Odd that Priti is championing a move that would have barred her parents from coming to the UK.
They came from an EU member state?
No, but so many people who want to stop foreigners coming here can't tell the difference anyway. Stopping free movement is definitely about stopping Asian and African economic migrants like her parents, stopping asylum seekers and scroungers and much less about the French and Germans who they don't have a problem with.
Well the tweet is about ending freedom of movement, so I had assumed your comment was related to that.
It is. People want stop foreign types from coming here.
No they don't.
So do. Some want to go further and deport them. Some go even further than that and want to deport folk who've always lived here.
And, sadly, that's actually been happening.
Nobody credible wants to stop foreigners coming here, nor is that the government policy. 🙄
Do you think (Covid-permitting) next year total immigration into the UK is going to be
Zero
Tens
Hundreds
Thousands
Tens of thousands
Hundreds of thousands
Answers on a postcard please.
But the problem is that non-credible people still vote, non-credible people still get elected, and in a few select cases non-credible people achieve high office. You aren't a fool, you know they exist. And you know what's been happening with people being wrongly deported. Before you get into predictions about what is likely to happen, it's always good to start with a survey of what is happening and what has happened. Whether done by credible people or not.
Yes non-credible people can vote but they're not getting elected.
People who want zero immigration are not getting elected. I can't think of a single MP elected on that platform (and parties have stood on it).
The government has become more not less liberal on net immigration in recent years. Under Cameron and May the official policy was to reduce net immigration down to the tens of thousands - Boris has abandoned that pledge and is OK with immigration continuing in the hundreds of thousands so long as it is controlled.
So any claims of "stopping foreigners from coming in" is a complete untruth.
Wonder how the two Georgian senators are squaring the circle of not acknowledging he's won, with making the need for the Senate to put a check on his Government a key part of their electoral pitch?
Not a problem, so long as we don't expect to export products produced to different standards to the EU. It's impossible to expect them to accept goods not produced in a way consistent with their policies, any more than we'd import electrical goods that are maunfactured to different standards to ours.
Germany, as it is very possible there will be a Green Chancellor next year after Merkel steps down and Germany goes to the polls in September 2021 and if it elects a Green, SPD and Linke coalition (assuming the CDU will still not touch the AFD with a bargepole). The Greens are currently second in German polls.
The Greens are opposed to NATO military action, relatively pacifist and will cut German defence spending even further
The greens are also in favour of trying to keep a reasonably habitable planet for the next few generations. I would have thought that would be in America's long term interests.
If you go by current polling, any coalition not involving CDU/CSU wouldn't work. There is zero chance of the CDU having any kind of arrangement with the Afd. CDU Green coalition is certainly possible, even likely, the SPD must be sick of being a somewhat pointless junior partner at national level.
So the CDU/CSU will win most seats but the Greens, SPD and Linke combined will have more seats than the CDU/CSU and their traditional coalition partners the FDP combined ie 43% combined to 41% combined.
If neither block does a deal with the AfD the left block could therefore form a minority coalition government with a Green Chancellor despite the fact CDU/CSU and AfD combined would be on 45% ie more than the 43% combined for the Green led left block.
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
So not 44bn spent on project moonshot then as the FT claimed.
So I was right about the reporting. Couldn't even copy and pasta a press release....
Odd that Priti is championing a move that would have barred her parents from coming to the UK.
They came from an EU member state?
No, but so many people who want to stop foreigners coming here can't tell the difference anyway. Stopping free movement is definitely about stopping Asian and African economic migrants like her parents, stopping asylum seekers and scroungers and much less about the French and Germans who they don't have a problem with.
Well the tweet is about ending freedom of movement, so I had assumed your comment was related to that.
It is. People want stop foreign types from coming here.
No they don't.
So do. Some want to go further and deport them. Some go even further than that and want to deport folk who've always lived here.
And, sadly, that's actually been happening.
Nobody credible wants to stop foreigners coming here, nor is that the government policy. 🙄
Do you think (Covid-permitting) next year total immigration into the UK is going to be
Zero
Tens
Hundreds
Thousands
Tens of thousands
Hundreds of thousands
Answers on a postcard please.
Seems strange to argue that UK immigration numbers are an indication of official government policy or what large numbers of the general public actually want.
Just means that what people want, and what the Government claim to want, bears no resemblence to what actually happens.
Of course numbers are an indication of official government policy. It is what the government is officially allowing.
If the government says immigration is not allowed then the number should drop to zero.
As it happens though the government used to pledge to reduce immigration to tens of thousands until May was replaced by Johnson who axed that promise. The Tories went into the last election for the first time in a long time NOT pledging to reduce immigration.
Do they take a long time to manual count in the UK?
We don't tend to have many elections with 5 million votes in one constituency. Tend to be more like 50k. I'll be interested to know how many individuals are involved in carrying out the Georgia recount.
Don't UK "recounts" almost always involve just counting bundles? I've seen 50k-vote recounts done in an hour or two.
And surely, if you've got 100 times more votes to count you'd have 100 times more counters? Or am I underestimating American states' meanness?
Not a problem, so long as we don't expect to export products produced to different standards to the EU. It's impossible to expect them to accept goods not produced in a way consistent with their policies, any more than we'd import electrical goods that are maunfactured to different standards to ours.
Absolutely that is fair enough.
The trouble is, that in itself acts as a restriction on our economy. If exporters of certain goods are put at a disadvantage because of variable standards, import tariffs or quotas, then they find themselves cut off from their best markets. This will lead to a refactoring of which sectors operate to what levels within the UK, and even if the net economic change was nil (and that's not how disruptive restrictions in complex systems tends to map out, but just for the sake of argument), you've STILL got the result where economic activity is being shaped by external policy makers. In a nutshell, in connected economies, the concept of political sovereignty is really abstract and theoretical. International trade is antithetical to political sovereignty and it's one of the most surprising thing in recent years to watch so many people on the political right fall into the same trap that put the far left so completely out of touch with reality for long periods of the twentieth century.
Do they take a long time to manual count in the UK?
We don't tend to have many elections with 5 million votes in one constituency. Tend to be more like 50k. I'll be interested to know how many individuals are involved in carrying out the Georgia recount.
Don't UK "recounts" almost always involve just counting bundles? I've seen 50k-vote recounts done in an hour or two.
And surely, if you've got 100 times more votes to count you'd have 100 times more counters? Or am I underestimating American states' meanness?
First of all I'm not sure that the American recounts will involve counting bundles. Having gone through the machines is that how they are stored? Secondly I suspect that their initial counts involved a lot fewer people than is typical in a UK count. You don't need as many people when they're going through a machine. So they many need to hire a lot more staff?
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
So not 44bn spent on project moonshot then as the FT claimed.
So I was right about the reporting. Couldn't even copy and pasta a press release....
I know the government have hosed lots of money up the wall, but a 1/3 of the NHS budget...that doesn't pass the sniff test.
Its like the claim Ireland had only spent 27p on a fully working track and trace system....when the number banded about the initial cost of the first incarnation of their app.
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
So not 44bn spent on project moonshot then as the FT claimed.
So I was right about the reporting. Couldn't even copy and pasta a press release....
I know the government have hosed lots of money up the wall, but a 1/3 of the NHS budget...that doesn't pass the sniff test.
Its like the claim Ireland had only spent 27p on a fully working track and trace system....when the number banded about the initial cost of the first incarnation of their app.
You'd have thought at the FT they would have been able to look at the order of magnitude and ask "spent what on what, when?"
Of these, around a third (15,130) are ready for tabulation and are from Maricopa County. Based on experience yesterday, these should break for Trump, with him getting between 55% and 60% of the total. (And he may do a little better.)
Unfortunately, that's the last bit of really good news for the President. Another third (15,700) are provisional ballots from Pima County, which is the most pro-Biden county in Arizona. Probably only half of these will end up being counted, but they (given people without ID are more likely to skew Democratic) are unlikely to add to the President's tally.
The final third is mostly provisional ballots from the rest of the State. These will skew Trump, but the problem for him is that a lot of these will be from people who forgot their ID (skews Democrat) or will be from people whose mail in votes have already been counted (will be removed from total).
I would reckon that perhaps only 30,000 real ballots remain to be counted.
If we assume that 15,000 of those are from Maricopa and skew 2:1 towards the President, that knocks the lead down to 10,000 votes. The other 15,000 are unlikely to skew his way - indeed, I'd suspect they'd probably go for Biden. But let's say 50:50.
Keep an eye on the ballot progress page, but my reading of it is that it is highly unlikely that there are enough votes there to enable Trump to overhaul Biden.
Do they take a long time to manual count in the UK?
We don't tend to have many elections with 5 million votes in one constituency. Tend to be more like 50k. I'll be interested to know how many individuals are involved in carrying out the Georgia recount.
Don't UK "recounts" almost always involve just counting bundles? I've seen 50k-vote recounts done in an hour or two.
And surely, if you've got 100 times more votes to count you'd have 100 times more counters? Or am I underestimating American states' meanness?
First of all I'm not sure that the American recounts will involve counting bundles. Having gone through the machines is that how they are stored? Secondly I suspect that their initial counts involved a lot fewer people than is typical in a UK count. You don't need as many people when they're going through a machine. So they many need to hire a lot more staff?
It's an interesting question, and I wonder how many trained people they have, or can get hold of at short notice ?
From Politico: ...“It’ll take every bit of the time we have left, for sure. It is a big lift,” Raffensperger said Wednesday, noting that the state’s certification deadline is on Nov. 20. He noted that, following the deadline, a candidate could request a recount if the margin is within a half a percentage point. But that recount would be conducted using scanners, not by hand...
The chances of overturning a 14k margin are extremely thin, though.
Not a problem, so long as we don't expect to export products produced to different standards to the EU. It's impossible to expect them to accept goods not produced in a way consistent with their policies, any more than we'd import electrical goods that are maunfactured to different standards to ours.
Absolutely that is fair enough.
The trouble is, that in itself acts as a restriction on our economy. If exporters of certain goods are put at a disadvantage because of variable standards, import tariffs or quotas, then they find themselves cut off from their best markets. This will lead to a refactoring of which sectors operate to what levels within the UK, and even if the net economic change was nil (and that's not how disruptive restrictions in complex systems tends to map out, but just for the sake of argument), you've STILL got the result where economic activity is being shaped by external policy makers. In a nutshell, in connected economies, the concept of political sovereignty is really abstract and theoretical. International trade is antithetical to political sovereignty and it's one of the most surprising thing in recent years to watch so many people on the political right fall into the same trap that put the far left so completely out of touch with reality for long periods of the twentieth century.
That's total nonsense, if exporters are producing for an export market with different specs then they just produce to those specs. That's not disruptive. Much of manufacturing nowadays exists in Asia producing to EU or US or other standards rather than their own nation's standards. Asians are capable of producing to CE mark standards, why can't Brits?
Furthermore many standards are globalised anyway.
Finally if eg domestic labour or tax or other laws are different that doesn't affect product specifications.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
So not 44bn spent on project moonshot then as the FT claimed.
So I was right about the reporting. Couldn't even copy and pasta a press release....
Yes, it's pretty crappy. Wasn't a question of copying and pasting a press release, though. Took a bit of looking to elucidate the detail. If I can do it in an idle 15 minutes, it's pisspoor that a financial journalist can't seem to bother.
It's notable that the government doesn't really do press releases about contracts, other than the nebulous bollocks kind.
But including the still to be awarded tender, it seems they'll be spending about £2.2bn on the rapid tests. I wonder how many we'll actually get for that ?
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
Which Tory chums are lined up for latest free money
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
If they can keep it in a regular medical fridge vs -70c that massively simplifies distribution and storage issues
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Germany, as it is very possible there will be a Green Chancellor next year after Merkel steps down and Germany goes to the polls in September 2021 and if it elects a Green, SPD and Linke coalition (assuming the CDU will still not touch the AFD with a bargepole). The Greens are currently second in German polls.
The Greens are opposed to NATO military action, relatively pacifist and will cut German defence spending even further
The greens are also in favour of trying to keep a reasonably habitable planet for the next few generations. I would have thought that would be in America's long term interests.
If you go by current polling, any coalition not involving CDU/CSU wouldn't work. There is zero chance of the CDU having any kind of arrangement with the Afd. CDU Green coalition is certainly possible, even likely, the SPD must be sick of being a somewhat pointless junior partner at national level.
So the CDU/CSU will win most seats but the Greens, SPD and Linke combined will have more seats than the CDU/CSU and their traditional coalition partners the FDP combined ie 43% combined to 41% combined.
If neither block does a deal with the AfD the left block could therefore form a minority coalition government with a Green Chancellor despite the fact CDU/CSU and AfD combined would be on 45% ie more than the 43% combined for the Green led left block.
First, there is zero chance of anyone doing a deal with the Afd.
Second, on those figures the CDU would probably form a coalition with the Greens. 2nd option would be to continua CDU SPD coalition.
If the FDP don't get over 5%, so don't get into parliament then a Green SPD Linke majority coalition would be possible. Although perhaps harder to reach agreement than the first 2 options.
A Green-led minority coalition is vanishingly unlikely.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Its the handling of it rather than the transport of it where it sounds like most at risk.
From memory someone said it could only be out of the freezer/dry ice for a minute while being handled. That's not long.
For those on the side of the coup you can still make money backing the Donald. 1.01 available for him to win the Electoral College with a 140 point head start.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Yes, so I was reading. Perhaps they are worried about GPs messing up the final stage.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
That sure don't look like we're headed anywhere near a repeat of March/april to me...
Interesting to know why. Is it better treatments? Or are masks limiting the viral dose being received? Or are different people getting it (older population better shielded/already dead in the first wave/very scared and locking themselves away)? Were the tiers working? Loads of questions. It would be fun if it weren't peoples lives.
Germany, as it is very possible there will be a Green Chancellor next year after Merkel steps down and Germany goes to the polls in September 2021 and if it elects a Green, SPD and Linke coalition (assuming the CDU will still not touch the AFD with a bargepole). The Greens are currently second in German polls.
The Greens are opposed to NATO military action, relatively pacifist and will cut German defence spending even further
The greens are also in favour of trying to keep a reasonably habitable planet for the next few generations. I would have thought that would be in America's long term interests.
If you go by current polling, any coalition not involving CDU/CSU wouldn't work. There is zero chance of the CDU having any kind of arrangement with the Afd. CDU Green coalition is certainly possible, even likely, the SPD must be sick of being a somewhat pointless junior partner at national level.
So the CDU/CSU will win most seats but the Greens, SPD and Linke combined will have more seats than the CDU/CSU and their traditional coalition partners the FDP combined ie 43% combined to 41% combined.
If neither block does a deal with the AfD the left block could therefore form a minority coalition government with a Green Chancellor despite the fact CDU/CSU and AfD combined would be on 45% ie more than the 43% combined for the Green led left block.
First, there is zero chance of anyone doing a deal with the Afd.
Second, on those figures the CDU would probably form a coalition with the Greens. 2nd option would be to continua CDU SPD coalition.
If the FDP don't get over 5%, so don't get into parliament then a Green SPD Linke majority coalition would be possible. Although perhaps harder to reach agreement than the first 2 options.
A Green-led minority coalition is vanishingly unlikely.
The CDU may try and do a deal with the Greens but the Greens may prefer a left of centre coalition with the SPD and Linke, especially if they have the numbers for a minority government and the CDU candidate for Chancellor is Friedrich Merz, who is significantly more rightwing than Merkel is.
The SPD membership have always been very reluctant supporters of a Grand Coalition with the CDU and may also favour a deal with the Greens and Linke if that has the numbers after next year's poll. If the FDP don't pass the threshold for seats in the Bundestag then yes a left of centre Green SPD Linke coalition would be almost certain.
If that happened then the UK and Japan would be the only nations left in the G7 with centre right leaders, all other G7 leaders would be from the liberal centre left or lead a left of centre coalition in the case of Conte in Italy
If this report is even vaguely right, the US constitutional and democratic situation might be better than worst forecasts. On the other hand, the virus situation is looking more concerning today , with the numbers coming out of the US and Italy .
"Even some of the president’s most publicly pugilistic aides, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and informal adviser Corey Lewandowski, have said privately that they are concerned about the lawsuits’ chances for success unless more evidence surfaces, according to people familiar with their views.
Trump met with advisers again Tuesday afternoon to discuss whether there is a path forward, said a person with knowledge of the discussions, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. The person said Trump plans to keep fighting but understands it is going to be difficult. ‘He is all over the place. It changes from hour to hour,’ the person said."
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
How did they define 'rubbish', and 'remotely good' ?
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Yes, so I was reading. Perhaps they are worried about GPs messing up the final stage.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
--AS
To be fair, they are probably legally required to announce because a Covid 19 vaccine that is strongly effective is price sensitive information. And sitting on price sensitive information is not the kind of thing stock market regulators approve of.
That sure don't look like we're headed anywhere near a repeat of March/april to me...
Interesting to know why. Is it better treatments? Or are masks limiting the viral dose being received? Or are different people getting it (older population better shielded/already dead in the first wave/very scared and locking themselves away)? Were the tiers working? Loads of questions. It would be fun if it weren't peoples lives.
I think we have to assume that the restrictions were having some effect! After all, the big spike in March was probably mainly due to infections acquired before lockdown, or within households immediately after lockdown started, or in the early stages when there weren't "COVID secure" things in place. It would be horrifying if, despite the subsequent restrictions (pre-tier, tiered, and then lockdown 2 which won't show up yet), we had a similar peak.
I have always regarded Farage as a toxic dirt ball...
Confession -
I used to rate and respect him despite his politics but that all changed when he decided to take up permanent residence inside Donald Trump's posterior. I'm 100% with your assessment now. Sleazy, bottom drawer character.
I'm not sure he has technically. I think he's said it's "quite likely", has argued for work on transition to start on that basis, and has said he's seen no evidence of fraud in Pennsylvania. But he's stopped just short of saying Biden has won and urging Trump to accept reality.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Yes, so I was reading. Perhaps they are worried about GPs messing up the final stage.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
--AS
To be fair, they are probably legally required to announce because a Covid 19 vaccine that is strongly effective is price sensitive information. And sitting on price sensitive information is not the kind of thing stock market regulators approve of.
Do you think the same applies to AZN? I have heard (not sure of the provenance, so don't rely on it) that they don't plan to announce before they have a draft paper ready.
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
So not 44bn spent on project moonshot then as the FT claimed.
So I was right about the reporting. Couldn't even copy and pasta a press release....
Yes, it's pretty crappy. Wasn't a question of copying and pasting a press release, though. Took a bit of looking to elucidate the detail. If I can do it in an idle 15 minutes, it's pisspoor that a financial journalist can't seem to bother.
It's notable that the government doesn't really do press releases about contracts, other than the nebulous bollocks kind.
But including the still to be awarded tender, it seems they'll be spending about £2.2bn on the rapid tests. I wonder how many we'll actually get for that ?
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
How did they define 'rubbish', and 'remotely good' ?
This was asked, and they didn't give a clear answer. The ground truth with respect to which sensitivity is measured is also unclear.
Odd that Priti is championing a move that would have barred her parents from coming to the UK.
They came from an EU member state?
No, but so many people who want to stop foreigners coming here can't tell the difference anyway. Stopping free movement is definitely about stopping Asian and African economic migrants like her parents, stopping asylum seekers and scroungers and much less about the French and Germans who they don't have a problem with.
Well the tweet is about ending freedom of movement, so I had assumed your comment was related to that.
It is. People want stop foreign types from coming here.
No they don't.
So do. Some want to go further and deport them. Some go even further than that and want to deport folk who've always lived here.
And, sadly, that's actually been happening.
Nobody credible wants to stop foreigners coming here, nor is that the government policy. 🙄
Do you think (Covid-permitting) next year total immigration into the UK is going to be
Zero
Tens
Hundreds
Thousands
Tens of thousands
Hundreds of thousands
Answers on a postcard please.
But the problem is that non-credible people still vote, non-credible people still get elected, and in a few select cases non-credible people achieve high office. You aren't a fool, you know they exist. And you know what's been happening with people being wrongly deported. Before you get into predictions about what is likely to happen, it's always good to start with a survey of what is happening and what has happened. Whether done by credible people or not.
Yes non-credible people can vote but they're not getting elected.
People who want zero immigration are not getting elected. I can't think of a single MP elected on that platform (and parties have stood on it).
The government has become more not less liberal on net immigration in recent years. Under Cameron and May the official policy was to reduce net immigration down to the tens of thousands - Boris has abandoned that pledge and is OK with immigration continuing in the hundreds of thousands so long as it is controlled.
So any claims of "stopping foreigners from coming in" is a complete untruth.
You misunderstood my point. I'm saying the more extreme ends of this political spectrum (no immigration, deportation, deportation even of Brits) exist, and that policy and policy implementation is affected as a result. Deportations do not happen by accident. Wrongful deportations happen due to systemic failures. We can and probably should have a debate about the contributing factors for those systemic failures, and as with anything there will be multiple reasons. All I offer is the fact that there is a political subculture that has become (disproportionately?) influential. That subculture is anti-immigrationism. I use the subculture advisedly, because you are focusing narrowly on policy, which is only part of the picture. When a subculture ascends in importance, you see an increased bias in mistakes towards the aims of that culture. So without even changing policy, the political mood of a country can change the outcomes of processes. When people use their judgement, culture can cause skews in their choices. And we all know this to be true: lots of people say, approvingly or otherwise, that Farage changed the conversation in this country, that without him Brexit wouldn't have happened. If true -- and I find it a compelling point -- he did that by skewing the culture. Certainly none of his political power really affected things. As an MEP, his main contribution seems to have been missing committee meetings. But he did change minds. And that includes minds of people who implement policy.
And, for what it's worth, I can name several people I find to be totally devoid of credibility who are MPs. Patel is one. Dorries, Corbyn, Burgon, and Francois are others. We don't have to agree on those, though, because it's really besides my point.
That sure don't look like we're headed anywhere near a repeat of March/april to me...
Interesting to know why. Is it better treatments? Or are masks limiting the viral dose being received? Or are different people getting it (older population better shielded/already dead in the first wave/very scared and locking themselves away)? Were the tiers working? Loads of questions. It would be fun if it weren't peoples lives.
Someone told me that Florida ended most restrictions in late September and has hardly any more deaths per capita than it did then. Anyone know more? They apparently took advice from Ioaniddis, Levitt, Bhattacharya et al and did the same as Sweden, albeit 6 months later.
Ideally, someone who lurks on PB lives in Florida ...
Germany, as it is very possible there will be a Green Chancellor next year after Merkel steps down and Germany goes to the polls in September 2021 and if it elects a Green, SPD and Linke coalition (assuming the CDU will still not touch the AFD with a bargepole). The Greens are currently second in German polls.
The Greens are opposed to NATO military action, relatively pacifist and will cut German defence spending even further
The greens are also in favour of trying to keep a reasonably habitable planet for the next few generations. I would have thought that would be in America's long term interests.
If you go by current polling, any coalition not involving CDU/CSU wouldn't work. There is zero chance of the CDU having any kind of arrangement with the Afd. CDU Green coalition is certainly possible, even likely, the SPD must be sick of being a somewhat pointless junior partner at national level.
So the CDU/CSU will win most seats but the Greens, SPD and Linke combined will have more seats than the CDU/CSU and their traditional coalition partners the FDP combined ie 43% combined to 41% combined.
If neither block does a deal with the AfD the left block could therefore form a minority coalition government with a Green Chancellor despite the fact CDU/CSU and AfD combined would be on 45% ie more than the 43% combined for the Green led left block.
What will happen next year mostly pivots around the candidacy question. Among CDU members and activists there is a clear majority for Merz. If they get their will the CDU will struggle to hit the 30% mark and a green/red/red coalition is basically nailed on. Laschet would do a little better, but not much. A Söder (CSU) candidacy is the wild card. Among potential voters he is way ahead in the polls (S:24%,L:16%,M:11%), and a Union/Green coalition he has been preparing the ground for, is the most popular option among all voters.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
"NHS England has suggested that GP practices administering Covid vaccinations will not need access to freezer capacity to store vaccine stock."
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
Which Tory chums are lined up for latest free money
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/11/joe-biden-no-friend-britain/
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
How did they define 'rubbish', and 'remotely good' ?
This was asked, and they didn't give a clear answer. The ground truth with respect to which sensitivity is measured is also unclear.
--AS
There's a question about how accurate they need to be, of course. Anything over (say) 70% sensitivity and 99% specificity would do a massively more useful job than PCR testing in getting large scale outbreaks under control.
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
So not 44bn spent on project moonshot then as the FT claimed.
So I was right about the reporting. Couldn't even copy and pasta a press release....
Yes, it's pretty crappy. Wasn't a question of copying and pasting a press release, though. Took a bit of looking to elucidate the detail. If I can do it in an idle 15 minutes, it's pisspoor that a financial journalist can't seem to bother.
It's notable that the government doesn't really do press releases about contracts, other than the nebulous bollocks kind.
But including the still to be awarded tender, it seems they'll be spending about £2.2bn on the rapid tests. I wonder how many we'll actually get for that ?
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
Not a problem, so long as we don't expect to export products produced to different standards to the EU. It's impossible to expect them to accept goods not produced in a way consistent with their policies, any more than we'd import electrical goods that are maunfactured to different standards to ours.
Absolutely that is fair enough.
The trouble is, that in itself acts as a restriction on our economy. If exporters of certain goods are put at a disadvantage because of variable standards, import tariffs or quotas, then they find themselves cut off from their best markets. This will lead to a refactoring of which sectors operate to what levels within the UK, and even if the net economic change was nil (and that's not how disruptive restrictions in complex systems tends to map out, but just for the sake of argument), you've STILL got the result where economic activity is being shaped by external policy makers. In a nutshell, in connected economies, the concept of political sovereignty is really abstract and theoretical. International trade is antithetical to political sovereignty and it's one of the most surprising thing in recent years to watch so many people on the political right fall into the same trap that put the far left so completely out of touch with reality for long periods of the twentieth century.
That's total nonsense, if exporters are producing for an export market with different specs then they just produce to those specs. That's not disruptive. Much of manufacturing nowadays exists in Asia producing to EU or US or other standards rather than their own nation's standards. Asians are capable of producing to CE mark standards, why can't Brits?
Furthermore many standards are globalised anyway.
Finally if eg domestic labour or tax or other laws are different that doesn't affect product specifications.
Producing for two markets brings several risks: 1. You need to keep in touch with more than one regulatory regime 2. If the higher standards are costlier to meet, you risk being outcompeted by one-market suppliers in the lower-standards polity 3. If you try to mitigate point 2. by having separate manufacturing lines, you lose economies of scale.
The net effect is a fissile pressure on manufacturing, driving producers into silos. Competition between silos is stymied, which is bad for consumers.
Remember, we're talking about headwinds, not hurricanes. Everybody knows "Asians are capable of producing to CE mark standards", but everybody also knows that regulatory patchworks create inefficiency.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
How did they define 'rubbish', and 'remotely good' ?
This was asked, and they didn't give a clear answer. The ground truth with respect to which sensitivity is measured is also unclear.
--AS
There's a question about how accurate they need to be, of course. Anything over (say) 70% sensitivity and 99% specificity would do a massively more useful job than PCR testing in getting large scale outbreaks under control.
I believe the lateral flow being used in Liverpool (and possibly coming to all Uni's soon) is 90 % sensitive, which is enough as you say for rapid testing. Missing 1 in 10 who are asymptomatic (or pre-symptomatic) may not matter too much in the long run.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
How did they define 'rubbish', and 'remotely good' ?
This was asked, and they didn't give a clear answer. The ground truth with respect to which sensitivity is measured is also unclear.
--AS
There's a question about how accurate they need to be, of course. Anything over (say) 70% sensitivity and 99% specificity would do a massively more useful job than PCR testing in getting large scale outbreaks under control.
Certainly. I think specificity is closer to 99.5%, but sensitivity might be lower than 70%, depending on how many virus particles you have in the sample. (Manufacturers' claims of accuracy have turned out to be completely false.)
Like you I do think, and have always thought, that relatively insensitive mass testing could make a huge difference. When all is said and done, it will be interesting to hear who in government was for and against such testing.
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
Farage is yesterday's news, just as his best toxic mate Trump
Boris gets a deal, any deal the country moves on
I agree BigG Boris will likely get a deal but that means Nige will be back crying 'betrayal' on the basis of what he will portray as Boris caving in to the EU as he has already said Boris has caved into the scientists on lockdown 2, I would not be surprised if his new Reform UK party got 5 to 10% of the vote at the local elections next year therefore in which he has already said he will be standing candidates.
Ironically a deal with the EU and continued lockdown and furlough reduces the threat of an SNP majority at Holyrood next year but while the threat of nationalism in Scotland might recede it will revive again in England as Farage makes yet another comeback
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
Farage is yesterday's news, just as his best toxic mate Trump
Boris gets a deal, any deal the country moves on
I agree BigG Boris will likely get a deal but that means Nige will be back crying 'betrayal' on the basis of what he will portray as Boris caving in to the EU as he has already said Boris has caved into the scientists on lockdown 2, I would not be surprised if his new Reform UK party got 5 to 10% of the vote at the local elections next year therefore in which he has already said he will be standing candidates
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
Farage is yesterday's news, just as his best toxic mate Trump
Boris gets a deal, any deal the country moves on
I agree BigG Boris will likely get a deal but that means Nige will be back crying 'betrayal' on the basis of what he will portray as Boris caving in to the EU as he has already said Boris has caved into the scientists on lockdown 2, I would not be surprised if his new Reform UK party got 5 to 10% of the vote at the local elections next year therefore in which he has already said he will be standing candidates
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Yes, so I was reading. Perhaps they are worried about GPs messing up the final stage.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
--AS
The oxford one is at least a 1/10 of the price as well.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Yes, so I was reading. Perhaps they are worried about GPs messing up the final stage.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
--AS
To be fair, they are probably legally required to announce because a Covid 19 vaccine that is strongly effective is price sensitive information. And sitting on price sensitive information is not the kind of thing stock market regulators approve of.
Do you think the same applies to AZN? I have heard (not sure of the provenance, so don't rely on it) that they don't plan to announce before they have a draft paper ready.
--AS
That's a good question. BioNTech is a small company, and their CV19 vaccine in 99% of their value. AZN - by contrast - is valued at $150bn and has tens of billions of dollars of sales. If BioNTech's vaccine doesn't work, the company loses 85% of its value. If AZN's doesn't, it drops a few percent. Maybe.
That being said, I'd expect a brief press release to announce unblinding at the very least.
That sure don't look like we're headed anywhere near a repeat of March/april to me...
Interesting to know why. Is it better treatments? Or are masks limiting the viral dose being received? Or are different people getting it (older population better shielded/already dead in the first wave/very scared and locking themselves away)? Were the tiers working? Loads of questions. It would be fun if it weren't peoples lives.
Someone told me that Florida ended most restrictions in late September and has hardly any more deaths per capita than it did then. Anyone know more? They apparently took advice from Ioaniddis, Levitt, Bhattacharya et al and did the same as Sweden, albeit 6 months later.
Ideally, someone who lurks on PB lives in Florida ...
Florida removed State level restrictions, but allowed counties and cities to impose their own.
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. '
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Yes, so I was reading. Perhaps they are worried about GPs messing up the final stage.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
--AS
The oxford one is at least a 1/10 of the price as well.
And actually, it seems to be a whole list of contractors along with Abbott Labs. Which makes a lot more sense.
So, the testing contracts awarded last week (not this) were for... Innova £496m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Randox £346m - “Provision of services to support the UK Covid-19 Testing Strategy.” Tanner Pharma £148m - 'Coronavirus AG Rapid Test Cassette (Swab)' Abbott Labs £120m - 'Lateral flow test kits' Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd £112m - 'Provision of LamPORE testing materials'
There is a £900m tender out this week, for provision of more lateral flow test kits through 'til March.
The £20bn 4year contract was for: "Pathology and Point of Care Testing, Associated Equipment, Instruments, Consumables and Accessories and Managed Services" And appears to have been awarded to numerous suppliers (too many to list). So presumably business as usual, if somewhat increased, for the NHS.
There is also a further £22bn tender out for the four year "national microbiology framework agreement". Whatever that might be.
Hope that clears it up.
So not 44bn spent on project moonshot then as the FT claimed.
So I was right about the reporting. Couldn't even copy and pasta a press release....
Yes, it's pretty crappy. Wasn't a question of copying and pasting a press release, though. Took a bit of looking to elucidate the detail. If I can do it in an idle 15 minutes, it's pisspoor that a financial journalist can't seem to bother.
It's notable that the government doesn't really do press releases about contracts, other than the nebulous bollocks kind.
But including the still to be awarded tender, it seems they'll be spending about £2.2bn on the rapid tests. I wonder how many we'll actually get for that ?
(edit... pasta ?)
it's the way you tagliatelle 'em!
Careful not to tripoline over the issue...
I cannonli throw my hands up at the quality of your puns.
This 43bn figure has now become fact...all the other newspapers have reported it...so when people google , they will get this figure and it was in the FT, so 99.9% of people won't question it.
It is how modern journalism works. Somebody (mis)reports something, then all the other papers copy and pasta it, then everybody retwatters its. Now fact.
Had a briefing from a COVID research bigwig today. Things that might be interesting:
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
A lot is made of distribution problems of the PFE vaccine, but it's not required to be kept *that* cold, it doesn't require anything more exotic than a bit of insulation and dry ice.
Yes, so I was reading. Perhaps they are worried about GPs messing up the final stage.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
--AS
The oxford one is at least a 1/10 of the price as well.
Are you sure about that? My understanding is that the PFE vaccine is the most manufacturable of all the vaccines (hence how they got through trials first, despite starting two months behind AZN or Moderna.)
Seem that many PBers think that the Electoral College - all 538 of them - will assemble in one group grope to elect the (next) President of the United States.
What will happen, is that the elected Electors in each state will assemble at 50 state capitals to cast their votes. No joint meeting, and only ones assembling in Washington DC will be the 3 District of Columbia Electors.
Will be VERY interesting to see how many - if any - "faithless electors" there are this year = Electors who do NOT vote for the Presidential or VP candidates who carried their state AND for whom they are pledged and/or obligated (by state law) to support.
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/11/joe-biden-no-friend-britain/
"sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico."
LOL!
NAFTA was a pretty low regulation free trade agreement - certainly compared to USMCA or the EU.
Seem that many PBers think that the Electoral College - all 538 of them - will assemble in one group grope to elect the (next) President of the United States.
What will happen, is that the elected Electors in each state will assemble at 50 state capitals to cast their votes. No joint meeting, and only ones assembling in Washington DC will be the 3 District of Columbia Electors.
Will be VERY interesting to see how many - if any - "faithless electors" there are this year = Electors who do NOT vote for the Presidential or VP candidates who carried their state AND for whom they are pledged and/or obligated (by state law) to support.
Do they all meet at the same time? or could some potentially be influenced by reports of other meetings?
Comments
https://twitter.com/AlexInAir/status/1326568145939812352?s=20
People who want zero immigration are not getting elected. I can't think of a single MP elected on that platform (and parties have stood on it).
The government has become more not less liberal on net immigration in recent years. Under Cameron and May the official policy was to reduce net immigration down to the tens of thousands - Boris has abandoned that pledge and is OK with immigration continuing in the hundreds of thousands so long as it is controlled.
So any claims of "stopping foreigners from coming in" is a complete untruth.
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm
So the CDU/CSU will win most seats but the Greens, SPD and Linke combined will have more seats than the CDU/CSU and their traditional coalition partners the FDP combined ie 43% combined to 41% combined.
If neither block does a deal with the AfD the left block could therefore form a minority coalition government with a Green Chancellor despite the fact CDU/CSU and AfD combined would be on 45% ie more than the 43% combined for the Green led left block.
If the government says immigration is not allowed then the number should drop to zero.
As it happens though the government used to pledge to reduce immigration to tens of thousands until May was replaced by Johnson who axed that promise. The Tories went into the last election for the first time in a long time NOT pledging to reduce immigration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc1w_N0wAgk
And surely, if you've got 100 times more votes to count you'd have 100 times more counters? Or am I underestimating American states' meanness?
In a nutshell, in connected economies, the concept of political sovereignty is really abstract and theoretical. International trade is antithetical to political sovereignty and it's one of the most surprising thing in recent years to watch so many people on the political right fall into the same trap that put the far left so completely out of touch with reality for long periods of the twentieth century.
Its like the claim Ireland had only spent 27p on a fully working track and trace system....when the number banded about the initial cost of the first incarnation of their app.
There are 45,819 ballots left to process.
Of these, around a third (15,130) are ready for tabulation and are from Maricopa County. Based on experience yesterday, these should break for Trump, with him getting between 55% and 60% of the total. (And he may do a little better.)
Unfortunately, that's the last bit of really good news for the President. Another third (15,700) are provisional ballots from Pima County, which is the most pro-Biden county in Arizona. Probably only half of these will end up being counted, but they (given people without ID are more likely to skew Democratic) are unlikely to add to the President's tally.
The final third is mostly provisional ballots from the rest of the State. These will skew Trump, but the problem
for him is that a lot of these will be from people who forgot their ID (skews Democrat) or will be from people whose mail in votes have already been counted (will be removed from total).
I would reckon that perhaps only 30,000 real ballots remain to be counted.
If we assume that 15,000 of those are from Maricopa and skew 2:1 towards the President, that knocks the lead down to 10,000 votes. The other 15,000 are unlikely to skew his way - indeed, I'd suspect they'd probably go for Biden. But let's say 50:50.
Keep an eye on the ballot progress page, but my reading of it is that it is highly unlikely that there are enough votes there to enable Trump to overhaul Biden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lP-VGSf92Y
why not? - it glorifies war apparently.
From Politico:
...“It’ll take every bit of the time we have left, for sure. It is a big lift,” Raffensperger said Wednesday, noting that the state’s certification deadline is on Nov. 20. He noted that, following the deadline, a candidate could request a recount if the margin is within a half a percentage point. But that recount would be conducted using scanners, not by hand...
The chances of overturning a 14k margin are extremely thin, though.
Furthermore many standards are globalised anyway.
Finally if eg domestic labour or tax or other laws are different that doesn't affect product specifications.
. They are confident that the Oxford vaccine will work, because it's targeting the same protein as the Pfizer one.
. Seems to think that the government prefers the Oxford vaccine (probably because of the easier distribution requirements, I guess) and that they might be planning mainly for that.
. Of all the lateral flow COVID tests they tried, only 3 worked with remotely good sensitivity. Most were rubbish.
Just passing on in case of interest.
--AS
Wasn't a question of copying and pasting a press release, though. Took a bit of looking to elucidate the detail. If I can do it in an idle 15 minutes, it's pisspoor that a financial journalist can't seem to bother.
It's notable that the government doesn't really do press releases about contracts, other than the nebulous bollocks kind.
But including the still to be awarded tender, it seems they'll be spending about £2.2bn on the rapid tests. I wonder how many we'll actually get for that ?
(edit... pasta ?)
https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/1326571723458826249?s=20
Second, on those figures the CDU would probably form a coalition with the Greens. 2nd option would be to continua CDU SPD coalition.
If the FDP don't get over 5%, so don't get into parliament then a Green SPD Linke majority coalition would be possible. Although perhaps harder to reach agreement than the first 2 options.
A Green-led minority coalition is vanishingly unlikely.
The concession we've been waiting for?
He is a confidante.
From memory someone said it could only be out of the freezer/dry ice for a minute while being handled. That's not long.
I was quite surprised that the Oxford vaccine seems favoured, but perhaps they were working to old assumptions. That seems to be a feature of UK government planning at the moment.
(There's also been some mild criticism of Pfizer for announcing before they have a paper ready. A bit of scientist culture vs pharma culture, I guess.)
--AS
The SPD membership have always been very reluctant supporters of a Grand Coalition with the CDU and may also favour a deal with the Greens and Linke if that has the numbers after next year's poll. If the FDP don't pass the threshold for seats in the Bundestag then yes a left of centre Green SPD Linke coalition would be almost certain.
If that happened then the UK and Japan would be the only nations left in the G7 with centre right leaders, all other G7 leaders would be from the liberal centre left or lead a left of centre coalition in the case of Conte in Italy
"Even some of the president’s most publicly pugilistic aides, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and informal adviser Corey Lewandowski, have said privately that they are concerned about the lawsuits’ chances for success unless more evidence surfaces, according to people familiar with their views.
Trump met with advisers again Tuesday afternoon to discuss whether there is a path forward, said a person with knowledge of the discussions, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. The person said Trump plans to keep fighting but understands it is going to be difficult. ‘He is all over the place. It changes from hour to hour,’ the person said."
--AS
I used to rate and respect him despite his politics but that all changed when he decided to take up permanent residence inside Donald Trump's posterior. I'm 100% with your assessment now. Sleazy, bottom drawer character.
--AS
--AS
Deportations do not happen by accident. Wrongful deportations happen due to systemic failures. We can and probably should have a debate about the contributing factors for those systemic failures, and as with anything there will be multiple reasons.
All I offer is the fact that there is a political subculture that has become (disproportionately?) influential. That subculture is anti-immigrationism. I use the subculture advisedly, because you are focusing narrowly on policy, which is only part of the picture.
When a subculture ascends in importance, you see an increased bias in mistakes towards the aims of that culture. So without even changing policy, the political mood of a country can change the outcomes of processes. When people use their judgement, culture can cause skews in their choices. And we all know this to be true: lots of people say, approvingly or otherwise, that Farage changed the conversation in this country, that without him Brexit wouldn't have happened. If true -- and I find it a compelling point -- he did that by skewing the culture. Certainly none of his political power really affected things. As an MEP, his main contribution seems to have been missing committee meetings. But he did change minds. And that includes minds of people who implement policy.
And, for what it's worth, I can name several people I find to be totally devoid of credibility who are MPs. Patel is one. Dorries, Corbyn, Burgon, and Francois are others. We don't have to agree on those, though, because it's really besides my point.
Ideally, someone who lurks on PB lives in Florida ...
A Söder (CSU) candidacy is the wild card. Among potential voters he is way ahead in the polls (S:24%,L:16%,M:11%), and a Union/Green coalition he has been preparing the ground for, is the most popular option among all voters.
Pulse magazine
https://twitter.com/drjennings/status/1326578369727778817?s=20
Random might fall into your category.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/coronavirus-tests-pulled-over-safety-22368475
'In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc.... The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants.'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/11/joe-biden-no-friend-britain/
https://twitter.com/PA/status/1326579467549110283
Anything over (say) 70% sensitivity and 99% specificity would do a massively more useful job than PCR testing in getting large scale outbreaks under control.
Boris gets a deal, any deal the country moves on
1. You need to keep in touch with more than one regulatory regime
2. If the higher standards are costlier to meet, you risk being outcompeted by one-market suppliers in the lower-standards polity
3. If you try to mitigate point 2. by having separate manufacturing lines, you lose economies of scale.
The net effect is a fissile pressure on manufacturing, driving producers into silos. Competition between silos is stymied, which is bad for consumers.
Remember, we're talking about headwinds, not hurricanes. Everybody knows "Asians are capable of producing to CE mark standards", but everybody also knows that regulatory patchworks create inefficiency.
Like you I do think, and have always thought, that relatively insensitive mass testing could make a huge difference. When all is said and done, it will be interesting to hear who in government was for and against such testing.
--AS
Ironically a deal with the EU and continued lockdown and furlough reduces the threat of an SNP majority at Holyrood next year but while the threat of nationalism in Scotland might recede it will revive again in England as Farage makes yet another comeback
That being said, I'd expect a brief press release to announce unblinding at the very least.
It is how modern journalism works. Somebody (mis)reports something, then all the other papers copy and pasta it, then everybody retwatters its. Now fact.
What will happen, is that the elected Electors in each state will assemble at 50 state capitals to cast their votes. No joint meeting, and only ones assembling in Washington DC will be the 3 District of Columbia Electors.
Will be VERY interesting to see how many - if any - "faithless electors" there are this year = Electors who do NOT vote for the Presidential or VP candidates who carried their state AND for whom they are pledged and/or obligated (by state law) to support.
LOL!
NAFTA was a pretty low regulation free trade agreement - certainly compared to USMCA or the EU.
Why do Brexiters hate the UK so?