Probably fatal. It's not about blatant gamesmanship, just making sure you are not handicapping yourself with a dodgy microphone or echoing that sounds like you are in the bath. (And applies to all remote calls.)
That's a serious point: candidates from less well-off backgrounds, who don't live in a nice detached house where there's a quiet room in which to set up the call, and who don't necessarily have a good broadband connection and decent hardware, may well be severely disadvantaged by virtual interviews - even more so than in the traditional face-to-face ones.
I think some interviews are being done with the candidates at school: I expect most schools should be able to provide a private office with a decent internet connection. Most.
My mum`s nursing home ten days ago had four residents test positive for Covid.
All four are asymptomatic.
Does that strike anyone as strange? I mean these residents are late 80 / 90 years of age and with plenty of other health issues. One would have though that catching covid would be the end of the road for these guys.
As Nate Silver said yesterday be very wary of these Georgia polls, they imply a much lower GOP turnout than at the Presidential election.
Which might happen given the orange hued Love Object is not on the ballot for this.
That will lower Democratic turnout too and the prospect of AOC and the far left driving the agenda will push GOP turnout once Biden is confirmed as EC winner by the EC on Dec 14th
There is no prospect of that, except in the fevered imagination of the Trumpaloopas.
A Republican win would mean at least two years of legislative standstill, if not outright budget sabotage.
It would mean Biden forced to compromise with the GOP, not the Democrats in control of every branch of Federal Government and AOC and Pelosi pushing the agenda leading to Tea Party 2 with bells on and a huge conservative backlash in the 2022 midterms
There is no compromise with the GOP - did you not follow Obama's presidency at all ? And that was when they were relatively moderate compared to the present incarnation. As has been pointed out to you above, a 50/50 Senate (with a Harris casting vote) would still need the votes of the right of centre Democrats to get any legislation through. The chances of AOC "pushing the agenda" are zero. A Republican majority led by McConnell would block everything, as they did before.
Yes, it's a nonsense - Manchin won't vote for court expansion for instance.
As Nate Silver said yesterday be very wary of these Georgia polls, they imply a much lower GOP turnout than at the Presidential election.
Which might happen given the orange hued Love Object is not on the ballot for this.
That will lower Democratic turnout too and the prospect of AOC and the far left driving the agenda will push GOP turnout once Biden is confirmed as EC winner by the EC on Dec 14th
There is no prospect of that, except in the fevered imagination of the Trumpaloopas.
A Republican win would mean at least two years of legislative standstill, if not outright budget sabotage.
It would mean Biden forced to compromise with the GOP, not the Democrats in control of every branch of Federal Government and AOC and Pelosi pushing the agenda leading to Tea Party 2 with bells on and a huge conservative backlash in the 2022 midterms
There is no compromise with the GOP - did you not follow Obama's presidency at all ? And that was when they were relatively moderate compared to the present incarnation. As has been pointed out to you above, a 50/50 Senate (with a Harris casting vote) would still need the votes of the right of centre Democrats to get any legislation through. The chances of AOC "pushing the agenda" are zero. A Republican majority led by McConnell would block everything, as they did before.
Yes, it's a nonsense - Manchin won't vote for court expansion for instance.
If the Democrats win all 3 branches of government the GOP will win a landslide in the 2022 midterms that will make 2010 look like a damp squib, Americans voted to get rid of Trump, narrowly, that was it, they did not vote for any shift left at all and certainly not on cultural matters
Impressive predictive skills. How was Trump's margin in Orange County California this time out compared to 2016?
Irrelevant as California is now safe Democratic anyway, Trump did however hold Florida and Ohio, the first losing presidential candidate to do since 1960
I could have sworn someone on here made a firm prediction about Trump going to do much better in OC this time round yet in the end he lost by an even larger margin than last time.
Whoever it was, we best take their predictions with a pinch of salt this time round.
Maybe you could help me track down the prediction.
Clinton won Orange by 51% to 42% in 2016, the latest numbers have Biden on 53% in Orange but Trump on 44.5%.
So I was in fact correct and Trump has done better in Orange County with a higher voteshare there than he did in 2016, so put that in your pompous, patronising pipe and smoke it!!!
Cameron never came across as particularly compassionate to me. The whole "calm down, dear" thing certainly didn't come over as very self-aware either. Obviously I don't know him personally. And of course he suffered personal tragedy in his life, for which I have great sympathy. There is a lot more to disliking someone's manner and the way they treat those around them than their accent. I honestly couldn't give two shits about how people speak, although as a matter of personal preference obviously the Geordie accent is a lot easier on the ear than the dulcet tones of Rees Mogg. But you can learn a lot about people's character in those moments when they think they aren't doing anything worth watching, such as how they interact with the waiting staff at a meal.
Your generalisations are getting wilder and wilder! So you've now switched to accusing Etonians of not treating waiters properly. No doubt that is true of some. You should ask yourself what evidence you have that, as a group, it is more true of them than of SNP politicians, or Welsh rugby players, or Essex girls, or any other group.
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I wouldn't class institutions whose primary barrier to entry is academic ability in quite the same category as those who screen predominantly on parental income. Although of course that distinction can become blurred in practice, especially given that private schools' function is precisely to blur that distinction.
Most public schools have scholarships now and you also need to pass the Common Entrance exam to get in, certainly to the major ones.
Indeed many of the old academically selective grammar schools are now independent schools, including the school attended by the Leader of the Opposition
CE is in itself presumablyt a major social barrier. How many primaries prepare childre for it? I don't know - but maybe one of the teachers on the site can say.
Most public schools have entry at 13, primary schools finish at 11, prep schools are and always have been the main public schools feeder, though of course in Kent and Bucks and Trafford which are fully selective still primary school pupils do go on to grammars in large numbers
In other words, effectively you have to be able to afford private education to get into Headmastder's Conference "Public Schools". That adds to the social and class barrier.,
They didn't come worse than Eton. They wouldn't play rugby against my school Millfield because it wasn't part of the Headmaster's Conference or at least that was what they said. Their refusals were regularly posted on the school notice board. The headmasters implication was that the real reason was Millfield had the best rugby team in the country and they didn't want to be humiliated but I always suspected that the reason given was the correct one which was of course even worse!
Probably fatal. It's not about blatant gamesmanship, just making sure you are not handicapping yourself with a dodgy microphone or echoing that sounds like you are in the bath. (And applies to all remote calls.)
That's a serious point: candidates from less well-off backgrounds, who don't live in a nice detached house where there's a quiet room in which to set up the call, and who don't necessarily have a good broadband connection and decent hardware, may well be severely disadvantaged by virtual interviews - even more so than in the traditional face-to-face ones.
I think some interviews are being done with the candidates at school: I expect most schools should be able to provide a private office with a decent internet connection. Most.
My mum`s nursing home ten days ago had four residents test positive for Covid.
All four are asymptomatic.
Does that strike anyone as strange? I mean these residents are late 80 / 90 years of age and with plenty of other health issues. One would have though that catching covid would be the end of the road for these guys.
Roll the dice enough times and you'll get an unexpected outcome. Same thing happened to my friend's grandma in a home. The thing is though, they may have symptoms but not notice it. If two of them only had the loss of smell then... well not to be unkind but if they're a touch away with the faries it's not the most likely thing to be detected is it?
Cameron never came across as particularly compassionate to me. The whole "calm down, dear" thing certainly didn't come over as very self-aware either. Obviously I don't know him personally. And of course he suffered personal tragedy in his life, for which I have great sympathy. There is a lot more to disliking someone's manner and the way they treat those around them than their accent. I honestly couldn't give two shits about how people speak, although as a matter of personal preference obviously the Geordie accent is a lot easier on the ear than the dulcet tones of Rees Mogg. But you can learn a lot about people's character in those moments when they think they aren't doing anything worth watching, such as how they interact with the waiting staff at a meal.
Your generalisations are getting wilder and wilder! So you've now switched to accusing Etonians of not treating waiters properly. No doubt that is true of some. You should ask yourself what evidence you have that, as a group, it is more true of them than of SNP politicians, or Welsh rugby players, or Essex girls, or any other group.
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I wouldn't class institutions whose primary barrier to entry is academic ability in quite the same category as those who screen predominantly on parental income. Although of course that distinction can become blurred in practice, especially given that private schools' function is precisely to blur that distinction.
Most public schools have scholarships now and you also need to pass the Common Entrance exam to get in, certainly to the major ones.
Indeed many of the old academically selective grammar schools are now independent schools, including the school attended by the Leader of the Opposition
CE is in itself presumablyt a major social barrier. How many primaries prepare childre for it? I don't know - but maybe one of the teachers on the site can say.
Most public schools have entry at 13, primary schools finish at 11, prep schools are and always have been the main public schools feeder, though of course in Kent and Bucks and Trafford which are fully selective still primary school pupils do go on to grammars in large numbers
In other words, effectively you have to be able to afford private education to get into Headmastder's Conference "Public Schools". That adds to the social and class barrier.,
They didn't come worse than Eton. They wouldn't play rugby against my school Millfield because it wasn't part of the Headmaster's Conference or at least that was what they said. Their refusals were regularly posted on the school notice board. The headmasters implication was that the real reason was Millfield had the best rugby team in the country and they didn't want to be humiliated but I always suspected that the reason given was the correct one which was of course even worse!
Millfield?! I happen to know the area well from Boy Scout camps and holidays as an adult (and no, I did not go there). That is utterly outrageous. Are [edit] opr rather were the Etonians worried about catching ringworm or something?!
My mum`s nursing home ten days ago had four residents test positive for Covid.
All four are asymptomatic.
Does that strike anyone as strange? I mean these residents are late 80 / 90 years of age and with plenty of other health issues. One would have though that catching covid would be the end of the road for these guys.
There have been many examples of very infirm and ancient people who have brushed off COVID - all the way back to March and Italy.
Even among the very elderly, the majority survive.
"The overall death rate from covid-19 has been estimated at 0.66%, rising sharply to 7.8% in people aged over 80 and declining to 0.0016% in children aged 9 and under"
"The team found that nearly one in five people over 80 infected with covid-19 would probably require hospital admission, compared with around 1% of people under 30."
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I don't know. My sense is more Oxbridge on here than public schools. But lots of private schools, I think? Still, again, not sure. But that wasn't what I was driving at. My point is more that any attack on educational privilege is - not just on here but in this country - guaranteed to get the backs up of many many people who themselves have not benefited from it or in fact been anywhere near it. It is thought of as Class War. We are attached to our privilege in England. The status quo is ok by us in this regard. We don't want it smashed up.
I didn't like a lot of my time at Oxford because I went to a grammar school which were, even in the early 90s, rare beasts. We didn't quite fit into the class system anywhere comfortable. People who went to comprehensives, especially Northern comprehensives, effortlessly adopted a working-class hero, f*** the system type attitude, while the public and private school bunch swanned around like they owned the place. We grammar school types were considered a little declasse by both groups.
I know what you mean. I suffer from a lack of identity. Neither one thing nor the other. Working class roots but aspirational ones. Rise out of your class, not solidarity with it or any sense of belonging. Saw a TV prog the other day featuring a father son combo who had done nothing but catch and sell mussels in Kent. That was their life and had been for umpteen generations before them. Father was 92, son was 65, both looked happy as larry and - this is key - just so earthed and content in what and who they were. Nothing on earth could knock their sense of self. Exactly like Jacob Rees Mogg. I'm the opposite of this. My essence is flimsy and indistinct. It's great and awful at the same time. More awful and less great as time passes.
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I don't know. My sense is more Oxbridge on here than public schools. But lots of private schools, I think? Still, again, not sure. But that wasn't what I was driving at. My point is more that any attack on educational privilege is - not just on here but in this country - guaranteed to get the backs up of many many people who themselves have not benefited from it or in fact been anywhere near it. It is thought of as Class War. We are attached to our privilege in England. The status quo is ok by us in this regard. We don't want it smashed up.
I didn't like a lot of my time at Oxford because I went to a grammar school which were, even in the early 90s, rare beasts. We didn't quite fit into the class system anywhere comfortable. People who went to comprehensives, especially Northern comprehensives, effortlessly adopted a working-class hero, f*** the system type attitude, while the public and private school bunch swanned around like they owned the place. We grammar school types were considered a little declasse by both groups.
I don't even know what the difference is between "public schools" and private schools, other than that the latter seems a more accurate description. Living in the US for a number of years, where "public school" has a more logical meaning, I find it extra confusing to use the phrase in its English usage.
As Nate Silver said yesterday be very wary of these Georgia polls, they imply a much lower GOP turnout than at the Presidential election.
Which might happen given the orange hued Love Object is not on the ballot for this.
That will lower Democratic turnout too and the prospect of AOC and the far left driving the agenda will push GOP turnout once Biden is confirmed as EC winner by the EC on Dec 14th
There is no prospect of that, except in the fevered imagination of the Trumpaloopas.
A Republican win would mean at least two years of legislative standstill, if not outright budget sabotage.
It would mean Biden forced to compromise with the GOP, not the Democrats in control of every branch of Federal Government and AOC and Pelosi pushing the agenda leading to Tea Party 2 with bells on and a huge conservative backlash in the 2022 midterms
There is no compromise with the GOP - did you not follow Obama's presidency at all ? And that was when they were relatively moderate compared to the present incarnation. As has been pointed out to you above, a 50/50 Senate (with a Harris casting vote) would still need the votes of the right of centre Democrats to get any legislation through. The chances of AOC "pushing the agenda" are zero. A Republican majority led by McConnell would block everything, as they did before.
Yes, it's a nonsense - Manchin won't vote for court expansion for instance.
As Nate Silver said yesterday be very wary of these Georgia polls, they imply a much lower GOP turnout than at the Presidential election.
Which might happen given the orange hued Love Object is not on the ballot for this.
That will lower Democratic turnout too and the prospect of AOC and the far left driving the agenda will push GOP turnout once Biden is confirmed as EC winner by the EC on Dec 14th
There is no prospect of that, except in the fevered imagination of the Trumpaloopas.
A Republican win would mean at least two years of legislative standstill, if not outright budget sabotage.
It would mean Biden forced to compromise with the GOP, not the Democrats in control of every branch of Federal Government and AOC and Pelosi pushing the agenda leading to Tea Party 2 with bells on and a huge conservative backlash in the 2022 midterms
There is no compromise with the GOP - did you not follow Obama's presidency at all ? And that was when they were relatively moderate compared to the present incarnation. As has been pointed out to you above, a 50/50 Senate (with a Harris casting vote) would still need the votes of the right of centre Democrats to get any legislation through. The chances of AOC "pushing the agenda" are zero. A Republican majority led by McConnell would block everything, as they did before.
Yes, it's a nonsense - Manchin won't vote for court expansion for instance.
If the Democrats win all 3 branches of government the GOP will win a landslide in the 2022 midterms that will make 2010 look like a damp squib, Americans voted to get rid of Trump, narrowly, that was it, they did not vote for any shift left at all and certainly not on cultural matters
Impressive predictive skills. How was Trump's margin in Orange County California this time out compared to 2016?
Irrelevant as California is now safe Democratic anyway, Trump did however hold Florida and Ohio, the first losing presidential candidate to do since 1960
I could have sworn someone on here made a firm prediction about Trump going to do much better in OC this time round yet in the end he lost by an even larger margin than last time.
Whoever it was, we best take their predictions with a pinch of salt this time round.
Maybe you could help me track down the prediction.
Clinton won Orange by 51% to 42% in 2016, the latest numbers have Biden on 53% in Orange but Trump on 44.5%.
So I was in fact correct and Trump has done better in Orange County with a higher voteshare there than he did in 2016, so put that in your pompous, patronising pipe and smoke it!!!
Clinton won by 8.6%. According to the Orange Count Registrar of Voters Biden won by 9.04%
Is that better or worse. I'm finding it hard to tell?
Were you able to track down who made the prediction?
I said Trump would get a higher voteshare in Orange County, in 2016 he got 42.3% there, last month he got 44.5% in Orange County, so I was therefore correct.
Cameron never came across as particularly compassionate to me. The whole "calm down, dear" thing certainly didn't come over as very self-aware either. Obviously I don't know him personally. And of course he suffered personal tragedy in his life, for which I have great sympathy. There is a lot more to disliking someone's manner and the way they treat those around them than their accent. I honestly couldn't give two shits about how people speak, although as a matter of personal preference obviously the Geordie accent is a lot easier on the ear than the dulcet tones of Rees Mogg. But you can learn a lot about people's character in those moments when they think they aren't doing anything worth watching, such as how they interact with the waiting staff at a meal.
Your generalisations are getting wilder and wilder! So you've now switched to accusing Etonians of not treating waiters properly. No doubt that is true of some. You should ask yourself what evidence you have that, as a group, it is more true of them than of SNP politicians, or Welsh rugby players, or Essex girls, or any other group.
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I wouldn't class institutions whose primary barrier to entry is academic ability in quite the same category as those who screen predominantly on parental income. Although of course that distinction can become blurred in practice, especially given that private schools' function is precisely to blur that distinction.
Most public schools have scholarships now and you also need to pass the Common Entrance exam to get in, certainly to the major ones.
Indeed many of the old academically selective grammar schools are now independent schools, including the school attended by the Leader of the Opposition
CE is in itself presumablyt a major social barrier. How many primaries prepare childre for it? I don't know - but maybe one of the teachers on the site can say.
Most public schools have entry at 13, primary schools finish at 11, prep schools are and always have been the main public schools feeder, though of course in Kent and Bucks and Trafford which are fully selective still primary school pupils do go on to grammars in large numbers
In other words, effectively you have to be able to afford private education to get into Headmastder's Conference "Public Schools". That adds to the social and class barrier.,
They didn't come worse than Eton. They wouldn't play rugby against my school Millfield because it wasn't part of the Headmaster's Conference or at least that was what they said. Their refusals were regularly posted on the school notice board. The headmasters implication was that the real reason was Millfield had the best rugby team in the country and they didn't want to be humiliated but I always suspected that the reason given was the correct one which was of course even worse!
Ah, the famous 'Harrow we know, and Winchester we know, but who are ye?'
OLB Scholarships just reduce the fees, to get into Eton, Westminster, Winchester etc you also need to pass Common Entrance even if your parents pay full fees
Milfield will give you a sports scholarship if you are particularly talented: we've had a couple go there I think.
Edit: my uncertainty is the number, not the destination.
Coronavirus cases increased in 20 of Wales’s 22 local authority areas on Thursday, with a “rising tide” of infections seen in both urban and rural areas, health minister Vaughan Gething said.
On the back of what, 17 last week?
The different national lockdown regimes to allow petty nationalistic point-scoring have been pathetic.
I am surprised at your calm non-partisan analysis. Has someone hijacked your account?
Mr Urquhart does seem rather enthusiastic as to our dropping like flies here in Wales.
Whereas, I agree Drakeford is an idiot, I don't want to be a statistic used to prove it. For what it's worth I think the responses to Covid across the four home nations have been universally pretty piss-poor, as they have across Europe and North America.
Why are people saying the 2 week firebreak was a bad idea?
Surely without it the situation now would be worse than it is, no?
Because its useless at worst and counterproductive at best as was called out at the time.
A fortnight just isn't that long to drive down numbers. Then combine that with the fact that people party and have "last nights of freedom" before the fortnight and then have "hooray free from Covid lockdown" parties afterwards and you've achieved diddly squat apart from deeply damaging the businesses that had to shut down and throw away all their stock etc.
But oh well, at least there was tape stopping people from buying a new kettle from a supermarket if theirs broke during the fortnight.
Contrast with England - did it for twice as long giving time for case numbers to actually drop, then put stricter tiers in place afterwards.
Ok. Schooling me there, I confess. Quite the role reversal. My pandemic following dial has been slipping for some time now. Still I'd have thought the aggregate net impact on infections of a 14 day Lockdown would be a reduction compared to the counterfactual of No Lockdown. Is Drakeford admitting this is not the case?
Just extrapolating the timeline from before the firebreak; cases in Wales would probably be 3-4x higher than they currently are if there were no firebreak.
And what no-one knows or will ever know is what numbers would be like if the firebreaks had occured when SAGE suggested, aligned with half term. They were never proposed as one off fixes that would last forever, yet get judged as if they were.
Drakeford was adamant that there would be only one firebreak and his biggest error was to allow everyone to go back to normal the day we came out
The activity in our area was crazy and I said it before that we even experienced traffic queues going into town (very rare) and most everyone acted as if covid was over
There is only one person responsible for that and it is Drakeford
I don't like Drakeford, but your final comment is plain silly. He is not blame free, but neither is Johnson. I take it you are planning to give all those Covid naysayers who have flouted the law, a free pass.
Boris has nothing to do in Wales and Drakeford made the wrong decision
Also telling pubs to close at 6.00, and by the way you cannot serve alcohol is idiotic as people go to the supermarkets and gather in their homes
Coronavirus cases increased in 20 of Wales’s 22 local authority areas on Thursday, with a “rising tide” of infections seen in both urban and rural areas, health minister Vaughan Gething said.
On the back of what, 17 last week?
The different national lockdown regimes to allow petty nationalistic point-scoring have been pathetic.
I am surprised at your calm non-partisan analysis. Has someone hijacked your account?
Mr Urquhart does seem rather enthusiastic as to our dropping like flies here in Wales.
Whereas, I agree Drakeford is an idiot, I don't want to be a statistic used to prove it. For what it's worth I think the responses to Covid across the four home nations have been universally pretty piss-poor, as they have across Europe and North America.
Why are people saying the 2 week firebreak was a bad idea?
Surely without it the situation now would be worse than it is, no?
Because its useless at worst and counterproductive at best as was called out at the time.
A fortnight just isn't that long to drive down numbers. Then combine that with the fact that people party and have "last nights of freedom" before the fortnight and then have "hooray free from Covid lockdown" parties afterwards and you've achieved diddly squat apart from deeply damaging the businesses that had to shut down and throw away all their stock etc.
But oh well, at least there was tape stopping people from buying a new kettle from a supermarket if theirs broke during the fortnight.
Contrast with England - did it for twice as long giving time for case numbers to actually drop, then put stricter tiers in place afterwards.
Ok. Schooling me there, I confess. Quite the role reversal. My pandemic following dial has been slipping for some time now. Still I'd have thought the aggregate net impact on infections of a 14 day Lockdown would be a reduction compared to the counterfactual of No Lockdown. Is Drakeford admitting this is not the case?
Just extrapolating the timeline from before the firebreak; cases in Wales would probably be 3-4x higher than they currently are if there were no firebreak.
And what no-one knows or will ever know is what numbers would be like if the firebreaks had occured when SAGE suggested, aligned with half term. They were never proposed as one off fixes that would last forever, yet get judged as if they were.
Drakeford was adamant that there would be only one firebreak and his biggest error was to allow everyone to go back to normal the day we came out
The activity in our area was crazy and I said it before that we even experienced traffic queues going into town (very rare) and most everyone acted as if covid was over
There is only one person responsible for that and it is Drakeford
He may have implemented it badly, I dont know, from outside certainly the supermarket fiasco suggests attention to detail wasnt any stronger in the Welsh govt than it is in Westminster. My support is for the SAGE firebreaks, as SAGE intended, not what Drakeford did (or didnt do).
I accept that and Drakeford demonstrated just how not to do it
I think your utter hatred for Mark Drakeford is clouding your judgement on how equally poorly other leaders have performed.
I do not hate anyone but dislike Drakeford, well yes for lots of reason especially on health
Cameron never came across as particularly compassionate to me. The whole "calm down, dear" thing certainly didn't come over as very self-aware either. Obviously I don't know him personally. And of course he suffered personal tragedy in his life, for which I have great sympathy. There is a lot more to disliking someone's manner and the way they treat those around them than their accent. I honestly couldn't give two shits about how people speak, although as a matter of personal preference obviously the Geordie accent is a lot easier on the ear than the dulcet tones of Rees Mogg. But you can learn a lot about people's character in those moments when they think they aren't doing anything worth watching, such as how they interact with the waiting staff at a meal.
Your generalisations are getting wilder and wilder! So you've now switched to accusing Etonians of not treating waiters properly. No doubt that is true of some. You should ask yourself what evidence you have that, as a group, it is more true of them than of SNP politicians, or Welsh rugby players, or Essex girls, or any other group.
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I wouldn't class institutions whose primary barrier to entry is academic ability in quite the same category as those who screen predominantly on parental income. Although of course that distinction can become blurred in practice, especially given that private schools' function is precisely to blur that distinction.
Most public schools have scholarships now and you also need to pass the Common Entrance exam to get in, certainly to the major ones.
Indeed many of the old academically selective grammar schools are now independent schools, including the school attended by the Leader of the Opposition
CE is in itself presumablyt a major social barrier. How many primaries prepare childre for it? I don't know - but maybe one of the teachers on the site can say.
Most public schools have entry at 13, primary schools finish at 11, prep schools are and always have been the main public schools feeder, though of course in Kent and Bucks and Trafford which are fully selective still primary school pupils do go on to grammars in large numbers
In other words, effectively you have to be able to afford private education to get into Headmastder's Conference "Public Schools". That adds to the social and class barrier.,
They didn't come worse than Eton. They wouldn't play rugby against my school Millfield because it wasn't part of the Headmaster's Conference or at least that was what they said. Their refusals were regularly posted on the school notice board. The headmasters implication was that the real reason was Millfield had the best rugby team in the country and they didn't want to be humiliated but I always suspected that the reason given was the correct one which was of course even worse!
They played against us for a while (us being the state school I teach at which for obvious reasons I'm not going to name).
Apropos nothing else my son has his 3 interviews for PPE at St Annes on Monday. Going to be a slightly nervous weekend.
Fingers crossed for him. Presumably these are virtual interviews? Difficult both for your son and for the dons, I would think.
Yes, all virtual. Which is a great shame. He is in a very strong year at his school and 7 of them have Oxbridge interviews, 5 at Oxford. Normally they would all be going down on the train together and getting a proper feel of the college etc. as well as sharing their anxieties.
I agree it will be tough for the Dons too. Much harder to get a proper feel on someone on a screen in my experience.
Given the limited evidence for the predictive power of interviews, I'd have dropped them completely. Mind you, I never went to Oxford. Good luck to the @DavidL 7.
Many thanks.
To state the bleeding obvious, there might be a case for checking his connection beforehand, making sure dad is not using all the wifi bandwidth next door, camera works, microphone works, there is sufficient contrast between him and the background, no embarrassing books behind him, enough soft furnishings to soften the audio. If you've got more than one laptop, compare them all.
And the same goes for anyone making Zoom calls or similar.
A selection of the interviewer's books in the backdrop probably wouldn't hurt!
Word of warning [edit] - it has to be a genuine interest. Dons spot bullshit like Scatophaga flies do, only they don't like it nearly so much.
And always, always be able to back it up convincingly when they ask, as they might.
I turned up for my interview with a bag from the UNiversity Bookshop and a parasitology book in it - but I was able to speak convincingly about why it was interesting and why I was so pleased to have it ...
When I was in the Sixth Form I put in the narrative section on my UCCA/PCAS form (they had merged the forms in readiness for the merger to become UCAS the following year) that I enjoyed reading Chekhov's plays - simply because I was in a production of Three Sisters when I filled it out. I thought it made me sound intellectual. Only on my way to interview at Liverpool did I realise that Three Sisters was about the only Chekhov play I could name, let alone talk about. Cue panicked search in WH Smiths on Euston for a copy of anything whatsoever by Chekhov I could get my hands on. Amazingly I found a paperback copy of the 4 major plays and spent most of my lunch money on it. On the train I practically memorised the introduction, skim read The Seagull, and when it came up extemorised some complete crap based on that. Amazingly, I got a BCC offer, and would have gone there if I hadn't passed the Oxford entrance.
29 years later I still keep that very same copy near my desk to remind me that bullshitters always, always, get found out.
At my Cambridge interview, I mentioned my love of art. And the admissions tutor asked me, "if you could have just one piece of art, what would it be?"
"Well, Guernica's an incredible work of art, but it's not exactly something I'd want hanging by my bedside" (phew, great answer...)
"Let me turn the question around. If you could save just one work of art, and all the rest would be destroyed, what would it be?"
It was at this point that I realised my utter bullshitting (I know nothing of art) was going to get me into big trouble. Because I was going to need to defend whatever I said.
"Given the extraordinary diversity of art created in the world, it would create a misleading impression to just keep one piece. Better to destroy it all, than just keep one."
I'm sure he smelt the bullshit. But I got in nonetheless.
Coronavirus cases increased in 20 of Wales’s 22 local authority areas on Thursday, with a “rising tide” of infections seen in both urban and rural areas, health minister Vaughan Gething said.
On the back of what, 17 last week?
The different national lockdown regimes to allow petty nationalistic point-scoring have been pathetic.
I am surprised at your calm non-partisan analysis. Has someone hijacked your account?
Mr Urquhart does seem rather enthusiastic as to our dropping like flies here in Wales.
Whereas, I agree Drakeford is an idiot, I don't want to be a statistic used to prove it. For what it's worth I think the responses to Covid across the four home nations have been universally pretty piss-poor, as they have across Europe and North America.
Why are people saying the 2 week firebreak was a bad idea?
Surely without it the situation now would be worse than it is, no?
Because its useless at worst and counterproductive at best as was called out at the time.
A fortnight just isn't that long to drive down numbers. Then combine that with the fact that people party and have "last nights of freedom" before the fortnight and then have "hooray free from Covid lockdown" parties afterwards and you've achieved diddly squat apart from deeply damaging the businesses that had to shut down and throw away all their stock etc.
But oh well, at least there was tape stopping people from buying a new kettle from a supermarket if theirs broke during the fortnight.
Contrast with England - did it for twice as long giving time for case numbers to actually drop, then put stricter tiers in place afterwards.
Ok. Schooling me there, I confess. Quite the role reversal. My pandemic following dial has been slipping for some time now. Still I'd have thought the aggregate net impact on infections of a 14 day Lockdown would be a reduction compared to the counterfactual of No Lockdown. Is Drakeford admitting this is not the case?
Just extrapolating the timeline from before the firebreak; cases in Wales would probably be 3-4x higher than they currently are if there were no firebreak.
Right. So if that is the case, where is all this "the Welsh firebreak was a dreadful error that made things worse" commentary coming from? Could it be anti-Drakeford sentiment in the driving seat? Is Drakeford getting on people's tits for some reason, either because he's Labour or because he's Welsh, or simply because he's Drakeford?
The answer is he insisted on one fire break and took the foot off the pedal with the inevitable result
Drakeford being Welsh is nothing to do with it, but his other policies and failures, especially on health do
Coronavirus cases increased in 20 of Wales’s 22 local authority areas on Thursday, with a “rising tide” of infections seen in both urban and rural areas, health minister Vaughan Gething said.
On the back of what, 17 last week?
The different national lockdown regimes to allow petty nationalistic point-scoring have been pathetic.
I am surprised at your calm non-partisan analysis. Has someone hijacked your account?
Mr Urquhart does seem rather enthusiastic as to our dropping like flies here in Wales.
Whereas, I agree Drakeford is an idiot, I don't want to be a statistic used to prove it. For what it's worth I think the responses to Covid across the four home nations have been universally pretty piss-poor, as they have across Europe and North America.
Why are people saying the 2 week firebreak was a bad idea?
Surely without it the situation now would be worse than it is, no?
Because its useless at worst and counterproductive at best as was called out at the time.
A fortnight just isn't that long to drive down numbers. Then combine that with the fact that people party and have "last nights of freedom" before the fortnight and then have "hooray free from Covid lockdown" parties afterwards and you've achieved diddly squat apart from deeply damaging the businesses that had to shut down and throw away all their stock etc.
But oh well, at least there was tape stopping people from buying a new kettle from a supermarket if theirs broke during the fortnight.
Contrast with England - did it for twice as long giving time for case numbers to actually drop, then put stricter tiers in place afterwards.
Ok. Schooling me there, I confess. Quite the role reversal. My pandemic following dial has been slipping for some time now. Still I'd have thought the aggregate net impact on infections of a 14 day Lockdown would be a reduction compared to the counterfactual of No Lockdown. Is Drakeford admitting this is not the case?
Just extrapolating the timeline from before the firebreak; cases in Wales would probably be 3-4x higher than they currently are if there were no firebreak.
Right. So if that is the case, where is all this "the Welsh firebreak was a dreadful error that made things worse" commentary coming from? Could it be anti-Drakeford sentiment in the driving seat? Is Drakeford getting on people's tits for some reason, either because he's Labour or because he's Welsh, or simply because he's Drakeford?
Or anti-devolution sentiment, as a logical possibility at least. I sometimes wonder if Ms Sturgeon can win on PB. Eityher she';s not being severe enough or she's too severe.
Drakeford is a solid unionists who accepted that Wales needed the strength of Westminster to help the economic storm
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I don't know. My sense is more Oxbridge on here than public schools. But lots of private schools, I think? Still, again, not sure. But that wasn't what I was driving at. My point is more that any attack on educational privilege is - not just on here but in this country - guaranteed to get the backs up of many many people who themselves have not benefited from it or in fact been anywhere near it. It is thought of as Class War. We are attached to our privilege in England. The status quo is ok by us in this regard. We don't want it smashed up.
I didn't like a lot of my time at Oxford because I went to a grammar school which were, even in the early 90s, rare beasts. We didn't quite fit into the class system anywhere comfortable. People who went to comprehensives, especially Northern comprehensives, effortlessly adopted a working-class hero, f*** the system type attitude, while the public and private school bunch swanned around like they owned the place. We grammar school types were considered a little declasse by both groups.
I don't even know what the difference is between "public schools" and private schools, other than that the latter seems a more accurate description. Living in the US for a number of years, where "public school" has a more logical meaning, I find it extra confusing to use the phrase in its English usage.
It is, like so many things, historical. It contrasts with someone whose parents were sufficiently rich to hire tutors to privately educate them at home (like the Queen).
The elected Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, has been arrested.
The city leader was arrested earlier today by Merseyside Police along with four other men in connection with offences of bribery and witness intimidation as part of an investigation into building and development contracts in Liverpool.
Coronavirus cases increased in 20 of Wales’s 22 local authority areas on Thursday, with a “rising tide” of infections seen in both urban and rural areas, health minister Vaughan Gething said.
On the back of what, 17 last week?
The different national lockdown regimes to allow petty nationalistic point-scoring have been pathetic.
I am surprised at your calm non-partisan analysis. Has someone hijacked your account?
Mr Urquhart does seem rather enthusiastic as to our dropping like flies here in Wales.
Whereas, I agree Drakeford is an idiot, I don't want to be a statistic used to prove it. For what it's worth I think the responses to Covid across the four home nations have been universally pretty piss-poor, as they have across Europe and North America.
Why are people saying the 2 week firebreak was a bad idea?
Surely without it the situation now would be worse than it is, no?
Because its useless at worst and counterproductive at best as was called out at the time.
A fortnight just isn't that long to drive down numbers. Then combine that with the fact that people party and have "last nights of freedom" before the fortnight and then have "hooray free from Covid lockdown" parties afterwards and you've achieved diddly squat apart from deeply damaging the businesses that had to shut down and throw away all their stock etc.
But oh well, at least there was tape stopping people from buying a new kettle from a supermarket if theirs broke during the fortnight.
Contrast with England - did it for twice as long giving time for case numbers to actually drop, then put stricter tiers in place afterwards.
Ok. Schooling me there, I confess. Quite the role reversal. My pandemic following dial has been slipping for some time now. Still I'd have thought the aggregate net impact on infections of a 14 day Lockdown would be a reduction compared to the counterfactual of No Lockdown. Is Drakeford admitting this is not the case?
Just extrapolating the timeline from before the firebreak; cases in Wales would probably be 3-4x higher than they currently are if there were no firebreak.
Right. So if that is the case, where is all this "the Welsh firebreak was a dreadful error that made things worse" commentary coming from? Could it be anti-Drakeford sentiment in the driving seat? Is Drakeford getting on people's tits for some reason, either because he's Labour or because he's Welsh, or simply because he's Drakeford?
In a normal group of 60 people, Mark Drakeford would stand out as completely incompetent, lacking ideas, charisma or even basic functioning intelligence and motor skills.
In the group of 60 Welsh AMs in the Senedd, Drakeford is (unbelievably) in the top 5 per cent. He is smarter than all the ex-UKIPers, as well as almost all the Tories, Labour & PC AMs, and Dim Kirsty.
It is measure of how abysmally low the standards are in the Senedd, which is the UK's most corrupt Parliament.
Nonetheless, Drakeford has had a poor pandemic -- and he may be drifting into serious trouble if Wales diverges strongly from England & Scotland.
It is also true that "World Beating" Boris and "Zero Covid Scotland" Sturgeon have not had great pandemics either.
That is because you can't kid the COVID-19 virus -- and we have some of the greatest kidders in our political class in the World.
Very true re Covid. You can neither bullshit it nor "wrestle it to the ground". The countries that have done best are led by the sort of unshowy competents of which we have a dearth.
As for Drakes and the Senedd, perhaps the deep seated reason for the poor level of participants is your jaundiced but (imo) not wholly inaccurate observation of the other day - "nobody is interested in what happens in Wales".
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I don't know. My sense is more Oxbridge on here than public schools. But lots of private schools, I think? Still, again, not sure. But that wasn't what I was driving at. My point is more that any attack on educational privilege is - not just on here but in this country - guaranteed to get the backs up of many many people who themselves have not benefited from it or in fact been anywhere near it. It is thought of as Class War. We are attached to our privilege in England. The status quo is ok by us in this regard. We don't want it smashed up.
I didn't like a lot of my time at Oxford because I went to a grammar school which were, even in the early 90s, rare beasts. We didn't quite fit into the class system anywhere comfortable. People who went to comprehensives, especially Northern comprehensives, effortlessly adopted a working-class hero, f*** the system type attitude, while the public and private school bunch swanned around like they owned the place. We grammar school types were considered a little declasse by both groups.
I don't even know what the difference is between "public schools" and private schools, other than that the latter seems a more accurate description. Living in the US for a number of years, where "public school" has a more logical meaning, I find it extra confusing to use the phrase in its English usage.
It is, like so many things, historical. It contrasts with someone whose parents were sufficiently rich to hire tutors to privately educate them at home (like the Queen).
I'm not actually sure whether top Independent Day Schools count as public schools.
Or are public schools the ones where they send the progeny away to board where they don't have to deal with them?
I know you need me to be some spittle-flecked class warrior making wild accusations and displaying the ugly chip on my shoulder. You really need to "calm down, dear" and read what I have actually written. I'm not generalising, just offering some observations based on my experiences observing the posh boy in his natural habitat (Oxbridge, politics, finance) over the years. So for instance, I have observed that John Major interacted with waiting staff like they were his fellow human beings while David Cameron acted like they didn't exist. Whether I can generalise from that experience or not I don't know, but it certainly wasn't out of line with my own experiences working in a restaurant, where the rudeness of the "yahs" was well known (eg actually clicking their fingers at you). Of course if you'd like to finance my making an in-depth study of the behaviour of different groups in a casual dining setting so I can arrive at a statistically significant sample size that would be lovely. If it's OK with you I'll kick off with the Essex girls.
You do have to grind hard on here if you hazard a word against the public schools.
How many on here went to public schools then? I would guess only a minority, in fact I would guess more here went to Oxbridge and certainly the Russell Group than went to public school
I don't know. My sense is more Oxbridge on here than public schools. But lots of private schools, I think? Still, again, not sure. But that wasn't what I was driving at. My point is more that any attack on educational privilege is - not just on here but in this country - guaranteed to get the backs up of many many people who themselves have not benefited from it or in fact been anywhere near it. It is thought of as Class War. We are attached to our privilege in England. The status quo is ok by us in this regard. We don't want it smashed up.
I didn't like a lot of my time at Oxford because I went to a grammar school which were, even in the early 90s, rare beasts. We didn't quite fit into the class system anywhere comfortable. People who went to comprehensives, especially Northern comprehensives, effortlessly adopted a working-class hero, f*** the system type attitude, while the public and private school bunch swanned around like they owned the place. We grammar school types were considered a little declasse by both groups.
I don't even know what the difference is between "public schools" and private schools, other than that the latter seems a more accurate description. Living in the US for a number of years, where "public school" has a more logical meaning, I find it extra confusing to use the phrase in its English usage.
It is, like so many things, historical. It contrasts with someone whose parents were sufficiently rich to hire tutors to privately educate them at home (like the Queen).
I'm not actually sure whether top Independent Day Schools count as public schools.
Or are public schools the ones where they send the progeny away to board where they don't have to deal with them?
Comments
From case data
From hospital data
All four are asymptomatic.
Does that strike anyone as strange? I mean these residents are late 80 / 90 years of age and with plenty of other health issues. One would have though that catching covid would be the end of the road for these guys.
Is that better or worse. I'm finding it hard to tell?
Were you able to track down who made the prediction?
Even among the very elderly, the majority survive.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1327
"The overall death rate from covid-19 has been estimated at 0.66%, rising sharply to 7.8% in people aged over 80 and declining to 0.0016% in children aged 9 and under"
"The team found that nearly one in five people over 80 infected with covid-19 would probably require hospital admission, compared with around 1% of people under 30."
Edit: my uncertainty is the number, not the destination.
Also telling pubs to close at 6.00, and by the way you cannot serve alcohol is idiotic as people go to the supermarkets and gather in their homes
Edit: And we play Millfield as well.
NEW THREAD
"Well, Guernica's an incredible work of art, but it's not exactly something I'd want hanging by my bedside" (phew, great answer...)
"Let me turn the question around. If you could save just one work of art, and all the rest would be destroyed, what would it be?"
It was at this point that I realised my utter bullshitting (I know nothing of art) was going to get me into big trouble. Because I was going to need to defend whatever I said.
"Given the extraordinary diversity of art created in the world, it would create a misleading impression to just keep one piece. Better to destroy it all, than just keep one."
I'm sure he smelt the bullshit. But I got in nonetheless.
Drakeford being Welsh is nothing to do with it, but his other policies and failures, especially on health do
As for Drakes and the Senedd, perhaps the deep seated reason for the poor level of participants is your jaundiced but (imo) not wholly inaccurate observation of the other day - "nobody is interested in what happens in Wales".
https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1334919063710158850
Anderson suspended by Labour.
Or are public schools the ones where they send the progeny away to board where they don't have to deal with them?
Just asking.