Now, I’ve seen people speculating this morning that these numbers may be better than they look, because they believe that these trials monitored patients by PCR tests rather than by symptoms. If that were the case, then yes, that’s a finer net than the Pfizer and Moderna trials used and it would certainly affect the efficacy readouts. But I don’t think it is: looking at the published trial protocol, the cases are defined as “SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR-positive symptomatic illness”, and the patients have to show symptoms of the disease (see Table 13). So I don’t think we can explain the lower efficacy by saying that they were finding asymptomatic people as well: the trial excludes asymptomatic people from its endpoint definition. The rate of asymptomatic cases in the treatments and controls will be determined in these trials (see section 8.5.2.1 of the protocol) but those aren’t the numbers we’re seeing today...
It will be interesting to see the full analysis of the results, which simply isn't yet available.
That's interesting because we wouldn't then know what the preventative effect is in terms of asymptomatic spread, at least not from the published results which is not what Prof Pollard was saying this morning.
Well, no doubt those figures will be available, but do they make up part of the headline 62%/90% ? That is not at all clear for now.
Oxford just held a press briefing where Prof Pollard said he’s happy that the 90% sub sample is large and robust enough to take to the regulators. That’s good news and allays some of the confusion earlier about hints of this and that.
Sub samples, on PB??
*Statistically significant* sub samples.
It's not just a subsample though, but a cherry-picked subsample. Hopefully they are adjusting the significance thresholds accordingly.
I don't understand why you say it's "cherry picked".
They used two different regimens, and have reported separate results for each. What would have been the point of using two different regimens, if they weren't planning to analyse them separately? If it had been an _unplanned_ analysis, you could obviously describe it as "cherry picked". But if they weren't planning to analyse the results of this regimen, why would they have used it?
It's cherry-picked because we're picking the 90% subsample over the 62% one, without knowing why they should be different. The statistical analysis has to account for the possibility that the 90% subsample is only better by luck. (No I don't know how to do it.)
As an analogy, let's say you do a hundred coin tosses, 50 before sunset and 50 after. Before sunset you happen to get 30 heads and 20 tails, and the other way round after, so 50/50 overall. You might conclude that you can increase your chances to get heads to 60% by tossing your coin before sunset, but that's obviously nonsense.
I'm afraid that still makes no sense to me. There are two regimens, and results have been given for both of them. It's possible the difference is owing to chance, but it doesn't look very likely to me, because there's a relatively small overlap between the confidence intervals.
Certainly you can't say "the vaccine has 90%" efficacy, any more than you can say it has 62% efficacy. But you can say that about the two regimens separately - though as I already said, they should give confidence intervals to reflect the statistical uncertainty.
Okay, let me try a slightly different tack.
Two coins, hundred throws each. For each one, the expected heads is 50. But due to random variation, when doing hundred throws each and then picking out the one with more heads, the expected value actually is a bit higher. Not sure about the exact number, but maybe 55.
In other words, by running two experiments in parallel and picking out the better one, you introduce a bit of bias compared to just running one.
I'm not saying that's an invalid thing to do. I am saying it needs to be taken into account in the statistical analysis of the picked-out subsample.
It’s not a picked out sub sample - it’s two predefined different experiments.
Whereby the better one is cherry-picked after the results are in. That's where bias is introduced that needs to be compensated for. Doesn't really matter whether they're considered separate experiments or subsamples of a single one.
Anyway, 90% vs 62% does look very likely to be a genuine difference, and there is a decent hypothesis to explain it, so hopefully the 90% does stand up to further scrutiny.
How can it have been "cherry-picked"? Trial methodologies are pre-registered and that would include an active choice to vaccinate some with different doses in each shot.
So it's not (at all) like saying "turns out there's 90% efficacy for those vaccinated on Wednesday between 4 and 5pm who have a name with an odd number of letters" - it's a pre-planned and pre-registered strategy (indeed, if it WAS cherry-picked, I'd be extremely sceptical about there being a difference).
Do... do other people spell "plow" "plough"? Or is that just me?
The school hymn at Ledbury Grammar School was by Poet Laureate John Masefield. This is his interpretation of the "plow" or "plough" debate.
"O Christ, who holds the open gate, O Christ who drives the furrow straight, O Christ, the plow, O Christ, the laughter of holy white birds flying after."
Although "plough" gets the nod on spellchecker. Also the hymn was a dreadful dirge!
Yet didn't Piers Plowman [in that spelling] dwell on the Malvern Hills?
The Piers Plowman story starts in the Malvern Hills. There is some debate as to whether William Langland hailed from Malvern, Ledbury or further afield at Cleobury Mortimer (between Kidderminster and Tenbury Wells). I grew up in a village in Herefordshire called Cradley, the adjoining village Mathon laid claim to both William Langland and Piers Plowman. I suspect Cleobury Mortimer disagrees.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
"Labour has lost members at a rate of nearly 250 a day since Sir Keir Starmer was elected last spring, with supporters of Jeremy Corbyn leading an exodus from the party.
Membership fell by just under 57,000 people, or 10 per cent, between April and November, according to official figures from its internal elections.
It is the first time that party figures have shown Labour’s membership falling below half a million since 2016, when Mr Corbyn’s leadership prompted a surge of new members."
Given Corbyn led Labour to its worst defeat since 1935 last year we can probably safely say that an increase in Labour membership is inversely correlated to its appeal to swing voters, so that might actually be good news for Starmer
One day hopefully the Tories might find a way to get rid of their own swiveleyed entryists from the BNP/UKIP/Brexit parties and we might see a return to a choice between two parties that are actually serious about competent government.
We've had two gargantuan recessions in the space of not much more than a decade. 2008 and 2020. In both cases both mainstream parties more or less agreed with the policies that led to these, completely free of entryism.
Entryism is thriving because of the regular giant pile-ups so called 'competent government' is creating. As Trump himself said, I am here because you guys messed up so badly.
And now he's gone because he messed up so badly. This was a thoroughly winnable election for him, but he committed one unforced error after another this year.
Not to mention that his pro-Wall Street staff and policies are indistinguishable from those that led to the 2008 crash, so I'm not sure how things would have been different under him.
Our economy will shrink ten per cent plus this year and our debt will soar. We will bear the scars for decades.
America are looking at a three per cent contraction.
That's not true. America measures its GDP differently to how we do but actually the data available so far appears to indicate the real economic data is quite comparable.
Our debt hasn't soared either. Our QE has soared but we don't pay interest on that. If you want to talk about soaring debt you might want to look at how debt levels have changed in the USA under Trump's whole term.
I'm with Heneghan. The epidemic ended in June and what we have seen since is nothing more than a giant exercise to vindicate the government's policies and those of its utterly discredited sage team.
An exercise that has seen massive and unnecessary damage to our economy.
Of course there was always a big economic hit. But its far, far larger than it needed to be.
Out of curiosity, what do you think killed the 15,000-odd people who have died since the start of July within 28 days of a positive result?
Heneghan does not say the epidemic finished in June - he does ask certain questions about how we are proceeding, and they are reasonable ones. I think Whitty and Valance did mislead the government with their scare tactics, the flaws in the data were so obvious that they we picked up on straight away on PB for gods sake. Its noticeable that we haven't seen much of them recently, and much more of Van Tam. There was a case for tightening the tiers, but in truth we never gave the tiers enough time to see the real effects. I have no issue with sacrificing November to be allowed a more normal christmas (but it will be a long way from normal),
Re false positives - I believe it is still the case that for routing testing you need to display symptoms (not including the NHS staff screening and Liverpool), so PCR is being used with clinical suspicion of symptoms, There is still though a question about threshold for what a positive PCR test is, and how long after you've had covid will you show positive if you amplify enough.
Why bugger around with all the costs both of getting your parts / components / vehicles across the border several times AND the cost of having to adopt an alien production plan where just in time no longer works when you have factories elsewhere that suffer zero cost or disruption?
Honda came to the Brexit committee a while back and tried to explain this. Yes, on paper they could drop just in time and build and stock large warehouses of components. Yes on paper they could manage all of the costs of slower tariffed exports. But why bother when the result would be that Swindon would be the most expensive place in the world to build a Civic?
I don't know, but before @HYUFD comes along to tell me this will only affect "Sunderland", who vote Labour anyway, Nissan closing would be devastating for the North East economy as a whole.
I was banging on here for years that Brexit would consume the car manufacturing industry. There is talk of Mini moving to Leipzig. JLR could move to Gyor in Hungary.
I was told Sunderland is the most efficient car plant in Europe as any fule no, it won't close.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Do... do other people spell "plow" "plough"? Or is that just me?
The school hymn at Ledbury Grammar School was by Poet Laureate John Masefield. This is his interpretation of the "plow" or "plough" debate.
"O Christ, who holds the open gate, O Christ who drives the furrow straight, O Christ, the plow, O Christ, the laughter of holy white birds flying after."
Although "plough" gets the nod on spellchecker. Also the hymn was a dreadful dirge!
Yet didn't Piers Plowman [in that spelling] dwell on the Malvern Hills?
The Piers Plowman story starts in the Malvern Hills. There is some debate as to whether William Langland hailed from Malvern, Ledbury or further afield at Cleobury Mortimer (between Kidderminster and Tenbury Wells). I grew up in a village in Herefordshire called Cradley, the adjoining village Mathon laid claim to both William Langland and Piers Plowman. I suspect Cleobury Mortimer disagrees.
Ahh, just up the road from me - I'm from near Bosbury.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
That's not what it says though, is it?
Oh that is exactly what it says "Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal".
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Just the same if we get a deal acceptable to Tory backbenchers, surely. Paperwork, delays, tariffs coming, going and round the ****ing roudabout on the A1, whatever happens.
Except it isn't, because it's not all about the money.
It's remarkable how some people like Andrew Adonis keep failing to realise this.
Perhaps that's partly deliberate, even if at a sub-conscious level, because he'd far prefer it to be about the money otherwise he'd have to accept engaging with the difficult socio-cultural issues it throws up.
I agree with this although I imagine with a different slant to you. The notion that people succumb to their baser instincts and vote for populist hatemongers such as Donald Trump purely because they are struggling financially is a false comfort blanket. An empty bank account and poor prospects no doubt increases the appeal but it in no way explains it. For the hardcore Trump base - and for equivalents elsewhere - there is a simpler and imo better explanation. Nasty people are attracted to nasty political leaders and nasty politics - by which I mean a politics which validates and celebrates their nastiness rather than attempts to challenge and educate them out of it and/or shames them for it. I know this is an unPC sentiment, and totally contra to the traditional position of the Left that I am normally in tune with, but there you go. No point shying away from the truth if it is the truth.
There is a lot of truth in that. I`d add a couple of things.
Firstly, a lot hangs on your definition of "nasty". If you are of the left many think that your view of human nature is deluded. It doesn`t necessary follow from this that anyone who is NOT of the left is nasty. I think populism is driven by ignorance, fuzzy-thinking and warping facts to suit your own ignorant view. Effing annoying but not in itself nasty.
Secondly, I do get a degree of amusement from the sight of left-wingers realising, seeming for this first time due to their rose-tinted view of human nature, that many that they`ve been sticking up for all these years aren`t actually very nice. A dose of reality, as it were.
Fair points but I'm not one to romanticize the common man. I don't think I'm prone to that. And to clarify, by "nasty" I mean mean of spirit and small of mind. I happen to think you get more of this on the populist Right of politics than the populist Left but it's certainly not exclusive to them.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
That's not what it says though, is it?
Oh that is exactly what it says "Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal".
Concerned that president Trump’s refusal to accept the election results is hurting the country, more than 100 chief executives plan to ask the administration on Monday to immediately acknowledge Joe Biden as the winner and begin the transition to a new administration.
As a way of gaining leverage over the GOP, some of the executives have also discussed withholding campaign donations from the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia unless party leaders agree to push for a presidential transition, according to four people who participated in a conference call Friday in which the notion was discussed. The two runoff elections in Georgia, which will take place in early January, will determine the balance of power in the United States Senate.
In a letter they plan to send Monday, business leaders will demand that Emily Murphy, head of the General Services Administration, issue a letter of ascertainment affirming that Biden and vice President-elect Kamala Harris have won the election. Murphy has so far resisted calls to begin the normal transition planning, which includes providing resources and money to an incoming administration as it prepares to take control.
“Every day that an orderly presidential transition process is delayed, our democracy grows weaker in the eyes of our own citizens and the nation’s stature on the global stage is diminished,” the executives write in the letter, a draft of which was reviewed by The New York Times. “Withholding resources and vital information from an incoming administration puts the public and economic health and security of America at risk. It also means that Betfair punters outside the U.S. are having to suffer waiting to receive their winnings”
I think it means not just running with the deal without formally approving (we'll get there in the NY, so lets just assume we already have). My take only - other mays disagree.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
Not a bad translation (very good, if Google Translate), but I'd translate "Diese Realitätsverweigerung rächt sich nun" as "This denial of reality is now taking its revenge".
The EU's credibility is important here. They have a reputation, built up over decades, of being tough but effective negotiators- they have a lot of deals in the bag after all. They have a good ideal of how much a trade deal with them is worth.
To give the UK what the UK seems to want would blow that reputation and value chart out of the water. Not having a deal with the UK won't be pleasant, but is probably preferable to a deal which offers too much access with too few conditions.
One might almost say that no deal is better than a bad deal.
If that isn't the case, where are the politicians, even fringe opposition politicians, giving interviews and publishing articles saying "Stop you fools! We must be more generous to the UK!"
That's not true. The UK wants a Canada style deal with the EU. The EU is prepared to agree Canada style deals with the rest of the world, you know how we know this? They agreed it already. With Canada.
The EU has no reason they can't give the UK what the UK wants. It is already prepared to do so with the rest of the world.
As for why EU politicians aren't undermining their negotiators, why should they?
But the EU have judged that giving zero tariffs-zero quotas access is worth more to the UK than it is to Canada. So they want more alignment in return. Which is fair enough, we're physically closer to the EU than to Canada, so expect to sell more to them than Canada does.
You may feel that they're greedy fools for doing this, but that's their decision. Sovereignty and all that.
And as for the second point; in a continent of 500 million people, are you telling me that they're all behind M. Barnier? That nobody significant is prepared to go public and say "this strategy is an obvious mistake and it will all end in tears"? Either that's a degree of unity behind a bad idea that not even President Trump can manage, or maybe they think his continuing approach is right?
No the EU have not judged that. They've claimed that as a negotiating stance. What they've actually really judged acceptable won't be known until the negotiations end, taking someone's opening negotiating stance as their actual judgement is just naive.
On the second point most people aren't engaged enough to bother. It is not in anybodies political interests in the EU to undermine the EU negotiators and set themselves against their own side and in favour of the UK. Some have done but they're typically perceived as eccentric outsiders and not especially relevant.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
He may be right, but that's not what the article says. It's not clear on the matter.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
Not a bad translation (very good, if Google Translate), but I'd translate "Diese Realitätsverweigerung rächt sich nun" as "This denial of reality is now taking its revenge".
Yeah, I just typed it out in Google Translate! I can't claim to speak German unfortunately.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
He may be right, but that's not what the article says. It's not clear on the matter.
And it's gossip. Ignore, we get nonsense gossip all the time.
Why bugger around with all the costs both of getting your parts / components / vehicles across the border several times AND the cost of having to adopt an alien production plan where just in time no longer works when you have factories elsewhere that suffer zero cost or disruption?
Honda came to the Brexit committee a while back and tried to explain this. Yes, on paper they could drop just in time and build and stock large warehouses of components. Yes on paper they could manage all of the costs of slower tariffed exports. But why bother when the result would be that Swindon would be the most expensive place in the world to build a Civic?
I don't know, but before @HYUFD comes along to tell me this will only affect "Sunderland", who vote Labour anyway, Nissan closing would be devastating for the North East economy as a whole.
I was banging on here for years that Brexit would consume the car manufacturing industry. There is talk of Mini moving to Leipzig. JLR could move to Gyor in Hungary.
I was told Sunderland is the most efficient car plant in Europe as any fule no, it won't close.
No point being efficient if you can't export / sell your production.
On topic: They must not give Trump a deal. It is the easy option, but it is wrong. It is not only morally wrong it is strategically wrong for the long term.
Any would be dictator needs to know that if they fail the consequences will be harsh (and that goes for people who knowingly facilitated him/her).
Trump has come perilously close to succeeding.
If you prosecute him, all that will happen is that he will be seen as a martyr and reinforce his support.
It will also guarantee that the Republicans will seek to prosecute Biden on whatever grounds when he finishes being President, especially as Trump didn't seek to prosecute Clinton.
1. There was nothing that stood up to prosecute Clinton for. 2. Biden. You don't pardon a genuine criminal offence to ward off a future made up one. 3. Trump's martyrdom might be compromised by the proof of his criminality.
Do... do other people spell "plow" "plough"? Or is that just me?
The school hymn at Ledbury Grammar School was by Poet Laureate John Masefield. This is his interpretation of the "plow" or "plough" debate.
"O Christ, who holds the open gate, O Christ who drives the furrow straight, O Christ, the plow, O Christ, the laughter of holy white birds flying after."
Although "plough" gets the nod on spellchecker. Also the hymn was a dreadful dirge!
Yet didn't Piers Plowman [in that spelling] dwell on the Malvern Hills?
The Piers Plowman story starts in the Malvern Hills. There is some debate as to whether William Langland hailed from Malvern, Ledbury or further afield at Cleobury Mortimer (between Kidderminster and Tenbury Wells). I grew up in a village in Herefordshire called Cradley, the adjoining village Mathon laid claim to both William Langland and Piers Plowman. I suspect Cleobury Mortimer disagrees.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Oxford just held a press briefing where Prof Pollard said he’s happy that the 90% sub sample is large and robust enough to take to the regulators. That’s good news and allays some of the confusion earlier about hints of this and that.
Sub samples, on PB??
*Statistically significant* sub samples.
It's not just a subsample though, but a cherry-picked subsample. Hopefully they are adjusting the significance thresholds accordingly.
I don't understand why you say it's "cherry picked".
They used two different regimens, and have reported separate results for each. What would have been the point of using two different regimens, if they weren't planning to analyse them separately? If it had been an _unplanned_ analysis, you could obviously describe it as "cherry picked". But if they weren't planning to analyse the results of this regimen, why would they have used it?
It's cherry-picked because we're picking the 90% subsample over the 62% one, without knowing why they should be different. The statistical analysis has to account for the possibility that the 90% subsample is only better by luck. (No I don't know how to do it.)
As an analogy, let's say you do a hundred coin tosses, 50 before sunset and 50 after. Before sunset you happen to get 30 heads and 20 tails, and the other way round after, so 50/50 overall. You might conclude that you can increase your chances to get heads to 60% by tossing your coin before sunset, but that's obviously nonsense.
I'm afraid that still makes no sense to me. There are two regimens, and results have been given for both of them. It's possible the difference is owing to chance, but it doesn't look very likely to me, because there's a relatively small overlap between the confidence intervals.
Certainly you can't say "the vaccine has 90%" efficacy, any more than you can say it has 62% efficacy. But you can say that about the two regimens separately - though as I already said, they should give confidence intervals to reflect the statistical uncertainty.
Okay, let me try a slightly different tack.
Two coins, hundred throws each. For each one, the expected heads is 50. But due to random variation, when doing hundred throws each and then picking out the one with more heads, the expected value actually is a bit higher. Not sure about the exact number, but maybe 55.
In other words, by running two experiments in parallel and picking out the better one, you introduce a bit of bias compared to just running one.
I'm not saying that's an invalid thing to do. I am saying it needs to be taken into account in the statistical analysis of the picked-out subsample.
It’s not a picked out sub sample - it’s two predefined different experiments.
Yes, that's really important. You could, of course, segment data in all sorts of ways to show the vaccine was 98% successful on blondes born on a Thursday, but that would be meaningless. However, different dosing strategies is quite obviously something the scientists deliberately set up.
Also, whilst it's true that, if you set up two experiments, it could be that one would have stronger results than another, there are in fact statistical tests you can do that tell you the probability that the true efficacy rate significantly differs between the two, and the range of efficacy rates associated with each dosing regime (with a probability level of 99% or whatever the requirement is from the relevant agencies). So in the coin tossing example, yes you may get 48 heads with coin one and 55 with coin two, but you can quite easily statistically test whether or not that's significant and whether one can conclude there is a meaningful difference between the coins (to whatever the degree of probability you need is).
It sounds to me a little bit like the following set up: Experiment 1: You roll a die 100 times, and take the average. Experiment 2: You roll a pair of dice 100 times, and take the average of the higher value.
The experiments will yield very different "success" rates, and they should be reported separately. Averaging them probably makes no sense.
This might be horribly misleading, so don't pull me to pieces if I'm dead wrong, but that my current mental model for these studies.
I don't want to pull you to pieces over it, but that certainly doesn't work as an analogy. In experiment 2, you by definition get a higher value - indeed, you can predict how much higher (1.5 possibly but haven't done the maths). So if you're testing whether these are fair dice, the expected figure representing the null result in experiment 2 would differ from that in experiment 2, so the average you'd need to get to say the dice aren't fair (to a 95% confidence level) is different.
If you were using different dice, you could indeed use statistics to compare the results to see if the dice in experiment 1 are significantly fairer than those in experiment 2 BUT this would NOT be based on assuming the same average from each experiment.
With the two dosing strategies, you don't have an a priori reason to expect a different value from the two experiments, so actually statistically checking whether strategy 2 is significantly better than strategy 1 is more straightforward... although is also possible in the dice case.
The expected number in experiment 2 is surprisingly inelegant on my calculation: 161/36 or 4.47222..., so a bit less than 1 more than in experiment 2 (3.5).
Do... do other people spell "plow" "plough"? Or is that just me?
Plough is UK standard spelling, plow is US standard spelling.
William Langland's middle English alliterative verse Piers Plowman was spelt the American way too, before America was discovered.
I don't know the etymology of the particular word, but would note that it's fairly common for US spellings to be be MORE faithful to early, pre-American, English spelling than are UK spellings.
People in Britain tend to assume that we've kept "our" language as it was and the Americans have corrupted it. In fact, we've both evolved over time and in some areas we've changed more than they have over time.
"Labour has lost members at a rate of nearly 250 a day since Sir Keir Starmer was elected last spring, with supporters of Jeremy Corbyn leading an exodus from the party.
Membership fell by just under 57,000 people, or 10 per cent, between April and November, according to official figures from its internal elections.
It is the first time that party figures have shown Labour’s membership falling below half a million since 2016, when Mr Corbyn’s leadership prompted a surge of new members."
Given Corbyn led Labour to its worst defeat since 1935 last year we can probably safely say that an increase in Labour membership is inversely correlated to its appeal to swing voters, so that might actually be good news for Starmer
One day hopefully the Tories might find a way to get rid of their own swiveleyed entryists from the BNP/UKIP/Brexit parties and we might see a return to a choice between two parties that are actually serious about competent government.
We've had two gargantuan recessions in the space of not much more than a decade. 2008 and 2020. In both cases both mainstream parties more or less agreed with the policies that led to these, completely free of entryism.
Entryism is thriving because of the regular giant pile-ups so called 'competent government' is creating. As Trump himself said, I am here because you guys messed up so badly.
And now he's gone because he messed up so badly. This was a thoroughly winnable election for him, but he committed one unforced error after another this year.
Not to mention that his pro-Wall Street staff and policies are indistinguishable from those that led to the 2008 crash, so I'm not sure how things would have been different under him.
Our economy will shrink ten per cent plus this year and our debt will soar. We will bear the scars for decades.
America are looking at a three per cent contraction.
That's not true. America measures its GDP differently to how we do but actually the data available so far appears to indicate the real economic data is quite comparable.
Our debt hasn't soared either. Our QE has soared but we don't pay interest on that. If you want to talk about soaring debt you might want to look at how debt levels have changed in the USA under Trump's whole term.
I'm with Heneghan. The epidemic ended in June and what we have seen since is nothing more than a giant exercise to vindicate the government's policies and those of its utterly discredited sage team.
An exercise that has seen massive and unnecessary damage to our economy.
Of course there was always a big economic hit. But its far, far larger than it needed to be.
Out of curiosity, what do you think killed the 15,000-odd people who have died since the start of July within 28 days of a positive result?
Heneghan does not say the epidemic finished in June - he does ask certain questions about how we are proceeding, and they are reasonable ones. I think Whitty and Valance did mislead the government with their scare tactics, the flaws in the data were so obvious that they we picked up on straight away on PB for gods sake. Its noticeable that we haven't seen much of them recently, and much more of Van Tam. There was a case for tightening the tiers, but in truth we never gave the tiers enough time to see the real effects. I have no issue with sacrificing November to be allowed a more normal christmas (but it will be a long way from normal),
Re false positives - I believe it is still the case that for routing testing you need to display symptoms (not including the NHS staff screening and Liverpool), so PCR is being used with clinical suspicion of symptoms, There is still though a question about threshold for what a positive PCR test is, and how long after you've had covid will you show positive if you amplify enough.
Thank you. So would it be fair to say that contrarian's characterisation of Heneghan's stance as being "the epidemic ended in June" is not accurate?
On the false positives - I would happily accept that at the low levels of cases seen at the trough (as low as a few hundred cases per day), a significant proportion could have been false positives and the number of false negatives would have been negligible. At a positivity rate of 5-10% (compared with 0.35% and below at the trough), false positives would be negligible and certainly more than outweighed by false negatives (cases missed).
(The maximum level of false positives would have to be somewhere between 0.1% and 0.3% at worst; we can't have more false positives than the total number of positives and we know that there was a level of endemic presence of the virus even at the trough, and, as you correctly imply, the positivity rate in the test sample would necessarily be higher than the background level as they are targeted to the more likely cases)
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
It also says 'If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified', the trade deal would be that viable business model
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
Not a bad translation (very good, if Google Translate), but I'd translate "Diese Realitätsverweigerung rächt sich nun" as "This denial of reality is now taking its revenge".
Yeah, I just typed it out in Google Translate! I can't claim to speak German unfortunately.
Frankly, I'm very impressed with Google Translate's ability to translate German to English these days. It still makes the odd little mistake, like the sentence I mentioned, but it's certainly good enough for most purposes.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
He may be right, but that's not what the article says. It's not clear on the matter.
I suspect he is wrong. I just wanted to let him down gently.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
So what you're claiming is that if the EU don't compromise there's little reason for us to do so to agree a deal since we'll still have the bulk of the negatives from no deal anyway the net cost of no deal is pretty inconsequential?
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
It also says 'If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified', the trade deal would be that viable business model
Do... do other people spell "plow" "plough"? Or is that just me?
Plough is UK standard spelling, plow is US standard spelling.
William Langland's middle English alliterative verse Piers Plowman was spelt the American way too, before America was discovered.
I don't know the etymology of the particular word, but would note that it's fairly common for US spellings to be be MORE faithful to early, pre-American, English spelling than are UK spellings.
People in Britain tend to assume that we've kept "our" language as it was and the Americans have corrupted it. In fact, we've both evolved over time and in some areas we've changed more than they have over time.
As my google ngram result suggests.
It seems that the OED is correct suggesting that there were distinct spellings for the noun and verb before 1700.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
Why bugger around with all the costs both of getting your parts / components / vehicles across the border several times AND the cost of having to adopt an alien production plan where just in time no longer works when you have factories elsewhere that suffer zero cost or disruption?
Honda came to the Brexit committee a while back and tried to explain this. Yes, on paper they could drop just in time and build and stock large warehouses of components. Yes on paper they could manage all of the costs of slower tariffed exports. But why bother when the result would be that Swindon would be the most expensive place in the world to build a Civic?
I don't know, but before @HYUFD comes along to tell me this will only affect "Sunderland", who vote Labour anyway, Nissan closing would be devastating for the North East economy as a whole.
I was banging on here for years that Brexit would consume the car manufacturing industry. There is talk of Mini moving to Leipzig. JLR could move to Gyor in Hungary.
I was told Sunderland is the most efficient car plant in Europe as any fule no, it won't close.
And whatever happened to Nissan Sunderland pivoting to serve just the UK market?
Bet that went down well with the French public. Special Relationship incoming.
One of the main childish objectives of Brexit was to poke the French in the eye. Instead we have given them an opportunity to keep repeatedly poking us.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clear break from the UK are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Rules of origin will be a big problem for Nissan, I believe other manufacturers too. At least 55% of content for EU bound vehicles will need to be from UK or EU parts if vehicles are to have zero tariffs, Japanese, Turkish etc content won't count. That may make production here untenable, especially as tariffs on cars imported to the EU directly from Japan are coming down. I think the UK side has calculated that ICE auto production is dying anyway and are willing to take a gamble. They may be right but I'm sure plenty if Leave voters in Sunderland, Swindon etc will feel like mugs.
What's it got to do with the health secretary in the middle of a fucking pandemic?
If that is what Pier Moron wasted twelve questions on to the Health Secretary on the day the Oxford vaccine results came out then it's time to reinstate the GMB boycott. What a twerp!
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
It also says 'If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified', the trade deal would be that viable business model
"If" is doing an enormous amount of heavy lifting there, and "if" is just not good enough for auto-manufacturers who are planning five to ten years ahead. Any decision was probably made in Yokohama, months or even years ago. I hope you are right.
Except it isn't, because it's not all about the money.
It's remarkable how some people like Andrew Adonis keep failing to realise this.
Perhaps that's partly deliberate, even if at a sub-conscious level, because he'd far prefer it to be about the money otherwise he'd have to accept engaging with the difficult socio-cultural issues it throws up.
I agree with this although I imagine with a different slant to you. The notion that people succumb to their baser instincts and vote for populist hatemongers such as Donald Trump purely because they are struggling financially is a false comfort blanket. An empty bank account and poor prospects no doubt increases the appeal but it in no way explains it. For the hardcore Trump base - and for equivalents elsewhere - there is a simpler and imo better explanation. Nasty people are attracted to nasty political leaders and nasty politics - by which I mean a politics which validates and celebrates their nastiness rather than attempts to challenge and educate them out of it and/or shames them for it. I know this is an unPC sentiment, and totally contra to the traditional position of the Left that I am normally in tune with, but there you go. No point shying away from the truth if it is the truth.
B*llocks. A lot of it is down to a lack of respect that they get shown by their PC-focused "leaders" who sprout the latest nonsense whilst feathering their own nests and protecting their own interests.
That's the populist Right's take. And the Left's is that it's due to economic inequality. I think there's some truth in both - more in the latter since the latter is real whilst the former is mainly a trope - but both takes are imo inferior to mine. Unsavoury people seeking validation for primitive sentiment from nasty and exploitative politicians who are only too happy to oblige.
Beeb 1500 still running on 70% but caveating "in some doses 90%".
Not sure this should be the line.
Really is mad, isn't it. You'd have thought the BBC would be trumpeting a great achievement like this.
Not surprising at all. The BBC would hate to promote the idea that something British - let alone associated with Oxford - could possibly be any good. That would be patriotic, or elitist, or something, and so it must be shat upon from a great height.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
So what you're claiming is that if the EU don't compromise there's little reason for us to do so to agree a deal since we'll still have the bulk of the negatives from no deal anyway the net cost of no deal is pretty inconsequential?
We either get a deal that gives us unimpeded customs and tariff-free access to the EEA or we're fucked. They can call it what they like, but if they triumph a deal that locks this country down and shuts down otherwise viable industry like Nissan/Toyota/Honda/JLR then I really do fear for them.
"Labour has lost members at a rate of nearly 250 a day since Sir Keir Starmer was elected last spring, with supporters of Jeremy Corbyn leading an exodus from the party.
Membership fell by just under 57,000 people, or 10 per cent, between April and November, according to official figures from its internal elections.
It is the first time that party figures have shown Labour’s membership falling below half a million since 2016, when Mr Corbyn’s leadership prompted a surge of new members."
Given Corbyn led Labour to its worst defeat since 1935 last year we can probably safely say that an increase in Labour membership is inversely correlated to its appeal to swing voters, so that might actually be good news for Starmer
One day hopefully the Tories might find a way to get rid of their own swiveleyed entryists from the BNP/UKIP/Brexit parties and we might see a return to a choice between two parties that are actually serious about competent government.
We've had two gargantuan recessions in the space of not much more than a decade. 2008 and 2020. In both cases both mainstream parties more or less agreed with the policies that led to these, completely free of entryism.
Entryism is thriving because of the regular giant pile-ups so called 'competent government' is creating. As Trump himself said, I am here because you guys messed up so badly.
And now he's gone because he messed up so badly. This was a thoroughly winnable election for him, but he committed one unforced error after another this year.
Not to mention that his pro-Wall Street staff and policies are indistinguishable from those that led to the 2008 crash, so I'm not sure how things would have been different under him.
Our economy will shrink ten per cent plus this year and our debt will soar. We will bear the scars for decades.
America are looking at a three per cent contraction.
That's not true. America measures its GDP differently to how we do but actually the data available so far appears to indicate the real economic data is quite comparable.
Our debt hasn't soared either. Our QE has soared but we don't pay interest on that. If you want to talk about soaring debt you might want to look at how debt levels have changed in the USA under Trump's whole term.
I'm with Heneghan. The epidemic ended in June and what we have seen since is nothing more than a giant exercise to vindicate the government's policies and those of its utterly discredited sage team.
An exercise that has seen massive and unnecessary damage to our economy.
Of course there was always a big economic hit. But its far, far larger than it needed to be.
Out of curiosity, what do you think killed the 15,000-odd people who have died since the start of July within 28 days of a positive result?
Heneghan does not say the epidemic finished in June - he does ask certain questions about how we are proceeding, and they are reasonable ones. I think Whitty and Valance did mislead the government with their scare tactics, the flaws in the data were so obvious that they we picked up on straight away on PB for gods sake. Its noticeable that we haven't seen much of them recently, and much more of Van Tam. There was a case for tightening the tiers, but in truth we never gave the tiers enough time to see the real effects. I have no issue with sacrificing November to be allowed a more normal christmas (but it will be a long way from normal),
Re false positives - I believe it is still the case that for routing testing you need to display symptoms (not including the NHS staff screening and Liverpool), so PCR is being used with clinical suspicion of symptoms, There is still though a question about threshold for what a positive PCR test is, and how long after you've had covid will you show positive if you amplify enough.
Thank you. So would it be fair to say that contrarian's characterisation of Heneghan's stance as being "the epidemic ended in June" is not accurate?
On the false positives - I would happily accept that at the low levels of cases seen at the trough (as low as a few hundred cases per day), a significant proportion could have been false positives and the number of false negatives would have been negligible. At a positivity rate of 5-10% (compared with 0.35% and below at the trough), false positives would be negligible and certainly more than outweighed by false negatives (cases missed).
(The maximum level of false positives would have to be somewhere between 0.1% and 0.3% at worst; we can't have more false positives than the total number of positives and we know that there was a level of endemic presence of the virus even at the trough, and, as you correctly imply, the positivity rate in the test sample would necessarily be higher than the background level as they are targeted to the more likely cases)
You categorise my comment on contrarian correctly. I respect Heneghan and I know come of my colleagues do, and I always support the correct use of evidence to guide action.
I think at the trough of cases in mid-summer, we were probably finding false positives in some people who had symptons, just that the symptoms may not have been for active covid. Sore throat, headache - get a test, positive. Turns out its hay fever, but you think you've got covid. None of which means that the huge increase in positives in recent months are all false positives, clearly the proportion that are positive has also increased (which it wouldn't have done if the increase in testing had just given more false positives). The questions about the use of PCR for clinical detection are still valid, and I sense that when the schools went back, some schools encouraged testing of bubble contacts as a route to getting the kids back, and this potentially made the situation in sept worse than it was.
No 1 daughter is coming back from Calais today after nearly 3 weeks as a volunteer with the refugees there. Been an amazing experience for her but the French have not exactly endeared themselves. I have mentioned before how the riot police destroy peoples' tents and sleeping bags and seize their stuff before forcing them onto buses and dropping them in random places without food, shelter or care.
Even the French were getting embarrassed by publicity about this but they have found a solution. It is now illegal to film the police doing this.
I have to say that these people are going to be a challenge to the next Home Secretary. They all want to come here.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
On topic: They must not give Trump a deal. It is the easy option, but it is wrong. It is not only morally wrong it is strategically wrong for the long term.
Any would be dictator needs to know that if they fail the consequences will be harsh (and that goes for people who knowingly facilitated him/her).
Trump has come perilously close to succeeding.
If you prosecute him, all that will happen is that he will be seen as a martyr and reinforce his support.
It will also guarantee that the Republicans will seek to prosecute Biden on whatever grounds when he finishes being President, especially as Trump didn't seek to prosecute Clinton.
GOP lawyers attempting to 'prosecute' Biden should be a good laugh if the quality of their current shenanigans is anything to go by.
If they take control of the House in 2022 and keep the Senate, expect payback for the impeachment hearings.
The left taught America not to accept presidential election results.
Why are they surprised when the evidence is the lesson has been learned?
Well, you only have to look at this site to see why.
@williamglenn's video last night showed how various celebs openly called for Republican electors to ignore the 2016 result in their states and so ignore their electorates.
Didn't really see many of the usual suspects here condemning that.
But, that's fine, because it was for the "right" reason. And, as many on here still seem to believe, like Gallowgate, the laughable nonsense re Putin helping Trump in 2016. Any reason why Putin didn't help him then in 2020?
"Various celebrities" ...
You're strolling down False Equivalence Boulevard again.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
A basic Deal I agree and of course an EEA/CU style Brexit was only and is only viable with a Labour PM and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise, the Tories are not going to commit political suicide again with a soft Brexit that leads to half their vote going back to Farage and the Brexit Party or his new outfit Reform UK
Beeb 1500 still running on 70% but caveating "in some doses 90%".
Not sure this should be the line.
Really is mad, isn't it. You'd have thought the BBC would be trumpeting a great achievement like this.
It is just mind boggling that they haven't sorted this out yet. They are really messing up a good story.
I am wondering whether they were trying to be positive in the first place by not mentioning the 62% figure and therefore having to go for the 70% figure as mentioning the 90% figure in isolation would have been truly misleading.
Then they started talking about the 90% figure, but with the 70% figure in the same breath also, which is comparing apples and pears. Then subsequent journalist repeat the earlier nonsense.
I mean it isn't rocket science is it. Why have they not got this sorted. It is pathetically poor.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
So what you're claiming is that if the EU don't compromise there's little reason for us to do so to agree a deal since we'll still have the bulk of the negatives from no deal anyway the net cost of no deal is pretty inconsequential?
FFS, we really don't hold all the cards. It is ironic humour to say we do!
Just reading through some of the other media in the country, it really does seem the BBC are alone in pushing the 70% narrative. Almost every other major outlet is quoting te 90% figure and quite a few of them talk about some of the vaccine group infections being asymptomatic vs Pfizer/Moderna only recording symptomatic infections in their trials.
The public service broadcaster is screwing up big time.
Except it seems that the asymptomatic report may be a misunderstanding.
I do think that all of us are tempted to apply our biases to what should assessed by professional statisticians with the full data. The BBC is/is not wonderful. Boris Johnson is/is not an inspiring leader. If Oxford's vaccine is best, it will/will not reflect Government wisdom. The Government is highly competent/makes many mistakes, therefoe the vaccination programme will/will not work smoothly.
Give over, everyone. We don't yet know the details, but one way or another we seem to be making good progress. Let's draw political conclusions after the dust clears.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
It also says 'If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified', the trade deal would be that viable business model
Viable business model: Free unimpeded trade between the UK and EU allowing for minimal cost zero delay import and export of components and finished goods. This feeds parts on a just in time basis to the production line according to the Nissan global business model. A well run factory means that vehicles are competitively priced on the global market.
Non-viable business model: All import and export of components pay a tariff and require both completion and inspection of paperwork and parts crossing the border in either direction. A large stockpile of more expensive components in an expensive to run facility is required which is contrary to the Nissan global business model. A factory hampered by slow feed of expensive parts and then expensive export costs mean that vehicles are not competitively priced on the global market.
I know that you modern Tories want to fuck business and lecture the car manufacturers on how car manufacturing. But even on that rather meagre expectation of understanding you really are particularly clueless.
What's it got to do with the health secretary in the middle of a fucking pandemic?
If that is what Pier Moron wasted twelve questions on to the Health Secretary on the day the Oxford vaccine results came out then it's time to reinstate the GMB boycott. What a twerp!
My favourite was Kay Burley asking about the cost of Takeaway Food in the Department of Health this morning
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
"I am willing to sacrifice world-leading industry and millions of jobs because if I don't people might not vote Conservative. So fuck them and fuck you too".
Its not the snappiest of campaign slogans is it? And whatever happened to patriotism?
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
A basic Deal I agree and of course an EEA/CU style Brexit was only and is only viable with a Labour PM and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise, the Tories are not going to commit political suicide again with a soft Brexit that leads to half their vote going back to Farage and the Brexit Party or his new outfit Reform UK
The Tories have already committed political suicide by embracing a non-EEA/CU Brexit. The only question remaining is whether the party dies in January 2021 or May 2024.
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
A basic Deal I agree and of course an EEA/CU style Brexit was only and is only viable with a Labour PM and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise, the Tories are not going to commit political suicide again with a soft Brexit that leads to half their vote going back to Farage and the Brexit Party or his new outfit Reform UK
It is that, or a post Covid economy also having to come to terms with no deal Brexit. Good luck to Andrew Bridgen selling that to the voters of North West Leicestershire.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
A basic Deal I agree and of course an EEA/CU style Brexit was only and is only viable with a Labour PM and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise, the Tories are not going to commit political suicide again with a soft Brexit that leads to half their vote going back to Farage and the Brexit Party or his new outfit Reform UK
Why four years out from a GE would it be political suicide to do the right thing
On topic: They must not give Trump a deal. It is the easy option, but it is wrong. It is not only morally wrong it is strategically wrong for the long term.
Any would be dictator needs to know that if they fail the consequences will be harsh (and that goes for people who knowingly facilitated him/her).
Trump has come perilously close to succeeding.
If you prosecute him, all that will happen is that he will be seen as a martyr and reinforce his support.
It will also guarantee that the Republicans will seek to prosecute Biden on whatever grounds when he finishes being President, especially as Trump didn't seek to prosecute Clinton.
GOP lawyers attempting to 'prosecute' Biden should be a good laugh if the quality of their current shenanigans is anything to go by.
If they take control of the House in 2022 and keep the Senate, expect payback for the impeachment hearings.
The common theme... is the decline of the middle class, a group who were unusually strong in the industrial age but are struggling in the tech era. The mid-century United States may have been the best time ever to be the average man, although as always one form of equality clashes with another; egalitarianism between men went with reduced opportunities for women, as well as racial exclusivity. The middle-class age meant the triumph of bourgeoise values and the decline of the middle class has led to their downfall, widely despised and mocked by believers in the higher-status bohemian attitudes. Now the age of the average man is over, and the age of the global aristocrat has arrived.
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
When did SKS state mps should not receive a pay rise due to the covid crisis
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
When did SKS state mps should not receive a pay rise due to the covid crisis
Its' back up the thread somewhere. I only remembered it when you mentioned it (sorry: am having break from revising very tedious typescript., and had better get back to it).
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
"I am willing to sacrifice world-leading industry and millions of jobs because if I don't people might not vote Conservative. So fuck them and fuck you too".
Its not the snappiest of campaign slogans is it? And whatever happened to patriotism?
Boris' primary job as Tory leader is to keep people voting Tory and respect the manifesto he was elected on to become PM
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
"I am willing to sacrifice world-leading industry and millions of jobs because if I don't people might not vote Conservative. So fuck them and fuck you too".
Its not the snappiest of campaign slogans is it? And whatever happened to patriotism?
Boris' primary job as Tory leader is to keep people voting Tory and respect the manifesto he was elected on to become PM
The one where he extolled a deal he had made and subsequently tried to renege on when he realised its implications?
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
"I am willing to sacrifice world-leading industry and millions of jobs because if I don't people might not vote Conservative. So fuck them and fuck you too".
Its not the snappiest of campaign slogans is it? And whatever happened to patriotism?
Boris' primary job as Tory leader is to keep people voting Tory and respect the manifesto he was elected on to become PM
His job is to lead the country and make it better for everyone. A fortunate side-effect of being a good leader and bringing further prosperity is that more people tend to vote for you.
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
When did SKS state mps should not receive a pay rise due to the covid crisis
Its' back up the thread somewhere. I only remembered it when you mentioned it (sorry: am having break from revising very tedious typescript., and had better get back to it).
Edit: or maybe previous one. Not bneing rude!
I know you are not being rude but to be fair if SKS has made the point I do not recall him making it
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
A basic Deal I agree and of course an EEA/CU style Brexit was only and is only viable with a Labour PM and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise, the Tories are not going to commit political suicide again with a soft Brexit that leads to half their vote going back to Farage and the Brexit Party or his new outfit Reform UK
Why four years out from a GE would it be political suicide to do the right thing
Shutting down car manufacturing is the right thing?
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
When did SKS state mps should not receive a pay rise due to the covid crisis
Its' back up the thread somewhere. I only remembered it when you mentioned it (sorry: am having break from revising very tedious typescript., and had better get back to it).
Edit: or maybe previous one. Not bneing rude!
I know you are not being rude but to be fair if SKS has made the point I do not recall him making it
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
A basic Deal I agree and of course an EEA/CU style Brexit was only and is only viable with a Labour PM and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise, the Tories are not going to commit political suicide again with a soft Brexit that leads to half their vote going back to Farage and the Brexit Party or his new outfit Reform UK
The Tories have already committed political suicide by embracing a non-EEA/CU Brexit. The only question remaining is whether the party dies in January 2021 or May 2024.
Far from it, even if after a basic FTA or No Deal the Tories fail to win in 2024 they will almost certainly get 30-35%+ of the vote and remain the main opposition.
If the Tories pursued an EEA/CU Brexit with full free movement, no option to do our own trade deals and no regained control of our fishing waters or even worse if they reversed Brexit and rejoined the EU, then the Tories would likely collapse to third at the next general election with less than 20% behind Farage's Party and no longer even be the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government. It would be a near extinction level event for the Tory Party similar to that the Canadian Tories had in 1993 when they not only lost power to the Liberals but were overtaken by the populist right Reform Party.
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
"I am willing to sacrifice world-leading industry and millions of jobs because if I don't people might not vote Conservative. So fuck them and fuck you too".
Its not the snappiest of campaign slogans is it? And whatever happened to patriotism?
Boris' primary job as Tory leader is to keep people voting Tory and respect the manifesto he was elected on to become PM
Boris job is doing the right thing for the Country not the ERG group of mps
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Finger on the northern pulse as usual. The barriers to the car industry are tariffs and customs costs/delays. A deal that imposes all three is the same as no deal. Currently Nissan moves parts and vehicles effortlessly across the border without delay. That is their viable business model. Even if we agree zero tariffs with the world on everything we're still going to impose a fuckton of slow and expensive paperwork to check at the border. Which wrecks their business model.
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
Opinium at the weekend had 65% of those who wanted to rejoin the EU voting Labour now and just 7% voting Tory and 52% of those supporting a trade deal where the UK is closely aligned to the EU voting Labour and just 25% voting Tory.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
"I am willing to sacrifice world-leading industry and millions of jobs because if I don't people might not vote Conservative. So fuck them and fuck you too".
Its not the snappiest of campaign slogans is it? And whatever happened to patriotism?
Boris' primary job as Tory leader is to keep people voting Tory and respect the manifesto he was elected on to become PM
No it isn't. His primary job is being PM.
Being Tory leader is a means to an end and he should be focused on the job of being PM.
If for any reason there was a conflict between being PM and keeping people voting Tory his responsibility is to the country not the party.
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
Don't you think Boris should be the exception, struggling on £150k, what with a trophy girlfriend and new baby? They don't come cheap! And all the time we have JRM, Owen Patterson and John Redwood earning all that extra-curricular wedge to keep the wolf from the door.
Its been clear for the last few races that we're racing at a pretty odd time of the year. Rain in Bahrain would be the crowning glory.
Why do we have to go back to pants circuits next year? This year has been *fun*. And the only new track that looks genuinely insane on F1 2020 (Vietnam) appears to be dead before it even starts
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
You may be right, however Captains of Industry don't like uncertainty, chances are, any decision has already been made.
It also says 'If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified', the trade deal would be that viable business model
No, it says that somebody *recently* said that, and implies that that person has now made his mind up on the issue.
As I'm neither statistician, epidemiologist, virologist nor immuno-biologist (and probably can't spell any of them either), I feel very much in the lion's den on here at the moment.
I'm just a simple Stodge so this is how it looks to me - first, the re-vitalisation of the High Street looks to be inevitable as we can all go in to the new Vaccine Houses and choose which of the vaccines we want to have - a bit of Oxford, a bit of Pfizer, a side of Astra Zeneca perhaps?
Seriously, if we are required to have two injections which presumably will be x days apart (x being 7-21 as far as I can tell), then presumably we will need double the number of doses and it increases the logistical effort to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
Okay, so to please all the statisticians, I've been crunching some numbers for Newham. Current population is just shy of 365.000 with only 7.6% over 65 so I make that 27,740 to be vaccinated or 55,480 doses. Add a few other dependent people and let's call it 30,000 to be vaccinated in Newham.
The number over 65 in London is about 1.1 million and in England as a whole about 11 million so that's the kind of numbers if you are seeking just to vaccinate the elderly and add some more of NHS workers, carers and the like so perhaps 15 million to be vaccinated maybe.
15 million to be vaccinated equals 30 million doses if each person requires two.
If the aim is to vaccinate all those over 50 the numbers are much higher - 78,000 in Newham and 2.6 million in London.
How are all these people to be vaccinated and what's going to stop other younger people coming in to have a shot or two themselves? Logistically, it's an enormous challenge and having seen someone on here claim 10 million will be vaccinated by Christmas, well I have a bridge to sell you.
Given the Government's less than optimal performance with test-and-trace and its ideological unwillingness to concede the private sector (especially those parts of it run by friends and allies of the Government) isn't perhaps the best vehicles for large scale logistical activities, I'm far from hopeful.
The overall scenario is very positive and we will get there and I understand some are desperate to get this started, get themselves vaccinated and go back to what they consider a normal life but I question the wisdom of what is being planned for the pre-Christmas period.
IF we get this wrong, the spike in cases will be evident the week before Christmas at which point it'll be political suicide for Johnson to row back on the proposals.
As an aside, I think for all we have had to endure this year, we should have two extra Bank Holidays in 2021 but that's just me.
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
When did SKS state mps should not receive a pay rise due to the covid crisis
Its' back up the thread somewhere. I only remembered it when you mentioned it (sorry: am having break from revising very tedious typescript., and had better get back to it).
Edit: or maybe previous one. Not bneing rude!
I know you are not being rude but to be fair if SKS has made the point I do not recall him making it
Since the Brexit referendum four years ago, car manufacturers on the island have been warning of a "no deal". But Prime Minister Boris Johnson apparently still believes he can dictate the terms of the EU. This denial of reality takes its toll. According to reports, Nissan is planning to shut down its Sunderland plant. "A decision has been made and it is not favorable for Great Britain," said a Nissan manager familiar with the matter. 7,000 jobs are at stake in Sunderland. It is the largest automobile plant in the kingdom. Europe boss Gianluca de Ficchy wants to make the difficult decision public in a few days. Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta recently said, "If Brexit comes without a viable business model being identified, then it's no longer about Sunderland or not Sunderland. Then our entire business in Great Britain would no longer be sustainable."
So basically that only applies if No Deal, as it is more likely now we get a Deal then Nissan will stay in Sunderland after all
Bozo has perhaps at last come round to "a bad deal is better than no deal", and however much he tries to dress it up, that is what it will be.
A basic Deal I agree and of course an EEA/CU style Brexit was only and is only viable with a Labour PM and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise, the Tories are not going to commit political suicide again with a soft Brexit that leads to half their vote going back to Farage and the Brexit Party or his new outfit Reform UK
Why four years out from a GE would it be political suicide to do the right thing
Shutting down car manufacturing is the right thing?
Of course not and I am not commenting on speculation when an announcement should come jointly from the UK and EU if and when a deal is done
As I'm neither statistician, epidemiologist, virologist nor immuno-biologist (and probably can't spell any of them either), I feel very much in the lion's den on here at the moment.
I'm just a simple Stodge so this is how it looks to me - first, the re-vitalisation of the High Street looks to be inevitable as we can all go in to the new Vaccine Houses and choose which of the vaccines we want to have - a bit of Oxford, a bit of Pfizer, a side of Astra Zeneca perhaps?
Seriously, if we are required to have two injections which presumably will be x days apart (x being 7-21 as far as I can tell), then presumably we will need double the number of doses and it increases the logistical effort to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
Okay, so to please all the statisticians, I've been crunching some numbers for Newham. Current population is just shy of 365.000 with only 7.6% over 65 so I make that 27,740 to be vaccinated or 55,480 doses. Add a few other dependent people and let's call it 30,000 to be vaccinated in Newham.
The number over 65 in London is about 1.1 million and in England as a whole about 11 million so that's the kind of numbers if you are seeking just to vaccinate the elderly and add some more of NHS workers, carers and the like so perhaps 15 million to be vaccinated maybe.
15 million to be vaccinated equals 30 million doses if each person requires two.
If the aim is to vaccinate all those over 50 the numbers are much higher - 78,000 in Newham and 2.6 million in London.
How are all these people to be vaccinated and what's going to stop other younger people coming in to have a shot or two themselves? Logistically, it's an enormous challenge and having seen someone on here claim 10 million will be vaccinated by Christmas, well I have a bridge to sell you.
Given the Government's less than optimal performance with test-and-trace and its ideological unwillingness to concede the private sector (especially those parts of it run by friends and allies of the Government) isn't perhaps the best vehicles for large scale logistical activities, I'm far from hopeful.
The overall scenario is very positive and we will get there and I understand some are desperate to get this started, get themselves vaccinated and go back to what they consider a normal life but I question the wisdom of what is being planned for the pre-Christmas period.
IF we get this wrong, the spike in cases will be evident the week before Christmas at which point it'll be political suicide for Johnson to row back on the proposals.
As an aside, I think for all we have had to endure this year, we should have two extra Bank Holidays in 2021 but that's just me.
They can test 500,000 day, sticking a needle in someones arm is much quicker
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
When did SKS state mps should not receive a pay rise due to the covid crisis
Its' back up the thread somewhere. I only remembered it when you mentioned it (sorry: am having break from revising very tedious typescript., and had better get back to it).
Edit: or maybe previous one. Not bneing rude!
I know you are not being rude but to be fair if SKS has made the point I do not recall him making it
Boris announcing mps should not take their pay rise puts Starmer in the position that he really will have to endorse this and in effect endorse public sector pay restraint
But as another poster has observed, SKS did this already weeks ago.
When did SKS state mps should not receive a pay rise due to the covid crisis
Its' back up the thread somewhere. I only remembered it when you mentioned it (sorry: am having break from revising very tedious typescript., and had better get back to it).
Edit: or maybe previous one. Not bneing rude!
I know you are not being rude but to be fair if SKS has made the point I do not recall him making it
Comments
That is not at all clear for now.
So it's not (at all) like saying "turns out there's 90% efficacy for those vaccinated on Wednesday between 4 and 5pm who have a name with an odd number of letters" - it's a pre-planned and pre-registered strategy (indeed, if it WAS cherry-picked, I'd be extremely sceptical about there being a difference).
Re false positives - I believe it is still the case that for routing testing you need to display symptoms (not including the NHS staff screening and Liverpool), so PCR is being used with clinical suspicion of symptoms, There is still though a question about threshold for what a positive PCR test is, and how long after you've had covid will you show positive if you amplify enough.
I was told Sunderland is the most efficient car plant in Europe as any fule no, it won't close.
Read @RochdalePioneers ' earlier post.
Special Relationship incoming.
Not sure this should be the line.
As a way of gaining leverage over the GOP, some of the executives have also discussed withholding campaign donations from the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia unless party leaders agree to push for a presidential transition, according to four people who participated in a conference call Friday in which the notion was discussed. The two runoff elections in Georgia, which will take place in early January, will determine the balance of power in the United States Senate.
In a letter they plan to send Monday, business leaders will demand that Emily Murphy, head of the General Services Administration, issue a letter of ascertainment affirming that Biden and vice President-elect Kamala Harris have won the election. Murphy has so far resisted calls to begin the normal transition planning, which includes providing resources and money to an incoming administration as it prepares to take control.
“Every day that an orderly presidential transition process is delayed, our democracy grows weaker in the eyes of our own citizens and the nation’s stature on the global stage is diminished,” the executives write in the letter, a draft of which was reviewed by The New York Times. “Withholding resources and vital information from an incoming administration puts the public and economic health and security of America at risk. It also means that Betfair punters outside the U.S. are having to suffer waiting to receive their winnings”
(OK. Maybe I added a bit there at the end)
My take only - other mays disagree.
On the second point most people aren't engaged enough to bother. It is not in anybodies political interests in the EU to undermine the EU negotiators and set themselves against their own side and in favour of the UK. Some have done but they're typically perceived as eccentric outsiders and not especially relevant.
2. Biden. You don't pardon a genuine criminal offence to ward off a future made up one.
3. Trump's martyrdom might be compromised by the proof of his criminality.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=plow,plough&year_start=1600&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true&direct_url=t4;,plow;,c0;,s0;;plow;,c0;;Plow;,c0;;PLOW;,c0;.t4;,plough;,c0;,s0;;plough;,c0;;Plough;,c0
So no HYUFD, its not just about no deal, its about no EEA/CU. Yes, many Nissan workers voted to leave because they were told that this would not happen. I know that you want to ram it down their throat and expect them to vote Conservative, but as we have learned you are somewhat esoteric on such issues.
That's a comms disaster if it transpires that way –– all eyes on how tomorrow's papers treat it.
People in Britain tend to assume that we've kept "our" language as it was and the Americans have corrupted it. In fact, we've both evolved over time and in some areas we've changed more than they have over time.
On the false positives - I would happily accept that at the low levels of cases seen at the trough (as low as a few hundred cases per day), a significant proportion could have been false positives and the number of false negatives would have been negligible. At a positivity rate of 5-10% (compared with 0.35% and below at the trough), false positives would be negligible and certainly more than outweighed by false negatives (cases missed).
(The maximum level of false positives would have to be somewhere between 0.1% and 0.3% at worst; we can't have more false positives than the total number of positives and we know that there was a level of endemic presence of the virus even at the trough, and, as you correctly imply, the positivity rate in the test sample would necessarily be higher than the background level as they are targeted to the more likely cases)
It seems that the OED is correct suggesting that there were distinct spellings for the noun and verb before 1700.
By contrast 72% of those supportive of a trade deal where the UK has a clean break from the EU are now voting Tory and just 15% voting Labour and 78% of those who want No Deal are voting Tory and just 4% voting Labour.
So an EEA/CU Brexit Deal would be political suicide for Boris now, even more so than No Deal and lead to mass defections from the Tories back to Farage, hence only a Canada style FTA with at most some compromise on state aid is an option
https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-november-2020/
I think the UK side has calculated that ICE auto production is dying anyway and are willing to take a gamble. They may be right but I'm sure plenty if Leave voters in Sunderland, Swindon etc will feel like mugs.
If that is what Pier Moron wasted twelve questions on to the Health Secretary on the day the Oxford vaccine results came out then it's time to reinstate the GMB boycott. What a twerp!
This is the attitude:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-vaccine_uk_5ea067f2c5b6b2e5b83ba372
I think at the trough of cases in mid-summer, we were probably finding false positives in some people who had symptons, just that the symptoms may not have been for active covid. Sore throat, headache - get a test, positive. Turns out its hay fever, but you think you've got covid. None of which means that the huge increase in positives in recent months are all false positives, clearly the proportion that are positive has also increased (which it wouldn't have done if the increase in testing had just given more false positives). The questions about the use of PCR for clinical detection are still valid, and I sense that when the schools went back, some schools encouraged testing of bubble contacts as a route to getting the kids back, and this potentially made the situation in sept worse than it was.
You're strolling down False Equivalence Boulevard again.
I am wondering whether they were trying to be positive in the first place by not mentioning the 62% figure and therefore having to go for the 70% figure as mentioning the 90% figure in isolation would have been truly misleading.
Then they started talking about the 90% figure, but with the 70% figure in the same breath also, which is comparing apples and pears. Then subsequent journalist repeat the earlier nonsense.
I mean it isn't rocket science is it. Why have they not got this sorted. It is pathetically poor.
I do think that all of us are tempted to apply our biases to what should assessed by professional statisticians with the full data. The BBC is/is not wonderful. Boris Johnson is/is not an inspiring leader. If Oxford's vaccine is best, it will/will not reflect Government wisdom. The Government is highly competent/makes many mistakes, therefoe the vaccination programme will/will not work smoothly.
Give over, everyone. We don't yet know the details, but one way or another we seem to be making good progress. Let's draw political conclusions after the dust clears.
Non-viable business model: All import and export of components pay a tariff and require both completion and inspection of paperwork and parts crossing the border in either direction. A large stockpile of more expensive components in an expensive to run facility is required which is contrary to the Nissan global business model. A factory hampered by slow feed of expensive parts and then expensive export costs mean that vehicles are not competitively priced on the global market.
I know that you modern Tories want to fuck business and lecture the car manufacturers on how car manufacturing. But even on that rather meagre expectation of understanding you really are particularly clueless.
Its not the snappiest of campaign slogans is it? And whatever happened to patriotism?
Farage is a goner withTrump
If you were to be forbidden from using False Equivalence I would fear for you.
https://unherd.com/2020/11/the-age-of-the-middle-class-is-over/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3
The common theme... is the decline of the middle class, a group who were unusually strong in the industrial age but are struggling in the tech era. The mid-century United States may have been the best time ever to be the average man, although as always one form of equality clashes with another; egalitarianism between men went with reduced opportunities for women, as well as racial exclusivity. The middle-class age meant the triumph of bourgeoise values and the decline of the middle class has led to their downfall, widely despised and mocked by believers in the higher-status bohemian attitudes. Now the age of the average man is over, and the age of the global aristocrat has arrived.
Edit: or maybe previous one. Not bneing rude!
https://twitter.com/BAH_Int_Circuit/status/1330885314060161024
If the Tories pursued an EEA/CU Brexit with full free movement, no option to do our own trade deals and no regained control of our fishing waters or even worse if they reversed Brexit and rejoined the EU, then the Tories would likely collapse to third at the next general election with less than 20% behind Farage's Party and no longer even be the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government. It would be a near extinction level event for the Tory Party similar to that the Canadian Tories had in 1993 when they not only lost power to the Liberals but were overtaken by the populist right Reform Party.
Being Tory leader is a means to an end and he should be focused on the job of being PM.
If for any reason there was a conflict between being PM and keeping people voting Tory his responsibility is to the country not the party.
Why do we have to go back to pants circuits next year? This year has been *fun*. And the only new track that looks genuinely insane on F1 2020 (Vietnam) appears to be dead before it even starts
As I'm neither statistician, epidemiologist, virologist nor immuno-biologist (and probably can't spell any of them either), I feel very much in the lion's den on here at the moment.
I'm just a simple Stodge so this is how it looks to me - first, the re-vitalisation of the High Street looks to be inevitable as we can all go in to the new Vaccine Houses and choose which of the vaccines we want to have - a bit of Oxford, a bit of Pfizer, a side of Astra Zeneca perhaps?
Seriously, if we are required to have two injections which presumably will be x days apart (x being 7-21 as far as I can tell), then presumably we will need double the number of doses and it increases the logistical effort to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
Okay, so to please all the statisticians, I've been crunching some numbers for Newham. Current population is just shy of 365.000 with only 7.6% over 65 so I make that 27,740 to be vaccinated or 55,480 doses. Add a few other dependent people and let's call it 30,000 to be vaccinated in Newham.
The number over 65 in London is about 1.1 million and in England as a whole about 11 million so that's the kind of numbers if you are seeking just to vaccinate the elderly and add some more of NHS workers, carers and the like so perhaps 15 million to be vaccinated maybe.
15 million to be vaccinated equals 30 million doses if each person requires two.
If the aim is to vaccinate all those over 50 the numbers are much higher - 78,000 in Newham and 2.6 million in London.
How are all these people to be vaccinated and what's going to stop other younger people coming in to have a shot or two themselves? Logistically, it's an enormous challenge and having seen someone on here claim 10 million will be vaccinated by Christmas, well I have a bridge to sell you.
Given the Government's less than optimal performance with test-and-trace and its ideological unwillingness to concede the private sector (especially those parts of it run by friends and allies of the Government) isn't perhaps the best vehicles for large scale logistical activities, I'm far from hopeful.
The overall scenario is very positive and we will get there and I understand some are desperate to get this started, get themselves vaccinated and go back to what they consider a normal life but I question the wisdom of what is being planned for the pre-Christmas period.
IF we get this wrong, the spike in cases will be evident the week before Christmas at which point it'll be political suicide for Johnson to row back on the proposals.
As an aside, I think for all we have had to endure this year, we should have two extra Bank Holidays in 2021 but that's just me.
I had not read that and apologise for my error