they were going to pull the plug I still didn't have my new gig nailed down. So I got lucky. The other two? Not so lucky. An extension of the Furlough would have made the difference between them being employed still and being unemployed instead.
If the Pox has made the business plan for the SME broken then weren't redundancies inevitable and it would just be prolonging it further sustaining jobs unviable even before a second full lockdown was announced, clearly you have now got a new job and better placed as a result
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
My job was made redundant timed to the end of the Furlough scheme. The Pox has utterly broken the business plan for the SME I worked for until yesterday, but jobs were maintained thanks to Furlough. With the Halloween end of the scheme we let 3 people go myself included.
Happily I had already decided to jump off the sinking ship, but at the point they advised me they were going to pull the plug I still didn't have my new gig nailed down. So I got lucky. The other two? Not so lucky. An extension of the Furlough would have made the difference between them being employed still and being unemployed instead.
Were those two realistically going to have a job after furlough?
If not, I don't see why an earlier extension would have made much difference?
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
My job was made redundant timed to the end of the Furlough scheme. The Pox has utterly broken the business plan for the SME I worked for until yesterday, but jobs were maintained thanks to Furlough. With the Halloween end of the scheme we let 3 people go myself included.
Happily I had already decided to jump off the sinking ship, but at the point they advised me they were going to pull the plug I still didn't have my new gig nailed down. So I got lucky. The other two? Not so lucky. An extension of the Furlough would have made the difference between them being employed still and being unemployed instead.
So - out of curiosity - did you get given redundancy, or were you not replaced when you resigned?
Because I imagine one of the other things that will be causing many employers who have made redundancies curse at this late stage extension to furlough is they will already have let people go and therefore had to make payments, with implications for cash flow.
My Google home page came up this morning with an Daily Express poll.This said Trump was 48% Biden was 47%. Also Trump was heading for a EC landslide. Is this a pollster who has any previous form ?
As I and many others said on every other occasion he has come back, "he's a busted flush... nobody cares any more".
One day, we'll be right. Maybe.
The last thing we need is Trump's tapeworm back over here cheering on the fascists and jackboots brigade, but I guess it is all part of the decline of Britain.
Split the vote on the right would be good news. Labour has consolidated the left wing vote now
Not when Corbyn and Len have set up a true socialist party.
It will be another CUK. If they can’t get people like me then how do they intend to win?
The reality is that Labour voters and members support Keir and think Corbyn was bad. There simply isn’t enough support for him.
My two brothers and all their friends would join, as would large numbers of the N London Labour Party, you fail to realize that true socialist control of the party is more important than winning elections.
So, the ultimate goal is total control of an unelectable party?
They don't care about electability. Being smug and self-righteous will do.
The self-regarding orgy of Corbyn tribute tweets post-defeat last year was instructive and deeply depressing. It was all about how Corbyn made the tweeter feel about themselves. This didn't just include the ground troops (who often react in that sort of way in all parties in truth) but a lot of newer MPs and so on.
There was very little sense that there are a group of people in whose interest the Labour Party was formed to act, and who they'd let down.
I know there are a lot of Labour members who were Corbyn supporters but quietly feel that way and accept the point - and the election of Starmer suggests there may be quite a few. But the sheer volume of voices of people who didn't give a damn as long as they personally felt righteous was a bit dismal.
Thats just politics though. On the fringes you always get "fruitcakes and loonies" who smell their own farts and think its flowers. They are correct. Therefore everyone else is wrong. And as they are so clever to be right everyone else must be stupid. Its the same with the Daily Mail set who insist anyone on benefits is on crack.
The difference of course is around how left and right organise. The left are happy to infinitely split and argue about which splinter group is pure and how the rest are all traitors. The right are just as happy to go at each other but can usually pull it back together when it comes to elections.
Ok, but a counter view. Winning GEs is very important but there is much more to political involvement than that. Before Covid I went to several LP meetings and for many there their political activism and their sincerely held socialist ideas and values were what their life was about. In addition to the party they were plugged into all sorts of local campaigns and community initiatives etc. This was 24/7 immersion not just voting every 5 years. Made me feel like a dilettante - which relative to them I am - and no way would I feel justified in ticking them off for being "self righteous" or for in some way letting the good people of the country down. If those people on the softer left want a more "electable" party they should get off their butts and get involved. The party belongs to its members not to the floating voters of Middle England or to disaffected centrists and Tories.
That twitter account was much under appreciated in the time of Corbyn. It really should have had a much wider reach. Totally damning using Corbyn's own words.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
My job was made redundant timed to the end of the Furlough scheme. The Pox has utterly broken the business plan for the SME I worked for until yesterday, but jobs were maintained thanks to Furlough. With the Halloween end of the scheme we let 3 people go myself included.
Happily I had already decided to jump off the sinking ship, but at the point they advised me they were going to pull the plug I still didn't have my new gig nailed down. So I got lucky. The other two? Not so lucky. An extension of the Furlough would have made the difference between them being employed still and being unemployed instead.
Were those two realistically going to have a job after furlough?
If not, I don't see why an earlier extension would have made much difference?
My Google home page came up this morning with an Daily Express poll.This said Trump was 48% Biden was 47%. Also Trump was heading for a EC landslide. Is this a pollster who has any previous form ?
The Trump share looks possible, the Biden share looks too low, I expect voters who voted for Others in 2016 to be squeezed by both.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
I wonder if somebody might mischievously ask Johnson if he is in a support bubble with anyone? Bearing in mind that he would need to be to stay with Carrie if she's not living in Downing Street.
She could be in a support bubble with him couldn't she? If she is staying by herself with an infant that would be covered.
Yes she could. But it would clear up any scurrilous allegations for once and all.
My whatsapp groups have been blowing up this morning over Gove's comments that might be more than a month. Some people really do seem to think a couple of weeks will do the trick.
I mentioned I went to the pub with a couple of mates (inside watching the football) last Sunday, then found out on Weds one of them had got Covid, after someone who had been working round his house had tested positive, although he ever went near the bloke and the doors were open.
Since then his wife and two kids have tested negative, the bloke he drives to work with tested negative, both the other two other blokes he works with tested negative, and this morning I found out I have also tested negative
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
No it wouldn't, the scientists would absolutely claim it was the lockdown that did it. I'm sure if cases keep falling this week they'll try and claim it as part of the lockdown because it was announced yesterday. They are as dishonest as the politicians.
I mentioned I went to the pub with a couple of mates (inside watching the football) last Sunday, then found out on Weds one of them had got Covid, after someone who had been working round his house had tested positive, although he ever went near the bloke and the doors were open.
Since then his wife and two kids have tested negative, the bloke he drives to work with tested negative, both the other two other blokes he works with tested negative, and this morning I found out I have also tested negative
Could easily be something they both touched. There was a recorded case via contact tracing in Germany where the person caught it from being passed a salt shaker. Here, there was a very sad case where an old women had totally isolated herself, left her home once to go the supermarket, caught it and died.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
My job was made redundant timed to the end of the Furlough scheme. The Pox has utterly broken the business plan for the SME I worked for until yesterday, but jobs were maintained thanks to Furlough. With the Halloween end of the scheme we let 3 people go myself included.
Happily I had already decided to jump off the sinking ship, but at the point they advised me they were going to pull the plug I still didn't have my new gig nailed down. So I got lucky. The other two? Not so lucky. An extension of the Furlough would have made the difference between them being employed still and being unemployed instead.
Were those two realistically going to have a job after furlough?
If not, I don't see why an earlier extension would have made much difference?
2 months extra wages instead of UC.
Nice for those lucky enough to get paid that but macroeconomically for the Treasury if they have no job to return to afterwards I see no advantage for doing it that way.
Would be fairer to uplift UC for all on it more than that if there was extra cash going spare which there isn't.
For the Treasury if not for the individuals having furlough extended only for those with a realistic possibility of jobs afterwards is surely a good thing not a bad one?
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
No it wouldn't, the scientists would absolutely claim it was the lockdown that did it. I'm sure if cases keep falling this week they'll try and claim it as part of the lockdown because it was announced yesterday. They are as dishonest as the politicians.
Of course our total notch scientifically literae media would call out such BS.....
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
No it wouldn't, the scientists would absolutely claim it was the lockdown that did it. I'm sure if cases keep falling this week they'll try and claim it as part of the lockdown because it was announced yesterday. They are as dishonest as the politicians.
They'd try. But i note that the Government's current official line for the lifting of the lockdown is R falling below 1.
My whatsapp groups have been blowing up this morning over Gove's comments that might be more than a month. Some people really do seem to think a couple of weeks will do the trick.
Yes same here. The government has failed to be honest about the choices we face time and again and now it's going to come back to bite them.
My whatsapp groups have been blowing up this morning over Gove's comments that might be more than a month. Some people really do seem to think a couple of weeks will do the trick.
If it wasn't going to be a month, then the Government shouldn't have said so, should they ?
It was at the centre of Johnson's press conference yesterday. Remember it was to "save Christmas". And they've undermined the message within 12 hours.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
No it wouldn't, the scientists would absolutely claim it was the lockdown that did it. I'm sure if cases keep falling this week they'll try and claim it as part of the lockdown because it was announced yesterday. They are as dishonest as the politicians.
They'd try. But i note that the Government's current official line for the lifting of the lockdown is R falling below 1.
And then they'd say "well we can't lift the rules because the R would go above 1 if we do" and we're in a permanent half life. Never underestimate the level of dishonesty that the politicians and scientists will sink to. They will lie to our faces to make themselves look correct even if they destroy the economy in the process. They face none of the consequences of their decisions.
Was chatting about this with a friend. Gove backed Hancock but unlike Hancock, Michael Gove had the facts mastered. Totally. He appeared on Sky this morning and was, apparently, decisive in the decision that came to be taken by Johnson.
I'm sure this was all done for good scientific, factual, health reasons. I'm sure.
But Gove has also taken down Rishi Sunak (for now) in the process. Coincidence?
I wonder if somebody might mischievously ask Johnson if he is in a support bubble with anyone? Bearing in mind that he would need to be to stay with Carrie if she's not living in Downing Street.
She could be in a support bubble with him couldn't she? If she is staying by herself with an infant that would be covered.
Age demographics is a substantial part of this. The median age of Vietnam is 30.5. Sure, the UK is an island, but it needs to import substantial amounts of food. Someone has to drive or fly the food into the country. There is no particular advantage to being an island in such circumstances.
Sorry, but you won't learn anything by comparing a whole bundle of different countries, in which there are a whole bundle of different effects going on.
It is not a controlled experiment, it is just a supermarket trolley.
So what is your theory for how those countries have such low rates of COVID? They are just lucky? My point of taking a bundle of very different countries is that they can't all have the same lucky advantage, so clearly it isn't something inherent to those countries which we cannot replicate.
You say Vietnam is young, but we are younger than South Korea which has barely 100 cases per day. We aren't much older then New Zealand, Australia, or Thailand.
There is nothing these success stories have which we couldn't replicate. So we should. We should study them, learn how they've done it, and apply it here. Countries have differences, for sure, but those differences aren't what is stopping us. And the fact that countries which have nothing common to all of them have succeeded shows that.
1. It is not surprising that there are some countries with very little COVID. It helps to be isolated, have a young population, have a very low population density, be self-sufficient in food, have a culture that emphasises collectivity rather than individualism, have an intrusive test and track system developed over the last 5 years (S. Korea), have a ruthless authoritarian government (PRC), etc. There may even be genetic components to the disease that make some races less susceptible (like sickle cell anaemia).
2. To show that the UK can replicate this, you need to take a country reasonably like the UK & demonstrate that it is possible. All countries like the UK (except possibly Germany) are doing badly.
3. I am obviously in favour of learning from what happened elsewhere. But, I don't think that, by looking at a huge range of countries nothing like the UK and implementing their policies, you will necessarily get anything like the same outcome.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
One thing I hadn’t thought of regarding that, which was pointed out to me by a friend this morning - how many children are going to be kept off school over this because they, or a family member, are vulnerable? And if so, what can be done about it? I’m guessing not a lot.
It might be that attendance reduces naturally and at that point, social distancing becomes easier. Which would definitely help.
But then that begs the question, what do you do to keep those who are off school up to speed?
When Biden, who is to the right of David Cameron, is labelled a "socialist" and a "commie". Yes he would.
Always makes me laugh when mainstream Democrats are described that way. I bet you some people in this country will proclaim Biden's win as a 'victory for the left.'
When, as you say, he's to the right of David Cameron.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
One thing I hadn’t thought of regarding that, which was pointed out to me by a friend this morning - how many children are going to be kept off school over this because they, or a family member, are vulnerable? And if so, what can be done about it? I’m guessing not a lot.
It might be that attendance reduces naturally and at that point, social distancing becomes easier. Which would definitely help.
But then that begs the question, what do you do to keep those who are off school up to speed?
Have they said that vulnerable pupils have to stay at home? Isn't the position re such children unchanged?
I wonder if somebody might mischievously ask Johnson if he is in a support bubble with anyone? Bearing in mind that he would need to be to stay with Carrie if she's not living in Downing Street.
She could be in a support bubble with him couldn't she? If she is staying by herself with an infant that would be covered.
I wouldn't put it past him to fiddle it somehow.
He does have form for fiddling with women he doesn’t live with.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
One thing I hadn’t thought of regarding that, which was pointed out to me by a friend this morning - how many children are going to be kept off school over this because they, or a family member, are vulnerable? And if so, what can be done about it? I’m guessing not a lot.
It might be that attendance reduces naturally and at that point, social distancing becomes easier. Which would definitely help.
But then that begs the question, what do you do to keep those who are off school up to speed?
Is that where the months of no school should have been used to create bubble schools for children of people who are on the shielding list for this school year. It's not a small thing to achieve but also not beyond the realms of possibility.
It's rather amusing watching all the Democrat bed wetters clutching their pearls, pulling up their skirts and running for the hills at any point of divergence from the narrative of a Biden win. It rather reminds me of Labour supporters prior to the 1997 GE. Scared by the the polling miss and the shock victory of John Major in 1992 they didn't believe the evidence of their own eyes until the landslide started to filter through on election night.
My view is that Biden is heading for a comfortable EC win - 322 - 216 - Biden sweeps the rust belt and flips AZ, NC NE 2, ME 2 and edges GA for the historic surprise of the night. Trump holds the battlegrounds of FL, TX, OH and IA :
But there is always the possibility of a major polling miss, remote though it is, and I don’t think it bedwetting to be concerned about the danger of Republicans stealing an election even halfway close in Pennsylvania.
Indeed. However the scale of the polling miss this time would be of such epic proportions that it would make Herod being overwhelming favourite as Greatest Infant Protector in History look like a minor hiccup at the margin. Most pollsters have adjusted their methodology to account for sampling errors last time.
Biden wins, only the scale is in doubt.
I’m betting as much - my largest wager since Obama 2008. But this time I have a couple of hedges in place.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
One thing I hadn’t thought of regarding that, which was pointed out to me by a friend this morning - how many children are going to be kept off school over this because they, or a family member, are vulnerable? And if so, what can be done about it? I’m guessing not a lot.
It might be that attendance reduces naturally and at that point, social distancing becomes easier. Which would definitely help.
But then that begs the question, what do you do to keep those who are off school up to speed?
Have they said that vulnerable pupils have to stay at home? Isn't the position re such children unchanged?
As far as I am aware, no.
But that’s what I’m suggesting parents may decide to do.
And it’s not easy to see how they could be compelled to send children in if they keep them at home.
I’m not saying it definitely *will* happen, just that it’s another possible outcome to consider.
My whatsapp groups have been blowing up this morning over Gove's comments that might be more than a month. Some people really do seem to think a couple of weeks will do the trick.
Yes same here. The government has failed to be honest about the choices we face time and again and now it's going to come back to bite them.
I believe the problem stems from the initial advice from behavioural insight people who clearly said you need to inject some carrot / optimism to get through the initial lockdown...now it is deployed during every announcement, such that nobody believes it and then divided into the camp of there is quick fix if only the government were more component through to never going to be solved.
Sunak has been commendably quick at extending the 80% furlough scheme. If lockdown continues though he is going to have to extend it still further. This is a trap for the government because I simply do not see how a one month lockdown will solve anything.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Well, I'm not convinced that the tiered regional approach was failing, so perhaps the government will just be able to claim victory on 2nd December, albeit at substantial economic cost. I suppose the one advantage of a one month lockdown is that one can spread the number of deaths more evenly, rather than see a sudden spike.
All we need now for the farce to be complete is for new cases to fall next week before the lockdown begins.
It's going to be quite amusing if R goes below 1 within a couple of weeks.
No it wouldn't, the scientists would absolutely claim it was the lockdown that did it. I'm sure if cases keep falling this week they'll try and claim it as part of the lockdown because it was announced yesterday. They are as dishonest as the politicians.
They'd try. But i note that the Government's current official line for the lifting of the lockdown is R falling below 1.
And then they'd say "well we can't lift the rules because the R would go above 1 if we do" and we're in a permanent half life. Never underestimate the level of dishonesty that the politicians and scientists will sink to. They will lie to our faces to make themselves look correct even if they destroy the economy in the process. They face none of the consequences of their decisions.
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
I would certainly expect that.
After all, Ed Miliband recorded double digit leads over the Coalition.
Well exactly. I think Keir is doing a decent job too, but that doesn't mean achieving what would indeed be a good lead is some remarkable achievement in itself.
It's rather amusing watching all the Democrat bed wetters clutching their pearls, pulling up their skirts and running for the hills at any point of divergence from the narrative of a Biden win. It rather reminds me of Labour supporters prior to the 1997 GE. Scared by the the polling miss and the shock victory of John Major in 1992 they didn't believe the evidence of their own eyes until the landslide started to filter through on election night.
My view is that Biden is heading for a comfortable EC win - 322 - 216 - Biden sweeps the rust belt and flips AZ, NC NE 2, ME 2 and edges GA for the historic surprise of the night. Trump holds the battlegrounds of FL, TX, OH and IA :
But there is always the possibility of a major polling miss, remote though it is, and I don’t think it bedwetting to be concerned about the danger of Republicans stealing an election even halfway close in Pennsylvania.
Indeed. However the scale of the polling miss this time would be of such epic proportions that it would make Herod being overwhelming favourite as Greatest Infant Protector in History look like a minor hiccup at the margin. Most pollsters have adjusted their methodology to account for sampling errors last time.
Biden wins, only the scale is in doubt.
I’m betting as much - my largest wager since Obama 2008. But this time I have a couple of hedges in place.
I believe in the next year it is entirely possible Labour sees a double digit lead and Keir leads Johnson/his successor by Blair margins.
I would certainly expect that.
After all, Ed Miliband recorded double digit leads over the Coalition.
Well exactly. I think Keir is doing a decent job too, but that doesn't mean achieving what would indeed be a good lead is some remarkable achievement in itself.
The huge policy positions are coming down the tracks as we try and recover from a bigger economic hit than 2008 and potentially radical shift in where / how people still with jobs work. Add in the likes of ML / AI already coming down the tracks to massive impact middle class white collar jobs, Brexit, etc etc etc.
Comments
Trying to find the original Hitler quote I searched on the name "Hitler" to no avail. Then searched for "So did" and found it straight away. Is this Firefox censoring inappropriate searches?
And of course, we can compare the devolved governments (Scotland, Wales, N Ireland) to England.
Of those countries, apart from Germany, the UK is pretty much slap in the middle of a very undistinguished group of failures.
Do people need yet another justification for getting shitfaced?
The only upside is the yummy mummies in witches outfits.
But it is worth noting that by making the decision to extend 80% furlough so late & the cut-off date for claims 30/10, a lot of employees who might have been kept on by businesses will already have lost their jobs.
The government’s failure to think or act more than 2/3 days ahead doesn’t just cost lives. It also costs jobs.
Couldn’t someone buy the government a calendar with all the key upcoming events put in it: you know stuff like term starting, term ending, dates by when decisions need to be made etc. All these entirely foreseeable events seem to come as a complete surprise to them.
Yes.
It's one upside of many.
‘Due to unforeseen circumstances, winter has arrived this year.’
What changed, either 66% was enough or it was not.
Either there was enough money for 80% for the tier 3 areas or there was not.
The only thing that seems to changed is it is no longer just northern cities being screwed by the government so they changed the policy.
In plainer English -
Those who don't much care if Trump steals the election think the risk of him doing so is minimal.
Someone was saying that Starmer had no chance because he was so boring. I really can't think of a time in the recent past where the concept of 'boring' would be an easier sell as the US are about to find out. One of the great unused posters of recent times was Brown's 'Not Flash Just Gordon'. It was perfect.
So "it's all to difficult" and "there's nothing to learn".
Independence is going to be a hoot!
Surely dishonesty would be saying it will never be extended while knowing it may be. It seems to me he's being entirely honest.
Quadrilateral amendment (to prevent gerrymandering)
Reinforcement of states' rights and separation of church and state
So, not going to happen then.
Y'all had a fine 20th century.
Biden leaves his Michigan rally confused with his latest senior moment as he claims he and Obama believe 'it's a right to have badakathcare'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8901891/Biden-says-Obama-think-right-badakathcare-Michigan-rally.html
100s of millions of people to choose from, and the choice if between the big orange child liar and this old bloke who make it through the day without forgetting half the stuff he is supposed to say and blurts out garbled nonsense.
And then you look at the candidates who didn't make it like Mayor Pete or even Andrew Yang, very smart, fit and healthy, energetic individuals.
I can only think that Boris has believed the bollox about infections in London doubling every 3.3 days.
Those are the sole Articles of the Constitution and sacrosanct and unchallengeable.
You have quoted amendments which are not core Articles of the Constitution and therefore irrelevant to the separation of powers and therefore also open to interpretation as to their extent so again your point is completely irrelevant to your absurd argument that Trump can suspend Congress and rule as a dictator, he can't as Article I of the Constitution makes clear there has to be a Congress and its powers and those of the Presidency as set out under Article II.
That cannot be interpreted any other way.
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1322866312750747648?s=20
https://twitter.com/timspector/status/1322868846768869377?s=20
And stopping the low risk activities will leave people with more time for other things.
So instead of some blokes going for a round of golf together they might instead watch football on TV together.
Sorry, but you won't learn anything by comparing a whole bundle of different countries, in which there are a whole bundle of different effects going on.
It is not a controlled experiment, it is just a supermarket trolley.
On average Buttigieg led Trump by 2%, Sanders led Trump by 4.2%, Biden now leads Trump by 7.8%
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_buttigieg-6872.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
Trump will always have huge rallies even if he was running at 35% not 45%
Buttigieg may well have been a better President and could well have been a candidate against a generic non Trump Republican and could well be the candidate in 2024 against Pence if Trump is re elected and therefore ineligible to run again but this year beating Trump was the sole concern
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/pennsylvania/
But if that's a fall in 16-29 year olds infecte while every older age profile is seeing increasing rates then that isn't progress.
Happily I had already decided to jump off the sinking ship, but at the point they advised me they were going to pull the plug I still didn't have my new gig nailed down. So I got lucky. The other two? Not so lucky. An extension of the Furlough would have made the difference between them being employed still and being unemployed instead.
You say Vietnam is young, but we are younger than South Korea which has barely 100 cases per day. We aren't much older then New Zealand, Australia, or Thailand.
There is nothing these success stories have which we couldn't replicate. So we should. We should study them, learn how they've done it, and apply it here. Countries have differences, for sure, but those differences aren't what is stopping us. And the fact that countries which have nothing common to all of them have succeeded shows that.
https://twitter.com/TimesCorbyn/status/1322843930585669633
If not, I don't see why an earlier extension would have made much difference?
Because I imagine one of the other things that will be causing many employers who have made redundancies curse at this late stage extension to furlough is they will already have let people go and therefore had to make payments, with implications for cash flow.
Also Trump was heading for a EC landslide.
Is this a pollster who has any previous form ?
The EC numbers are just UNS I think
Since then his wife and two kids have tested negative, the bloke he drives to work with tested negative, both the other two other blokes he works with tested negative, and this morning I found out I have also tested negative
Would be fairer to uplift UC for all on it more than that if there was extra cash going spare which there isn't.
For the Treasury if not for the individuals having furlough extended only for those with a realistic possibility of jobs afterwards is surely a good thing not a bad one?
https://twitter.com/OliviaRaisner/status/1322664700052705283?s=20
It was at the centre of Johnson's press conference yesterday. Remember it was to "save Christmas". And they've undermined the message within 12 hours.
I'm sure this was all done for good scientific, factual, health reasons. I'm sure.
But Gove has also taken down Rishi Sunak (for now) in the process. Coincidence?
2. To show that the UK can replicate this, you need to take a country reasonably like the UK & demonstrate that it is possible. All countries like the UK (except possibly Germany) are doing badly.
3. I am obviously in favour of learning from what happened elsewhere. But, I don't think that, by looking at a huge range of countries nothing like the UK and implementing their policies, you will necessarily get anything like the same outcome.
It might be that attendance reduces naturally and at that point, social distancing becomes easier. Which would definitely help.
But then that begs the question, what do you do to keep those who are off school up to speed?
When, as you say, he's to the right of David Cameron.
But this time I have a couple of hedges in place.
But that’s what I’m suggesting parents may decide to do.
And it’s not easy to see how they could be compelled to send children in if they keep them at home.
I’m not saying it definitely *will* happen, just that it’s another possible outcome to consider.