Mucho disappointment amongst the usual suspects but tbh I would have been shocked by any other outcome. The more serious charges against her just did not stack up imo. I was once an auditor and this failed on both the tests we used to do - the 'ticking and bashing' on the detail and the overall 'reasonableness and proof in total' on the big picture. But Conspiracy Theories never go away. People cling to them. It's the nature of the beast. So I suppose this will run for a while yet.
So you pays your money and takes your choice - Hamilton, or the MSPs......
Not really. Viewing this as a detached outsider I had little doubt about the essential conclusion. Some cock up and confusion? Yes. Some less than ideal processes and comms? Yes. But a conspiracy to nail and jail Salmon and pervert the course of justice? No. Not for me. Not in a million years.
But Hamilton was not investigating the conspiracy charge, was he? I thought he was looking at Ministerial misconduct, which would not necessarily require conspiracy.
The committee investigated conspiracy and they haven't so far leaked any confirmation of that. In fact various tweets and interviews from the usual suspects on said committee pretty much pooh pooh it.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
A Teen Vogue photographer has said the hiring and swift axing of editor-in-chief Alexi McCammond over anti-Asian tweets shows Condé Nast does not “value” its Asian staff members.
McCammond apologised for comments she tweeted in 2011 and which had been reported before. Condé Nast announced last week that she would no longer start in the job on Wednesday as planned.
“Condé Nast knew about these tweets but they still offered the job to McCammond,” said Yu Tsai, a photographer who has worked for the magazine. “This tells me that [they] didn’t value their Asian community.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
That's a fair point. What the inquiry often does is clarify a lot of the factual background. This one doesn't do that so much because there is a lot of redactions. Some, quite important parts, can't really be followed at all.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
I see that Sturgeon has been cleared of wrongdoing, thus proving irrevocably and for all time how corrupt she, her party, her government and all Scottish establishments really are.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
That's a fair point. What the inquiry often does is clarify a lot of the factual background. This one doesn't do that so much because there is a lot of redactions. Some, quite important parts, can't really be followed at all.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Equally, Blair survived for three and a half more years after Hutton. If Sturgeon lasts that long, she will be pretty happy.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
Hmmm... YYYYMMDD surely?
Doesn't that set up a Y10K problem ?
After the Y2K issue passed I did get a letter from a constituent demanding to know why we'd not chosen solutions in Government software to allow for the year 10,000. I sent him a po-faced reply saying we had decided to leave this matter for the next Government...
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
So you pays your money and takes your choice - Hamilton, or the MSPs......
Not really. Viewing this as a detached outsider I had little doubt about the essential conclusion. Some cock up and confusion? Yes. Some less than ideal processes and comms? Yes. But a conspiracy to nail and jail Salmon and pervert the course of justice? No. Not for me. Not in a million years.
I'm not so sure. I think Sturgeon did what she though most expedient in the height of the "Me Too" business. And that involved stitching Salmond up.
No, not for me. I think they were real and serious allegations, not confected for political purposes. Perhaps she knew before (about this sort of stuff going on with him) and should have done something but didn't, so then overcompensated a bit, but that's me drifting into speculative mental sleuth territory.
For 338 paragraphs the Franks report painted a splendid picture, delineated the light and the shade, and the glowing colours in it, and when Franks got to paragraph 339 he got fed up with the canvas he was painting and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it. James Callaghan
Call me cynical but this all feels like Ministers mentioning now the sort of stuff that, purely coincidentally, they are going to reluctantly find themselves having to do because of the scientific data, you understand, after Thursday's EU meeting - if leads to an export ban to the U.K.
I believe he announced this morning that he's making a statement on Weds
In any contest between Salmond and Sturgeon, Sturgeon is going to come first and Salmond second.
The issue is whether the matter remains a 'relativity' one in which one of them loses and therefore the other wins. I think the scales have been tilted in that direction. But if there were a third player, let's call it truth, justice, fairness or whatever, then they would both lose. Usually in politics that third player doesn't really exist. Someone has to win. Just as in Brexit, both causes were bad but one had to win.
The pursuing bear of the voter can't consume Salmond and can only consume Nicola at the cost of the separatist cause. I don't think it will, as there is nowhere else to go.
Out in front, with the bear well behind chewing up SKS, Scottish Tories, Scottish Labour, moderate Irish unionists and nationalists, in UK politics are a few people to whom truth is an entire stranger.
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
Hmmm... YYYYMMDD surely?
AD/BC YYYYMMDD HHMM:SS
Hmmmm... And what about time zones???
Who doesn't use GMT/UTC for everything?
Americans!
They prefer Zulu time don't they?
1700 Zulu.
Zulu is an abbreviation for UTC, usually used in notices to airmen and mariners where these things used to be transmitted by telex and needed to be short. See also METAR format for weather reports.
Americans almost always, even in scientific contexts, refer to some local time zone which the rest of the world then has to look up. SpaceX, I’m looking at you. https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1370556528323751938
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
Thanks - all makes sense thanks for the explanation.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
Hmmm... YYYYMMDD surely?
Doesn't that set up a Y10K problem ?
After the Y2K issue passed I did get a letter from a constituent demanding to know why we'd not chosen solutions in Government software to allow for the year 10,000. I sent him a po-faced reply saying we had decided to leave this matter for the next Government...
I am not 100% convinced that code I wrote for Y2K allows for 2100 not being a leap year. Ssshhhh!
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Equally, Blair survived for three and a half more years after Hutton. If Sturgeon lasts that long, she will be pretty happy.
The point perhaps is that Blair survived for 3 1/2 more years, but the damage Labour sustained was immense, and led inexorably to Corbyn.
Sturgeon will be very happy to survive for another 3 1/2 years, but whether it is really in the SNP's best interests is rather more arguable.
I started out believing that Nicola was on the side of the angels, and MalcolmG was a ranting madman.
I have changed my mind somewhat -- there is enough in the public domain that is very concerning.
So you pays your money and takes your choice - Hamilton, or the MSPs......
Not really. Viewing this as a detached outsider I had little doubt about the essential conclusion. Some cock up and confusion? Yes. Some less than ideal processes and comms? Yes. But a conspiracy to nail and jail Salmon and pervert the course of justice? No. Not for me. Not in a million years.
But Hamilton was not investigating the conspiracy charge, was he? I thought he was looking at Ministerial misconduct, which would not necessarily require conspiracy.
Yes, I don't mean just this Hamilton Report. The "conspiracy", I think fails on every level. That's one for Sturgeon haters within the SNP and Sindy haters both north and south of the border.
Telling folk that they can't have their sunshine holidays this year would be hugely unpopular. OTOH this lot have imposed lockdown for nearly three months and counting, and have a very cautious timetable for letting us back out again.
It's hard to judge whether they'll actually stop people from travelling, or let them travel for long enough until the country has been seeded from top to bottom with umpteen nasty variants, before closing the borders in a state of panic when it's already too late.
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
It's interesting how different this seems from Israel: they have R well below 1 despite fewer restrictions, with not many more vaccinated than us. Do you think that's just because their vaccination level was more significantly higher than ours 3 weeks ago, because of 2nd doses (in my view unlikely), because the age range of their vaccinated population is different, or because they don't have our variant?
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Equally, Blair survived for three and a half more years after Hutton. If Sturgeon lasts that long, she will be pretty happy.
The point perhaps is that Blair survived for 3 1/2 more years, but the damage Labour sustained was immense, and led inexorably to Corbyn.
Sturgeon will be very happy to survive for another 3 1/2 years, but whether it is really in the SNP's best interests is rather more arguable.
I started out believing that Nicola was on the side of the angels, and MalcolmG was a ranting madman.
I have changed my mind somewhat -- there is enough in the public domain that is very concerning.
I'm inclined to agree. I never thought somebody of Sturgeon's ability would deliberately lie, but it's becoming very obvious that she hasn't told all the truth. This isn't necessarily the same thing, but it's something of a distinction without a difference in this case.
The police are entitled to hold silence against a suspect, on the basis that they are hiding something. Public opinion is less forgiving.
I think this has probably done terminal damage to her reputation. Whether it's going to damage her electoral prospects is another question.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
Hmmm... YYYYMMDD surely?
Apologies yes.
I have to deal with this on a daily basis so am aware of the issues.
Of course real people use the discordian calendar for document naming
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
It's interesting how different this seems from Israel: they have R well below 1 despite fewer restrictions, with not many more vaccinated than us. Do you think that's just because their vaccination level was more significantly higher than ours 3 weeks ago, because of 2nd doses (in my view unlikely), because the age range of their vaccinated population is different, or because they don't have our variant?
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
--AS
My guess is that they have vaccinated a higher percentage of those people who are the most connected hubs within social networks and hence are the most likely to spread infections.
Telling folk that they can't have their sunshine holidays this year would be hugely unpopular. OTOH this lot have imposed lockdown for nearly three months and counting, and have a very cautious timetable for letting us back out again.
It's hard to judge whether they'll actually stop people from travelling, or let them travel for long enough until the country has been seeded from top to bottom with umpteen nasty variants, before closing the borders in a state of panic when it's already too late.
We are talking Boris - so while we wait to find out what happened in last September it's safe to say that we will be allowed to go abroad until just after nasty variant that the current vaccines don't work against reaches critical mass in the UK.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Equally, Blair survived for three and a half more years after Hutton. If Sturgeon lasts that long, she will be pretty happy.
The point perhaps is that Blair survived for 3 1/2 more years, but the damage Labour sustained was immense, and led inexorably to Corbyn.
Sturgeon will be very happy to survive for another 3 1/2 years, but whether it is really in the SNP's best interests is rather more arguable.
I started out believing that Nicola was on the side of the angels, and MalcolmG was a ranting madman.
I have changed my mind somewhat -- there is enough in the public domain that is very concerning.
I'm inclined to agree. I never thought somebody of Sturgeon's ability would deliberately lie, but it's becoming very obvious that she hasn't told all the truth. This isn't necessarily the same thing, but it's something of a distinction without a difference in this case.
The police are entitled to hold silence against a suspect, on the basis that they are hiding something. Public opinion is less forgiving.
I think this has probably done terminal damage to her reputation. Whether it's going to damage her electoral prospects is another question.
I'm not so sure about terminal damage. Think she'll just bulldoze on TBH. Supporters will be re-energised.
With respect to Hamilton you have to remember the parameters of the Inquiry were drawn up very tightly by Swinney. No surprise here, really.
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
It isn't all bad.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
Hmmm... YYYYMMDD surely?
Doesn't that set up a Y10K problem ?
After the Y2K issue passed I did get a letter from a constituent demanding to know why we'd not chosen solutions in Government software to allow for the year 10,000. I sent him a po-faced reply saying we had decided to leave this matter for the next Government...
I am not 100% convinced that code I wrote for Y2K allows for 2100 not being a leap year. Ssshhhh!
There was a story from the other week, that somewhere reported a huge increase in infant mortality at the start of this year, which turned out to be a Y2K fudge treating two-digit dates of birth and death as being between 1921 and 2020. So when people born in 1921 died in 2021 it thought they were children.
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
It's interesting how different this seems from Israel: they have R well below 1 despite fewer restrictions, with not many more vaccinated than us. Do you think that's just because their vaccination level was more significantly higher than ours 3 weeks ago, because of 2nd doses (in my view unlikely), because the age range of their vaccinated population is different, or because they don't have our variant?
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
--AS
My guess is that they have vaccinated a higher percentage of those people who are the most connected hubs within social networks and hence are the most likely to spread infections.
Yes, that's my guess too, along with the variant.
It's also possible that Pfizer reduces transmission more than AZ, I forgot to suggest that as another hypothesis.
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
It isn't all bad.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Equally, Blair survived for three and a half more years after Hutton. If Sturgeon lasts that long, she will be pretty happy.
The point perhaps is that Blair survived for 3 1/2 more years, but the damage Labour sustained was immense, and led inexorably to Corbyn.
Sturgeon will be very happy to survive for another 3 1/2 years, but whether it is really in the SNP's best interests is rather more arguable.
I started out believing that Nicola was on the side of the angels, and MalcolmG was a ranting madman.
I have changed my mind somewhat -- there is enough in the public domain that is very concerning.
I'm inclined to agree. I never thought somebody of Sturgeon's ability would deliberately lie, but it's becoming very obvious that she hasn't told all the truth. This isn't necessarily the same thing, but it's something of a distinction without a difference in this case.
The police are entitled to hold silence against a suspect, on the basis that they are hiding something. Public opinion is less forgiving.
I think this has probably done terminal damage to her reputation. Whether it's going to damage her electoral prospects is another question.
I'm not so sure about terminal damage. Think she'll just bulldoze on TBH. Supporters will be re-energised.
With respect to Hamilton you have to remember the parameters of the Inquiry were drawn up very tightly by Swinney. No surprise here, really.
Like I’ve said before - there’s something for everyone in that report.
It is vague and ambiguous in parts. The paragraph as highlighted by wings is absolutely bizarre.
Still, the SNP have an independent report they can point to. Let’s also see what the committee full report says
Best news from today's Covid dashboard is that the drop in deaths is showing signs of acceleration, with the week-on-week drop in the seven day average now above 40%. At that rate we'd be averaging only ten a day in four weeks' time.
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
It's interesting how different this seems from Israel: they have R well below 1 despite fewer restrictions, with not many more vaccinated than us. Do you think that's just because their vaccination level was more significantly higher than ours 3 weeks ago, because of 2nd doses (in my view unlikely), because the age range of their vaccinated population is different, or because they don't have our variant?
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
--AS
Didn't see the message about CFR methodology.... sorry!
They have a considerably higher vaccination rate - they have given 60% of the *whole population* at least one dose. Which is getting into the herd immunity zone. To compare, we've given about 40% of the whole population one dose.
Just did a bit of digging - very large number of children in the Israeli population. Which means that they have vaccinated 77% or thereabouts of the adult population.....
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
It's interesting how different this seems from Israel: they have R well below 1 despite fewer restrictions, with not many more vaccinated than us. Do you think that's just because their vaccination level was more significantly higher than ours 3 weeks ago, because of 2nd doses (in my view unlikely), because the age range of their vaccinated population is different, or because they don't have our variant?
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
--AS
Didn't see the message about CFR methodology.... sorry!
They have a considerably higher vaccination rate - they have given 60% of the *whole population* at least one dose. Which is getting into the herd immunity zone. To compare, we've given about 40% of the whole population one dose.
Just did a bit of digging - very large number of children in the Israeli population. Which means that they have vaccinated 77% or thereabouts of the adult population.....
It's at the end of a thread from last night, but basically yes I think your methodology is okay.
I hadn't noticed the distinction between adults and all people. The next 6 weeks' data is really the acid test for the UK, I think.
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
It's interesting how different this seems from Israel: they have R well below 1 despite fewer restrictions, with not many more vaccinated than us. Do you think that's just because their vaccination level was more significantly higher than ours 3 weeks ago, because of 2nd doses (in my view unlikely), because the age range of their vaccinated population is different, or because they don't have our variant?
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
--AS
My guess is that they have vaccinated a higher percentage of those people who are the most connected hubs within social networks and hence are the most likely to spread infections.
Yep - the level of older people refusing vaccines there means they've got a much more even age spread and at least some coverage in all demographics.
We likely have herd immunity in the social circles of over 60s here at present, but the vaccine benefit is pretty slip for 18-35s right now.
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
It isn't all bad.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
I like this paragraph too 'Readers can choose which of the three causes they find most believable, but at the end of the day it just doesn’t matter. Our country is a banana republic, a nation that North Koreans point at and laugh. To be honest, readers, if we were you we’d get out while we still could.'
That is fantastic news across the board. Bravo Brexit Britain. Nearly through
I'm wondering how this will be reported on the News at 6.
I suspect something like, "although there were only 17 deaths, cases remain stubbornly high".
Of course, the cases are in fact positive tests, and the reason why they are so high is the huge increase in testing to utterly crazy levels. Most of them will be schoolboys and schoolgirls who would be none the wiser had they never been tested...
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
That is fantastic news across the board. Bravo Brexit Britain. Nearly through
I'm wondering how this will be reported on the News at 6.
I suspect something like, "although there were only 17 deaths, cases remain stubbornly high".
Of course, the cases are in fact positive tests, and the reason why they are so high is the huge increase in testing to utterly crazy levels. Most of them will be schoolboys and schoolgirls who would be none the wiser had they never been tested...
And that is from nearly 2 MILLLLLLLLION tests.....2 MILLION.....
Telling folk that they can't have their sunshine holidays this year would be hugely unpopular. OTOH this lot have imposed lockdown for nearly three months and counting, and have a very cautious timetable for letting us back out again.
It's hard to judge whether they'll actually stop people from travelling, or let them travel for long enough until the country has been seeded from top to bottom with umpteen nasty variants, before closing the borders in a state of panic when it's already too late.
We are talking Boris - so while we wait to find out what happened in last September it's safe to say that we will be allowed to go abroad until just after nasty variant that the current vaccines don't work against reaches critical mass in the UK.
Based on what we've seen of how this virus has changed, and what we are told about the pace at which coronaviruses in general are thought to change, complete evasion seems unlikely. However, I'm still concerned about the possibility of another two or three month long lockdown starting in about October, should the South African bug or something similar get a grip and people start to die in substantially higher numbers again. Hopefully modified vaccines will be able to come to the rescue by then - with luck we'll have a selection of them ready to go - but it'll still take quite a long time to roll out a complete program of boosters.
The Government would find it very hard indeed to avoid popular wrath this time around if it allowed that to happen, but that would still be precious little comfort to everyone having to endure it.
That is fantastic news across the board. Bravo Brexit Britain. Nearly through
I'm wondering how this will be reported on the News at 6.
I suspect something like, "although there were only 17 deaths, cases remain stubbornly high".
Of course, the cases are in fact positive tests, and the reason why they are so high is the huge increase in testing to utterly crazy levels. Most of them will be schoolboys and schoolgirls who would be none the wiser had they never been tested...
And that is from nearly 2 MILLLLLLLLION tests.....2 MILLION.....
Indeed. Yet the media will fail to compare apples with apples, some of them deliberately, many of them due to their being utterly effing innumerate.
I absolutely take on board the point that these reports almost never change anyone's mind, and I'm not going to bother reading it so will not form an opinion of its overall merits, but that is a curiously worded sentence in terms of setting a bar for plausibility at anything above impossibility. But they'd need lots like that to keep an outrage train going.
Russian scientists who have developed the country's second vaccine against Covid-19, EpiVacCorona, say the shot is effective against variants of the coronavirus, Reuters news agency reports.
Telling folk that they can't have their sunshine holidays this year would be hugely unpopular. OTOH this lot have imposed lockdown for nearly three months and counting, and have a very cautious timetable for letting us back out again.
It's hard to judge whether they'll actually stop people from travelling, or let them travel for long enough until the country has been seeded from top to bottom with umpteen nasty variants, before closing the borders in a state of panic when it's already too late.
We are talking Boris - so while we wait to find out what happened in last September it's safe to say that we will be allowed to go abroad until just after nasty variant that the current vaccines don't work against reaches critical mass in the UK.
Based on what we've seen of how this virus has changed, and what we are told about the pace at which coronaviruses in general are thought to change, complete evasion seems unlikely. However, I'm still concerned about the possibility of another two or three month long lockdown starting in about October, should the South African bug or something similar get a grip and people start to die in substantially higher numbers again. Hopefully modified vaccines will be able to come to the rescue by then - with luck we'll have a selection of them ready to go - but it'll still take quite a long time to roll out a complete program of boosters.
The Government would find it very hard indeed to avoid popular wrath this time around if it allowed that to happen, but that would still be precious little comfort to everyone having to endure it.
Given we now know we can do 800k in a day, we could roll out boosters to the demographics liable to die in 2 weeks given production capacity will be in place by then.
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
It isn't all bad.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
I don’t understand the intricacies of internal Sindy disputes. Why does Wings hate Sturgeon? Is it because he thinks she won’t press for UDI if indyref2 is refused? Or just some loyalty to Eck?
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Equally, Blair survived for three and a half more years after Hutton. If Sturgeon lasts that long, she will be pretty happy.
The point perhaps is that Blair survived for 3 1/2 more years, but the damage Labour sustained was immense, and led inexorably to Corbyn.
Sturgeon will be very happy to survive for another 3 1/2 years, but whether it is really in the SNP's best interests is rather more arguable.
I started out believing that Nicola was on the side of the angels, and MalcolmG was a ranting madman.
I have changed my mind somewhat -- there is enough in the public domain that is very concerning.
I'm inclined to agree. I never thought somebody of Sturgeon's ability would deliberately lie, but it's becoming very obvious that she hasn't told all the truth. This isn't necessarily the same thing, but it's something of a distinction without a difference in this case.
The police are entitled to hold silence against a suspect, on the basis that they are hiding something. Public opinion is less forgiving.
I think this has probably done terminal damage to her reputation. Whether it's going to damage her electoral prospects is another question.
I'm not so sure about terminal damage. Think she'll just bulldoze on TBH. Supporters will be re-energised.
With respect to Hamilton you have to remember the parameters of the Inquiry were drawn up very tightly by Swinney. No surprise here, really.
Yes, but her reputation is destroyed. From hereon in, she's going to be just another useless politician out for herself.
Like I say, I'm not sure it will harm her electoral prospects given the lack of alternatives, but she's going to struggle to claim any moral high ground whatsoever.
Russian scientists who have developed the country's second vaccine against Covid-19, EpiVacCorona, say the shot is effective against variants of the coronavirus, Reuters news agency reports.
It's amazing what being deprived of Salisbury Cathedral sightseeing tours can do as an incentive.
I absolutely take on board the point that these reports almost never change anyone's mind, and I'm not going to bother reading it so will not form an opinion of its overall merits, but that is a curiously worded sentence in terms of setting a bar for plausibility at anything above impossibility. But they'd need lots like that to keep an outrage train going.
If the quote about inevitable skepticism is real, it really doesn't sound like the sort of language Independent reports usually use when they're open minded about calling foul.
Russian scientists who have developed the country's second vaccine against Covid-19, EpiVacCorona, say the shot is effective against variants of the coronavirus, Reuters news agency reports.
You have to hand it to the FSB, they're really quite good at industrial espionage.
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
Cases are kinda level now - 0-14 rising, the other falling slowly. The local R is almost useless at this level - a couple of cases and it's all over the place.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
It's interesting how different this seems from Israel: they have R well below 1 despite fewer restrictions, with not many more vaccinated than us. Do you think that's just because their vaccination level was more significantly higher than ours 3 weeks ago, because of 2nd doses (in my view unlikely), because the age range of their vaccinated population is different, or because they don't have our variant?
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
--AS
Didn't see the message about CFR methodology.... sorry!
They have a considerably higher vaccination rate - they have given 60% of the *whole population* at least one dose. Which is getting into the herd immunity zone. To compare, we've given about 40% of the whole population one dose.
Just did a bit of digging - very large number of children in the Israeli population. Which means that they have vaccinated 77% or thereabouts of the adult population.....
It's at the end of a thread from last night, but basically yes I think your methodology is okay.
I hadn't noticed the distinction between adults and all people. The next 6 weeks' data is really the acid test for the UK, I think.
--AS
Yes - it's a big deal for Israel with their relatively huge number of children. 77% of the adult population really puts it in perspective.... They are running low on people to jab.
So you pays your money and takes your choice - Hamilton, or the MSPs......
Not really. Viewing this as a detached outsider I had little doubt about the essential conclusion. Some cock up and confusion? Yes. Some less than ideal processes and comms? Yes. But a conspiracy to nail and jail Salmon and pervert the course of justice? No. Not for me. Not in a million years.
But Hamilton was not investigating the conspiracy charge, was he? I thought he was looking at Ministerial misconduct, which would not necessarily require conspiracy.
Yes, I don't mean just this Hamilton Report. The "conspiracy", I think fails on every level. That's one for Sturgeon haters within the SNP and Sindy haters both north and south of the border.
You don't 'think' that, you've refused to look into the matter because it's thuddingly obvious what the evidence wold point you to. Even TUD hasn't had the cojones to mount an actual defense of Sturgeon's behaviour, wisely sticking to firing pot shots at 'Yoons' instead. Hanging on to your own ignorance like a barnacle isn't an actual contribution to the debate.
From the report: The failure to disclose the meeting of 29 March with Mr Aberdein to the Scottish Parliament on 8 January 2019, although the First Minister’s statement was technically a correct statement of the occasions on which the she had met Mr Salmond nonetheless resulted in an incomplete narrative of events. For the reasons stated above I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code.
The fact that she did not want to admit that she knew in advance that the meeting on 2nd April was a government meeting and not a party meeting is mentioned but then rather overlooked.
Mmm. Has there ever been a public figure (or any of us on PB) who has changed their mind as the result of an enquiry/independent review? My experience is that people who agree with the findings say "Well, that settles it" and those who disagree shout "whitewash"
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
Yes, I believed Tony Blair regarding the events of the death of the David Kelly, then I read the Hutton report and I noticed he gave everyone in government the benefit of the doubt and thought everyone at the BBC had behaved very badly.
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Equally, Blair survived for three and a half more years after Hutton. If Sturgeon lasts that long, she will be pretty happy.
Am I missing something, but why is declaring war on a country and forgetting about a meeting you weren't at equivalent?
In Australia, what we would describe as a 2% swing is called a 4% swing. Interesting fact.
The Australians are a backward people when it comes to numbers, as you note they incorrectly report swing but much much worse, they put the wickets lost before the total team runs.
2/156 is against the laws of God and nature, it should be 156/2.
Especially since often when England are touring, it's hard to tell which number is which.
Anyway, at least they don't commit the ultimate atrocity of writing dates as MM/DD/YY. How hard is it to appreciate that it's in order of how often the numbers change?
Actually this is something we get wrong, because that's not how numbers work though. You increment numbers on the right first, not the left.
MM/DD actually makes much more sense than DD/MM, but it should be YY/MM/DD.
DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS is completely illogical - and writing a journal (or even saving files) month before day makes much more sense.
Well quite - it should by YYMMDD, but it isn't. YYMMDD makes sense. DDMMYY makes sense, albeit in a slightly comic sans way. But putting DD in the middle makes no sense in any world.
More fundamentally, anyone who has to store date based named files (such as daily data) knows that the only way to keep them in the right order is to have them stored as YYMMDD.
Hmmm... YYYYMMDD surely?
AD/BC YYYYMMDD HHMM:SS
Hmmmm... And what about time zones???
Who doesn't use GMT/UTC for everything?
Americans!
They prefer Zulu time don't they?
1700 Zulu.
Zulu is GMT
Why do you think I mentioned it? 😂
Have to be different for the sake of being different. Like some other people.
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
It isn't all bad.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
I don’t understand the intricacies of internal Sindy disputes. Why does Wings hate Sturgeon? Is it because he thinks she won’t press for UDI if indyref2 is refused? Or just some loyalty to Eck?
I think he's one of those who says the SNP already have a mandate for Indyref2 but Sturgeon likes the trappings of office too much which makes her timid.
Personally my view is that Sturgeon realises if the SNP lose Indyref2 then that really is it for a genuine registration and she wants the polls to be something like 60% for Yes consistently.
There's plenty of who think current polling is all driven by the pandemic.
Plus the SNP line that Scotland was dragged out of the EU against her will and we will rejoin might not be that effective when the EU block our vaccines.
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
It isn't all bad.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
I don’t understand the intricacies of internal Sindy disputes. Why does Wings hate Sturgeon? Is it because he thinks she won’t press for UDI if indyref2 is refused? Or just some loyalty to Eck?
She has done nothing for 6 years, keeps kicking the can down the road, between them her and her husband take in 300K, they have wrecked the SNP and left it with no cash and the £600K ring fenced referendum cash is not to be found. Apart from stitching up Salmond as well. This mob have no intention of pushing referendum , they will once again make all the right noises to get elected and then sit back and fill their boots for another 5 years.
Telling folk that they can't have their sunshine holidays this year would be hugely unpopular. OTOH this lot have imposed lockdown for nearly three months and counting, and have a very cautious timetable for letting us back out again.
It's hard to judge whether they'll actually stop people from travelling, or let them travel for long enough until the country has been seeded from top to bottom with umpteen nasty variants, before closing the borders in a state of panic when it's already too late.
We are talking Boris - so while we wait to find out what happened in last September it's safe to say that we will be allowed to go abroad until just after nasty variant that the current vaccines don't work against reaches critical mass in the UK.
Based on what we've seen of how this virus has changed, and what we are told about the pace at which coronaviruses in general are thought to change, complete evasion seems unlikely. However, I'm still concerned about the possibility of another two or three month long lockdown starting in about October, should the South African bug or something similar get a grip and people start to die in substantially higher numbers again. Hopefully modified vaccines will be able to come to the rescue by then - with luck we'll have a selection of them ready to go - but it'll still take quite a long time to roll out a complete program of boosters.
The Government would find it very hard indeed to avoid popular wrath this time around if it allowed that to happen, but that would still be precious little comfort to everyone having to endure it.
Given we now know we can do 800k in a day, we could roll out boosters to the demographics liable to die in 2 weeks given production capacity will be in place by then.
If we could get through the vaccinations at that pace, including at weekends, continuously for about six weeks straight then that would clear JCVI phase one all over again. Assuming that speed can be maintained and assuming that absolutely nothing goes wrong. You'll also, presumably, need 2-3 weeks after that for everyone to acquire actual benefit from the boosters.
Against a background of resumed exponential growth in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, that's not nearly quick enough to avoid yet another lockdown.
We should be considering air bridges with other countries only once both they and us have crushed the damned virus. It doesn't have to be down to zero, because we know that's unrealistic, but it has to be down to a low level and sustainable at that level.
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
It isn't all bad.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
I don’t understand the intricacies of internal Sindy disputes. Why does Wings hate Sturgeon? Is it because he thinks she won’t press for UDI if indyref2 is refused? Or just some loyalty to Eck?
She has done nothing for 6 years, keeps kicking the can down the road, between them her and her husband take in 300K, they have wrecked the SNP and left it with no cash and the £600K ring fenced referendum cash is not to be found. Apart from stitching up Salmond as well. This mob have no intention of pushing referendum , they will once again make all the right noises to get elected and then sit back and fill their boots for another 5 years.
You need to vote Tory, both in the constituency and list, only that way can you get rid of Sturgeon.
Comments
Unequivocal
Whitewash
(I haven't had an opinion on this one so don't have a mind to change.)
AD/BC YYYYMMDD HHMM:SSZ
A Teen Vogue photographer has said the hiring and swift axing of editor-in-chief Alexi McCammond over anti-Asian tweets shows Condé Nast does not “value” its Asian staff members.
McCammond apologised for comments she tweeted in 2011 and which had been reported before. Condé Nast announced last week that she would no longer start in the job on Wednesday as planned.
“Condé Nast knew about these tweets but they still offered the job to McCammond,” said Yu Tsai, a photographer who has worked for the magazine. “This tells me that [they] didn’t value their Asian community.
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/mar/22/teen-vogue-conde-nast-yu-tsai-photographer
By this logic, this lady must remain unemployable forever.....
I thought with this level of whitewash I was wrong to believe Blair.
Looking at the decline cases, it seems strange when the R seems to be relatively high, bobbing around 1 and above it in many areas?
Or am I misreading it all?
1700 Zulu.
Scottish Labour never miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot. The Tories are no better but it'll do them collectively less damage
James Callaghan
The issue is whether the matter remains a 'relativity' one in which one of them loses and therefore the other wins. I think the scales have been tilted in that direction. But if there were a third player, let's call it truth, justice, fairness or whatever, then they would both lose. Usually in politics that third player doesn't really exist. Someone has to win. Just as in Brexit, both causes were bad but one had to win.
The pursuing bear of the voter can't consume Salmond and can only consume Nicola at the cost of the separatist cause. I don't think it will, as there is nowhere else to go.
Out in front, with the bear well behind chewing up SKS, Scottish Tories, Scottish Labour, moderate Irish unionists and nationalists, in UK politics are a few people to whom truth is an entire stranger.
The school openings was a balancing act, which the government seems to have just pulled off. You can see a clear "turn" in the cases to a slower rate of decline, apart from the increase in the 0-14.
R never really fell deeply below 1 - this is the new variants and why the Europeans are upset about vaccines. Without vaccines, a fairly hard lockdown can hold it a bit below 1.
The big decline in deaths is because of the vaccine effect decoupling the cases from deaths - see the CFR. This is why the government is very keen to get everyone in the 50+ groups - once you are down to 50, that's a lot of the hospitalisation risk as well.
Americans almost always, even in scientific contexts, refer to some local time zone which the rest of the world then has to look up. SpaceX, I’m looking at you.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1370556528323751938
Ssshhhh!
Sturgeon will be very happy to survive for another 3 1/2 years, but whether it is really in the SNP's best interests is rather more arguable.
I started out believing that Nicola was on the side of the angels, and MalcolmG was a ranting madman.
I have changed my mind somewhat -- there is enough in the public domain that is very concerning.
It's hard to judge whether they'll actually stop people from travelling, or let them travel for long enough until the country has been seeded from top to bottom with umpteen nasty variants, before closing the borders in a state of panic when it's already too late.
PS: I did reply to your message about the CFR methodology but it got end-of-threaded so I don't know if you saw it.
--AS
Curiously, and entirely by coincidence he has focused on exactly the same paragraph as I quoted down thread. It is a rather peculiar one.
The police are entitled to hold silence against a suspect, on the basis that they are hiding something. Public opinion is less forgiving.
I think this has probably done terminal damage to her reputation. Whether it's going to damage her electoral prospects is another question.
With respect to Hamilton you have to remember the parameters of the Inquiry were drawn up very tightly by Swinney. No surprise here, really.
Much else in his report is bizarre. But that one paragraph alone destroys its credibility utterly and forever. And unfortunately that means that Scotland is lost. Independence is over. All is destroyed.
It's also possible that Pfizer reduces transmission more than AZ, I forgot to suggest that as another hypothesis.
--AS
It is vague and ambiguous in parts. The paragraph as highlighted by wings is absolutely bizarre.
Still, the SNP have an independent report they can point to. Let’s also see what the committee full report says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvrI3wy_TGk
They have a considerably higher vaccination rate - they have given 60% of the *whole population* at least one dose. Which is getting into the herd immunity zone. To compare, we've given about 40% of the whole population one dose.
Just did a bit of digging - very large number of children in the Israeli population. Which means that they have vaccinated 77% or thereabouts of the adult population.....
I hadn't noticed the distinction between adults and all people. The next 6 weeks' data is really the acid test for the UK, I think.
--AS
We likely have herd immunity in the social circles of over 60s here at present, but the vaccine benefit is pretty slip for 18-35s right now.
I suspect something like, "although there were only 17 deaths, cases remain stubbornly high".
Of course, the cases are in fact positive tests, and the reason why they are so high is the huge increase in testing to utterly crazy levels. Most of them will be schoolboys and schoolgirls who would be none the wiser had they never been tested...
POSITIVE TESTS
not 'cases'.
But he said this was a "genuine failure of recollection" and not deliberate.
Mr Hamilton said he was therefore of the opinion that Ms Sturgeon had not breached any of the provisions of the code.'
So Sturgeon did not give a full account to MSPs but can be absolved because of a poor memory
https://twitter.com/holyroodmandy/status/1374041009592664070?s=21
Why do you believe her?
‘Because I can’t think of any reason she would lie’
The Government would find it very hard indeed to avoid popular wrath this time around if it allowed that to happen, but that would still be precious little comfort to everyone having to endure it.
Like I say, I'm not sure it will harm her electoral prospects given the lack of alternatives, but she's going to struggle to claim any moral high ground whatsoever.
https://twitter.com/GavNewlandsSNP/status/1374039008452435972
Have to be different for the sake of being different. Like some other people.
Personally my view is that Sturgeon realises if the SNP lose Indyref2 then that really is it for a genuine registration and she wants the polls to be something like 60% for Yes consistently.
There's plenty of who think current polling is all driven by the pandemic.
Plus the SNP line that Scotland was dragged out of the EU against her will and we will rejoin might not be that effective when the EU block our vaccines.
Against a background of resumed exponential growth in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, that's not nearly quick enough to avoid yet another lockdown.
We should be considering air bridges with other countries only once both they and us have crushed the damned virus. It doesn't have to be down to zero, because we know that's unrealistic, but it has to be down to a low level and sustainable at that level.
Tell all your friends that as well.