I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Afternoon. I drop by, only to find that sadly the pair of you have made asses of yourselves. This is provisional application only on the EU side. In theory at least, the European Parliament still has the power to vote the deal down and it will be examining it in some detail early next year.
Meanwhile, Westminster is rubberstamping the deal as a pig in a poke in a day. Not one MP will have read the deal through. Not one MP will understand what they are approving.
Neither approach is an advertisement for democratic process but at least the European Parliament is getting to look at the matter properly at some point.
British politics is turning into autocracy punctuated by political assassinations, and is looking very sickly indeed.
Whilst I actually agree that we should give Parliament time for proper assessment and debate and also that they should have the final - informed - say, I cannot help but remember that arch Europhile Ken Clarke boasted that he passed the Maastricht Treaty without even having bothered to read it.
That Ken Clarke quote is one of those quotes shamelessly taken out of context.
He was Education Secretary and Home Secretary when the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated and largely passed in the Commons. (He became Chancellor in late May 1993 and the Treaty passed in the House a few weeks later.)
So he only ever read the executive summaries rather than the full treaty as it was a matter for the Foreign Office.
He was backing up the point Margaret Thatcher later made at the Scott inquiry, it was impossible for a PM (and cabinet minister) to read every report and treaty sent to them.
Immaterial and your attempted defence is shameful. He voted on a treaty in Parliament as an MP and then proudly proclaimed he had done so without ever having even read it. Given how important these treaties are to British law, boasting you have not read it is the same as saying you simply don't care about who runs the country. Which in the case of Clarke of course was and is true.
Margaret Thatcher never read the Single European Act in full either.
The point he compared it to was getting a mortgage, he said you never read the small print, you read the summaries.
Thatcher said, and I paraphrase, you trust the government lawyers and civil service, and they were very competent in delivering the goals of the PM.
Then both were wrong. When it comes to such fundamental and irreversible legal changes it is incumbent on every MP to make sure they know what they are voting for and, if they don't understand it all, to take the opportunity to seek advice on it. This is even more important with treaties than with domestic legislation.
With a bit of luck, the removal of the "EU bogeyman" will help us focus on what WE need to do......educate our workforce, make stuff the world wants....
Nah, folk will still blame the EU.
It has never been obvious to me how losing European markets helps gain any market elsewhere.
The main drive for Brexit has always been envy, and for those struggling in left behind areas to take their revenge on their fellow countrymen who have done well in recent years. No-one hates their fellow countryman more than a "patriotic" flag waving Brexiteer.
Brexit was and is a passive aggressive identity project founded on exceptionalism. This is how I have come to see and understand it. Lots of granular drivers in there, including those you refer to, but for me the overriding umbrella sentiment powering it through to its fruition on Christmas Eve is the feeling that we are not really European. We are England and we're English, both of which are something a little bit special to be. EU membership might be all very well for your run-of-the-mill continentals but not for this sceptered isle. This is a seductive notion. It's bullshit imo but I do recognize its appeal.
I am not sure that really answers it; many of the French feel the same about being French in my experience, ditto the Germans.
Patriotism. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
They do. As do all nations. So it's a matter of degree. Is our exceptionalism more strongly felt than theirs? Is it a rather exceptional brand of exceptionalism? I think it is. This is why they don't feel EU membership dampens their national identity and prospects whereas we do. We feel boxed in and disrespected. We feel we have enormous potential that EU membership is preventing us from unleashing. We feel SPECIAL. More so than others. A good reference for Brexit imo is the L'Oreal hair advert. Why are we Leaving? Because we're worth it.
Exceptionalism? Or just difference? Certainly our legal system is different, apart from possibly Scotland. Maybe we just have different viewpoints on economic issues, political freedom, individualism v corporatism, preference for the Anglophone world, etc. It doesn't make us better, just different.
"Once freed from the EU's shackles we can unleash our true potential."
This sentiment - at the heart of Johnson's GE19 pitch - implies difference AND superiority.
The EU are the Supremes in our mind's eye and we are Diana Ross.
Why does it imply superiority?
The EU's sclerosis shackles all European countries not just us. Though it shackles France and Germany less probably since that axis has a bigger influence on decision making.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
The problem is the travel. You actually have to get to an airport, get in a plane, get in a taxi, etc.
You don't magically get from Barnes to a ski slope in Verbier. There is the bit in between.
That's true if you go anywhere. It's not just skiing. I'd rather be in a plane with hepa filtered air than on the London tube. I haven't been on the tube since March and don't intend to until I've had my jabs.
But I have two ski trips planned and paid for in March and April after my jabs.
Not true if you stay at home, which you somehow think is less safe than going on a skiing trip.
Depends what you do at home . I try to get out in the fresh air as much as I can.
At age 77, I definitely intend to avoid catching this damn thing and I take all precautions and follow all rules. Nevertheless, if I've had the jab and it's open and within the rules I'll go skiing next Spring.
It's the spluttering indignation that amuses me. Skiing - wankers.
I think the indignation is not only limited to skiers.
Stupid and selfish behaviour is quite common. Perhaps a quarter of the population, including a fair number of Leavers enjoying exercise free winter sun.
Of course, you are right that irresponsible behaviour is not confined to the skiers, though the latter have been very conspicuous in their bad behaviour.
Given your earlier comments on the Daily Markle, I was a bit disappointed to find you linking to it for "evidence". 😀The video has faces blocked out, but it does look like a young person's party -- and what are we always told about age and Remain/Leave?
For the avoidance of doubt, anyone flouting regulations (Leaver or Remainer) should be fined heavily.
We know the addresses of the skiers in Verbier from their hotel bookings. They can be followed up & fined & told to quarantine in the UK. Henceforth, they are confined to their mansions in the LibDem strongholds in Twickenham & Barnes for a few weeks.
And as a man of science, I note that you haven't commented on Wera and her support for the 5G conspiracy whack-jobs?
The video was released by Leicestershire police. The party on King St was in a private Student Halls, favoured by DeMontfort students, I believe. They were probably too young to vote in 2016.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I do think it is dreadful that the EU treats its own parliament so shabbily by endorsing the deal without them even having a say. Thank heavens things are done differently in the UK.
A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. LOL.
We can only assume Cyclefree et al are too upset and angry to comment............
Afternoon. I drop by, only to find that sadly the pair of you have made asses of yourselves. This is provisional application only on the EU side. In theory at least, the European Parliament still has the power to vote the deal down and it will be examining it in some detail early next year.
Meanwhile, Westminster is rubberstamping the deal as a pig in a poke in a day. Not one MP will have read the deal through. Not one MP will understand what they are approving.
Neither approach is an advertisement for democratic process but at least the European Parliament is getting to look at the matter properly at some point.
British politics is turning into autocracy punctuated by political assassinations, and is looking very sickly indeed.
Whilst I actually agree that we should give Parliament time for proper assessment and debate and also that they should have the final - informed - say, I cannot help but remember that arch Europhile Ken Clarke boasted that he passed the Maastricht Treaty without even having bothered to read it.
That Ken Clarke quote is one of those quotes shamelessly taken out of context.
He was Education Secretary and Home Secretary when the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated and largely passed in the Commons. (He became Chancellor in late May 1993 and the Treaty passed in the House a few weeks later.)
So he only ever read the executive summaries rather than the full treaty as it was a matter for the Foreign Office.
He was backing up the point Margaret Thatcher later made at the Scott inquiry, it was impossible for a PM (and cabinet minister) to read every report and treaty sent to them.
Immaterial and your attempted defence is shameful. He voted on a treaty in Parliament as an MP and then proudly proclaimed he had done so without ever having even read it. Given how important these treaties are to British law, boasting you have not read it is the same as saying you simply don't care about who runs the country. Which in the case of Clarke of course was and is true.
But every single mp in the House is being made to vote, tomorrow, on a treaty they have not read (because it's impossible in the time allowed), so what is your point?
In fairness, and again, as a Remainer, there is a reason why traditionally MPs did not vote on such things. They are complicated, badly written (much of this will refer to subsections of other treaties without quoting them directly) and often involve messy compromises.
Meanwhile, many MPs, and this may sound terse, are simply too dim to understand anything more complicated than a race card at Ascot. Does anyone think Duncan Smith, Francois, Baker, Gibb, Corbyn, Burgon, Lavery, Donaldson and Moran will actually be able to go through this and assimilate it even if they were given five years? No. They will vote on soundbites, gut feel and their views on the government.
And that is why difficult things like international treaties were traditionally part of the Royal Prerogative, so lawyers dealt with them and could walk the usually comparatively bright people who rose to the top of politics through the minutiae.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
'Fraid so. At least you won't catch it from us.
No evidence the jab significantly reduces transmission.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Apply Bayes.
Bayes doesn't begin to be relevant. Be a selfish arse if you like, but stop trying to be clever about it.
Bayes is relevant. There is currently very little evidence about transmission after the jab. But there is a prior. If the vaccine stimulates the T-Cells and generates antibodies to the virus, sufficient to stop symptoms it is likely to reduce or eliminate viral load and transmission by asymptotics. There isn't evidence for that yet, and certainly no evidence against it. As evidence accumulates, and it will quickly, the prior will be updated.
If there is "very little evidence about transmission", then the posterior will be the same as the prior.
You will get out of Bayes Theorem exactly what you put in. The posterior distribution is the prior (which is flat as there is no evidence).
So, IshmaelZ is correct. If there is no evidence, then Bayes Theorem "doesn't begin to be relevant".
In my opinion, frontline workers (doctors, nurses, teachers, delivery staff, bus drivers) should be at the front of the vaccine queue. Nor selfish geriatrics.
As far as I'm aware, at least as far as my revision notes go, "Legal Aid" is only really now available in criminal proceedings and again in only limited means tested circumstances.
I'd be interested in knowing what they propose to further cut.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I always wonder how these people are connecting to the Internet, because the radiation they oppose is already in their home I suspect
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Yes, once again Tory "patriots" show no respect for British values and traditions, such as fair access to the law. They care more about statues than our real heritage.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
That's good to know. Thank you. This is how one dispels the potential myths. By open exchange. I'll use your info in future if this comes up.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
In the Red Wall I expect they talk of nothing else....
That doesn't mean it's not important to the British economy as a whole.
We've already established that those who live in Essex know very little about the Nissan factory, for example. It's still important to the British economy though.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Vaccine rollout will be the big story of 2021. Unfortunately (predictions follow) - it is not going to go smoothly.
The target of getting 25m at risk population by April will be missed. The logistical challenges are considerable and this govt's delivery record questionable. Vaccine will end up being wasted. It will be hard to identify the right people. There will be another IT debacle.
But most importantly - the manufacturers will not make the promised orders at the promised time - they are already missing them. We will see political pressure to help certain countries first regardless of existing orders.
Lockdown 3 will be lifted too early and as a result we will have Lockdown 4. Calls to vaccinate health workers earlier will intensify. Sadly as many people will die of COVID in 2021 in the UK as in 2020.
The bright news is that the vaccine will work and life will return to normality by next Winter. The economy will come roaring back once the virus is beaten.
In domestic politics, Boris Johnson will come under pressure from the ERG to seize the opportunities of Brexit, such as they are. To head off criticism, he will reshuffle his cabinet and make Priti Patel chancellor.
Relations with the EU will, after an initial honeymoon period, deteriorate as both sides claim the other is not respecting the deal. Both sides will make legal threats. To increase the UK's leverage, Boris Johnson will aggressively pursue a US trade deal, exacerbating relations with Europe.
Brexit will however increasingly come to be accepted by the majority. Starmer will pick a fight with Tony Blair/Alastair Campbell and demote anyone suggesting the UK should rejoin.
Overall 2021 will not be the tonic of a year people are hoping for. The struggle against the virus will consume most of it.
You're a bundle of cheer!
One thing - I really don't understand your prediction on COVID deaths if you also think the vaccine will be effective. It will take a serious change in the nature of the virus for this to happen given the demographics of who it kills. Vaccine delays may impact how soon we can start opening up and get back to normal. It's going to have to start killing under 70s in significant numbers for it to beat 2020 on deaths isn't it?
Think it depends how long the vaccine will take to roll out. Plus remember vaccinated people will still die from COVID and most people still haven't got the disease yet.
I think this Winter will be really bad. More people in hospital with COVID now than at start of March lockdown + a more virulent strain + we aren't yet in national lockdown.
We have better treatments but I think likely 2nd wave will be worse.
I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic, but think that you are closer to the truth than the Daily Express, "back to normal by Feb" headlines.
Then there is the massive legacy to deal with. Lots of disability alongside all the deaths. The massive waiting lists and backlogs of other diseases*, the closed businesses that will never re-open, reduced tax receipts for both business and personal tax, and masses and masses of government debt. The big cloud may be that perhaps the virus ain't done with mutating just yet.
* 70% fewer diagnoses of diabetes type 2 this year for example.
Normal is never coming back, at least not for me. For example, my firm has got out of its London leases retain one building. We’re all working at home 3/5 from next year. We’re not alone. That’s a lot of sandwiches not bought.
Retail likewise needs to up its online offer or go to the wall. Apart from food 95% of my spend has been online and almost exclusively with free delivery or free pick up.
The move online is now unstoppable. A few challenges though: 1. How to operate a pick model. Supermarkets take orders online and then pay someone to walk round the shop picking orders. People then complain about cross-offs and substitutes as "I ordered a week ago" - the picker can only pick what is there the same as if you went round the store in person. Or you could shut the store and operate as a warehouse but the same problem is there.
Alternately run centralised warehouses and have local pick points, which is how the likes of Currys are operating in a "closed shop but you can collect" environment. In effect the retail estates of so many of these chains isn't just worthless, it actively costs them money.
2. Online loses money. Until the start of the pandemic each online shop cost the retailer between £5 and £10. The more they do online the more money it costs them - and there's only so many efficiencies the extra volume can unlock. You could try and charge people the actual delivery cost and they would refuse it. This is a big problem for anyone who isn't Amazon - they can afford to make a huge loss delivering things as the rest of their empire is profitable.
3.Strategically the move online absolutely fucks our economy. We are a service led shopping economy built on moving people to places to work and shop and consume. If they don't need to travel as much to work then less need to spend £lots on twatty coffee in expensive offices and shopping. How do we employ all the people who used to service our "needs" when we long since decided to sell off our capacity to actually make things?
1 - Do they? Is "pick in shop" still a thing? Perhaps for short delay Click'n'Collect?
Ocado services Morrisons and M&S.
And I can recall Tesco switching from a "pick in shop" model used in the early days to give a rapid startup to central warehouses. Quite some time ago.
3 - Not convinced. AFAICS we are the most developed E-Commerce economy in Europe. Town centres etc will change of course.
Taking these point by point 1. Almost ALL online groceries are pick in shop. Ocado doesn't count as it isn't a retailer. Tesco, Sainsbury's and IIRC Asda all have a handful of "dark stores" in London used for online. Retailers have designated "pick" stores for a specific delivery area where all orders get picked - if you are in one of these stores you will see their pick teams pushing plastic crates around and computer terminals literally picking orders to go onto the delivery vans.
You have got the wrong end of the stick regarding Morrisons. Ocado carry a range of Morrisons products allowing Morrisons to deliver online orders in the parts of the country where their store reach is poor. If you see a Morrisons van doing a delivery its been picked in a Morrisons store
3. We are very innovate at e-commerce. But the point is that a shitload of jobs are going to go and be lost permanently and not be replaced by e-commerce. People need cash to buy the thing online and that means a job.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Think the unthinkable!
I am hanging on for Tier 9, where every house has to have a moat filled with famished piranhas surrounding it. School will still be compulsory though for @ydoethur 🙄
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Come to Labour, we need your mind
I can't vote Labour either, I'm a fiscal conservative and unabashed free marketeer.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
'Fraid so. At least you won't catch it from us.
No evidence the jab significantly reduces transmission.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Apply Bayes.
Bayes doesn't begin to be relevant. Be a selfish arse if you like, but stop trying to be clever about it.
Bayes is relevant. There is currently very little evidence about transmission after the jab. But there is a prior. If the vaccine stimulates the T-Cells and generates antibodies to the virus, sufficient to stop symptoms it is likely to reduce or eliminate viral load and transmission by asymptotics. There isn't evidence for that yet, and certainly no evidence against it. As evidence accumulates, and it will quickly, the prior will be updated.
If there is "very little evidence about transmission", then the posterior will be the same as the prior.
You will get out of Bayes Theorem exactly what you put in. The posterior distribution is the prior (which is flat as there is no evidence).
So, IshmaelZ is correct. If there is no evidence, then Bayes Theorem "doesn't begin to be relevant".
In my opinion, frontline workers (doctors, nurses, teachers, delivery staff, bus drivers) should be at the front of the vaccine queue. Nor selfish geriatrics.
The prior is not necessarily based on evidence. It can be based on science or reasoning before any evidence becomes available. It isn't flat. There is no evidence for Russell's flying teapot but that doesn't mean the chance is 50/50.
If I am shown a six sided dice and asked what are the chances it will come up with a six, I will reply 1/6 without any evidence and bet on that basis. If, after a few dozen throws a six doesn't appear I will start to speculate that the dice is loaded and start to adjust the probabilities in line with the evidence using Bayes Law.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
What is Tier 4+++ or Tier 5 anyway? I would suggest a proper lockdown, except that I can;t see how they would enforce it and besides which we are still happy to allow flights to come in from other hotspots without even a temperature check. Is that going to change?
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Come to Labour, we need your mind
I can't vote Labour either, I'm a fiscal conservative and unabashed free marketeer.
I'm pro free market as a social democrat!
I understand what you're getting at, still I always respect your impartiality.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Correct, the UK fishing industry will regain some catch through this Deal from EU boats, the financial services sector however got no guaranteed access to the EU market.
The main loser from this Deal is the City of London not fishermen, though it is big enough to survive and much of its market is now outside the EU anyway
What I don't understand HYUFD is is why you in your forest and your extensive experience of the fishing industry know more about the reality of their situation than the fishermen do. Hasn't anyone told the guys on the boats, in the processing and handling industries etc etc that whatever they know its wrong and they should speak to you instead to understand the facts?
So far its fishing that has been first in line for the Tory patronising lecture. Other industries keep popping on with "hang on, wtf!" comments as the detailed impacts on them become clear, and I am sure that HYUFD et al will be here to tell them with all of their real world knowledge why they are wrong about their own industry.
The fishing industry was in the CFP so were banned by the EU from catching large quantities of fish from UK waters, they will now be able to catch more of their own fish from UK waters.
Now Boris could have gone for No Deal so the fishing industry could have got 100% of the catch from their fishing waters but that would have meant you whinging even more because of the damage to the rest of the economy.
You cannot be both anti No Deal Brexit and pro Farage and No Deal and reclaiming all our waters at the same time, tough!!
It is the FISHING INDUSTRY that is "whinging". With sneering Tories like you telling them to stfu. Please keep it up - will be a fabulous weapon in the coming war of Brexit succession.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Come to Labour, we need your mind
I can't vote Labour either, I'm a fiscal conservative and unabashed free marketeer.
We will have to wait a while for a Conservative Party that supports sound government finances and reduced trade barriers. It is not just the European issue that keeps me from voting Conservative.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
What is Tier 4+++ or Tier 5 anyway? I would suggest a proper lockdown, except that I can;t see how they would enforce it and besides which we are still happy to allow flights to come in from other hotspots without even a temperature check. Is that going to change?
Well obvious ones would be schools closed, places of worship closed, many current outdoor exemptions like market stalls, golf and other sports facilities all shuttered.
Really extreme would be a French style curfew and only allowed to.leave home with your completed form with one of bascially a handful of reasons.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Vaccine rollout will be the big story of 2021. Unfortunately (predictions follow) - it is not going to go smoothly.
The target of getting 25m at risk population by April will be missed. The logistical challenges are considerable and this govt's delivery record questionable. Vaccine will end up being wasted. It will be hard to identify the right people. There will be another IT debacle.
But most importantly - the manufacturers will not make the promised orders at the promised time - they are already missing them. We will see political pressure to help certain countries first regardless of existing orders.
Lockdown 3 will be lifted too early and as a result we will have Lockdown 4. Calls to vaccinate health workers earlier will intensify. Sadly as many people will die of COVID in 2021 in the UK as in 2020.
The bright news is that the vaccine will work and life will return to normality by next Winter. The economy will come roaring back once the virus is beaten.
In domestic politics, Boris Johnson will come under pressure from the ERG to seize the opportunities of Brexit, such as they are. To head off criticism, he will reshuffle his cabinet and make Priti Patel chancellor.
Relations with the EU will, after an initial honeymoon period, deteriorate as both sides claim the other is not respecting the deal. Both sides will make legal threats. To increase the UK's leverage, Boris Johnson will aggressively pursue a US trade deal, exacerbating relations with Europe.
Brexit will however increasingly come to be accepted by the majority. Starmer will pick a fight with Tony Blair/Alastair Campbell and demote anyone suggesting the UK should rejoin.
Overall 2021 will not be the tonic of a year people are hoping for. The struggle against the virus will consume most of it.
You're a bundle of cheer!
One thing - I really don't understand your prediction on COVID deaths if you also think the vaccine will be effective. It will take a serious change in the nature of the virus for this to happen given the demographics of who it kills. Vaccine delays may impact how soon we can start opening up and get back to normal. It's going to have to start killing under 70s in significant numbers for it to beat 2020 on deaths isn't it?
Think it depends how long the vaccine will take to roll out. Plus remember vaccinated people will still die from COVID and most people still haven't got the disease yet.
I think this Winter will be really bad. More people in hospital with COVID now than at start of March lockdown + a more virulent strain + we aren't yet in national lockdown.
We have better treatments but I think likely 2nd wave will be worse.
I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic, but think that you are closer to the truth than the Daily Express, "back to normal by Feb" headlines.
Then there is the massive legacy to deal with. Lots of disability alongside all the deaths. The massive waiting lists and backlogs of other diseases*, the closed businesses that will never re-open, reduced tax receipts for both business and personal tax, and masses and masses of government debt. The big cloud may be that perhaps the virus ain't done with mutating just yet.
* 70% fewer diagnoses of diabetes type 2 this year for example.
Normal is never coming back, at least not for me. For example, my firm has got out of its London leases retain one building. We’re all working at home 3/5 from next year. We’re not alone. That’s a lot of sandwiches not bought.
Retail likewise needs to up its online offer or go to the wall. Apart from food 95% of my spend has been online and almost exclusively with free delivery or free pick up.
The move online is now unstoppable. A few challenges though: 1. How to operate a pick model. Supermarkets take orders online and then pay someone to walk round the shop picking orders. People then complain about cross-offs and substitutes as "I ordered a week ago" - the picker can only pick what is there the same as if you went round the store in person. Or you could shut the store and operate as a warehouse but the same problem is there.
Alternately run centralised warehouses and have local pick points, which is how the likes of Currys are operating in a "closed shop but you can collect" environment. In effect the retail estates of so many of these chains isn't just worthless, it actively costs them money.
2. Online loses money. Until the start of the pandemic each online shop cost the retailer between £5 and £10. The more they do online the more money it costs them - and there's only so many efficiencies the extra volume can unlock. You could try and charge people the actual delivery cost and they would refuse it. This is a big problem for anyone who isn't Amazon - they can afford to make a huge loss delivering things as the rest of their empire is profitable.
3.Strategically the move online absolutely fucks our economy. We are a service led shopping economy built on moving people to places to work and shop and consume. If they don't need to travel as much to work then less need to spend £lots on twatty coffee in expensive offices and shopping. How do we employ all the people who used to service our "needs" when we long since decided to sell off our capacity to actually make things?
1 - Do they? Is "pick in shop" still a thing? Perhaps for short delay Click'n'Collect?
Ocado services Morrisons and M&S.
And I can recall Tesco switching from a "pick in shop" model used in the early days to give a rapid startup to central warehouses. Quite some time ago.
3 - Not convinced. AFAICS we are the most developed E-Commerce economy in Europe. Town centres etc will change of course.
Taking these point by point 1. Almost ALL online groceries are pick in shop. Ocado doesn't count as it isn't a retailer. Tesco, Sainsbury's and IIRC Asda all have a handful of "dark stores" in London used for online. Retailers have designated "pick" stores for a specific delivery area where all orders get picked - if you are in one of these stores you will see their pick teams pushing plastic crates around and computer terminals literally picking orders to go onto the delivery vans.
You have got the wrong end of the stick regarding Morrisons. Ocado carry a range of Morrisons products allowing Morrisons to deliver online orders in the parts of the country where their store reach is poor. If you see a Morrisons van doing a delivery its been picked in a Morrisons store
3. We are very innovate at e-commerce. But the point is that a shitload of jobs are going to go and be lost permanently and not be replaced by e-commerce. People need cash to buy the thing online and that means a job.
Re 1: Yes, I was in Sainbury's at 8:30 this morning (arrgh) and was, I think, the only member of the public in there to begin with. Lots of Sainsbury's staff doing shopping to order though.
Get used to it. One of many budgets that are going to be have to be reviewed in the next couple of years
What changes do you propose?
I have no idea, but one thing I do know isthe government will not recover a GBP400bn deficit merely by raising taxes. Ain;t gonna happen.
No-one is talking about the 'structural' deficit. The economy recovers and the deficit may largely disappear.
More astonishing complacency.
The people foursquare behind the forced obliteration of businesses now expect those businesses to just reopen and carry us all off to prosperity. Whatever the risks. With no future protections from arbitrary lockdown should SAGE decide something else threatens us. Or decide that he NHS, for whatever reason, needs protecting.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
In my opinion, frontline workers (doctors, nurses, teachers, delivery staff, bus drivers) should be at the front of the vaccine queue. Nor selfish geriatrics.
It is strange how little debate there has been around this. As I understand it - there is no prioritization at all for non-health frontline workers.
Edit to add - I wonder whether any politician will suggest prioritizing men over women!
In my opinion, frontline workers (doctors, nurses, teachers, delivery staff, bus drivers) should be at the front of the vaccine queue. Nor selfish geriatrics.
It is strange how little debate there has been around this. As I understand it - there is no prioritization at all for non-health frontline workers.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Correct, the UK fishing industry will regain some catch through this Deal from EU boats, the financial services sector however got no guaranteed access to the EU market.
The main loser from this Deal is the City of London not fishermen, though it is big enough to survive and much of its market is now outside the EU anyway
Ummm...what about the City of Edinburgh, previously Europe’s third or fourth largest financial centre, depending on how you measure it?
A very good question, given the mood music amongst the hitherto pro-Union Edinburgh professional classes.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Another way of looking at it, is that if 5G radio was ionising radiation then so would be all of the frequencies above it. Photon energy is proportional to frequency. So for one example, a torch would be a deadly weapon. Has anyone told the Lib Dems that torches are deadly weapons? When are the Lib Dems going to do something about the dangers of torches?
In the Red Wall I expect they talk of nothing else....
Nice one. Point well made. But I am tiring of this notion that what "Red Wallers" think and feel has some sort of extra special importance. Fashion is a big and lucrative industry. Just because cloth caps rarely feature on the runway doesn't make it less so.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Come to Labour, we need your mind
I can't vote Labour either, I'm a fiscal conservative and unabashed free marketeer.
Well on those two criteria alone, that puts Johnson's Conservatives at the very bottom of your list of parties, to whom you could lend your vote.
First half of 2020 is going to be full of scenes of jabbed up pensioners jetting off everywhere (With a smattering of nurses) whilst the rest of us are still trying to swerve the virus.
'Fraid so. At least you won't catch it from us.
No evidence the jab significantly reduces transmission.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Apply Bayes.
Bayes doesn't begin to be relevant. Be a selfish arse if you like, but stop trying to be clever about it.
Bayes is relevant. There is currently very little evidence about transmission after the jab. But there is a prior. If the vaccine stimulates the T-Cells and generates antibodies to the virus, sufficient to stop symptoms it is likely to reduce or eliminate viral load and transmission by asymptotics. There isn't evidence for that yet, and certainly no evidence against it. As evidence accumulates, and it will quickly, the prior will be updated.
If there is "very little evidence about transmission", then the posterior will be the same as the prior.
You will get out of Bayes Theorem exactly what you put in. The posterior distribution is the prior (which is flat as there is no evidence).
So, IshmaelZ is correct. If there is no evidence, then Bayes Theorem "doesn't begin to be relevant".
In my opinion, frontline workers (doctors, nurses, teachers, delivery staff, bus drivers) should be at the front of the vaccine queue. Nor selfish geriatrics.
The prior is not necessarily based on evidence. It can be based on science or reasoning before any evidence becomes available. It isn't flat. There is no evidence for Russell's flying teapot but that doesn't mean the chance is 50/50.
If I am shown a six sided dice and asked what are the chances it will come up with a six, I will reply 1/6 without any evidence and bet on that basis. If, after a few dozen throws a six doesn't appear I will start to speculate that the dice is loaded and start to adjust the probabilities in line with the evidence using Bayes Law.
Sure, you can choose what you want for the prior. (Though in a case like this, an uninformative prior is recommended).
If the likelihood contains no information (as is the case here), the posterior is the prior.
When the posterior as returned as the prior, the correct inference is that the data are not informing the posterior. You conclude you have no information on which to make a judgement call.
If, at some point in the future, we have a likelihood then Bayes Theorem may become relevant. Not until then.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
I mean, seriously?
Anyone would think you were upset your football team couldn't beat a middling side from the Birmingham area who will be playing Championship football this time next year.
Drawing attention to the shortcomings of the deal, Lisa Nandy says 'That is the choice of the UK Government' 'That was the choice of the Opposition' is what Johnson will respond whenever Labour highlights the disadvantages of the deal (over the next weeks and months and years), . By voting for the deal, Labour is providing Johnson with new opportunities for mocking them.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Come to Labour, we need your mind
I can't vote Labour either, I'm a fiscal conservative and unabashed free marketeer.
Well on those two criteria alone, that puts Johnson's Conservatives at the very bottom of your list of parties, to whom you could lend your vote.
Indeed, and I was a Tory activist for twenty two years.
I still cannot process the party is cheering that they've just undone one of Mrs Thatcher's finest achievements, the one that made trading across borders easily.
But hey ho, the modern day Tory party seems intent on delivering large parts of Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto.
Drawing attention to the shortcomings of the deal, Lisa Nandy says 'That is the choice of the UK Government' 'That was the choice of the Opposition' is what Johnson will respond whenever Labour highlights the disadvantages of the deal (over the next weeks and months and years), . By voting for the deal, Labour is providing Johnson with new opportunities for mocking them.
Not at all.
Johnson can't mock the deal it is his and his alone.
There is nothing hypocritical in Labour saying the deal is better than nothing but they would want to build on it.
It is taking back control to do so. No government is bound by its predecessor.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
I mean, seriously?
Anyone would think you were upset your football team couldn't beat a middling side from the Birmingham area who will be playing Championship football this time next year.
5G conspiracy theorists are people who in my opinion are on a par with antivaxxers and people who put pineapple on pizza.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
That's just Wera Hobhouse. Who is nuts.
"Just" their Justice spokesperson who is nuts?
Better than the actual Home Secretary. Or the actual Attourney General. etc etc
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Another way of looking at it, is that if 5G radio was ionising radiation then so would be all of the frequencies above it. Photon energy is proportional to frequency. So for one example, a torch would be a deadly weapon. Has anyone told the Lib Dems that torches are deadly weapons? When are the Lib Dems going to do something about the dangers of torches?
I think it's more a case of Hobhouse having crossed the line from taking the concerns of her constituents seriously to pandering to the irrational fears of a subset thereof. Sometimes the customer isn't right, even in politics!
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
It's not skiing people are against. It's the fact that there is a certain section of skiiers even on here that seem to think its perfectly ok to go on foreign skiing trips during a global pandemic when travel isn't in the least advisable.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Come to Labour, we need your mind
I can't vote Labour either, I'm a fiscal conservative and unabashed free marketeer.
Well on those two criteria alone, that puts Johnson's Conservatives at the very bottom of your list of parties, to whom you could lend your vote.
Indeed, and I was a Tory activist for twenty two years.
I still cannot process the party is cheering that they've just undone one of Mrs Thatcher's finest achievements, the one that made trading across borders easily.
But hey ho, the modern day Tory party seems intent on delivering large parts of Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto.
I would respond, but any criticism aimed at the ludicrous act of self-harm that we have just inflicted upon ourselves, will be shot down in flames by Thommo, so what's the point?
OT, I have to say that I will not believe that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved until I have seen it, despite all the reports around the world that it is about to be approved. There were many delays before the UK EU deal was announced as being agreed. There could also be delays before this vaccine is declared to have been approved if it is approved. I think that there has been a leak from inside the regulator and may be the vaccine is about to be approved or not, but hopefully the announcement will be this week.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
Wow - the beam is focused on you rather than the inverse square law. It only mentions potential harm from heat but not from ionising radiation.
There is no potential harm from ionising radiation, the frequencies used are several orders of magnitude too low to do that. I would be like trying to break a window by throwing a feather at it, it just won't work. You need frequencies around 1,000 THz and above to ionise. Even the most advanced 5G mmWave will only go up to a few hundred GHz.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
I want the Lib Dems to become a proscribed organisation as they've fallen down the 5G conspiracy theory bullshit rabbit hole.
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
Come to Labour, we need your mind
I can't vote Labour either, I'm a fiscal conservative and unabashed free marketeer.
Well on those two criteria alone, that puts Johnson's Conservatives at the very bottom of your list of parties, to whom you could lend your vote.
Indeed, and I was a Tory activist for twenty two years.
I still cannot process the party is cheering that they've just undone one of Mrs Thatcher's finest achievements, the one that made trading across borders easily.
But hey ho, the modern day Tory party seems intent on delivering large parts of Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto.
There is still time to leave NATO. Why should we be pushed around by Brussels?
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
It's not skiing people are against. It's the fact that there is a certain section of skiiers even on here that seem to think its perfectly ok to go on foreign skiing trips during a global pandemic when travel isn't in the least advisable.
I ski, a lot. I just have no plans to do so this season (or rather a positive plan not to do so). Selfish wankers are the enemy, not skiers.
It is nailed on we are getting Tier 4++++ it is just when. I wonder if we get Oxford vaccine announcement tomorrow, we will get it then i.e. its the Calvary is on the way, but we need you to lockdown for another 2 months.
Time to deploy the army and keep people locked in their houses.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Apparently Stoke currently just like Switzerland....
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
Comments
Austerity 2.0 is going to be austerity by stealth
Bored sums it up best, but I am reading Hastings on WW2 (All Hell Let Loose and telling myself things could be worse. How about you?
The EU's sclerosis shackles all European countries not just us. Though it shackles France and Germany less probably since that axis has a bigger influence on decision making.
Internment for all skiers or anyone who has been on a skiing holiday in the last twenty years and anyone who has a skiing holiday booked.
These skiers will be interned in Stoke, it is the only way they will learn.
Anyone who thinks 5G radio can ionise things ought to do the work to demonstrate how and then wait to collect their inevitable Nobel prize.
Piers Morgan
Meanwhile, many MPs, and this may sound terse, are simply too dim to understand anything more complicated than a race card at Ascot. Does anyone think Duncan Smith, Francois, Baker, Gibb, Corbyn, Burgon, Lavery, Donaldson and Moran will actually be able to go through this and assimilate it even if they were given five years? No. They will vote on soundbites, gut feel and their views on the government.
And that is why difficult things like international treaties were traditionally part of the Royal Prerogative, so lawyers dealt with them and could walk the usually comparatively bright people who rose to the top of politics through the minutiae.
You will get out of Bayes Theorem exactly what you put in. The posterior distribution is the prior (which is flat as there is no evidence).
So, IshmaelZ is correct. If there is no evidence, then Bayes Theorem "doesn't begin to be relevant".
In my opinion, frontline workers (doctors, nurses, teachers, delivery staff, bus drivers) should be at the front of the vaccine queue. Nor selfish geriatrics.
I'd be interested in knowing what they propose to further cut.
https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/live-stoke-trent-snow-warning-4835815
No fecking way I'm tactically voting for the Lib Dems in future elections.
This is how one dispels the potential myths. By open exchange.
I'll use your info in future if this comes up.
We've already established that those who live in Essex know very little about the Nissan factory, for example. It's still important to the British economy though.
The real fun will begin tomorrow when it freezes hard.
1. Almost ALL online groceries are pick in shop. Ocado doesn't count as it isn't a retailer. Tesco, Sainsbury's and IIRC Asda all have a handful of "dark stores" in London used for online. Retailers have designated "pick" stores for a specific delivery area where all orders get picked - if you are in one of these stores you will see their pick teams pushing plastic crates around and computer terminals literally picking orders to go onto the delivery vans.
You have got the wrong end of the stick regarding Morrisons. Ocado carry a range of Morrisons products allowing Morrisons to deliver online orders in the parts of the country where their store reach is poor. If you see a Morrisons van doing a delivery its been picked in a Morrisons store
3. We are very innovate at e-commerce. But the point is that a shitload of jobs are going to go and be lost permanently and not be replaced by e-commerce. People need cash to buy the thing online and that means a job.
https://twitter.com/Arjumwajid/status/1334307269530497025
Speaking purely for myself, I find freezing temperatures tend to make it less hard.
Have you been watching kinky stuff on Pornhub again? Perhaps a Pfizer Vaccine clip?
Though some of our Leavers seem to think so!
If I am shown a six sided dice and asked what are the chances it will come up with a six, I will reply 1/6 without any evidence and bet on that basis. If, after a few dozen throws a six doesn't appear I will start to speculate that the dice is loaded and start to adjust the probabilities in line with the evidence using Bayes Law.
I understand what you're getting at, still I always respect your impartiality.
Really extreme would be a French style curfew and only allowed to.leave home with your completed form with one of bascially a handful of reasons.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
The people foursquare behind the forced obliteration of businesses now expect those businesses to just reopen and carry us all off to prosperity. Whatever the risks. With no future protections from arbitrary lockdown should SAGE decide something else threatens us. Or decide that he NHS, for whatever reason, needs protecting.
Things are just going to open up after that?
As I understand it - there is no prioritization at all for non-health frontline workers.
Edit to add - I wonder whether any politician will suggest prioritizing men over women!
Got the same present* as last year but not complaining.
*BJ, without the indefinite article.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2008/jul/12/englandvsouthafrica2008.englandcricketteam
If the likelihood contains no information (as is the case here), the posterior is the prior.
When the posterior as returned as the prior, the correct inference is that the data are not informing the posterior. You conclude you have no information on which to make a judgement call.
If, at some point in the future, we have a likelihood then Bayes Theorem may become relevant. Not until then.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/wcm/content/story/138997.html
Anyone would think you were upset your football team couldn't beat a middling side from the Birmingham area who will be playing Championship football this time next year.
'That was the choice of the Opposition' is what Johnson will respond whenever Labour highlights the disadvantages of the deal (over the next weeks and months and years), .
By voting for the deal, Labour is providing Johnson with new opportunities for mocking them.
I still cannot process the party is cheering that they've just undone one of Mrs Thatcher's finest achievements, the one that made trading across borders easily.
But hey ho, the modern day Tory party seems intent on delivering large parts of Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto.
Johnson can't mock the deal it is his and his alone.
There is nothing hypocritical in Labour saying the deal is better than nothing but they would want to build on it.
It is taking back control to do so. No government is bound by its predecessor.
He said ‘not yet,’ not ‘Nortje.’
https://twitter.com/gorbalsgoebbels/status/1343549630362112001?s=20
This is quite a collapse.