Hooray! The age threshold has been dropped to 50, so I've been able to book my vaccination appointments.
First shot on Monday then an 11 week gap.
It has given me a tingle inside.
That means under 50s will commence in around 10-14 days. I really am beginning to get the feeling that the government wants everyone done well before the end of May and all second doses done in time for the summer.
PHE doesn’t break down the age buckets below I think 65. Is there a way of figuring out how many under 50s have already been jabbed? It feels like every third person I speak to now below 50 has either already had the first dose or been booked for one.
My local GP is saying that every over 50 on their books should have either been jabbed or be booked in & if you’ve been missed out to call them straightaway.
So it certainly looks like all the most at-risk tranches have been or will have their first dose very soon.
I can tell you that is definitely not true of some parts of Scotland. We're weeks behind.
At least Nippy hasn't banned Astra-Zeneca in solidarity with friends in the EU. Small mercies.
She was never a cabinet minister, she got as far as Sol Gen, which isn't a cabinet job.
I mean if you're going to chastise others for deceit or ignorance.....
Edit - Upon checking, she was retained as Victims' Commissioner by Boris Johnson, so it might be fair to say this government.
I mean he could have replaced her.
Ah ok yes, ‘a government minister’
The broader point is if they have such a great case that the Conservatives are some kind of rapists friend, why the need for sly tricks that mislead? This government never appointed her, and she was a Labour Minister not just some independent QC.
It makes their main claim seem like it could be just semantics as well, which would be a shame if they really do have a great point.
If BoJo's government is successful, he wins anyway; there's no point tying to out BoJo BoJo.
If it fails (when it fails), the public are likely to want something very different to BoJo. In the same way that Thatcher was different to Callaghan, Blair to Major and Cameron to Brown.
I don't know when it will happen, but I am confident that the public mood at the end of the Johnson ministry will be ""I'm not going on a bear hunt again". Boring but fundamentally decent is the way to go.
She was never a cabinet minister, she got as far as Sol Gen, which isn't a cabinet job.
I mean if you're going to chastise others for deceit or ignorance.....
Edit - Upon checking, she was retained as Victims' Commissioner by Boris Johnson, so it might be fair to say this government.
I mean he could have replaced her.
Ah ok yes, ‘a government minister’
The broader point is if they have such a great case that the Conservatives are some kind of rapists friend, why the need for sly tricks that mislead? This government never appointed her, and she was a Labour Minister not just some independent QC.
It makes their main claim seem like it could be just semantics as well, which would be a shame if they really do have a great point.
Good to get the Labour POV anyway, thanks!
She was Labour's Northumbria PCC until she f*cked off half way through her term for a cushty Westminster job.
As far as Hartlepool is concerned the interesting politics of the May elections will be the wider picture of how all parties perform across Scotland, Wales and England.
It is a huge public opinion poll and as far as Starmer is concerned I do not see it being fatal for him, not least as there is nobody else who could do any better and he has nearly three years before a GE
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
If BoJo's government is successful, he wins anyway; there's no point tying to out BoJo BoJo.
If it fails (when it fails), the public are likely to want something very different to BoJo. In the same way that Thatcher was different to Callaghan, Blair to Major and Cameron to Brown.
I don't know when it will happen, but I am confident that the public mood at the end of the Johnson ministry will be ""I'm not going on a bear hunt again". Boring but fundamentally decent is the way to go.
Boring leaders can beat charismatic leaders if the incumbent is unpopular and there is a mood for change eg recently when Hollande beat Sarkozy or Biden beat Trump but there has to be a mood for change first
Gosh that latest clip of him is wooden isn’t it? I feel sorry for him now, he must have advisors telling him to show passion and he just can’t fake it. Sounds like a whinier version of Ed Miliband
Kinnock was known as a windbag but I loved this passion from him (from 2010). Why can’t Labour find someone who means it? Or at least sounds like they do
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
It depends when they were thinking it. Before February half term, I think it might have worked.
I have already set out why I believe the Tories can take the seat. That they have already taken the council thanks to the collapse of Labour shows the direction of travel in the town. Yes I know that the council is a Tory / Independents coalition. Thats what happens with "independents" on Teesside - they break apart the former Labour vote and back the Tories because eugh Labour.
Candidate selection will be crucial. If the Tories can find a local pick that would help. Labour aren't - its either a Paul Williams fix or la Pidcock gets onto the shortlist thanks to hard left elements on the NEC. Either way neither is local. And local is very much an issue in Hartlepool looking at the warring factions of Hartlepool Independent councillors they now have.
I do wonder if a Paul Williams parachuting might play to Labour's favour though. OK so it loses them any chance of winning the PCC, but he is a well respected doctor. Play the health card - "I've been battling to save people from Covid and the Tories are scared of a public enquiry because they know what it will find". Might work. The entire campaign will be posted leaflets written elsewhere because have I mentioned that Hartlepool CLP is bonkers?
Ultimately it comes down to this. Its Super Thursday so turnout will be high. Most people will vote Tory for Mayor. Many of them will vote for their local flavour of anti-Labour for council. If the Labour candidate for MP is Paul Williams they will vote for the Tory for PCC. To then "loyally" vote Labour for MP is a stretch - once people start voting against, they keep voting against. And it is "AGAINST" Labour and not "FOR" any other candidate. Labour has become toxic on Teesside in a way that I can scarcely believe.
That all makes sense - except for one thing: turnout is going to be very low, even lower than it would usually be for local council elections. Covid will see to that.
In which case even less chance of Labour winning. Those going out to vote will be voting for their none Labour councilor and a Tory mayor.
I agree - and they will tend to be older voters, too, which will only reinforce Labour's difficulties. It's going to be a very difficult night for Starmer. As ever, the Midlands will be where it is worse.
Does the labour candidate for Mayor really stand little chance ?
She seems quite hopeless but there is talk that local party bigwigs openly mock her and that makes me feel a little sorry for her.
I saw something she did on Twitter with Jet from Gladiators (it wasn’t a millennium barn dance in Yeovil aerodrome) which just seemed bizarre.
Jessie Joe Jacobs hasn't a prayer. She is largely shunned by local activists who have seen right through her - she has positioned herself as both the Progress candidate and the Momentum candidate. The latter saw her railroaded through selection with shenanigans from Unite to remove all opposition to her.
Now that she is the candidate her campaign is Look at Me! I am Jessie Joe Jacobs! You should vote for me because I am a Woman! Have seen a now pulped newspaper she was to put out where the front page was a huge photo of her with the headline "Will this be Britain's First Female Metro Mayor?" complete with sodding question mark on the end. The rest of it was endless photos of JJJJJ in almost identical poses in front of various landmarks and buildings complete with a wall of text.
In comparison, Tory Ben Houchen ran on two items - protect the Parmo, and save the Airport. He proceeded to nationalise Teesside Airport and has announced various exciting new flights most of which haven't yet flown and none of which will last as there is no business case for flights from Teesside which is why the airport failed in the first place.
He has also stuck himself into all kinds of projects that his role doesn't have a remit for - an almost constant stream of good news stories for jobs and industry. For example his party shut down Redcar Steelworks, he is now leading a project to clear the site and put high tech industry in there with half the jobs.
He will absolutely walk the election as he is one of very few politicians who overdelivers. His only pity is that Osborne imagined that the Tees Valley Mayor was the non-job it is and gave it a non-salary. His Spad gets £20k more than he does.
Sounds like you have a lot of respect for Houchen, especially for a Tory?
I wonder whether he'll be a future contender for Parliament and the Cabinet then? He's only 34.
Houchen is godawful. He pops up all over the place claiming credit for things he wasn't even involved in - and gets away with it because of the abject failure of Labour on Teesside to coordinate and communicate.
Hooray! The age threshold has been dropped to 50, so I've been able to book my vaccination appointments.
First shot on Monday then an 11 week gap.
It has given me a tingle inside.
That means under 50s will commence in around 10-14 days. I really am beginning to get the feeling that the government wants everyone done well before the end of May and all second doses done in time for the summer.
PHE doesn’t break down the age buckets below I think 65. Is there a way of figuring out how many under 50s have already been jabbed? It feels like every third person I speak to now below 50 has either already had the first dose or been booked for one.
My local GP is saying that every over 50 on their books should have either been jabbed or be booked in & if you’ve been missed out to call them straightaway.
So it certainly looks like all the most at-risk tranches have been or will have their first dose very soon.
TBH, the UK is probably at that point anyway, if the only criterion is preventing deaths. Consider this graph from the French data set;
That's the effect of the French vaccination programme, which can charitably be described as "meh". And if it takes a month for the vaccine effect to show up in the death data, there's more improvement to come- albeit with diminishing returns.
Covid deaths really are concentrated in the very old and residents of care homes. And, whilst I don't want to give the Gt Barrington/CRG crew any ideas, I'm surprised that they haven't made more noise about the fact that the most vulnerable pretty much are protected.
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
For some the time gaps between:
1) Its not here so there's no need to close the borders 2) Its here so there's no need to close the borders 3) Its under control so there's no need to control the borders 4) Its out of control again so there's no need to control the borders
Hooray! The age threshold has been dropped to 50, so I've been able to book my vaccination appointments.
First shot on Monday then an 11 week gap.
It has given me a tingle inside.
That means under 50s will commence in around 10-14 days. I really am beginning to get the feeling that the government wants everyone done well before the end of May and all second doses done in time for the summer.
PHE doesn’t break down the age buckets below I think 65. Is there a way of figuring out how many under 50s have already been jabbed? It feels like every third person I speak to now below 50 has either already had the first dose or been booked for one.
My local GP is saying that every over 50 on their books should have either been jabbed or be booked in & if you’ve been missed out to call them straightaway.
So it certainly looks like all the most at-risk tranches have been or will have their first dose very soon.
TBH, the UK is probably at that point anyway, if the only criterion is preventing deaths. Consider this graph from the French data set;
That's the effect of the French vaccination programme, which can charitably be described as "meh". And if it takes a month for the vaccine effect to show up in the death data, there's more improvement to come- albeit with diminishing returns.
Covid deaths really are concentrated in the very old and residents of care homes. And, whilst I don't want to give the Gt Barrington/CRG crew any ideas, I'm surprised that they haven't made more noise about the fact that the most vulnerable pretty much are protected.
A couple of our very own anti-lockdown types were on that one, just a couple of days ago...
I have already set out why I believe the Tories can take the seat. That they have already taken the council thanks to the collapse of Labour shows the direction of travel in the town. Yes I know that the council is a Tory / Independents coalition. Thats what happens with "independents" on Teesside - they break apart the former Labour vote and back the Tories because eugh Labour.
Candidate selection will be crucial. If the Tories can find a local pick that would help. Labour aren't - its either a Paul Williams fix or la Pidcock gets onto the shortlist thanks to hard left elements on the NEC. Either way neither is local. And local is very much an issue in Hartlepool looking at the warring factions of Hartlepool Independent councillors they now have.
I do wonder if a Paul Williams parachuting might play to Labour's favour though. OK so it loses them any chance of winning the PCC, but he is a well respected doctor. Play the health card - "I've been battling to save people from Covid and the Tories are scared of a public enquiry because they know what it will find". Might work. The entire campaign will be posted leaflets written elsewhere because have I mentioned that Hartlepool CLP is bonkers?
Ultimately it comes down to this. Its Super Thursday so turnout will be high. Most people will vote Tory for Mayor. Many of them will vote for their local flavour of anti-Labour for council. If the Labour candidate for MP is Paul Williams they will vote for the Tory for PCC. To then "loyally" vote Labour for MP is a stretch - once people start voting against, they keep voting against. And it is "AGAINST" Labour and not "FOR" any other candidate. Labour has become toxic on Teesside in a way that I can scarcely believe.
That all makes sense - except for one thing: turnout is going to be very low, even lower than it would usually be for local council elections. Covid will see to that.
In which case even less chance of Labour winning. Those going out to vote will be voting for their none Labour councilor and a Tory mayor.
I agree - and they will tend to be older voters, too, which will only reinforce Labour's difficulties. It's going to be a very difficult night for Starmer. As ever, the Midlands will be where it is worse.
Does the labour candidate for Mayor really stand little chance ?
She seems quite hopeless but there is talk that local party bigwigs openly mock her and that makes me feel a little sorry for her.
I saw something she did on Twitter with Jet from Gladiators (it wasn’t a millennium barn dance in Yeovil aerodrome) which just seemed bizarre.
Jessie Joe Jacobs hasn't a prayer. She is largely shunned by local activists who have seen right through her - she has positioned herself as both the Progress candidate and the Momentum candidate. The latter saw her railroaded through selection with shenanigans from Unite to remove all opposition to her.
Now that she is the candidate her campaign is Look at Me! I am Jessie Joe Jacobs! You should vote for me because I am a Woman! Have seen a now pulped newspaper she was to put out where the front page was a huge photo of her with the headline "Will this be Britain's First Female Metro Mayor?" complete with sodding question mark on the end. The rest of it was endless photos of JJJJJ in almost identical poses in front of various landmarks and buildings complete with a wall of text.
In comparison, Tory Ben Houchen ran on two items - protect the Parmo, and save the Airport. He proceeded to nationalise Teesside Airport and has announced various exciting new flights most of which haven't yet flown and none of which will last as there is no business case for flights from Teesside which is why the airport failed in the first place.
He has also stuck himself into all kinds of projects that his role doesn't have a remit for - an almost constant stream of good news stories for jobs and industry. For example his party shut down Redcar Steelworks, he is now leading a project to clear the site and put high tech industry in there with half the jobs.
He will absolutely walk the election as he is one of very few politicians who overdelivers. His only pity is that Osborne imagined that the Tees Valley Mayor was the non-job it is and gave it a non-salary. His Spad gets £20k more than he does.
Sounds like you have a lot of respect for Houchen, especially for a Tory?
I wonder whether he'll be a future contender for Parliament and the Cabinet then? He's only 34.
Houchen is godawful. He pops up all over the place claiming credit for things he wasn't even involved in - and gets away with it because of the abject failure of Labour on Teesside to coordinate and communicate.
Sounds like smart politics.
When things go wrong and the opposition is organised they are keen to sting the governing politicians with it even if they weren't involved.
Gosh that latest clip of him is wooden isn’t it? I feel sorry for him now, he must have advisors telling him to show passion and he just can’t fake it. Sounds like a whinier version of Ed Miliband
Kinnock was known as a windbag but I loved this passion from him (from 2010). Why can’t Labour find someone who means it? Or at least sounds like they do
Gosh that latest clip of him is wooden isn’t it? I feel sorry for him now, he must have advisors telling him to show passion and he just can’t fake it. Sounds like a whinier version of Ed Miliband
Kinnock was known as a windbag but I loved this passion from him (from 2010). Why can’t Labour find someone who means it? Or at least sounds like they do
Hooray! The age threshold has been dropped to 50, so I've been able to book my vaccination appointments.
First shot on Monday then an 11 week gap.
It has given me a tingle inside.
That means under 50s will commence in around 10-14 days. I really am beginning to get the feeling that the government wants everyone done well before the end of May and all second doses done in time for the summer.
PHE doesn’t break down the age buckets below I think 65. Is there a way of figuring out how many under 50s have already been jabbed? It feels like every third person I speak to now below 50 has either already had the first dose or been booked for one.
My local GP is saying that every over 50 on their books should have either been jabbed or be booked in & if you’ve been missed out to call them straightaway.
So it certainly looks like all the most at-risk tranches have been or will have their first dose very soon.
TBH, the UK is probably at that point anyway, if the only criterion is preventing deaths. Consider this graph from the French data set;
That's the effect of the French vaccination programme, which can charitably be described as "meh". And if it takes a month for the vaccine effect to show up in the death data, there's more improvement to come- albeit with diminishing returns.
Covid deaths really are concentrated in the very old and residents of care homes. And, whilst I don't want to give the Gt Barrington/CRG crew any ideas, I'm surprised that they haven't made more noise about the fact that the most vulnerable pretty much are protected.
Our ambition is for full devolution across England, building on the successful devolution of powers to city region mayors, Police and Crime Commissioners and others, so that every part of our country has the power to shape its own destiny. We will publish an English Devolution White Paper setting out our plans next year
Hmmm.
Indeed, that text wrapping is criminal.
English Devolution White sounds like a variety of pig or potato.
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
You can't just say "there we go". This was a massive, fundamental error. In February last year the virus was mainly in China and Italy. If we'd closed the borders it would have made it much more difficult for it to spread in the UK and we might have been able to track down the small number of cases that were already here. If Australia and New Zealand could see this, we should have been able to as well.
The NIP seems to attract a lot of anime fans and people with anthropomorphic animals as their avatars on Twitter, but I'm not sure their brand of Corbynite ultra-woke Remain politics is a winner in Hartlepool.
Everyone criticises Labour for taking their "heartlands" for granted however the same could very well happen to the Conservatives. All this attention on the "red wall" could very well lead, in the long run, to traditional Conservative seats thinking that the Party is now for urban town dwellers and not for them. Especially if Brexit ends up being a negative for agriculture etc.
Not something likely to happen in the near future but it's certainly a possibility in the long run. It's difficult juggling multiple competing priorities.
Absolutely. The LibDems will come back...
Because they forgot their coat on the way out?
The Tories have been losing their heartlands too. The suburban middle class have been drifting away from them for years. 40 years ago seats like Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Birmingham Edgbaston would have been safely in the blue column.
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
You can't just say "there we go". This was a massive, fundamental error. In February last year the virus was mainly in China and Italy. If we'd closed the borders it would have made it much more difficult for it to spread in the UK and we might have been able to track down the small number of cases that were already here. If Australia and New Zealand could see this, we should have been able to as well.
The time for closing the borders was in in the summer when domestic cases were low. Allowing the summer trips to Spain, in particular, was a big mistake.
The experts seem to have got it the wrong way round last February/March. They decided to lock down the domestic population while doing nothing about flights/ferries arriving here from all over the world. They should have stopped international travel first, and then considered whether we needed an internal lockdown, depending on how effective it was.
The experts seem to have got it the wrong way round last February/March. They decided to lock down the domestic population while doing nothing about flights/ferries arriving here from all over the world. They should have stopped international travel first, and then considered whether we needed an internal lockdown.
The issue with locking down international travel was how did everyone who was abroad get back home.
Everyone criticises Labour for taking their "heartlands" for granted however the same could very well happen to the Conservatives. All this attention on the "red wall" could very well lead, in the long run, to traditional Conservative seats thinking that the Party is now for urban town dwellers and not for them. Especially if Brexit ends up being a negative for agriculture etc.
Not something likely to happen in the near future but it's certainly a possibility in the long run. It's difficult juggling multiple competing priorities.
Absolutely. The LibDems will come back...
Because they forgot their coat on the way out?
The Tories have been losing their heartlands too. The suburban middle class have been drifting away from them for years. 40 years ago seats like Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Birmingham Edgbaston would have been safely in the blue column.
A point which has been disguised by them being in the ascendancy. Former heartlands further out such as Altrincham, Macclesfield, Wycombe, etc would be competitive on an even national vote share. Part of the ebb and flow.
I wonder if asymptomatic transmission has been vastly overstated. I watched on of those antivax, antilockdown videos (I know, I know) and apparently one of the original superspreader ladies was on antiflu medication ! Also the news to me, though perhaps intuitively obvious large proportion of spread via Scottish hospitals - you can't move easily from there if someone is coughing up their lungs... This doesn't change my mask calculations for the duration of the pandemic/till I'm day + 21 vaxxed, mind.
As far as Hartlepool is concerned the interesting politics of the May elections will be the wider picture of how all parties perform across Scotland, Wales and England.
It is a huge public opinion poll and as far as Starmer is concerned I do not see it being fatal for him, not least as there is nobody else who could do any better and he has nearly three years before a GE
Barely a year into the job, Labour must have been hoping for a better |Starmer narrative than a by-election loss "not being fatal for him".
He is seriously duff choice for the task facing his Party. But, hey.....we ain't complaining from a party perspective. But for the wider benefit of democracy, he isn't exactly holding the Government's feet to the fire, is he?
I have already set out why I believe the Tories can take the seat. That they have already taken the council thanks to the collapse of Labour shows the direction of travel in the town. Yes I know that the council is a Tory / Independents coalition. Thats what happens with "independents" on Teesside - they break apart the former Labour vote and back the Tories because eugh Labour.
Candidate selection will be crucial. If the Tories can find a local pick that would help. Labour aren't - its either a Paul Williams fix or la Pidcock gets onto the shortlist thanks to hard left elements on the NEC. Either way neither is local. And local is very much an issue in Hartlepool looking at the warring factions of Hartlepool Independent councillors they now have.
I do wonder if a Paul Williams parachuting might play to Labour's favour though. OK so it loses them any chance of winning the PCC, but he is a well respected doctor. Play the health card - "I've been battling to save people from Covid and the Tories are scared of a public enquiry because they know what it will find". Might work. The entire campaign will be posted leaflets written elsewhere because have I mentioned that Hartlepool CLP is bonkers?
Ultimately it comes down to this. Its Super Thursday so turnout will be high. Most people will vote Tory for Mayor. Many of them will vote for their local flavour of anti-Labour for council. If the Labour candidate for MP is Paul Williams they will vote for the Tory for PCC. To then "loyally" vote Labour for MP is a stretch - once people start voting against, they keep voting against. And it is "AGAINST" Labour and not "FOR" any other candidate. Labour has become toxic on Teesside in a way that I can scarcely believe.
That all makes sense - except for one thing: turnout is going to be very low, even lower than it would usually be for local council elections. Covid will see to that.
In which case even less chance of Labour winning. Those going out to vote will be voting for their none Labour councilor and a Tory mayor.
I agree - and they will tend to be older voters, too, which will only reinforce Labour's difficulties. It's going to be a very difficult night for Starmer. As ever, the Midlands will be where it is worse.
Does the labour candidate for Mayor really stand little chance ?
She seems quite hopeless but there is talk that local party bigwigs openly mock her and that makes me feel a little sorry for her.
I saw something she did on Twitter with Jet from Gladiators (it wasn’t a millennium barn dance in Yeovil aerodrome) which just seemed bizarre.
Jessie Joe Jacobs hasn't a prayer. She is largely shunned by local activists who have seen right through her - she has positioned herself as both the Progress candidate and the Momentum candidate. The latter saw her railroaded through selection with shenanigans from Unite to remove all opposition to her.
Now that she is the candidate her campaign is Look at Me! I am Jessie Joe Jacobs! You should vote for me because I am a Woman! Have seen a now pulped newspaper she was to put out where the front page was a huge photo of her with the headline "Will this be Britain's First Female Metro Mayor?" complete with sodding question mark on the end. The rest of it was endless photos of JJJJJ in almost identical poses in front of various landmarks and buildings complete with a wall of text.
In comparison, Tory Ben Houchen ran on two items - protect the Parmo, and save the Airport. He proceeded to nationalise Teesside Airport and has announced various exciting new flights most of which haven't yet flown and none of which will last as there is no business case for flights from Teesside which is why the airport failed in the first place.
He has also stuck himself into all kinds of projects that his role doesn't have a remit for - an almost constant stream of good news stories for jobs and industry. For example his party shut down Redcar Steelworks, he is now leading a project to clear the site and put high tech industry in there with half the jobs.
He will absolutely walk the election as he is one of very few politicians who overdelivers. His only pity is that Osborne imagined that the Tees Valley Mayor was the non-job it is and gave it a non-salary. His Spad gets £20k more than he does.
Sounds like you have a lot of respect for Houchen, especially for a Tory?
I wonder whether he'll be a future contender for Parliament and the Cabinet then? He's only 34.
Houchen is godawful. He pops up all over the place claiming credit for things he wasn't even involved in - and gets away with it because of the abject failure of Labour on Teesside to coordinate and communicate.
Sounds like smart politics.
When things go wrong and the opposition is organised they are keen to sting the governing politicians with it even if they weren't involved.
It is *excellent* politics but crap in reality. The airport sucks money away from transport projects that people really need - improved and coordinated buses, Tees Rail Metro, roads improvements - and tips it into a loss-making white elephant.
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
You can't just say "there we go". This was a massive, fundamental error. In February last year the virus was mainly in China and Italy. If we'd closed the borders it would have made it much more difficult for it to spread in the UK and we might have been able to track down the small number of cases that were already here. If Australia and New Zealand could see this, we should have been able to as well.
It is possible to overstate the importance of closing the borders at various points.
Early on (really early on, with no/minimal UK cases) it clearly would have helped. However, if you think it should have been done at that point, then you also have to support having done it for SARS, MERS etc, all of which, with hindsight, would have been a massive overreaction, causing massive economic damage for no real benefit.
Once it was really here with community transmission, there's little point closing borders without locking down here. Once it's here, without restrictions it's going to keep spreading. Now, you can argue the lockdown was a bit too late (I agree) and that lockdown should have included border closure (I agree) but we'd still have had a very similar first wave if just locking border down at the same time we actually did domestic lockdown (could have been smaller with earlier lockdown and border closure).
There's another point at which border closure would have made sense, if it didn't happen in first lockdown, when we had low cases in the summer. However, having eased lockdown domestically, we would still have seen another wave.
The final argument for border closure is that it can prevent/limit incoming variants that may cause more trouble. Did Kent Covid really develop here - who knows, maybe it was imported. If so, border closure might have saved tens of thousands of deaths in January. As soon as there are known variants abroad that are worse than here and not here, border closure/quarantine seems a no-brainer.
So, FWIW, I think the borders should have been closed with the first lockdown and mandatory hotel quarantine introduced from that point. With hindsight, an earlier border closure - well before first lockdown - would clearly have been a good thing too, but I don't think failing to do that was that unreasonable, with the information available at the time. It should have happened with first lockdown.
I can't shake the feeling that it was always felt that closing the borders felt a little too Trumpian. Even if they had wanted too, they knew the stick they would get and the political capital it would cost.
She was never a cabinet minister, she got as far as Sol Gen, which isn't a cabinet job.
I mean if you're going to chastise others for deceit or ignorance.....
Edit - Upon checking, she was retained as Victims' Commissioner by Boris Johnson, so it might be fair to say this government.
I mean he could have replaced her.
Ah ok yes, ‘a government minister’
The broader point is if they have such a great case that the Conservatives are some kind of rapists friend, why the need for sly tricks that mislead? This government never appointed her, and she was a Labour Minister not just some independent QC.
It makes their main claim seem like it could be just semantics as well, which would be a shame if they really do have a great point.
Good to get the Labour POV anyway, thanks!
Labour POV? I believe you've voted Labour more times than I ever have (which is none in a general election.)
Last night I condemned the approach of Labour and the Tories on this matter.
You must be dense or a troll, or just really embarrassed that I pointed you're doing exactly what you chastised Labour for doing.
So the NHS Online booking system is now open to the over 50's. Except me. Computer says No!
Have you tried calling your GP? *troll face*
My GP is strongly pushing everyone *that can* to go to the mass vaccination centre (Which would either be Mansfield or Sheffield). They're on G6 without transport means.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
That is literally the point he is making. Einstein was funded by the Patent Office. A 2021 Einstein would be told to get a job with Deliveroo.
Yes, I think it's a fair point to some degree, though the UK definitely remains a world leader in scientific research and I've got no doubt that Einstein would get funding for his research just as Stephen Hawking did for so many years.
The point is more that we don't properly monetise our research and a lot of that is because there's a serious lack of risk appetite within the state. It's something that needs to change.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
The biggest problem is - "Can you guarantee success?"
A classic of this genre is supersonic rocket retro propulsion. This means lighting a rocket engine, while the rocket is going backwards, fast in an atmosphere. This would be incredibly useful for landing on Mars - the thin atmosphere isn't very good for slowing down spacecraft.
The problem went like this
- Everything, including wind tunnel tests suggests it would just work - The cost of doing a test the traditional way would be millions - an orbital rocket launch etc - Success couldn't be guaranteed to 99% - So NASA never tried
SpaceX just pointed a falling booster* in the right direction and fired the engines, early in their attempts to develop a landing system.
It just worked.
*At this point they didn't;t have re-usability, so the booster was about to be lost anyway.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
You can't just say "there we go". This was a massive, fundamental error. In February last year the virus was mainly in China and Italy. If we'd closed the borders it would have made it much more difficult for it to spread in the UK and we might have been able to track down the small number of cases that were already here. If Australia and New Zealand could see this, we should have been able to as well.
It is possible to overstate the importance of closing the borders at various points.
Early on (really early on, with no/minimal UK cases) it clearly would have helped. However, if you think it should have been done at that point, then you also have to support having done it for SARS, MERS etc, all of which, with hindsight, would have been a massive overreaction, causing massive economic damage for no real benefit.
Once it was really here with community transmission, there's little point closing borders without locking down here. Once it's here, without restrictions it's going to keep spreading. Now, you can argue the lockdown was a bit too late (I agree) and that lockdown should have included border closure (I agree) but we'd still have had a very similar first wave if just locking border down at the same time we actually did domestic lockdown (could have been smaller with earlier lockdown and border closure).
There's another point at which border closure would have made sense, if it didn't happen in first lockdown, when we had low cases in the summer. However, having eased lockdown domestically, we would still have seen another wave.
The final argument for border closure is that it can prevent/limit incoming variants that may cause more trouble. Did Kent Covid really develop here - who knows, maybe it was imported. If so, border closure might have saved tens of thousands of deaths in January. As soon as there are known variants abroad that are worse than here and not here, border closure/quarantine seems a no-brainer.
So, FWIW, I think the borders should have been closed with the first lockdown and mandatory hotel quarantine introduced from that point. With hindsight, an earlier border closure - well before first lockdown - would clearly have been a good thing too, but I don't think failing to do that was that unreasonable, with the information available at the time. It should have happened with first lockdown.
Excellent post. Another point is that air transport reduced by 99% in the first lockdown without a full border closure. Its not like it carried on as normal. Travel in the summer/autumn/winter after that are different questions.
A second-order approach is "an outlier is a poll you agree with but don't want to be disappointed by if it's an outlier".
A third-order approach.....
A sensible approach, IMHO, is to add the point to the plot, perhaps with weighting for the quality and past performance of the polling company/methods. Rather as 538 does.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
Yes, and their discoveries and advancements would be lost to the UK economy and everything offshored.
The EU hoo har might mean a bit more vaccine sceptisicm in the short turn for the UK, which means we'll get through the age groups slightly quicker and have a marginally bigger "mopping up" job on the hesitant.
The experts seem to have got it the wrong way round last February/March. They decided to lock down the domestic population while doing nothing about flights/ferries arriving here from all over the world. They should have stopped international travel first, and then considered whether we needed an internal lockdown.
The issue with locking down international travel was how did everyone who was abroad get back home.
There is a confusion of more than one issue in this. Is the overall strategy to eradicate the virus? If so you have to close down everything immediately, but if you can't in fact eradicate you are storing up the problem of rapid spread till later unless a permanent vaccine arrives (an unknown at the time).
The other issue is tactics. How can we ensure that our current (fixed and inadequate) health resources don't get overwhelmed now and in the next few days/weeks.
Eradication calls for closing down anywhere indefinitely. It rapidly became a non-runner. After that the only issue is keeping the thing within bounds. In that there is no one action that is either right or wrong.
Hartlepool. Just been checking the council out. 33 members 8 Labour 4 Tories. No LDs. Of 11 wards there were only 5 Tory candidates in 2019. One was elected, of the other 4, 12.8% was the best result. Is the value in a monkey type independent? Oh. And Foggy Furze has to be a contender for UK's best Ward name.
So the NHS Online booking system is now open to the over 50's. Except me. Computer says No!
Have you tried calling your GP? *troll face*
My GP is strongly pushing everyone *that can* to go to the mass vaccination centre (Which would either be Mansfield or Sheffield). They're on G6 without transport means.
If you pick the Arena vaccination site you might get vaccinated by my father in the next few days.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
Yes, and their discoveries and advancements would be lost to the UK economy and everything offshored.
If this is about the UK DARPA, it's not its function to fund an Einstein or a Newton. That's really not what it's about at all.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
The biggest problem is - "Can you guarantee success?"
A classic of this genre is supersonic rocket retro propulsion. This means lighting a rocket engine, while the rocket is going backwards, fast in an atmosphere. This would be incredibly useful for landing on Mars - the thin atmosphere isn't very good for slowing down spacecraft.
The problem went like this
- Everything, including wind tunnel tests suggests it would just work - The cost of doing a test the traditional way would be millions - an orbital rocket launch etc - Success couldn't be guaranteed to 99% - So NASA never tried
SpaceX just pointed a falling booster* in the right direction and fired the engines, early in their attempts to develop a landing system.
It just worked.
*At this point they didn't;t have re-usability, so the booster was about to be lost anyway.
Also, if NASA wanted to do it on Mars, Earth atmosphere tests wouldn’t necessarily be a great deal of use & there’s no savings from re-using the launcher since the thing is going to be stuck on Mars anyway.
The economic incentives just weren’t there for NASA to even try - what would have been the point? You need to get less weight to Mars if you use a parachute to slow down to sub-sonic speeds in the Martian atmosphere so that’s always going to be the preferred option, even if lighting off a rocket backwards at super-sonic speeds was an option available to you.
If you intend to take a rocket to Mars & back then the incentives are different.
The experts seem to have got it the wrong way round last February/March. They decided to lock down the domestic population while doing nothing about flights/ferries arriving here from all over the world. They should have stopped international travel first, and then considered whether we needed an internal lockdown.
The issue with locking down international travel was how did everyone who was abroad get back home.
There is a confusion of more than one issue in this. Is the overall strategy to eradicate the virus? If so you have to close down everything immediately, but if you can't in fact eradicate you are storing up the problem of rapid spread till later unless a permanent vaccine arrives (an unknown at the time).
The other issue is tactics. How can we ensure that our current (fixed and inadequate) health resources don't get overwhelmed now and in the next few days/weeks.
Eradication calls for closing down anywhere indefinitely. It rapidly became a non-runner. After theat the only issue is keeping the thing within bounds. In that there is no one action that is either right or wrong.
One thing I mentioned on here the other day was that the Moderna vaccine was designed on 15 January - less than a week after the virus was sequenced. Did the Government know this at the time? Seriously, it was doing my head in last March and April that there might NEVER be a vaccine, but if I had known that one had been designed probably before I even knew this virus existed, it would have helped me cope I think.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
Yes, and their discoveries and advancements would be lost to the UK economy and everything offshored.
Newton wouldn't be governor of the Bank of England - too much a techie. He'd be some kind of tame quant, probably heading their Research Dept.
Everyone criticises Labour for taking their "heartlands" for granted however the same could very well happen to the Conservatives. All this attention on the "red wall" could very well lead, in the long run, to traditional Conservative seats thinking that the Party is now for urban town dwellers and not for them. Especially if Brexit ends up being a negative for agriculture etc.
Not something likely to happen in the near future but it's certainly a possibility in the long run. It's difficult juggling multiple competing priorities.
Absolutely. The LibDems will come back...
Because they forgot their coat on the way out?
The Tories have been losing their heartlands too. The suburban middle class have been drifting away from them for years. 40 years ago seats like Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Birmingham Edgbaston would have been safely in the blue column.
There's a stickiness in these things which can disguise underlying movements. South of London the regional polling shows Lab and LibDems pretty much even, but in many areas each party holds on to tactical votes by a repeated cycle:
1. Vote for X, not Y, just this once as only we can beat the Tories. 2. X gets a decent result and Y does badly, thanks to tactical votes 3. Next election: Vote for X, look how far behind Y were last time.
With a long-term Tory government, loads of voters have no strong preference between LibDems and Labour and go with the perceived local flow. If that changes, they change too, quite suddenly.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
Yes, and their discoveries and advancements would be lost to the UK economy and everything offshored.
Newton wouldn't be governor of the Bank of England - too much a techie. He'd be some kind of tame quant, probably heading their Research Dept.
Too much of a control freak to be a tame quant. He's want to be running the whole show.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
Yes, and their discoveries and advancements would be lost to the UK economy and everything offshored.
If this is about the UK DARPA, it's not its function to fund an Einstein or a Newton. That's really not what it's about at all.
Indeed, but I'm not sure that's the point he was making. I think the point is more that the UK fails to properly take advantage of its own world class scientific research base with commercialisation. I don't think UK advanced research lab particularly makes a difference here, there needs to be a culture change among scientists and universities as well as real tax incentives for keeping IP onshore and forcing foreign companies to invest their cash in the UK should they wish to monetise UK IP.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
That is literally the point he is making. Einstein was funded by the Patent Office. A 2021 Einstein would be told to get a job with Deliveroo.
Yes, I think it's a fair point to some degree, though the UK definitely remains a world leader in scientific research and I've got no doubt that Einstein would get funding for his research just as Stephen Hawking did for so many years.
The point is more that we don't properly monetise our research and a lot of that is because there's a serious lack of risk appetite within the state. It's something that needs to change.
Re RP's comment, the Patent Office only funded his research in the same way that Deliveroo might fund someone's research today. You have a job to pay the bills and do the stuff you want to do in your spare time.
I sit on some funding bodies and we do fund high risk stuff. Some of our funding is for stuff that has clear applicability, some of it is much more blue-sky. The latter is always much harder to decide, it helps if you have a track record (not necessarily in blue sky stuff) but there's a problem there, clearly, in that a lot of innovative thinking comes from younger, less experienced people. It is fairly easy to get relatively small grants to try something out and follow up if results look promising (my area is mostly in data crunching and occasionally small scale medical tech, so a high tens of thousands can be enough to get started).
I agree entirely about the follow up when valuable IP is produced. That's not in our remit and it's not really in anyone's remit in particular. The more switched on universities will find industrial partners and crack on, but a government backed venture capital type fund would make a lot of sense (particularly to help new UK companies grow, rather than universities just partnering with existing - often US - giants). There also tends to be a narrow view where getting an idea up and running in a small company and then selling out to a US giant is seen as success, when we could be more ambitious and grow the company into a UK giant instead.
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
You can't just say "there we go". This was a massive, fundamental error. In February last year the virus was mainly in China and Italy. If we'd closed the borders it would have made it much more difficult for it to spread in the UK and we might have been able to track down the small number of cases that were already here. If Australia and New Zealand could see this, we should have been able to as well.
It is possible to overstate the importance of closing the borders at various points.
Early on (really early on, with no/minimal UK cases) it clearly would have helped. However, if you think it should have been done at that point, then you also have to support having done it for SARS, MERS etc, all of which, with hindsight, would have been a massive overreaction, causing massive economic damage for no real benefit.
Once it was really here with community transmission, there's little point closing borders without locking down here. Once it's here, without restrictions it's going to keep spreading. Now, you can argue the lockdown was a bit too late (I agree) and that lockdown should have included border closure (I agree) but we'd still have had a very similar first wave if just locking border down at the same time we actually did domestic lockdown (could have been smaller with earlier lockdown and border closure).
There's another point at which border closure would have made sense, if it didn't happen in first lockdown, when we had low cases in the summer. However, having eased lockdown domestically, we would still have seen another wave.
The final argument for border closure is that it can prevent/limit incoming variants that may cause more trouble. Did Kent Covid really develop here - who knows, maybe it was imported. If so, border closure might have saved tens of thousands of deaths in January. As soon as there are known variants abroad that are worse than here and not here, border closure/quarantine seems a no-brainer.
So, FWIW, I think the borders should have been closed with the first lockdown and mandatory hotel quarantine introduced from that point. With hindsight, an earlier border closure - well before first lockdown - would clearly have been a good thing too, but I don't think failing to do that was that unreasonable, with the information available at the time. It should have happened with first lockdown.
Kent Covid was first found on Sheppey. IMHO that makes it more likely to have developed here. For a large part of October and November cases in Swale were rocketing while cases in Ashford and Dover were quite low. I remember us in the south of the county getting very upset that the Estuary Districts had dragged us into TIer 3/4.
Everyone criticises Labour for taking their "heartlands" for granted however the same could very well happen to the Conservatives. All this attention on the "red wall" could very well lead, in the long run, to traditional Conservative seats thinking that the Party is now for urban town dwellers and not for them. Especially if Brexit ends up being a negative for agriculture etc.
Not something likely to happen in the near future but it's certainly a possibility in the long run. It's difficult juggling multiple competing priorities.
Absolutely. The LibDems will come back...
Because they forgot their coat on the way out?
The Tories have been losing their heartlands too. The suburban middle class have been drifting away from them for years. 40 years ago seats like Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Birmingham Edgbaston would have been safely in the blue column.
There's a stickiness in these things which can disguise underlying movements. South of London the regional polling shows Lab and LibDems pretty much even, but in many areas each party holds on to tactical votes by a repeated cycle:
1. Vote for X, not Y, just this once as only we can beat the Tories. 2. X gets a decent result and Y does badly, thanks to tactical votes 3. Next election: Vote for X, look how far behind Y were last time.
With a long-term Tory government, loads of voters have no strong preference between LibDems and Labour and go with the perceived local flow. If that changes, they change too, quite suddenly.
A good example is how the main opposition to the Tories in a seat like Hastings and Rye suddenly switched from the LDs to Labour in 1997.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
The biggest problem is - "Can you guarantee success?"
A classic of this genre is supersonic rocket retro propulsion. This means lighting a rocket engine, while the rocket is going backwards, fast in an atmosphere. This would be incredibly useful for landing on Mars - the thin atmosphere isn't very good for slowing down spacecraft.
The problem went like this
- Everything, including wind tunnel tests suggests it would just work - The cost of doing a test the traditional way would be millions - an orbital rocket launch etc - Success couldn't be guaranteed to 99% - So NASA never tried
SpaceX just pointed a falling booster* in the right direction and fired the engines, early in their attempts to develop a landing system.
It just worked.
*At this point they didn't;t have re-usability, so the booster was about to be lost anyway.
Also, if NASA wanted to do it on Mars, Earth atmosphere tests wouldn’t necessarily be a great deal of use & there’s no savings from re-using the launcher since the thing is going to be stuck on Mars anyway.
The economic incentives just weren’t there for NASA to even try - what would have been the point? You need to get less weight to Mars if you use a parachute to slow down to sub-sonic speeds in the Martian atmosphere so that’s always going to be the preferred option, even if lighting off a rocket backwards at super-sonic speeds was an option available to you.
If you intend to take a rocket to Mars & back then the incentives are different.
Actually, at high enough altitude, the Earths atmosphere is quite a good analogue for Mars at altitude.
So the SpaceX tests were watched with great interest by NASA - they even sent out a WB57 to get super detailed video, IIRC.
For anything heavier than the current rovers, you need supersonic retro-propulsion. That or multi-pass atmospheric braking. Parachutes don't scale forever.
The NASA view is that the SpaceX retro-propulsion demonstrated the technology - as in it is mission usable for Mars now.
Hooray! The age threshold has been dropped to 50, so I've been able to book my vaccination appointments.
First shot on Monday then an 11 week gap.
It has given me a tingle inside.
That means under 50s will commence in around 10-14 days. I really am beginning to get the feeling that the government wants everyone done well before the end of May and all second doses done in time for the summer.
PHE doesn’t break down the age buckets below I think 65. Is there a way of figuring out how many under 50s have already been jabbed? It feels like every third person I speak to now below 50 has either already had the first dose or been booked for one.
My local GP is saying that every over 50 on their books should have either been jabbed or be booked in & if you’ve been missed out to call them straightaway.
So it certainly looks like all the most at-risk tranches have been or will have their first dose very soon.
TBH, the UK is probably at that point anyway, if the only criterion is preventing deaths. Consider this graph from the French data set;
That's the effect of the French vaccination programme, which can charitably be described as "meh". And if it takes a month for the vaccine effect to show up in the death data, there's more improvement to come- albeit with diminishing returns.
Covid deaths really are concentrated in the very old and residents of care homes. And, whilst I don't want to give the Gt Barrington/CRG crew any ideas, I'm surprised that they haven't made more noise about the fact that the most vulnerable pretty much are protected.
Our 86yo family friend in Paris who had her vaccination cancelled 2 days ago would beg to differ! She is not alone.
I've said it before in 99.99% of occasions cockup and/or incompetence explains most mess ups but this whole Salmond farrago is testing that theory to destruction and then some.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
Yes, and their discoveries and advancements would be lost to the UK economy and everything offshored.
Newton wouldn't be governor of the Bank of England - too much a techie. He'd be some kind of tame quant, probably heading their Research Dept.
Too much of a control freak to be a tame quant. He's want to be running the whole show.
Now I am imagining Newton + Twitter
The markets would be melting every other day......
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
You can't just say "there we go". This was a massive, fundamental error. In February last year the virus was mainly in China and Italy. If we'd closed the borders it would have made it much more difficult for it to spread in the UK and we might have been able to track down the small number of cases that were already here. If Australia and New Zealand could see this, we should have been able to as well.
But the question is "who made the error/call"? If you hate the government/Johnson/the Tories etc you will probably say them, if you are a Tory fan boy, you will say it was Sage's fault. As I've said - lots of difficult decisions...
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
To an extent... in Einstein's wunderjahr, he was doing an undemanding job at the Patent Office, so he had time and headspace to think brilliant thoughts. As a theoretical physicist, that's pretty much all the funding he needed. It's not as if he needed to do any experiments.
Two observations on Dom's comments:
First, most science isn't like that any more. It's expensive, because most of it needs access to stuff. It also takes a long time to get close enough to the frontiers to know what is both interesting and doable.
Second, it's revealing of the "Great Man" theory that underpins a lot of Cumming's thinking. Identify the genius, give them what they want and minimal supervision and job done. The reality is much closer to the Richard Feynman line that no-one is that much smarter.
Par for the course for an Oxbridge Humanities Bluffer.
"Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders? Did I see that no-one from SAGE even thought about closing the borders?"
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
You can't just say "there we go". This was a massive, fundamental error. In February last year the virus was mainly in China and Italy. If we'd closed the borders it would have made it much more difficult for it to spread in the UK and we might have been able to track down the small number of cases that were already here. If Australia and New Zealand could see this, we should have been able to as well.
It is possible to overstate the importance of closing the borders at various points.
Early on (really early on, with no/minimal UK cases) it clearly would have helped. However, if you think it should have been done at that point, then you also have to support having done it for SARS, MERS etc, all of which, with hindsight, would have been a massive overreaction, causing massive economic damage for no real benefit.
Once it was really here with community transmission, there's little point closing borders without locking down here. Once it's here, without restrictions it's going to keep spreading. Now, you can argue the lockdown was a bit too late (I agree) and that lockdown should have included border closure (I agree) but we'd still have had a very similar first wave if just locking border down at the same time we actually did domestic lockdown (could have been smaller with earlier lockdown and border closure).
There's another point at which border closure would have made sense, if it didn't happen in first lockdown, when we had low cases in the summer. However, having eased lockdown domestically, we would still have seen another wave.
The final argument for border closure is that it can prevent/limit incoming variants that may cause more trouble. Did Kent Covid really develop here - who knows, maybe it was imported. If so, border closure might have saved tens of thousands of deaths in January. As soon as there are known variants abroad that are worse than here and not here, border closure/quarantine seems a no-brainer.
So, FWIW, I think the borders should have been closed with the first lockdown and mandatory hotel quarantine introduced from that point. With hindsight, an earlier border closure - well before first lockdown - would clearly have been a good thing too, but I don't think failing to do that was that unreasonable, with the information available at the time. It should have happened with first lockdown.
Kent Covid was first found on Sheppey. IMHO that makes it more likely to have developed here. For a large part of October and November cases in Swale were rocketing while cases in Ashford and Dover were quite low. I remember us in the south of the county getting very upset that the Estuary Districts had dragged us into TIer 3/4.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
That is literally the point he is making. Einstein was funded by the Patent Office. A 2021 Einstein would be told to get a job with Deliveroo.
Yes, I think it's a fair point to some degree, though the UK definitely remains a world leader in scientific research and I've got no doubt that Einstein would get funding for his research just as Stephen Hawking did for so many years.
The point is more that we don't properly monetise our research and a lot of that is because there's a serious lack of risk appetite within the state. It's something that needs to change.
Re RP's comment, the Patent Office only funded his research in the same way that Deliveroo might fund someone's research today. You have a job to pay the bills and do the stuff you want to do in your spare time.
I sit on some funding bodies and we do fund high risk stuff. Some of our funding is for stuff that has clear applicability, some of it is much more blue-sky. The latter is always much harder to decide, it helps if you have a track record (not necessarily in blue sky stuff) but there's a problem there, clearly, in that a lot of innovative thinking comes from younger, less experienced people. It is fairly easy to get relatively small grants to try something out and follow up if results look promising (my area is mostly in data crunching and occasionally small scale medical tech, so a high tens of thousands can be enough to get started).
I agree entirely about the follow up when valuable IP is produced. That's not in our remit and it's not really in anyone's remit in particular. The more switched on universities will find industrial partners and crack on, but a government backed venture capital type fund would make a lot of sense (particularly to help new UK companies grow, rather than universities just partnering with existing - often US - giants). There also tends to be a narrow view where getting an idea up and running in a small company and then selling out to a US giant is seen as success, when we could be more ambitious and grow the company into a UK giant instead.
And I think the latter part is the point being made. The offshoring of UK research success has got a real cost the nation and it would be good to see a public/private investment partnership for monetising UK research that essentially gets time limited first refusal on all funded research monetisation within the UK.
All quite confusing this whole saga. Alex Salmond is acquitted, and therefore innocent in the eyes of the law, and then Sturgeon says in a public forum that she apologies to the women who were "let down" by the Scottish Government. Is that not clearly contradictory to her accepting his innocence, and if so what is Salmond going to do about that?
I wonder if asymptomatic transmission has been vastly overstated. I watched on of those antivax, antilockdown videos (I know, I know) and apparently one of the original superspreader ladies was on antiflu medication ! Also the news to me, though perhaps intuitively obvious large proportion of spread via Scottish hospitals - you can't move easily from there if someone is coughing up their lungs... This doesn't change my mask calculations for the duration of the pandemic/till I'm day + 21 vaxxed, mind.
I think I am with you on this. The idea of significant viral load, that is shedding enough to infect others, without any symptoms, is one that I struggle with.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
Hmm, I think he's probably right. There is definitely an unnecessary safety first approach, especially in the public sector.
Newton would be governor of the Bank of England, Einstein would be at Imperial or Cambridge, and Turing CTO of a startup recently acquired by Softbank.
Yes, and their discoveries and advancements would be lost to the UK economy and everything offshored.
If this is about the UK DARPA, it's not its function to fund an Einstein or a Newton. That's really not what it's about at all.
Indeed, but I'm not sure that's the point he was making. I think the point is more that the UK fails to properly take advantage of its own world class scientific research base with commercialisation. I don't think UK advanced research lab particularly makes a difference here, there needs to be a culture change among scientists and universities as well as real tax incentives for keeping IP onshore and forcing foreign companies to invest their cash in the UK should they wish to monetise UK IP.
There's a whole chain of stuff needed.
DARPA works very well at what it does, and a UK version could certainly be part of that culture change among scientists and universities, if it has the right management and organisational structure. This is the best article on it I've seen: https://benjaminreinhardt.com/wddw
The ongoing commercialisation of research is a separate issue. The problem is not so much that UK venture capital for science stuff doesn't exists - it does (for example, the IP Group) - it's that the size of our markets and willingness of UK investors to fund new manufacturing make it hard to build globally competitive entities.
The examples of TSMC or Samsung show that it's quite possible for economies smaller than ours, doing it in very different ways.
Government definitely has a role, but whether ours is up to it is another matter.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
To be fair he needed only his mind for his research. If you need equipment its a very different game. Even my basic U/G projects get around 1000 pound funding for their work, added to the existing spend on the infrastructure. Science aint cheap.
Comments
At least Nippy hasn't banned Astra-Zeneca in solidarity with friends in the EU. Small mercies.
The broader point is if they have such a great case that the Conservatives are some kind of rapists friend, why the need for sly tricks that mislead? This government never appointed her, and she was a Labour Minister not just some independent QC.
It makes their main claim seem like it could be just semantics as well, which would be a shame if they really do have a great point.
Good to get the Labour POV anyway, thanks!
If BoJo's government is successful, he wins anyway; there's no point tying to out BoJo BoJo.
If it fails (when it fails), the public are likely to want something very different to BoJo. In the same way that Thatcher was different to Callaghan, Blair to Major and Cameron to Brown.
I don't know when it will happen, but I am confident that the public mood at the end of the Johnson ministry will be ""I'm not going on a bear hunt again". Boring but fundamentally decent is the way to go.
It is a huge public opinion poll and as far as Starmer is concerned I do not see it being fatal for him, not least as there is nobody else who could do any better and he has nearly three years before a GE
Looks in mirror. Winks.
SAGE determined early that disruptive actions would not significantly restrict the spread of the virus (which was already 'among us') and would aggravate harm.
They probably got that wrong, in hindsight, but there we go,
In a TV interview, he said the vaccine was "safe" and "something that works".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56424614
https://twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/1372124298471690241?s=20
Kinnock was known as a windbag but I loved this passion from him (from 2010). Why can’t Labour find someone who means it? Or at least sounds like they do
https://youtu.be/PGhPvVb3dak
Although he did have some 'big beasts' around him; Bevin, Bevan, Cripps and so on. Plus of course a young and coming Harold Wilson.
https://twitter.com/thomasforth/status/1371884552776454158?s=20
That's the effect of the French vaccination programme, which can charitably be described as "meh". And if it takes a month for the vaccine effect to show up in the death data, there's more improvement to come- albeit with diminishing returns.
Covid deaths really are concentrated in the very old and residents of care homes. And, whilst I don't want to give the Gt Barrington/CRG crew any ideas, I'm surprised that they haven't made more noise about the fact that the most vulnerable pretty much are protected.
1) Its not here so there's no need to close the borders
2) Its here so there's no need to close the borders
3) Its under control so there's no need to control the borders
4) Its out of control again so there's no need to control the borders
are infinitesimal.
When things go wrong and the opposition is organised they are keen to sting the governing politicians with it even if they weren't involved.
Then he was abolished.
9:26am, so zwanzig Minuten.
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1372117100047785984
(Have we done the Worth / Goodwin spatette?).
"An outlier is a poll you disagree with"
Allowing the summer trips to Spain, in particular, was a big mistake.
Except me. Computer says No!
Former heartlands further out such as Altrincham, Macclesfield, Wycombe, etc would be competitive on an even national vote share.
Part of the ebb and flow.
Also the news to me, though perhaps intuitively obvious large proportion of spread via Scottish hospitals - you can't move easily from there if someone is coughing up their lungs...
This doesn't change my mask calculations for the duration of the pandemic/till I'm day + 21 vaxxed, mind.
Where to start on this historically illiterate comment? Who funded Einstein's early work? The Patent Office?
He is seriously duff choice for the task facing his Party. But, hey.....we ain't complaining from a party perspective. But for the wider benefit of democracy, he isn't exactly holding the Government's feet to the fire, is he?
Early on (really early on, with no/minimal UK cases) it clearly would have helped. However, if you think it should have been done at that point, then you also have to support having done it for SARS, MERS etc, all of which, with hindsight, would have been a massive overreaction, causing massive economic damage for no real benefit.
Once it was really here with community transmission, there's little point closing borders without locking down here. Once it's here, without restrictions it's going to keep spreading. Now, you can argue the lockdown was a bit too late (I agree) and that lockdown should have included border closure (I agree) but we'd still have had a very similar first wave if just locking border down at the same time we actually did domestic lockdown (could have been smaller with earlier lockdown and border closure).
There's another point at which border closure would have made sense, if it didn't happen in first lockdown, when we had low cases in the summer. However, having eased lockdown domestically, we would still have seen another wave.
The final argument for border closure is that it can prevent/limit incoming variants that may cause more trouble. Did Kent Covid really develop here - who knows, maybe it was imported. If so, border closure might have saved tens of thousands of deaths in January. As soon as there are known variants abroad that are worse than here and not here, border closure/quarantine seems a no-brainer.
So, FWIW, I think the borders should have been closed with the first lockdown and mandatory hotel quarantine introduced from that point. With hindsight, an earlier border closure - well before first lockdown - would clearly have been a good thing too, but I don't think failing to do that was that unreasonable, with the information available at the time. It should have happened with first lockdown.
Last night I condemned the approach of Labour and the Tories on this matter.
You must be dense or a troll, or just really embarrassed that I pointed you're doing exactly what you chastised Labour for doing.
The point is more that we don't properly monetise our research and a lot of that is because there's a serious lack of risk appetite within the state. It's something that needs to change.
A classic of this genre is supersonic rocket retro propulsion. This means lighting a rocket engine, while the rocket is going backwards, fast in an atmosphere. This would be incredibly useful for landing on Mars - the thin atmosphere isn't very good for slowing down spacecraft.
The problem went like this
- Everything, including wind tunnel tests suggests it would just work
- The cost of doing a test the traditional way would be millions - an orbital rocket launch etc
- Success couldn't be guaranteed to 99%
- So NASA never tried
SpaceX just pointed a falling booster* in the right direction and fired the engines, early in their attempts to develop a landing system.
It just worked.
*At this point they didn't;t have re-usability, so the booster was about to be lost anyway.
A sensible approach, IMHO, is to add the point to the plot, perhaps with weighting for the quality and past performance of the polling company/methods. Rather as 538 does.
The other issue is tactics. How can we ensure that our current (fixed and inadequate) health resources don't get overwhelmed now and in the next few days/weeks.
Eradication calls for closing down anywhere indefinitely. It rapidly became a non-runner. After that the only issue is keeping the thing within bounds. In that there is no one action that is either right or wrong.
Just been checking the council out.
33 members 8 Labour 4 Tories. No LDs.
Of 11 wards there were only 5 Tory candidates in 2019. One was elected, of the other 4, 12.8% was the best result.
Is the value in a monkey type independent?
Oh. And Foggy Furze has to be a contender for UK's best Ward name.
The economic incentives just weren’t there for NASA to even try - what would have been the point? You need to get less weight to Mars if you use a parachute to slow down to sub-sonic speeds in the Martian atmosphere so that’s always going to be the preferred option, even if lighting off a rocket backwards at super-sonic speeds was an option available to you.
If you intend to take a rocket to Mars & back then the incentives are different.
It is a sign.
1. Vote for X, not Y, just this once as only we can beat the Tories.
2. X gets a decent result and Y does badly, thanks to tactical votes
3. Next election: Vote for X, look how far behind Y were last time.
With a long-term Tory government, loads of voters have no strong preference between LibDems and Labour and go with the perceived local flow. If that changes, they change too, quite suddenly.
He's want to be running the whole show.
I sit on some funding bodies and we do fund high risk stuff. Some of our funding is for stuff that has clear applicability, some of it is much more blue-sky. The latter is always much harder to decide, it helps if you have a track record (not necessarily in blue sky stuff) but there's a problem there, clearly, in that a lot of innovative thinking comes from younger, less experienced people. It is fairly easy to get relatively small grants to try something out and follow up if results look promising (my area is mostly in data crunching and occasionally small scale medical tech, so a high tens of thousands can be enough to get started).
I agree entirely about the follow up when valuable IP is produced. That's not in our remit and it's not really in anyone's remit in particular. The more switched on universities will find industrial partners and crack on, but a government backed venture capital type fund would make a lot of sense (particularly to help new UK companies grow, rather than universities just partnering with existing - often US - giants). There also tends to be a narrow view where getting an idea up and running in a small company and then selling out to a US giant is seen as success, when we could be more ambitious and grow the company into a UK giant instead.
So the SpaceX tests were watched with great interest by NASA - they even sent out a WB57 to get super detailed video, IIRC.
For anything heavier than the current rovers, you need supersonic retro-propulsion. That or multi-pass atmospheric braking. Parachutes don't scale forever.
The NASA view is that the SpaceX retro-propulsion demonstrated the technology - as in it is mission usable for Mars now.
I think this seat will be taken by the Conservative & Unionist Party currently under the stewardship of Alexander "Boris" de Pfeffel Johnson.
I'm seeking to get matched at evens on betfair if any PBer with the opposing view wishes to pounce.
https://twitter.com/LukeSmithF1/status/1372133481661206528
The markets would be melting every other day......
Two observations on Dom's comments:
First, most science isn't like that any more. It's expensive, because most of it needs access to stuff. It also takes a long time to get close enough to the frontiers to know what is both interesting and doable.
Second, it's revealing of the "Great Man" theory that underpins a lot of Cumming's thinking. Identify the genius, give them what they want and minimal supervision and job done. The reality is much closer to the Richard Feynman line that no-one is that much smarter.
Par for the course for an Oxbridge Humanities Bluffer.
https://youtu.be/TTE6cTBrGcA
DARPA works very well at what it does, and a UK version could certainly be part of that culture change among scientists and universities, if it has the right management and organisational structure. This is the best article on it I've seen:
https://benjaminreinhardt.com/wddw
The ongoing commercialisation of research is a separate issue. The problem is not so much that UK venture capital for science stuff doesn't exists - it does (for example, the IP Group) - it's that the size of our markets and willingness of UK investors to fund new manufacturing make it hard to build globally competitive entities.
The examples of TSMC or Samsung show that it's quite possible for economies smaller than ours, doing it in very different ways.
Government definitely has a role, but whether ours is up to it is another matter.