There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
The best way would be for the main political conversation to get back to revolving around economic and other old-fashioned issues instead of identity politics which is guaranteed to be toxic most of the time.
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.
Except he isn't, Biden's raise taxes on the rich, increase regulation, anti school choice, pro union, spend more agenda is not as far left as Sanders but closer to Starmer Labour than even the Cameron Tories, Biden is a friend of Neil Kinnock after all
Indeed 56% of Tory members want Trump to win Tuesday's election to only 22.5% who want Biden to win according to a ConHome survey yesterday (though personally I voted for Biden)
There's a really good question here: how does the US get unfucked (politically)?
The best way would be for the main political conversation to get back to revolving around economic and other old-fashioned issues instead of identity politics which is guaranteed to be toxic most of the time.
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.
Given we still don't fully understand transition, we don't actually track / trace instances (it is all surveying that has a high bias), who is actually susceptible, what is the displacement effect of making a particular change, the idea of being able to predict the impact of a specific policy change on R down to 2 decimal places still laughable to me.....especially when the expert modellers can't even work out the effect of a 2 week lockdown on the number of lives saved over a 12 week period within 2 orders of magnitude.
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 do think devolution is a good thing in many instances, everyone has stories of Whitehall not understanding things happening in localities or nto being best places to act, but I don't think it is the panacea it is sold as, certainly not in the chaotic, slipshod way we go about it - without a plan, in response to individual demands from individual areas. A certain level of tailoring might make sense, but it still needs to be more methodical, not just blurted assertiosn that regions know better.
American Pollsters. Maybe it would be a good idea in your cross breaks if you broke down who the early voters had voted for.
This is like post 2014 Scotland polls not breaking down by Sindy vote. Inexplicable.
This has been mentioned a few times and I don't agree with it. At least, I don't think I do.
Whilst that might seem like an attractive idea I don't think it is.
In the first place there's a tacit understanding that you're not allowed to publish exit polls until all the west coast polls have closed on election day. Asking people how they voted is, basically, an exit poll.
The more serious psephological issue is that you start mixing up methodologies and I think that's fraught with problems. An opinion poll is an opinion poll. It follows a set method of questioning framed around a 'if there were xx election tomorrow how would you vote' which each pollster fixes and sticks to. This enables the format to be repeated and, crucially, for comparisons to be made with previous opinion polls by the same pollster.
So, no, it is not a good idea for pollsters to throw into their opinion polls a different set of criteria i.e. how people have actually already voted.
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.
That's my concern, too.
The models, tools and, crucially, the data that underpinned the decision must be made available for everyone to look at.
Note that the models can be replicated with some effort, but you absolutely do need the data as well to draw the inferences.
The main focus of any debate in the HoC must be to get all this in the public domain -- as befits proper science. Science thrives on openness.
Noone in the HoC has the expertise to analyse or criticise it, so they must aim to get it out so others can look at it and check it.
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 do think devolution is a good thing in many instances, everyone has stories of Whitehall not understanding things happening in localities or nto being best places to act, but I don't think it is the panacea it is sold as, certainly not in the chaotic, slipshod way we go about it - without a plan, in response to individual demands from individual areas.
During a pandemic is when you need central control. Look at the US, they can't do it, so every state does their own thing and it even without Trump it would be a shit show. Look at the EU, again every country doing their own thing at different times, different borders open, makes control basically impossible.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
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 can't see Biden failing to pull this off.
Me neither. I've never been so sure and I'm on this at the same level as Brexit and the 2015 GE, both of which returned me a tidy profit.
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 do think devolution is a good thing in many instances, everyone has stories of Whitehall not understanding things happening in localities or nto being best places to act, but I don't think it is the panacea it is sold as, certainly not in the chaotic, slipshod way we go about it - without a plan, in response to individual demands from individual areas.
During a pandemic is when you need central control. Look at the US, they can't do it, so every state does their own thing and it even without Trump it would be a shit show. Look at the EU, again every country doing their own thing at different times, different borders open, makes control basically impossible.
I was thinking more in general terms in normal times, though there are things localities can deliver better even during an emergency, but I would accept that there are benefits to central control and we need to be wary of overegging the benefits of devolution settlements.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
I agree that my far the most likely outcome is a Biden win, however it is perfectly possible for him to be +5/+6 up nationally and still lose the EV though much closer than Clinton did. It has been very clear that Biden is much more popular in red states than Clinton was, places like Texas, Georgia, Missouri, are all showing quite big swings to Biden but its quite likely is he won't win any of those Florida is a toss up , both good and bad pollsters have it too close to call or within MoE. My point is yes the cards have to fall perfectly for Trump but it is possible that he could win the EVs by being 5/6% behind nationally as one or two of the more respected pollsters have him rather than this 9/10% figure everyone throws around. If there was a bad polling error in just one state ,,PA and Trump won that and errors within MoE with other states, like AZ and NC it is possible to see a way he can win this just. I am not saying he will win but I am pointing out that it does not require wild inaccuracies with all the polls for him to do so. One state error (PA) and others within the MoE would be enough. Unlikely yes but this is no slam dunk for Biden , even if that's my fervent wish.
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.
That's my concern, too.
The models, tools and, crucially, the data that underpinned the decision must be made available for everyone to look at.
Note that the models can be replicated with some effort, but you absolutely do need the data as well to draw the inferences.
The main focus of any debate in the HoC must be to get all this in the public domain -- as befits proper science. Science thrives on openness.
Noone in the HoC has the expertise to analyse or criticise it, so they must aim to get it out so others can look at it and check it.
Yes as I noted yesterday, all of these huge life changing decisions are being made on the basis of mathematical models that haven't been peer reviewed and whose underlying data hasn't been made available to the public or been published in any scientific journal. The "scientists" in charge of this are giving science a very bad name.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
It's probably stupidity, rather than spite, but equally unacceptable.
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 do think devolution is a good thing in many instances, everyone has stories of Whitehall not understanding things happening in localities or nto being best places to act, but I don't think it is the panacea it is sold as, certainly not in the chaotic, slipshod way we go about it - without a plan, in response to individual demands from individual areas.
During a pandemic is when you need central control. Look at the US, they can't do it, so every state does their own thing and it even without Trump it would be a shit show. Look at the EU, again every country doing their own thing at different times, different borders open, makes control basically impossible.
And whilst not perfect look at German .
Best wave 1 of the larger countries and again ahead of the curve in wave 2 lockdown
Devolution doesn't have to mean a dislocated nation, just that huge areas aren't utterly ignored as the power has no interest whatsoever in large parts of the country
So far wave 1 and wave 2 have clearly been managed with the focus on London, no where else matters
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
It's probably stupidity, rather than spite, but equally unacceptable.
See shutting golf courses....safer than going to the park.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
Or three - do two, then panic and go for one anyway.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
You're falling into the exact trap the government has set, they're using the NHS as a shield for their incompetence. By saying "yeah but the NHS" it instantly silences any criticism of the policy. We shouldn't be in this position but through incompetence and cronyism we're about to have another lockdown. Don't let them get away with it.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
Yes, but to be fair we are specifically speculating about a scenario where the R rate drops below 1 in the next couple of weeks (ie. can be attributed, if anything, to the Tier system restrictions and not the Lockdown), in which case the Scientific modelling basis for the lockdown will be shown to be "arguable".
Neither the NEU nor the NASUWT are linked with Labour.
How UNITE, who represent support staff, will react is more important.
The mass testing rider is important. Opening secondary schools without regular testing is, IMO, irresponsible.
Ideally, this is what should be happening. ... Nearly half of Slovakia’s entire population were tested for coronavirus on Saturday, as the country began a two day testing programme which it hopes will bring the virus under control without further lockdown measures.
Of the 2.58 million Slovaks who took the test, 25,850, or 1%, tested positive and must go into quarantine.*
More than 40,000 medics and support teams of soldiers, police, administrative workers and volunteers staffed around 5,000 sites to administer the antigen swab tests. The country, which has a population of 5.5m, is aiming to test as many citizens as possible, except those under the age of 10....
It will be very interesting to see the results of this. Clearly it would have been quite possible already to have run a similar exercise in one of the UK regions.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
It's probably stupidity, rather than spite, but equally unacceptable.
See shutting golf courses....safer than going to the park.
I'm guessing that's because of the 19th hole problems
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
It's probably stupidity, rather than spite, but equally unacceptable.
See shutting golf courses....safer than going to the park.
I'm guessing that's because of the 19th hole problems
You can shut a clubhouse without shutting the whole course.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
It's probably stupidity, rather than spite, but equally unacceptable.
See shutting golf courses....safer than going to the park.
I'm guessing that's because of the 19th hole problems
That's fine, you just say club house bar has to be be shut and probably close changing rooms. That is what lots of other sports clubs had to do initially. And for golf, you don't need either, you can easily change your shoes in the car park.
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 hope he wins.
It will be fascinating and hilarious to see labour inherit an economic basket case from the tories, when it is so often the other way around
I'm particularly looking forward to Starmer's solemn address to the nation when the IMF's conditions for a hard currency bailout loan include hundreds of thousands of public sector job cuts.
That will be brilliant.
Labour inherited an economic mess from the Tories in October 1964 and March 1974- indeed May 1997 was the exception.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
You're falling into the exact trap the government has set, they're using the NHS as a shield for their incompetence. By saying "yeah but the NHS" it instantly silences any criticism of the policy. We shouldn't be in this position but through incompetence and cronyism we're about to have another lockdown. Don't let them get away with it.
One should always be sceptical about claims of the NHS being "overwhelmed". Given such claims are made almost every winter. The issue is the extent to which capacity can we scaled up, or adjusted through cancellations of non-emergency treatment to cope.
As somebody said - the NHS exists to save lives. We do not strive to save lives to save the NHS.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
Or three - do two, then panic and go for one anyway.
Yep. Which is what has happened.
But my point is, those opining that this is the wrong decision are - although they never put it like this for obvious reasons - arguing that we should just cross our fingers and hope the models are wrong.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
You're falling into the exact trap the government has set, they're using the NHS as a shield for their incompetence. By saying "yeah but the NHS" it instantly silences any criticism of the policy. We shouldn't be in this position but through incompetence and cronyism we're about to have another lockdown. Don't let them get away with it.
One should always be sceptical about claims of the NHS being "overwhelmed". Given such claims are made almost every winter. The issue is the extent to which capacity can we scaled up, or adjusted through cancellations of non-emergency treatment to cope.
As somebody said - the NHS exists to save lives. We do not strive to save lives to save the NHS.
Well when the model being used doesn't even have much confidence in numbers of deaths for the next few days, you have to be a bit wary of predictions for the next 3 months.
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.
2008 and Obama wins. I remember it well. Apparently some lucky PBer had a 50/1 bet on Obama and that night was seen dancing in the streets of Bedford wearing nothing but a huge grin and carrying an "Obama Winning Here" sign to cover his modesty. Though it was a big sign, so the legend goes ....
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.
Redundancy. With my final month's notice (November) paid as PILON. I am certain they would not have done that - and underpaid me again via Furlough - had Sunak announced the extension of the scheme in a sensible time.
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 do think devolution is a good thing in many instances, everyone has stories of Whitehall not understanding things happening in localities or nto being best places to act, but I don't think it is the panacea it is sold as, certainly not in the chaotic, slipshod way we go about it - without a plan, in response to individual demands from individual areas.
During a pandemic is when you need central control. Look at the US, they can't do it, so every state does their own thing and it even without Trump it would be a shit show. Look at the EU, again every country doing their own thing at different times, different borders open, makes control basically impossible.
Look at the horseshit confidence intervals on Slide 4 and 5....you are telling me that your model has f##k all idea about the level of hospital admissions or deaths for the next few days.
Question for PB boffins: how close was Clinton to winning?
Extremely. A less than half a percent swing in a few states would have seen her inauguration.
It's why Trump has almost zero chance of winning fairly given all the other data on polls and voting levels etc we know about. He simply has no room to lose votes without regaining them elsewhere - and there's no evidence he's gaining loads elsewhere and plenty of evidence he's losing more than half a percentage point swing.
Question for PB boffins: how close was Clinton to winning?
If 38,875 voters in three states had voted for her instead of Trump she would have won the election. 5,353 in Michigan, 11,375 in Wisconsin, and 22,147 in Pennsylvania. Total votes at the election were 136.7 million.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
It's probably stupidity, rather than spite, but equally unacceptable.
See shutting golf courses....safer than going to the park.
I'm guessing that's because of the 19th hole problems
That's fine, you just say club house bar has to be be shut and probably close changing rooms. That is what lots of other sports clubs had to do initially. And for golf, you don't need either, you can easily change your shoes in the car park.
To you and ydoethur, well yes agreed. I'm not defending the Gov't. I guess socialising is such a big part of the golfing experience that they would have to stress the importance of social distancing and that you go to play a round and that's it. But as I say, I don't want to defend all the illogical rules and regs associated with this.
I would say that during lockdown 1 the Gov't committed an absolute howler telling people, explicitly and implicitly, to stay inside. A far better message for the physical, mental and social wellbeing of the nation as well as, ultimately, for the fight against Covid would have been to tell the nation to get physically fit.
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?
Yes their jobs were savable. The prospects for the company were looking far rosier from next spring onwards - cashflow through the winter was going to be a battle. So subsidy from the government meant three jobs that could have been sustained. Instead of made redundant and then replacements hired in a few months.
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.
The Party exists to become the government. Clause 1 of the Party rulebook. So diverting it off to agitate for a socialist utopia that few will vote for isn't what the members should do regardless of how sincerely they hold their batshit views
Fair play to pulpstar - whom I've always assumed was on the right. This makes for depressing reading and one only hopes that Biden wins and does something about it. Will be hard without the Senate though. What surprises me about the GOP is just how brazen they are. There really appears to be no limit to what they're prepared to do. It really needs some of the old school types to publicly disown the party. I can't imagine George W would ever do it or if he still has credibility but it really is needed.
The other thing to bear in mind is the rest of the world. The USA is the world's most prominent liberal democracy. It's all very well to think Sweden or the Netherlands might be BETTER examples but they aren't going to have the global reach of the US. This kind of behaviour sends a terrible message to the rest of the world about governance.
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 same people that said they had determined IIRC 24 out of the past 26 presidents - even though it was only set up 5 years ago. Nothing wrong with retrofitting models, but this one is based on qualitative assessment, i.e. how 'attractive' the candidate is. That's full of potential errors when considering the changes in politics and memory when talking about over 50 years ago. File in the 'dubious' pile.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
You're falling into the exact trap the government has set, they're using the NHS as a shield for their incompetence. By saying "yeah but the NHS" it instantly silences any criticism of the policy. We shouldn't be in this position but through incompetence and cronyism we're about to have another lockdown. Don't let them get away with it.
I'm not. I would never deter criticism of this government. They are utterly incompetent. We should not be here. But we are. And the choice in the here and now is take action to head off what the models say, or stay as we are and hope the models are wrong.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
"So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted." Why "wasted"? Most bottled or canned drinks have a life of 9-12 months or more. Spirits have a much longer shelf life.
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 do think devolution is a good thing in many instances, everyone has stories of Whitehall not understanding things happening in localities or nto being best places to act, but I don't think it is the panacea it is sold as, certainly not in the chaotic, slipshod way we go about it - without a plan, in response to individual demands from individual areas.
During a pandemic is when you need central control. Look at the US, they can't do it, so every state does their own thing and it even without Trump it would be a shit show. Look at the EU, again every country doing their own thing at different times, different borders open, makes control basically impossible.
Central control by BJ and his pals going well...
Surely the point is that Boris Johnson needs to be put in control of the whole of Europe. Or preferably the whole of the world.
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 do think devolution is a good thing in many instances, everyone has stories of Whitehall not understanding things happening in localities or nto being best places to act, but I don't think it is the panacea it is sold as, certainly not in the chaotic, slipshod way we go about it - without a plan, in response to individual demands from individual areas.
During a pandemic is when you need central control. Look at the US, they can't do it, so every state does their own thing and it even without Trump it would be a shit show. Look at the EU, again every country doing their own thing at different times, different borders open, makes control basically impossible.
But you need different things to be tried in different places, to find out what works.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
Or three - do two, then panic and go for one anyway.
Yep. Which is what has happened.
But my point is, those opining that this is the wrong decision are - although they never put it like this for obvious reasons - arguing that we should just cross our fingers and hope the models are wrong.
The models are certainly wrong.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful" (George Box)
The only question is whether the models are a useful guide for our future actions.
That is a much, much more open question than you appear to think.
Anyone acquainted with model building -- so no UK politician or journalist -- knows that is a very reasonable question to ask.
It will be utterly sickening if the votes aren't counted. Regardless of whether they affect the results or not.
For a hundred thousand plus votes to be thrown out after they were cast - especially when the issue was deemed settled by the courts before they were cast - is absolutely inexcusable and undemocratic.
Question for PB boffins: how close was Clinton to winning?
If 38,875 voters in three states had voted for her instead of Trump she would have won the election. 5,353 in Michigan, 11,375 in Wisconsin, and 22,147 in Pennsylvania. Total votes at the election were 136.7 million.
Actually the figures might be smaller if you use the two districts in Maine and Nebraska to get Clinton to 270.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
"So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted." Why "wasted"? Most bottled or canned drinks have a life of 9-12 months or more. Spirits have a much longer shelf life.
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.
Question for PB boffins: how close was Clinton to winning?
Not close enough! The Electoral College was a comfortable win for Trump. Hillary ignored the rust belt, and the rust belt states punished her, not by much, but by enough.
I know many people who have caught the virus and suffered from it even if they have recovered.
Is there anyone in this country that doesn't?
Peter Hitchens.
I have a feeling everyone he knows could be infected, half of them could die, and he still wouldn't acknowledge it so long as he personally remained uninfected.
From the comments I have read on here, I assume some of you don't think its appropriate for armed militias in paramilitary gear and ski masks to march around the street with machine guns intimidating voters. What is wrong with you? Can't you respect their 2nd Amendment rights? It seems Perfectly Reasonable and Civilised to let people buy that kind of lethal hardware and threaten passers by with it.
Question for PB boffins: how close was Clinton to winning?
Not close enough! The Electoral College was a comfortable win for Trump. Hillary ignored the rust belt, and the rust belt states punished her, not by much, but by enough.
It was not remotely a comfortable win for Trump. It was the thinnest of margins. To call it comfortable misunderstands the EC.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
"So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted." Why "wasted"? Most bottled or canned drinks have a life of 9-12 months or more. Spirits have a much longer shelf life.
Draught beer doesn't.
I shall go down to my local later and endeavour, in some small way, to reduce their stock.
Look at the horseshit confidence intervals on Slide 4 and 5....you are telling me that your model has f##k all idea about the level of hospital admissions or deaths for the next few days.
Hmmm. Do you think these were the graphs produced for ministers back in September, updated for actuals but not projections...? That's surely the only thing that can explain those confidence intervals...?
Question for PB boffins: how close was Clinton to winning?
Not close enough! The Electoral College was a comfortable win for Trump. Hillary ignored the rust belt, and the rust belt states punished her, not by much, but by enough.
I think this is a little bit unfair, she ignored WI and arguably paid too little attention to MI, but she definitely didn't ignore PA, and once she missed that she'd have been doomed even if she'd got the other two.
Look at the horseshit confidence intervals on Slide 4 and 5....you are telling me that your model has f##k all idea about the level of hospital admissions or deaths for the next few days.
Hmmm. Do you think these were the graphs produced for ministers back in September, updated for actuals but not projections...? That's surely the only thing that can explain those confidence intervals...?
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
It's probably stupidity, rather than spite, but equally unacceptable.
See shutting golf courses....safer than going to the park.
But this is worse than in the first lockdown. Then you could do takeaway alcohol. Now you can’t. There is no good reason for this. It is another kick in the teeth.
Take That were the band of my youth, Take That and The Rolling Stones are the bands I've seen live the most.
I'll never forget the summer of 1995, I was a little bit stressed waiting for my GCSE results and Robbie leaving Take That didn't help.
As I've said before I do wish that "celebrities" would learn to shut up about stuff unrelated to their particular talents. I am a massive Roger Waters music fan. But he is an absolute tosser every time he gives us his opinions about Palestine. I have no interest in what he thinks about Israel or what JK Rowling thinks about gender or what Jeremy Clarkson thinks about anything. Shut up already.
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
Yes, that was noted on here last night and it doesn't seem logical to me. You can do takeaways, but not including your main product. What a mess.
In terms of R it's hardly going to make much of a difference either way. It's a sign that government is too focused on the minutiae of lockdown rules to pay enough attention to other ways of reducing transmission of the virus.
Fair play to pulpstar - whom I've always assumed was on the right. This makes for depressing reading and one only hopes that Biden wins and does something about it. Will be hard without the Senate though. What surprises me about the GOP is just how brazen they are. There really appears to be no limit to what they're prepared to do. It really needs some of the old school types to publicly disown the party. I can't imagine George W would ever do it or if he still has credibility but it really is needed.
The other thing to bear in mind is the rest of the world. The USA is the world's most prominent liberal democracy. It's all very well to think Sweden or the Netherlands might be BETTER examples but they aren't going to have the global reach of the US. This kind of behaviour sends a terrible message to the rest of the world about governance.
To be fair, much of the Republican establishment under previous leaders has comprehensively disowned him - the whole Lincoln Project isbased on that. E.g. ex-Senator Flake says he's a conservative Republican, always has been, and the most conservative thing to do is to vote Trump out.
But the second point is absolutely true. Someone here hightlighted that Russia Today is enthusiastically trolling all the dodgy practices, some of them remarkably reminiscent of Russian practice (though they don't, uh, mention that). And I remember a Chinese seminar which I ran on Western multi-party democracy where the young audience looked receptive up to a point but one of them asked whether the average voter actually felt that they were helping decide the issue without manipulation by the authorities - I said yes, but I'm not sure I'd say that today with respect to the US. If we get to the point where people round the world say "Oh, they're all the same", we'll have lost something very important.
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 :
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
You're falling into the exact trap the government has set, they're using the NHS as a shield for their incompetence. By saying "yeah but the NHS" it instantly silences any criticism of the policy. We shouldn't be in this position but through incompetence and cronyism we're about to have another lockdown. Don't let them get away with it.
One should always be sceptical about claims of the NHS being "overwhelmed". Given such claims are made almost every winter. The issue is the extent to which capacity can we scaled up, or adjusted through cancellations of non-emergency treatment to cope.
As somebody said - the NHS exists to save lives. We do not strive to save lives to save the NHS.
But should we be sufficiently skeptical as to not act on the models?
I know many people who have caught the virus and suffered from it even if they have recovered.
Is there anyone in this country that doesn't?
I actually don't. I know I am rural and an introvert, but I don't personally know anyone who knows they definitely have had it. Not even amongst my FB friends. Not at my place of worship. Not in my village. Not at work. Almost everyone I know knows someone who has had it. And several who've died from it. But not me.
I know many people who have caught the virus and suffered from it even if they have recovered.
Is there anyone in this country that doesn't?
Peter Hitchens.
I have a feeling everyone he knows could be infected, half of them could die, and he still wouldn't acknowledge it so long as he personally remained uninfected.
The problem is this -
1) COVID exists 2) It is a very infectious disease. 3) It is quite literally a couple of orders of magnitude nastier than the Flu 4) The only way to fight it, that has worked in the Western World, is to impose massive restrictions on persons and the economy. 5) The only way to prevent the economy collapsing during such restrictions is support on fighting-a-war level of cost. 6) The lethality of COVID (and the damage it does) is low enough, until you reach the disaster phase, that you can avoid seeing any cost to other people catching it. 7) Some people, such opinion column journalists, can be completed isolated from the effects of all of the above. Until in the crisis phase, the hospitals stop working etc. If you work from home, typing on a laptop etc you can carry on, right until the shit hits the fan. 8) The restrictions, though, impact on people long, long before their loved ones can't get a space in hospital.
All of the above means, that for a large chunk of people, COVID restrictions add up vast spending, government control, personal restrictions - and for what?
*Their* life seems just the same.
Humans are very good at processing what they *see*. Personally. To process information you read or hear to the same level of immediacy, takes a particular mindset.
This mean that for many, denying some of the points above allows them to rationalise the information they hear with what they see. They are trying to make the larger world fit with their personal experience.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
You're falling into the exact trap the government has set, they're using the NHS as a shield for their incompetence. By saying "yeah but the NHS" it instantly silences any criticism of the policy. We shouldn't be in this position but through incompetence and cronyism we're about to have another lockdown. Don't let them get away with it.
One should always be sceptical about claims of the NHS being "overwhelmed". Given such claims are made almost every winter. The issue is the extent to which capacity can we scaled up, or adjusted through cancellations of non-emergency treatment to cope.
As somebody said - the NHS exists to save lives. We do not strive to save lives to save the NHS.
Weren't the Nightingale hospitals completely empty at the peak last time around?
Daughter has just noted that the government has made things significantly worse for pubs and restaurants than in the first lockdown in one respect.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
"So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted." Why "wasted"? Most bottled or canned drinks have a life of 9-12 months or more. Spirits have a much longer shelf life.
Draught real ale, by contrast, lasts about 72 hours after opening under optimum conditions.
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.
That's my concern, too.
Tons of valid concerns but the big picture is that the projections from those with the data show a clear consensus that if a tighter regime is not implemented what we will see within weeks is the NHS collapsing and tens of thousands of people dying, of Covid and not Covid, many of them for lack of access to treatment. A calamity.
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
You're falling into the exact trap the government has set, they're using the NHS as a shield for their incompetence. By saying "yeah but the NHS" it instantly silences any criticism of the policy. We shouldn't be in this position but through incompetence and cronyism we're about to have another lockdown. Don't let them get away with it.
One should always be sceptical about claims of the NHS being "overwhelmed". Given such claims are made almost every winter. The issue is the extent to which capacity can we scaled up, or adjusted through cancellations of non-emergency treatment to cope.
As somebody said - the NHS exists to save lives. We do not strive to save lives to save the NHS.
But should we be sufficiently skeptical as to not act on the models?
Depends if the stated reason for action is to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed...
Look at the horseshit confidence intervals on Slide 4 and 5....you are telling me that your model has f##k all idea about the level of hospital admissions or deaths for the next few days.
Hmmm. Do you think these were the graphs produced for ministers back in September, updated for actuals but not projections...? That's surely the only thing that can explain those confidence intervals...?
I think that must be the explanation.
How woeful. I don't like to rubbish work when I have not seen the details, but this looks worse & worse.
I know many people who have caught the virus and suffered from it even if they have recovered.
Is there anyone in this country that doesn't?
I actually don't. I know I am rural and an introvert, but I don't personally know anyone who knows they definitely have had it. Not even amongst my FB friends. Not at my place of worship. Not in my village. Not at work. Almost everyone I know knows someone who has had it. And several who've died from it. But not me.
Fair enough. I'm surprised with that especially with you also being in the Northwest.
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 hope he wins.
It will be fascinating and hilarious to see labour inherit an economic basket case from the tories, when it is so often the other way around
I'm particularly looking forward to Starmer's solemn address to the nation when the IMF's conditions for a hard currency bailout loan include hundreds of thousands of public sector job cuts.
That will be brilliant.
The QE genie is out of the bottle. There will never be an "IMF hard currency bailout". If the UK is unable to pay its debts with tax receipts, it will pay them using the Bank of England's electronic printing presses.
Either inflation is high in which case the debt is being eroded anyway, or inflation is low, in which case we now know that electronic money-printing has virtually no downside apart from asset bubbles, and who in the elite is going to complain about rising asset prices?
Besides which, most of the world will be in the same boat. Most of the Covid-incurred government debt is getting written off by central bank money creation, no doubt about it.
Question for PB boffins: how close was Clinton to winning?
Not close enough! The Electoral College was a comfortable win for Trump. Hillary ignored the rust belt, and the rust belt states punished her, not by much, but by enough.
It was not remotely a comfortable win for Trump. It was the thinnest of margins. To call it comfortable misunderstands the EC.
Comments
This is like post 2014 Scotland polls not breaking down by Sindy vote. Inexplicable.
Indeed 56% of Tory members want Trump to win Tuesday's election to only 22.5% who want Biden to win according to a ConHome survey yesterday (though personally I voted for Biden)
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2020/10/our-survey-more-than-half-of-tory-members-want-trump-to-win-next-week.html
Whilst that might seem like an attractive idea I don't think it is.
In the first place there's a tacit understanding that you're not allowed to publish exit polls until all the west coast polls have closed on election day. Asking people how they voted is, basically, an exit poll.
The more serious psephological issue is that you start mixing up methodologies and I think that's fraught with problems. An opinion poll is an opinion poll. It follows a set method of questioning framed around a 'if there were xx election tomorrow how would you vote' which each pollster fixes and sticks to. This enables the format to be repeated and, crucially, for comparisons to be made with previous opinion polls by the same pollster.
So, no, it is not a good idea for pollsters to throw into their opinion polls a different set of criteria i.e. how people have actually already voted.
Note that the models can be replicated with some effort, but you absolutely do need the data as well to draw the inferences.
The main focus of any debate in the HoC must be to get all this in the public domain -- as befits proper science. Science thrives on openness.
Noone in the HoC has the expertise to analyse or criticise it, so they must aim to get it out so others can look at it and check it.
Even if you have a licence to sell as an off-licence, you cannot sell alcohol as a takeaway. So all the beer and other drinks which pubs have cannot now be sold and that stock will be wasted.
Why? During the last lockdown Daughter - at some expense - got such a licence so she could sell alcohol with her takeaway meals. Now she can’t. What on earth is the reason for doing that? It’s pure spite - especially as supermarkets will be able to sell alcohol.
Letters on their way to our MP - Boris’s PPS as it happens - and to Tim Farron.
https://youtu.be/Ml22txWypJE?t=2
So faced with this you can only go one of two ways -
Take the recommended action to prevent the calamity, OR
Hold steady and see if the calamity happens. Hope the models are proved wrong.
Florida is a toss up , both good and bad pollsters have it too close to call or within MoE. My point is yes the cards have to fall perfectly for Trump but it is possible that he could win the EVs by being 5/6% behind nationally as one or two of the more respected pollsters have him rather than this 9/10% figure everyone throws around.
If there was a bad polling error in just one state ,,PA and Trump won that and errors within MoE with other states, like AZ and NC it is possible to see a way he can win this just.
I am not saying he will win but I am pointing out that it does not require wild inaccuracies with all the polls for him to do so. One state error (PA) and others within the MoE would be enough. Unlikely yes but this is no slam dunk for Biden , even if that's my fervent wish.
Best wave 1 of the larger countries and again ahead of the curve in wave 2 lockdown
Devolution doesn't have to mean a dislocated nation, just that huge areas aren't utterly ignored as the power has no interest whatsoever in large parts of the country
So far wave 1 and wave 2 have clearly been managed with the focus on London, no where else matters
Opening secondary schools without regular testing is, IMO, irresponsible.
Ideally, this is what should be happening.
... Nearly half of Slovakia’s entire population were tested for coronavirus on Saturday, as the country began a two day testing programme which it hopes will bring the virus under control without further lockdown measures.
Of the 2.58 million Slovaks who took the test, 25,850, or 1%, tested positive and must go into quarantine.*
More than 40,000 medics and support teams of soldiers, police, administrative workers and volunteers staffed around 5,000 sites to administer the antigen swab tests. The country, which has a population of 5.5m, is aiming to test as many citizens as possible, except those under the age of 10....
It will be very interesting to see the results of this. Clearly it would have been quite possible already to have run a similar exercise in one of the UK regions.
* Isolation, to be pedantic.
As somebody said - the NHS exists to save lives. We do not strive to save lives to save the NHS.
But my point is, those opining that this is the wrong decision are - although they never put it like this for obvious reasons - arguing that we should just cross our fingers and hope the models are wrong.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1322878887307726848?s=20
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8902029/Holidays-abroad-outlawed-strict-new-winter-lockdown-rules.html
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/931775/Slides_to_accompany_coronavirus_press_conference-_CSA-__31_October_2020.pdf
It's why Trump has almost zero chance of winning fairly given all the other data on polls and voting levels etc we know about. He simply has no room to lose votes without regaining them elsewhere - and there's no evidence he's gaining loads elsewhere and plenty of evidence he's losing more than half a percentage point swing.
23,000 votes in Wisconsin
45,000 votes in Pennsylvania.
That would have seen the EC tip 278- 260 in her favour.
I would say that during lockdown 1 the Gov't committed an absolute howler telling people, explicitly and implicitly, to stay inside. A far better message for the physical, mental and social wellbeing of the nation as well as, ultimately, for the fight against Covid would have been to tell the nation to get physically fit.
https://twitter.com/brokenbottleboy/status/1322800611306385408?s=20
That seems to be where Biden’s best chance of winning comes as well.
The other thing to bear in mind is the rest of the world. The USA is the world's most prominent liberal democracy. It's all very well to think Sweden or the Netherlands might be BETTER examples but they aren't going to have the global reach of the US. This kind of behaviour sends a terrible message to the rest of the world about governance.
Take That were the band of my youth, Take That and The Rolling Stones are the bands I've seen live the most.
I'll never forget the summer of 1995, I was a little bit stressed waiting for my GCSE results and Robbie leaving Take That didn't help.
Why "wasted"? Most bottled or canned drinks have a life of 9-12 months or more. Spirits have a much longer shelf life.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful" (George Box)
The only question is whether the models are a useful guide for our future actions.
That is a much, much more open question than you appear to think.
Anyone acquainted with model building -- so no UK politician or journalist -- knows that is a very reasonable question to ask.
For a hundred thousand plus votes to be thrown out after they were cast - especially when the issue was deemed settled by the courts before they were cast - is absolutely inexcusable and undemocratic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
Is there anyone in this country that doesn't?
https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/1308878735916007424
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawyers-prepare-for-long-trump-biden-fight-in-pennsylvania-after-election-day/ar-BB1azMRd
Note, Stoke is absolutely not in the North, I will accept it as not being in the South as well.
See https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1322887359592103936?s=21
Pickford will be back for the next match.
https://twitter.com/footballdaily/status/1322888676116934673
In terms of R it's hardly going to make much of a difference either way. It's a sign that government is too focused on the minutiae of lockdown rules to pay enough attention to other ways of reducing transmission of the virus.
But the second point is absolutely true. Someone here hightlighted that Russia Today is enthusiastically trolling all the dodgy practices, some of them remarkably reminiscent of Russian practice (though they don't, uh, mention that). And I remember a Chinese seminar which I ran on Western multi-party democracy where the young audience looked receptive up to a point but one of them asked whether the average voter actually felt that they were helping decide the issue without manipulation by the authorities - I said yes, but I'm not sure I'd say that today with respect to the US. If we get to the point where people round the world say "Oh, they're all the same", we'll have lost something very important.
Almost everyone I know knows someone who has had it. And several who've died from it.
But not me.
1) COVID exists
2) It is a very infectious disease.
3) It is quite literally a couple of orders of magnitude nastier than the Flu
4) The only way to fight it, that has worked in the Western World, is to impose massive restrictions on persons and the economy.
5) The only way to prevent the economy collapsing during such restrictions is support on fighting-a-war level of cost.
6) The lethality of COVID (and the damage it does) is low enough, until you reach the disaster phase, that you can avoid seeing any cost to other people catching it.
7) Some people, such opinion column journalists, can be completed isolated from the effects of all of the above. Until in the crisis phase, the hospitals stop working etc. If you work from home, typing on a laptop etc you can carry on, right until the shit hits the fan.
8) The restrictions, though, impact on people long, long before their loved ones can't get a space in hospital.
All of the above means, that for a large chunk of people, COVID restrictions add up vast spending, government control, personal restrictions - and for what?
*Their* life seems just the same.
Humans are very good at processing what they *see*. Personally. To process information you read or hear to the same level of immediacy, takes a particular mindset.
This mean that for many, denying some of the points above allows them to rationalise the information they hear with what they see. They are trying to make the larger world fit with their personal experience.
How woeful. I don't like to rubbish work when I have not seen the details, but this looks worse & worse.
Either inflation is high in which case the debt is being eroded anyway, or inflation is low, in which case we now know that electronic money-printing has virtually no downside apart from asset bubbles, and who in the elite is going to complain about rising asset prices?
Besides which, most of the world will be in the same boat. Most of the Covid-incurred government debt is getting written off by central bank money creation, no doubt about it.