When I was at university I'd say students were split between Labour and the Liberal Democrats with a small minority (c.25%) Tory. The Greens were proper hippie/swampy types, and few in number.
The Lib Dems soaked up a lot of the New Labour zupport after Iraq and peaked at GE2010.
Nowadays, I imagine students are overwhelmingly Labour but increasingly Green, where disillusioned Corbynites can quickly switch en masse with social media and well organised grassroots campaigns.
Bristol West is fascinating. By GE2024 it's possible that every single mainstream UK party will have held the seat (with slightly different boundaries) in a GE over a 35 year period, except UKIP.
What Labour have done well recently is to choose suitable candidates in seats where the Greens might challenge, to attract voters who would be tempted to vote Green.
So I reckon they'll probably hold Bristol West easily.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
I know quite a few people from my peer group who have moved to the Tyne Valley to start families, etc, bringing their filthy millennial woke with them. Could explain it a little.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
I know quite a few people from my peer group who have moved to the Tyne Valley to start families, etc, bringing their filthy millennial woke with them. Could explain it a little.
Delighted to have the same opinion as Gallowgate on this one.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
But Blyth Valley also has increasingly more of the same university, hospital, and civil servant types. Cramlington is basically a commuter town for Newcastle made up of housing built within the last 30 years. Of course it isn't quite as affluent as the Hexham constituency.
Apparently in 2 cases of Brazil Bum COVID that got in, the individuals had a negative COVID test (or at least presented evidence to say they did) on arrival and did everything by the book.
How many University-dominated seats remain in Tory hands?
Probably very, very few (Broxtowe?), but they are ones I might expect the Tories to lose next time.
Broxtowe has two wards - Beeston N and S - dominated by university staff (not many students) and Nottingham commuters, and they are very safe Labour, and left Labour at that (Beeston Sainsbury used to stock more Morning Stars than Daily Expresses), but it also has a huge hinterland of retirement territory and small towns and villages.
It was very safe Tory (with a 29% margin in 1987). I took it in 1997 on a 13% swing, lost it in 2010 with a margin of 0.7% and it remains highly marginal. But the reverse of Guildford applies - there are plenty of LibDem voters who vote Labour tactically at GEs. I don't think the university factor is that significant - rather, it reflects the general shift to Labour in many middle-class areas compared with the 1980s, and in that way it is the mirror of the red wall phenomenon.
Wales's First Minister Mark Drakeford told the meeting he had "worries" about the prime minister's suggestion that international travel could return in May.
“I would build the walls higher, for now, against the risk that we would bring into this country the variants that could be brewing in any part of the world, and could then put at risk all the careful work we have done to try and keep Wales safe," he said.
---
Cooper said something similar yesterday.
Interesting position for Labour, because if they follow this through logically that means they are calling for no foreign holidays in the summer, which won't be popular (but IMO is the right decision).
That's a very strange article with a lot of shit in it that's just clearly made up.
The Attack class uses the AN/BYG-1 combat control system like the Collins and LA boats and they confidently assert that it can't be made to work in a Shortfin Barracuda. How the fuck would they know?
The RAN will be fucked if this deal falls apart and they could be out of the crewed submersible game for good.
There remain quite a few Conservative university constitutencies but they are Conservative despite, rather than because, of the university presence.
Guildford, Runnymede & Weighbridge, Welywn Hatfield, Reading East, Colchester come to mind. Cirencester is probably the only one where the university votes in line with the rest.
Point of order - Reading East is Labour-held. Captured in 2017 on a 10% swing, and held in 2019 with a furtther two-party swing (Lab slightly down, Tories down more).
In Guildford, the LibDems have successfully cornered much of the potential Labour vote on the usual tactical basis. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the County elections - Labour is said to be working hard there this time.
When I was at university I'd say students were split between Labour and the Liberal Democrats with a small minority (c.25%) Tory. The Greens were proper hippie/swampy types, and few in number.
The Lib Dems soaked up a lot of the New Labour zupport after Iraq and peaked at GE2010.
Nowadays, I imagine students are overwhelmingly Labour but increasingly Green, where disillusioned Corbynites can quickly switch en masse with social media and well organised grassroots campaigns.
Bristol West is fascinating. By GE2024 it's possible that every single mainstream UK party will have held the seat (with slightly different boundaries) in a GE over a 35 year period, except UKIP.
What Labour have done well recently is to choose suitable candidates in seats where the Greens might challenge, to attract voters who would be tempted to vote Green.
So I reckon they'll probably hold Bristol West easily.
It's more likely Labour hold it than lose it, but the Greens came close in GE2015 and the subsequent two elections were held with Corbyn in charge - whom Thangam Debbonaire was never convinced by, and that in itself a crime to many.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
I'd put the Conservatives' sharp decline in Enfield down to the sharp decline in owner occupation, in both North and Southgate. Conversely, in a lot of Red Wall seats, homes are very affordable.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
Hexham was also the only North East seat the Tories held even in 1997
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
But Blyth Valley also has increasingly more of the same university, hospital, and civil servant types. Cramlington is basically a commuter town for Newcastle made up of housing built within the last 30 years. Of course it isn't quite as affluent as the Hexham constituency.
Maybe the answer is they are both becoming more mixed.
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
I don't think it's that. I think that the organs of state doing the recording don't particularly like the Government. They have no interest in a national PR exercise - the NHS has always (in recent times anyway) presented itself as in crisis, as that's how it gets more money.
No that would only be the case if the problems were exaggerated wildly here. They're not really. It's pretty accurate.
The problem is wildly underestimated in most of the world. That's the difference.
We've had anecdotal evidence on PB alone of over-reporting as Covid. Now it's a national story. I am sure there has been some underreporting elsewhere. The degree to which both these have happened is very difficult to ascertain.
Actually it is very possible to ascertain. Contrast the reported Covid deaths with the actual excess deaths to get a reported to actual death ratio. Reported is known and apart from countries that aren't reporting their actual deaths, the actual excess is known too.
By 22/01/21 the UK had 112,760 reported deaths versus 106,110 actual excess deaths meaning that we were reporting 1.06 deaths for every excess deaths. Remarkably close to the actual figure, pretty accurate and not significant over-reporting.
By 30/11/20 Italy had 54,380 reported deaths versus 92,730 actual excess deaths meaning they were reporting 0.59 deaths for every excess death - an incredible amount of under reporting.
Ah, yes, that must be the reason. The government hates children. Not that the government has decided that the risks of opening up outweigh the risks of writing off yet another term. Not that the government has decided that the evidence on school spreading is equivocal at best, whereas the evidence of the lifelong harm caused by missed schooling is clear. Not that the economic impact of parents having to teach and do a full time job is unsustainable. It's because the government hates children.
You sound every bit as deranged as the socialist workers.
Ah, yes, that must be the reason. The government hates children. Not that the government has decided that the risks of opening up outweigh the risks of writing off yet another term. Not that the government has decided that the evidence on school spreading is equivocal at best, whereas the evidence of the lifelong harm caused by missed schooling is clear. Not that the economic impact of parents having to teach and do a full time job is unsustainable. It's because the government hates children.
You sound every bit as deranged as the socialist workers.
Remember when the government opened up the schools for one day in January despite all the evidence pointing out they shouldn't?
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
Hexham was also the only North East seat the Tories held even in 1997
That doesn't mean anything for the future. Times change.
However I'm not suggesting Labour are going to win Hexham anytime soon.
I make it that if we hit 4 million per week for the next ten weeks, then we just need an increase to 5 million per week for three weeks after that to hit all adults by the end of MAY.
Have I made an arithmetic error? (Week ending 28th of Feb is estimated; the following four weeks are adjusted to get it to end up marrying up 1st doses for 12 weeks previously with 2nd doses given during the week. Constant 4 million total doses assumed for w/e 7 March to w/e 9 May; 5 million per week after that. Approximately 52 million adults to receive vaccinations.)
Ah, yes, that must be the reason. The government hates children. Not that the government has decided that the risks of opening up outweigh the risks of writing off yet another term. Not that the government has decided that the evidence on school spreading is equivocal at best, whereas the evidence of the lifelong harm caused by missed schooling is clear. Not that the economic impact of parents having to teach and do a full time job is unsustainable. It's because the government hates children.
You sound every bit as deranged as the socialist workers.
Remember when the government opened up the schools for one day in January despite all the evidence pointing out they shouldn't?
They have no credibility on this.
The situation now is nothing like it was 2 months ago.
Ah, yes, that must be the reason. The government hates children. Not that the government has decided that the risks of opening up outweigh the risks of writing off yet another term. Not that the government has decided that the evidence on school spreading is equivocal at best, whereas the evidence of the lifelong harm caused by missed schooling is clear. Not that the economic impact of parents having to teach and do a full time job is unsustainable. It's because the government hates children.
You sound every bit as deranged as the socialist workers.
Remember when the government opened up the schools for one day in January despite all the evidence pointing out they shouldn't?
They have no credibility on this.
The situation now is nothing like it was 2 months ago.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Held by the Conservatives right through the Blair years. I believe at one time the only blue seat in the NE.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
I'd put the Conservatives' sharp decline in Enfield down to the sharp decline in owner occupation, in both North and Southgate. Conversely, in a lot of Red Wall seats, homes are very affordable.
So what happens if there is a London property shakedown after Covid, and more owner-occupiers get back in?
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
I'd put the Conservatives' sharp decline in Enfield down to the sharp decline in owner occupation, in both North and Southgate. Conversely, in a lot of Red Wall seats, homes are very affordable.
If we jump on the Spacs train then London might actually be fighting fit for the next few years. I'm not a huge fan of them but clearly that's where the market is going.
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
I don't think it's that. I think that the organs of state doing the recording don't particularly like the Government. They have no interest in a national PR exercise - the NHS has always (in recent times anyway) presented itself as in crisis, as that's how it gets more money.
No that would only be the case if the problems were exaggerated wildly here. They're not really. It's pretty accurate.
The problem is wildly underestimated in most of the world. That's the difference.
We've had anecdotal evidence on PB alone of over-reporting as Covid. Now it's a national story. I am sure there has been some underreporting elsewhere. The degree to which both these have happened is very difficult to ascertain.
Actually it is very possible to ascertain. Contrast the reported Covid deaths with the actual excess deaths to get a reported to actual death ratio. Reported is known and apart from countries that aren't reporting their actual deaths, the actual excess is known too.
By 22/01/21 the UK had 112,760 reported deaths versus 106,110 actual excess deaths meaning that we were reporting 1.06 deaths for every excess deaths. Remarkably close to the actual figure, pretty accurate and not significant over-reporting.
By 30/11/20 Italy had 54,380 reported deaths versus 92,730 actual excess deaths meaning they were reporting 0.59 deaths for every excess death - an incredible amount of under reporting.
Your gullibility index to Conservative/New Populist Party Central Office spinning is high today even by your standards! Or are you applying for a job with them? If PB is your CV I am sure they will be impressed at your dedication and blind loyalty to The Fat Clown.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
Hexham was also the only North East seat the Tories held even in 1997
That doesn't mean anything for the future. Times change.
However I'm not suggesting Labour are going to win Hexham anytime soon.
Me neither. Far from it. Especially since the boundary review, assuming there is still a Hexham, is most likely to add Morpeth to the seat.
Ah, yes, that must be the reason. The government hates children. Not that the government has decided that the risks of opening up outweigh the risks of writing off yet another term. Not that the government has decided that the evidence on school spreading is equivocal at best, whereas the evidence of the lifelong harm caused by missed schooling is clear. Not that the economic impact of parents having to teach and do a full time job is unsustainable. It's because the government hates children.
You sound every bit as deranged as the socialist workers.
Remember when the government opened up the schools for one day in January despite all the evidence pointing out they shouldn't?
They have no credibility on this.
The situation now is nothing like it was 2 months ago.
But Gavin Williamson is still in charge.
I really hope he gets sacked in the reshuffle. He's such a disaster.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Held by the Conservatives right through the Blair years. I believe at one time the only blue seat in the NE.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
Hexham and area has loads of graduate types who work in Newcastle, which is full of hospitals, universities and civil servants. It still votes pretty solid Tory though but it doesn't have as much of the northern sorts who have gone to the Tories in Cumbria and Co Durham.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
Hexham was also the only North East seat the Tories held even in 1997
That doesn't mean anything for the future. Times change.
However I'm not suggesting Labour are going to win Hexham anytime soon.
Me neither. Far from it. Especially since the boundary review, assuming there is still a Hexham, is most likely to add Morpeth to the seat.
Morpeth is becoming increasingly metropolitan too! Although more in a Lib Dem way, but seeing as they are now irrelevant...
Apologies if this has been discussed but as my friend who works for a job centre plus has pointed out, in the last year the middle classes have seen the benefits system up close and personal and they now think the benefits are too low.
One of the most common messages/phone calls she's had in the last year?
My Universal Credit is £410 a month, I thought it was £410 a week, how am I meant to live on £410 a month?
Apologies if this has been discussed but as my friend who works for a job centre plus has pointed out, in the last year the middle classes have seen the benefits system up close and personal and they now think the benefits are too low.
One of the most common messages/phone calls she's had in the last year?
My Universal Credit is £410 a month, I thought it was £410 a week, how am I meant to live on £410 a month?
This is why we need a contributory system based on wage percentages, time limits and ceilings. A universal system will always not be enough for most people that have earned a salary and aren't eligible for significant other benefits.
Your gullibility index to Conservative/New Populist Party Central Office spinning is high today even by your standards! Or are you applying for a job with them? If PB is your CV I am sure they will be impressed at your dedication and blind loyalty to The Fat Clown.
What's your explanation for some of the very high excess death totals that closely track the COVID-19 deaths in many other countries? I'd love to hear something plausible other than COVID-19 under-reporting.
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
I don't think it's that. I think that the organs of state doing the recording don't particularly like the Government. They have no interest in a national PR exercise - the NHS has always (in recent times anyway) presented itself as in crisis, as that's how it gets more money.
No that would only be the case if the problems were exaggerated wildly here. They're not really. It's pretty accurate.
The problem is wildly underestimated in most of the world. That's the difference.
We've had anecdotal evidence on PB alone of over-reporting as Covid. Now it's a national story. I am sure there has been some underreporting elsewhere. The degree to which both these have happened is very difficult to ascertain.
Actually it is very possible to ascertain. Contrast the reported Covid deaths with the actual excess deaths to get a reported to actual death ratio. Reported is known and apart from countries that aren't reporting their actual deaths, the actual excess is known too.
By 22/01/21 the UK had 112,760 reported deaths versus 106,110 actual excess deaths meaning that we were reporting 1.06 deaths for every excess deaths. Remarkably close to the actual figure, pretty accurate and not significant over-reporting.
By 30/11/20 Italy had 54,380 reported deaths versus 92,730 actual excess deaths meaning they were reporting 0.59 deaths for every excess death - an incredible amount of under reporting.
Your gullibility index to Conservative/New Populist Party Central Office spinning is high today even by your standards! Or are you applying for a job with them? If PB is your CV I am sure they will be impressed at your dedication and blind loyalty to The Fat Clown.
You're only lashing out with ad hominems as you know I'm 100% right and you haven't got a leg to stand on to say otherwise.
Quite sad really. When others make a good point I say "that's a good point" not lash out at them. You should try it some time. All this rage you hold inside you can't be good for you.
The only French man who seems obsessed by sticking to the absolute letter of the laws / rules...the ref from the rugby on Saturday....the rest, rules are optional.
Apologies if this has been discussed but as my friend who works for a job centre plus has pointed out, in the last year the middle classes have seen the benefits system up close and personal and they now think the benefits are too low.
One of the most common messages/phone calls she's had in the last year?
My Universal Credit is £410 a month, I thought it was £410 a week, how am I meant to live on £410 a month?
Little surprise after years of austerity, hence Boris is basically a social democrat plus Brexit at the moment.
Though it must be pointed out the UK is one of the few nations along with France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Finland and Ireland which provides non contributory, non time limited unemployment benefits, so in that sense they should be grateful to live here
In the straw poll that demonstrated Trump's hold on the GOP, 21 percent said they’d vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and 4 percent said they’d go with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R)...
Tbf, Formby would be the most local beach for most people listed, perhaps even for some parts of Leeds, but, no, stay local doesn't mean inlanders having access to their nearest beach in my book.
The only French man who seems obsessed by sticking to the absolute letter of the laws / rules...the ref from the rugby on Saturday....the rest, rules are optional.
After his excellent work on Saturday, Drakeford has sent a couple of phials of Pfizer to Pascal Gaüzère
Apologies if this has been discussed but as my friend who works for a job centre plus has pointed out, in the last year the middle classes have seen the benefits system up close and personal and they now think the benefits are too low.
One of the most common messages/phone calls she's had in the last year?
My Universal Credit is £410 a month, I thought it was £410 a week, how am I meant to live on £410 a month?
I don't trust Nvidia as far as I couls throw them...not that I am biased because I am still waiting for a 3080Ti to come out and actually be available to purchase.
Another testament to the parlous state of journalism where writers (I hesitate to call them journalists) chase clicks rather than deliver sensible analysis.
This is the story of something desperately wrong in the State of Denmark - COVID deaths taking up to 9 months to be reported so that deaths from the first wave are being reported in the second wave, with the implication that this is distorting the data upon which policies are made.
Dig deeper, and you find that this pertains to a total of 64 (yes, 64, not 64k) of the total of 123,000 deaths, of 0.05% of deaths. And in a system that a company built for centralized reporting of deaths from across the UK in just 5 days.
Does not seem like some terrible failure to me, but rather quite an extraordinary success story.
The tag line is "Deaths are meant to be recorded with 24 hours. No one could tell us why some were taking up to nine months." Perhaps someone should have given the answer "Because we have more important other things to do in a pandemic than chase down a 0.05% error.
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
Chariots of Fire - When Abrahams wins gold and Sam is punching his hat from the hotel . Oliver - When Nancy is murdered Memphis Belle - when the plane lands after struggling (for some reason dodgy plane landings get me emotional - same with the film about the Hudson landing ) I Tonya - When Tonya Harding mother insists on the posh ice dance school taking her on as a four year old despite her having no money to pay for lessons - Great spirit
The way to the stars... has a tear jerker at the end..
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
I have a former colleague, just a few years younger than me, who would blub if you just said "Daddy, my daddy..." The single greatest moment of the joy of childhood reunion in cinema history?
Left field one here, but at the end of Stan and Ollie, when you learn that after Ollie's death Stan spent the next 7 years still writing scripts for the pair of them to perform. Pathos gets me every time.
And Field of Dreams. For guys, about saying "goodbye, I loved you" to your father. Rarely covered, but hellish powerful. Even with Kevin Costner. God knows how broken up I'd be if it was somebody sympathetic....
Had a friend who went on a blind date with a chap to see Gorillas in the Mist. By the end of the film, he had a hugely sodden shoulder she had sobbed into.
Several of us went to see The Piano when it came out. One our party ended the film inconsolable.
The last scene in "Now Voyager" when Paul Heinreid lights 2 cigarettes and asks Bette Davis "But will you be happy?" "Oh Jerry, why ask for the moon when we have the stars".
There is a film called Pan y Vin I saw as a child about a boy who loses his mother which had me weeping copiously throughout and for days after.
The Wizard of Oz by contrast had me shrieking in terror when they go into the forest, so much so that we had to leave the cinema. To this day I have never seen it the whole way through - and when my children saw it I had to leave the room as I could still remember the terror I felt.
I saw Shadowlands in the theatre with Nigel Hawthorne and that had me in tears too.
Jojo Rabbit, when Jojo ties his mother's shoelace.
I don't trust Nvidia as far as I couls throw them...not that I am biased because I am still waiting for a 3080Ti to come out and actually be available to purchase.
After a decade of not playing PC games due to lack of time caused by kids I built myself a new one in around October with one of the new AMD CPUs. I couldn't find any half-decent GPU without paying extortionate prices. As a result I bought a cheap 1030 GPU to tide me over thinking I'd be able to get one in a few months. Almost 6 months later it is still nigh on impossible to buy any half-decent GPU. However, I have been somewhat surprised by the 1030, I was able to play Assassins Creed Origins at 1080p in low detail settings. Other than textures being very blurry up close it does play not badly. Still hoping at some point in the next year to get a 3070 though!
Apparently in 2 cases of Brazil Bum COVID that got in, the individuals had a negative COVID test (or at least presented evidence to say they did) on arrival and did everything by the book.
Hence the quarantine period I think. Pretty powerful display of just why its important!
I don't think sending kids to school is 'hating children' is it? What would you prefer - endlessly keeping them home on the off chance that one of them might get a sniffle?
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
Chariots of Fire - When Abrahams wins gold and Sam is punching his hat from the hotel . Oliver - When Nancy is murdered Memphis Belle - when the plane lands after struggling (for some reason dodgy plane landings get me emotional - same with the film about the Hudson landing ) I Tonya - When Tonya Harding mother insists on the posh ice dance school taking her on as a four year old despite her having no money to pay for lessons - Great spirit
The way to the stars... has a tear jerker at the end..
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
I have a former colleague, just a few years younger than me, who would blub if you just said "Daddy, my daddy..." The single greatest moment of the joy of childhood reunion in cinema history?
Left field one here, but at the end of Stan and Ollie, when you learn that after Ollie's death Stan spent the next 7 years still writing scripts for the pair of them to perform. Pathos gets me every time.
And Field of Dreams. For guys, about saying "goodbye, I loved you" to your father. Rarely covered, but hellish powerful. Even with Kevin Costner. God knows how broken up I'd be if it was somebody sympathetic....
Had a friend who went on a blind date with a chap to see Gorillas in the Mist. By the end of the film, he had a hugely sodden shoulder she had sobbed into.
Several of us went to see The Piano when it came out. One our party ended the film inconsolable.
The last scene in "Now Voyager" when Paul Heinreid lights 2 cigarettes and asks Bette Davis "But will you be happy?" "Oh Jerry, why ask for the moon when we have the stars".
There is a film called Pan y Vin I saw as a child about a boy who loses his mother which had me weeping copiously throughout and for days after.
The Wizard of Oz by contrast had me shrieking in terror when they go into the forest, so much so that we had to leave the cinema. To this day I have never seen it the whole way through - and when my children saw it I had to leave the room as I could still remember the terror I felt.
I saw Shadowlands in the theatre with Nigel Hawthorne and that had me in tears too.
Jojo Rabbit, when Jojo ties his mother's shoelace.
Yes, a fine film which quite a few didn't appreciate.
Another film which gets me every time is the other Studio Ghibli masterpiece, Spirited Away. Possibly the best animated film I've seen.
Interesting article by Rajeev Syal in today's Guardian, under the heading 'Does Boris Johnson stir up team conflict to help make up his mind?"
A quote: 'Those who worked closely with him say Johnson encourages rows and tensions over policies as he considers all sides of the argument and figures out what he will do next.'
Where does one draw the line between stirring up conflict and enabling everyone to speak their views?
It's not a bad way to gather a lot of widely diverging input on a topic. That's one of the reasons I value this site so much. The vigorous debate airs aspects that would never occur to me, which is invaluable in helping me form my own views.
Good morning, everyone.
Completely agree .The worse thing in any management team is groupthink or waiting for the most senior person to say their view and then agree with them. It is one of Boris strong points that he does not want to be imposing his take on things all the time
I think in some institutions the rule is that the most junior of those involved should speak first in order to avoid that trap.
Many places try for that, informally, but it doesn't work and you end up with a lot of silence as no one speaks up, or some poor bugger feels forced to say something when they don't want to.
And that's because many places might say they don't want groupthink or to wait for the most senior person to state their view and others to agree, but employees can tell what kind of culture they have, no matter what they might be told. They can tell when ideas are actually wanted, and when existing ones are supposed to be reinforced.
I've seen plenty of managers get frustrated when they ask for views from those below and either no one dares to speak up, or they end up saying something not within the parameters management wanted.
The key seems to be to decide what sort of organisation you want to be. If it is going to be hierarchical and centralising, fine, have it be that way, but don't be that way and act like you care about employee empowerment or ideas. That just comes across as dishonest or schizophrenic.
I don't think sending kids to school is 'hating children' is it? What would you prefer - endlessly keeping them home on the off chance that one of them might get a sniffle?
Well the ones in South Gloucestershire don't appear to be a priority for the government.
But for the hard of understanding, children don't appear to get sick from Covid-19 but they have a tendency to spread it to their parents and carers, which is sub optimal for the kids.
I don't think Prince Philip is in very good condition....transferred to St Barts.
I do hope he makes it to the 10th of June this year (and beyond!)
He'd get a telegram from his wife on the 10th of June.
I believe members of the House of Lords get a personal call of congratulations from the Monarch. I'm sure she could run to that. For a Duke.
How many members of the House of Lords have made 100? I know several have got close - Baroness Trumpington died at 96, Lord Healey at 98, and Lord Carrington at 99. But I am unsure if the convention to which you refer has been tested all that often.
Ah, yes, that must be the reason. The government hates children. Not that the government has decided that the risks of opening up outweigh the risks of writing off yet another term. Not that the government has decided that the evidence on school spreading is equivocal at best, whereas the evidence of the lifelong harm caused by missed schooling is clear. Not that the economic impact of parents having to teach and do a full time job is unsustainable. It's because the government hates children.
You sound every bit as deranged as the socialist workers.
Remember when the government opened up the schools for one day in January despite all the evidence pointing out they shouldn't?
They have no credibility on this.
The situation now is nothing like it was 2 months ago.
But Gavin Williamson is still in charge.
I really hope he gets sacked in the reshuffle. He's such a disaster.
Some people are so useless you cannot wait until a postponed reshuffle to shift them, they cause too much damage in the meantime. He needs to go now.
I don't think sending kids to school is 'hating children' is it? What would you prefer - endlessly keeping them home on the off chance that one of them might get a sniffle?
Well the ones in South Gloucestershire don't appear to be a priority for the government.
But for the hard of understanding, children don't appear to get sick from Covid-19 but they have a tendency to spread it to their parents and carers, which is sub optimal for the kids.
But why does that mean the government 'hates children'? I'd get it if you thought it was a risk to the population of South Gloucs, but you didn't say that.
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
Chariots of Fire - When Abrahams wins gold and Sam is punching his hat from the hotel . Oliver - When Nancy is murdered Memphis Belle - when the plane lands after struggling (for some reason dodgy plane landings get me emotional - same with the film about the Hudson landing ) I Tonya - When Tonya Harding mother insists on the posh ice dance school taking her on as a four year old despite her having no money to pay for lessons - Great spirit
The way to the stars... has a tear jerker at the end..
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
I have a former colleague, just a few years younger than me, who would blub if you just said "Daddy, my daddy..." The single greatest moment of the joy of childhood reunion in cinema history?
Left field one here, but at the end of Stan and Ollie, when you learn that after Ollie's death Stan spent the next 7 years still writing scripts for the pair of them to perform. Pathos gets me every time.
And Field of Dreams. For guys, about saying "goodbye, I loved you" to your father. Rarely covered, but hellish powerful. Even with Kevin Costner. God knows how broken up I'd be if it was somebody sympathetic....
Had a friend who went on a blind date with a chap to see Gorillas in the Mist. By the end of the film, he had a hugely sodden shoulder she had sobbed into.
Several of us went to see The Piano when it came out. One our party ended the film inconsolable.
The last scene in "Now Voyager" when Paul Heinreid lights 2 cigarettes and asks Bette Davis "But will you be happy?" "Oh Jerry, why ask for the moon when we have the stars".
There is a film called Pan y Vin I saw as a child about a boy who loses his mother which had me weeping copiously throughout and for days after.
The Wizard of Oz by contrast had me shrieking in terror when they go into the forest, so much so that we had to leave the cinema. To this day I have never seen it the whole way through - and when my children saw it I had to leave the room as I could still remember the terror I felt.
I saw Shadowlands in the theatre with Nigel Hawthorne and that had me in tears too.
Jojo Rabbit, when Jojo ties his mother's shoelace.
Helped by that rarest of things - an actually decent child actor.
I don't think sending kids to school is 'hating children' is it? What would you prefer - endlessly keeping them home on the off chance that one of them might get a sniffle?
Well the ones in South Gloucestershire don't appear to be a priority for the government.
But for the hard of understanding, children don't appear to get sick from Covid-19 but they have a tendency to spread it to their parents and carers, which is sub optimal for the kids.
And if their parents or carers are very vulnerable they'll have been vaccinated by the middle of February.
Community transmission is nothing like what it was a couple of months ago and there's many vaccinated.
It is time to get kids back to school. As simple as that.
The only French man who seems obsessed by sticking to the absolute letter of the laws / rules...the ref from the rugby on Saturday....the rest, rules are optional.
After his excellent work on Saturday, Drakeford has sent a couple of phials of Pfizer to Pascal Gaüzère
OT Shaun Bailey's London Mayor leaflet has arrived.
Made to look like a magazine titled London Life, with eight A5-sized colour, glossy pages. The cover photo has Shaun's multi-racial family on its way to the park. The centre spread is a two-page interview by Karren Brady. Page 2 has a photo of Shaun with Rishi; page 3 his experience working for David Cameron; oh, and some geezer called Boris commends him in a paragraph on page 7. Page 6 is given over to Ellie Bailey, who unsurprisingly backs her husband.
The back page is given over to "9 questions with Shaun Bailey" where he lays out his political philosophy and policies. Only joking! He likes Greggs doughnuts, Flash Gordon and can do a standing backflip. Vote Shaun!!
To be fair, there is some policy chat with Karren Brady. There's at least one typo and no URL that I can see, thought there is a QR code and various social media handles.
In the straw poll that demonstrated Trump's hold on the GOP, 21 percent said they’d vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and 4 percent said they’d go with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R)...
Isn't this largely because a huge proportion of the attendees were from, er, Florida?
I don't think sending kids to school is 'hating children' is it? What would you prefer - endlessly keeping them home on the off chance that one of them might get a sniffle?
Well the ones in South Gloucestershire don't appear to be a priority for the government.
But for the hard of understanding, children don't appear to get sick from Covid-19 but they have a tendency to spread it to their parents and carers, which is sub optimal for the kids.
But why does that mean the government 'hates children'? I'd get it if you thought it was a risk to the population of South Gloucs, but you didn't say that.
It was shorthand.
As I said upthread, Gavin Williamson made this decision, just like the decision to open the schools for just one day in January despite the overwhelming evidence, there's an unfortunate pattern with this government when it comes to schools.
In the straw poll that demonstrated Trump's hold on the GOP, 21 percent said they’d vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and 4 percent said they’d go with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R)...
Isn't this largely because a huge proportion of the attendees were from, er, Florida?
After a decade of not playing PC games due to lack of time caused by kids I built myself a new one in around October with one of the new AMD CPUs. I couldn't find any half-decent GPU without paying extortionate prices. As a result I bought a cheap 1030 GPU to tide me over thinking I'd be able to get one in a few months. Almost 6 months later it is still nigh on impossible to buy any half-decent GPU. However, I have been somewhat surprised by the 1030, I was able to play Assassins Creed Origins at 1080p in low detail settings. Other than textures being very blurry up close it does play not badly. Still hoping at some point in the next year to get a 3070 though!
For anyone who's desperate for a graphics card to tide them over, one good course is to hit up EBay for a used Radeon 290 or 290X. They're no longer suitable for mining so can be regularly had for under £100. Performance is not far below a GeForce 1060, well above a 1030 or 1050, and enough to run most modern stuff acceptably at 1440p.
The reference 290/290X models with the single red blower fan can be a bit loud, but the 2 or 3 fan models are usually fine.
I don't think sending kids to school is 'hating children' is it? What would you prefer - endlessly keeping them home on the off chance that one of them might get a sniffle?
Well the ones in South Gloucestershire don't appear to be a priority for the government.
But for the hard of understanding, children don't appear to get sick from Covid-19 but they have a tendency to spread it to their parents and carers, which is sub optimal for the kids.
But why does that mean the government 'hates children'? I'd get it if you thought it was a risk to the population of South Gloucs, but you didn't say that.
It was shorthand.
As I said upthread, Gavin Williamson made this decision, just like the decision to open the schools for just one day in January despite the overwhelming evidence, there's an unfortunate pattern with this government when it comes to schools.
There isn't a single person I can see on this thread agreeing with you that schools in March should remain closed.
What "overwhelming evidence" is there now that they should be. The situation now is completely different?
Do you require a Paint By Numbers to explain the difference between now and January?
That makes it two in a row - Chirac had 2 years in chokey, suspended.
I seem to recall one of the south american nations having their last 4 presidents being convicted or impeached for corruption. Either bad luck or a bad system, although is it better if they do end up getting convicted then it not being noted at all?
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
Chariots of Fire - When Abrahams wins gold and Sam is punching his hat from the hotel . Oliver - When Nancy is murdered Memphis Belle - when the plane lands after struggling (for some reason dodgy plane landings get me emotional - same with the film about the Hudson landing ) I Tonya - When Tonya Harding mother insists on the posh ice dance school taking her on as a four year old despite her having no money to pay for lessons - Great spirit
The way to the stars... has a tear jerker at the end..
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
I have a former colleague, just a few years younger than me, who would blub if you just said "Daddy, my daddy..." The single greatest moment of the joy of childhood reunion in cinema history?
Left field one here, but at the end of Stan and Ollie, when you learn that after Ollie's death Stan spent the next 7 years still writing scripts for the pair of them to perform. Pathos gets me every time.
And Field of Dreams. For guys, about saying "goodbye, I loved you" to your father. Rarely covered, but hellish powerful. Even with Kevin Costner. God knows how broken up I'd be if it was somebody sympathetic....
Had a friend who went on a blind date with a chap to see Gorillas in the Mist. By the end of the film, he had a hugely sodden shoulder she had sobbed into.
Several of us went to see The Piano when it came out. One our party ended the film inconsolable.
The last scene in "Now Voyager" when Paul Heinreid lights 2 cigarettes and asks Bette Davis "But will you be happy?" "Oh Jerry, why ask for the moon when we have the stars".
There is a film called Pan y Vin I saw as a child about a boy who loses his mother which had me weeping copiously throughout and for days after.
The Wizard of Oz by contrast had me shrieking in terror when they go into the forest, so much so that we had to leave the cinema. To this day I have never seen it the whole way through - and when my children saw it I had to leave the room as I could still remember the terror I felt.
I saw Shadowlands in the theatre with Nigel Hawthorne and that had me in tears too.
Jojo Rabbit, when Jojo ties his mother's shoelace.
Helped by that rarest of things - an actually decent child actor.
Less rare these days. Korean cinema and TV seem to produce them on a production line - it's more unusual to see child actors who aren't any good.
After a decade of not playing PC games due to lack of time caused by kids I built myself a new one in around October with one of the new AMD CPUs. I couldn't find any half-decent GPU without paying extortionate prices. As a result I bought a cheap 1030 GPU to tide me over thinking I'd be able to get one in a few months. Almost 6 months later it is still nigh on impossible to buy any half-decent GPU. However, I have been somewhat surprised by the 1030, I was able to play Assassins Creed Origins at 1080p in low detail settings. Other than textures being very blurry up close it does play not badly. Still hoping at some point in the next year to get a 3070 though!
For anyone who's desperate for a graphics card to tide them over, one good course is to hit up EBay for a used Radeon 290 or 290X. They're no longer suitable for mining so can be regularly had for under £100. Performance is not far below a GeForce 1060, well above a 1030 or 1050, and enough to run most modern stuff acceptably at 1440p.
The reference 290/290X models with the single red blower fan can be a bit loud, but the 2 or 3 fan models are usually fine.
On ebay, be wary of the fake ones though....that are so super old GPU that has had firmware hacked to make it read out that it is a much more recent model.
After a decade of not playing PC games due to lack of time caused by kids I built myself a new one in around October with one of the new AMD CPUs. I couldn't find any half-decent GPU without paying extortionate prices. As a result I bought a cheap 1030 GPU to tide me over thinking I'd be able to get one in a few months. Almost 6 months later it is still nigh on impossible to buy any half-decent GPU. However, I have been somewhat surprised by the 1030, I was able to play Assassins Creed Origins at 1080p in low detail settings. Other than textures being very blurry up close it does play not badly. Still hoping at some point in the next year to get a 3070 though!
Good news is retro style nostalgia games and pixel art is still very in, so there's plenty of really good games that play just fine as they look like crap anyway (comparively).
That makes it two in a row - Chirac had 2 years in chokey, suspended.
I seem to recall one of the south american nations having their last 4 presidents being convicted or impeached for corruption. Either bad luck or a bad system, although is it better if they do end up getting convicted then it not being noted at all?
Rousseff in Brazil was impeached and removed from office but not sentenced for a criminal offence
I don't think sending kids to school is 'hating children' is it? What would you prefer - endlessly keeping them home on the off chance that one of them might get a sniffle?
Well the ones in South Gloucestershire don't appear to be a priority for the government.
But for the hard of understanding, children don't appear to get sick from Covid-19 but they have a tendency to spread it to their parents and carers, which is sub optimal for the kids.
But why does that mean the government 'hates children'? I'd get it if you thought it was a risk to the population of South Gloucs, but you didn't say that.
It was shorthand.
As I said upthread, Gavin Williamson made this decision, just like the decision to open the schools for just one day in January despite the overwhelming evidence, there's an unfortunate pattern with this government when it comes to schools.
I take the opposite view - the government is far too ready to close schools, despite the clear evidence of the long-term harm it does them, especially the most disadvantaged. I expect it's because they hate children.
Or possibly it's because there are people in DfT and elsewhere in government trying to come to an overall view taking competing interests ad pressures into account who happen to have come to the opposite conclusion to me.
Comments
So I reckon they'll probably hold Bristol West easily.
In this extraordinary long switchover saga in which Enfield Southgate - Anthony Berry's old seat is Labour and Betty Boothroyd's old seat in West Bromwich is Tory I think Hexham will stay Tory. It is also a English/Scottish border seat, every one of which on both sides is Tory and very hostile to separatism.
It was very safe Tory (with a 29% margin in 1987). I took it in 1997 on a 13% swing, lost it in 2010 with a margin of 0.7% and it remains highly marginal. But the reverse of Guildford applies - there are plenty of LibDem voters who vote Labour tactically at GEs. I don't think the university factor is that significant - rather, it reflects the general shift to Labour in many middle-class areas compared with the 1980s, and in that way it is the mirror of the red wall phenomenon.
Orban had insisted on Friday: “If we didn’t have the Russian and Chinese vaccines, we would be in big trouble.”
https://www.ft.com/content/ddceba1c-a564-49b5-9748-b0b1cdc87d97
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1366367835669360640
“I would build the walls higher, for now, against the risk that we would bring into this country the variants that could be brewing in any part of the world, and could then put at risk all the careful work we have done to try and keep Wales safe," he said.
---
Cooper said something similar yesterday.
Interesting position for Labour, because if they follow this through logically that means they are calling for no foreign holidays in the summer, which won't be popular (but IMO is the right decision).
The Attack class uses the AN/BYG-1 combat control system like the Collins and LA boats and they confidently assert that it can't be made to work in a Shortfin Barracuda. How the fuck would they know?
The RAN will be fucked if this deal falls apart and they could be out of the crewed submersible game for good.
I think it could be close.
Also, look at Charles's face after his visit.
You don't need to read anything else.
By 22/01/21 the UK had 112,760 reported deaths versus 106,110 actual excess deaths meaning that we were reporting 1.06 deaths for every excess deaths. Remarkably close to the actual figure, pretty accurate and not significant over-reporting.
By 30/11/20 Italy had 54,380 reported deaths versus 92,730 actual excess deaths meaning they were reporting 0.59 deaths for every excess death - an incredible amount of under reporting.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
You sound every bit as deranged as the socialist workers.
Or are you just being hysterical again?
They have no credibility on this.
However I'm not suggesting Labour are going to win Hexham anytime soon.
Comical Dave says it will take until July.
So there.
TSE really has gone off the deep end with that one, I expect most households with rugrats agree with the government not him on this.
Kim Jong Il : It will be 911 times 2356.
Chris : My God, that's... I don't even know what that is!
Kim Jong Il : Nobody does!
"It's housing, stupid."
Especially since the boundary review, assuming there is still a Hexham, is most likely to add Morpeth to the seat.
He'd get a telegram from his wife on the 10th of June.
One of the most common messages/phone calls she's had in the last year?
My Universal Credit is £410 a month, I thought it was £410 a week, how am I meant to live on £410 a month?
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1366316749348626434
Quite sad really. When others make a good point I say "that's a good point" not lash out at them. You should try it some time. All this rage you hold inside you can't be good for you.
The only French man who seems obsessed by sticking to the absolute letter of the laws / rules...the ref from the rugby on Saturday....the rest, rules are optional.
Though it must be pointed out the UK is one of the few nations along with France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Finland and Ireland which provides non contributory, non time limited unemployment benefits, so in that sense they should be grateful to live here
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/540909-trump-wins-cpac-straw-poll-with-55-percent
...Former President Trump won the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) straw poll on Sunday, with 55 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him in a hypothetical 2024 primary.
In the straw poll that demonstrated Trump's hold on the GOP, 21 percent said they’d vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and 4 percent said they’d go with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R)...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-56236447
Tbf, Formby would be the most local beach for most people listed, perhaps even for some parts of Leeds, but, no, stay local doesn't mean inlanders having access to their nearest beach in my book.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2021/03/01/nvidia-resists-signing-pledge-arm-jobs-40bn-takeover/amp/
I don't trust Nvidia as far as I couls throw them...not that I am biased because I am still waiting for a 3080Ti to come out and actually be available to purchase.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/mystery-covid-deaths-delays-nhs-data_uk_6037fb5dc5b60f03d9b33261
This is the story of something desperately wrong in the State of Denmark - COVID deaths taking up to 9 months to be reported so that deaths from the first wave are being reported in the second wave, with the implication that this is distorting the data upon which policies are made.
Dig deeper, and you find that this pertains to a total of 64 (yes, 64, not 64k) of the total of 123,000 deaths, of 0.05% of deaths. And in a system that a company built for centralized reporting of deaths from across the UK in just 5 days.
Does not seem like some terrible failure to me, but rather quite an extraordinary success story.
The tag line is "Deaths are meant to be recorded with 24 hours. No one could tell us why some were taking up to nine months." Perhaps someone should have given the answer "Because we have more important other things to do in a pandemic than chase down a 0.05% error.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9312399/Guardian-columnist-Roy-Greenslade-resigns-City-University-post.html
That's 50% for No parties, 49% for Yes.
Exactly the same as recent indypolls.
https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1366376074750398464
Another film which gets me every time is the other Studio Ghibli masterpiece, Spirited Away. Possibly the best animated film I've seen.
And that's because many places might say they don't want groupthink or to wait for the most senior person to state their view and others to agree, but employees can tell what kind of culture they have, no matter what they might be told. They can tell when ideas are actually wanted, and when existing ones are supposed to be reinforced.
I've seen plenty of managers get frustrated when they ask for views from those below and either no one dares to speak up, or they end up saying something not within the parameters management wanted.
The key seems to be to decide what sort of organisation you want to be. If it is going to be hierarchical and centralising, fine, have it be that way, but don't be that way and act like you care about employee empowerment or ideas. That just comes across as dishonest or schizophrenic.
https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1366377315916251136?s=20
But for the hard of understanding, children don't appear to get sick from Covid-19 but they have a tendency to spread it to their parents and carers, which is sub optimal for the kids.
Though the corruption was as Paris Mayor.
Community transmission is nothing like what it was a couple of months ago and there's many vaccinated.
It is time to get kids back to school. As simple as that.
Made to look like a magazine titled London Life, with eight A5-sized colour, glossy pages. The cover photo has Shaun's multi-racial family on its way to the park. The centre spread is a two-page interview by Karren Brady. Page 2 has a photo of Shaun with Rishi; page 3 his experience working for David Cameron; oh, and some geezer called Boris commends him in a paragraph on page 7. Page 6 is given over to Ellie Bailey, who unsurprisingly backs her husband.
The back page is given over to "9 questions with Shaun Bailey" where he lays out his political philosophy and policies. Only joking! He likes Greggs doughnuts, Flash Gordon and can do a standing backflip. Vote Shaun!!
To be fair, there is some policy chat with Karren Brady. There's at least one typo and no URL that I can see, thought there is a QR code and various social media handles.
As I said upthread, Gavin Williamson made this decision, just like the decision to open the schools for just one day in January despite the overwhelming evidence, there's an unfortunate pattern with this government when it comes to schools.
The reference 290/290X models with the single red blower fan can be a bit loud, but the 2 or 3 fan models are usually fine.
What "overwhelming evidence" is there now that they should be. The situation now is completely different?
Do you require a Paint By Numbers to explain the difference between now and January?
Korean cinema and TV seem to produce them on a production line - it's more unusual to see child actors who aren't any good.
Or possibly it's because there are people in DfT and elsewhere in government trying to come to an overall view taking competing interests ad pressures into account who happen to have come to the opposite conclusion to me.