More fun busting. Hopefully Brillo will have them in a GB news spoiler event where the 3 auld dinosaurs can compare their blood pressure meds and bellow away to their hearts content.
I am no fan of Salmond or Galloway but your attitude is exactly why Scotland is heading for intolerance, hate and division for years to come
I think it's hilarious how TUD comes here and affects some sort of moral superiority over the 'PB Tories' when he supports the dirty compromised authoritarians. Clearly hasn't had his 'Do you think we're the baddies?' moment yet. Probably comes quite hard to someone who's built the equivalent of Edinburgh castle on the moral high ground.
Based on your powers of prediction I'll be safe for a while yet. When it comes I'll be sure to to ask you how you've coped with your cause being associated with the worst people in politics.
"A Department of Health spokesman said: "Our vaccination programme continues to make exceptional progress - with over 37 million jabs administered so far.
""Vaccine supply was always going to vary over time, but we are on course to offer a first vaccine dose to those aged 50 and over by mid-April, and all adults by the end of July.""
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
If they have impounded our vaccines, they may have a point.....oh well, if the UK vaccine roll out does slow down I guess that will rule out holidays in Europe this summer....
If they have impounded our vaccines they are lucky we haven't lobbed a nuke
I wonder how many European countries rely on British tourists for a substantial proportion of their GDP.
"Spain, France, Italy, the US and the Republic of Ireland, in that order, remain the top five most popular countries for UK residents to visit (Figure 4), accounting for 46% of all visits abroad and approximately 43% of total spend abroad. Overall, 72% of visits were to EU countries....
UK residents travelling abroad for holidays spent £43.4 billion in 2019"
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
The solution is for everyone to call him "Bozzybear" like what that Carrie Symonds does.
A neutral name, implying neither approval or abjuration
Anything is better than Shagger, which one poster on PB insists on using. Really annoys me, that one.
The ones that annoy me are Bozo and The Clown. Not because I am particularly averse to political insults (I may have indulged in a Tony B. Liar once or twice in the past) but that it is presented as some sort of insightful political analysis.
Gideon for Osborne was a good one, since even if people want to pretend it's not right for people to go by a second name or, in effect, a political name rather than what they are known as personally, it was not even an accurate one, as he legally changed his name from Gideon.
I always found people choosing to use Gideon in a negative sense to be antisemitic. A precursor of what was to come.
Like its insulting to have a Hebrew name.
Interesting thought. I'd never considered it. He's not Jewish is he? Or you mean just the implication.
[pause]
OK just did a bit of google-fu and thought - oh he's the son of a long line of baronets hence is def not Jewish. Then I read further and see that his mother is Jewish and hence I think that "makes" him Jewish so you could well be right.
It depends on what you count as Jewish, but under halacha (Jewish religious law/rules) you are right that the religion of the mother is the only test so he is Jewish. In the modern world a lot of people, both Jewish and otherwise, consider it to be more a test of self-identification but other people (including a lot of more traditional Jews) stick to the maternal bloodline test.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
The solution is for everyone to call him "Bozzybear" like what that Carrie Symonds does.
A neutral name, implying neither approval or abjuration
Anything is better than Shagger, which one poster on PB insists on using. Really annoys me, that one.
The ones that annoy me are Bozo and The Clown. Not because I am particularly averse to political insults (I may have indulged in a Tony B. Liar once or twice in the past) but that it is presented as some sort of insightful political analysis.
David Chameleon is a favourite of mine – in terms of contrived nicknames, it is a true classic of the genre.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Why would you say that?
Their forecasts have been revised worse than ours have been.
AZN haven't been able to manufacture at the volume planned so we are all taking longer. That doesn't bump them to the front of the queue just because they whinged more.
Actually... the EU is getting vaccines at about the pace they ordered them. Back in January (before they realised they'd fucked up), they spoke publicly about how vaccine availability was only going to accelerate in April.
More fun busting. Hopefully Brillo will have them in a GB news spoiler event where the 3 auld dinosaurs can compare their blood pressure meds and bellow away to their hearts content.
I am no fan of Salmond or Galloway but your attitude is exactly why Scotland is heading for intolerance, hate and division for years to come
I think it's hilarious how TUD comes here and affects some sort of moral superiority over the 'PB Tories' when he supports the dirty compromised authoritarians. Clearly hasn't had his 'Do you think we're the baddies?' moment yet. Probably comes quite hard to someone who's built the equivalent of Edinburgh castle on the moral high ground.
Based on your powers of prediction I'll be safe for a while yet. When it comes I'll be sure to to ask you how you've coped with your cause being associated with the worst people in politics.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
The solution is for everyone to call him "Bozzybear" like what that Carrie Symonds does.
A neutral name, implying neither approval or abjuration
Anything is better than Shagger, which one poster on PB insists on using. Really annoys me, that one.
The ones that annoy me are Bozo and The Clown. Not because I am particularly averse to political insults (I may have indulged in a Tony B. Liar once or twice in the past) but that it is presented as some sort of insightful political analysis.
Gideon for Osborne was a good one, since even if people want to pretend it's not right for people to go by a second name or, in effect, a political name rather than what they are known as personally, it was not even an accurate one, as he legally changed his name from Gideon.
I always found people choosing to use Gideon in a negative sense to be antisemitic. A precursor of what was to come.
Like its insulting to have a Hebrew name.
Interesting thought. I'd never considered it. He's not Jewish is he? Or you mean just the implication.
[pause]
OK just did a bit of google-fu and thought - oh he's the son of a long line of baronets hence is def not Jewish. Then I read further and see that his mother is Jewish and hence I think that "makes" him Jewish so you could well be right.
It depends on what you count as Jewish, but under halacha (Jewish religious law/rules) you are right that the religion of the mother is the only test so he is Jewish. In the modern world a lot of people, both Jewish and otherwise, consider it to be more a test of self-identification but other people (including a lot of more traditional Jews) stick to the maternal bloodline test.
Interesting thanks. So could be although I would like to think it was the more playground-y out of fashion as @Nigelb has noted rather than anything more sinister.
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
Is it not just the promised vaccine glut coming to fruition? Part of what made the EU's temper tantrums so inexplicable was that they were right that they had ordered more than enough - it just wasn't going to arrive soon enough to forestall any Winter waves, and sabre rattling was not going to help that, so they needed to focus on using as much of what they did have as they could, rather than trash the vaccines they did have.
Have you thought about analysing why that might be, and as such why it might change over the next few months?
I have no doubt thathe Tories currently enjoy a clear lead. Today's Hartlepool poll ,however, implies a Tory lead of 27% , and - unlike a year ago - there is no sign of that.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Why on earth would have have to say that? I can just imagine the press conference now "Yes, you can call me Boris Johnson". If he didn't want people to call him that, I am sure we would have heard that.
It would be a bit late in the day! Reminiscent of when Andy Cole decided that henceforth he was to be known as 'Andrew'.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
The EU will pay a heavy international price in due course and why would anyone want to invest in them
Maybe they think Australia is still a quasi-colony of the UK, so by getting at Australia they're getting at us. That will be very insulting to Australians.
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Why on earth would have have to say that? I can just imagine the press conference now "Yes, you can call me Boris Johnson". If he didn't want people to call him that, I am sure we would have heard that.
It would be a bit late in the day! Reminiscent of when Andy Cole decided that henceforth he was to be known as 'Andrew'.
Cannot remember, what is it that we're supposed to call the Church formerly called Mormorn? Not "LDS" I know.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
Aaaaand it's the 6th poll in a row to show an increasing Tory lead since the vaccine bounce was declared officially over...
Not that I'm counting, of course.
The trend in the surveys now seems to be suggesting that the Government has put on some support but has now levelled off; Labour continues on a downward trajectory; and the beneficiaries of the more recent softening in Labour's position *may* be the Liberal Democrats, but there's certainly nothing dramatic happening.
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Why on earth would have have to say that? I can just imagine the press conference now "Yes, you can call me Boris Johnson". If he didn't want people to call him that, I am sure we would have heard that.
It would be a bit late in the day! Reminiscent of when Andy Cole decided that henceforth he was to be known as 'Andrew'.
Not, by the way, that I am maligning Andy Cole here. There's never really a right time to tell everyone they're using the wrong name. A friend of mine went through her entire legal career being known by her middle name professionally because there was never a right time to correct an administrative mishap in her first week of work experience when she assumed she wouldn't be staying for long enough for it to matter.
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
Is it not just the promised vaccine glut coming to fruition? Part of what made the EU's temper tantrums so inexplicable was that they were right that they had ordered more than enough - it just wasn't going to arrive soon enough to forestall any Winter waves, and sabre rattling was not going to help that, so they needed to focus on using as much of what they did have as they could, rather than trash the vaccines they did have.
Dunno. This looks like an unexpected amount of AZ. Gosh, how did that happen? Maybe the EU found it in a fridge in Krakow?
At this rate we will still be in lockdown by August and the EU will be free in June. Quite the reversal
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Why on earth would have have to say that? I can just imagine the press conference now "Yes, you can call me Boris Johnson". If he didn't want people to call him that, I am sure we would have heard that.
It would be a bit late in the day! Reminiscent of when Andy Cole decided that henceforth he was to be known as 'Andrew'.
Not, by the way, that I am maligning Andy Cole here. There's never really a right time to tell everyone they're using the wrong name. A friend of mine went through her entire legal career being known by her middle name professionally because there was never a right time to correct an administrative mishap in her first week of work experience when she assumed she wouldn't be staying for long enough for it to matter.
A mate still has his surname misspelled on his main bank account because of some sort of clerical error when he opened the account.
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Why on earth would have have to say that? I can just imagine the press conference now "Yes, you can call me Boris Johnson". If he didn't want people to call him that, I am sure we would have heard that.
It would be a bit late in the day! Reminiscent of when Andy Cole decided that henceforth he was to be known as 'Andrew'.
Not, by the way, that I am maligning Andy Cole here. There's never really a right time to tell everyone they're using the wrong name. A friend of mine went through her entire legal career being known by her middle name professionally because there was never a right time to correct an administrative mishap in her first week of work experience when she assumed she wouldn't be staying for long enough for it to matter.
A mate still has his surname misspelled on his main bank account because of some sort of clerical error when he opened the account.
My middle name is very common, however it is misspelled on my national insurance card...
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
The solution is for everyone to call him "Bozzybear" like what that Carrie Symonds does.
A neutral name, implying neither approval or abjuration
Anything is better than Shagger, which one poster on PB insists on using. Really annoys me, that one.
The ones that annoy me are Bozo and The Clown. Not because I am particularly averse to political insults (I may have indulged in a Tony B. Liar once or twice in the past) but that it is presented as some sort of insightful political analysis.
Gideon for Osborne was a good one, since even if people want to pretend it's not right for people to go by a second name or, in effect, a political name rather than what they are known as personally, it was not even an accurate one, as he legally changed his name from Gideon.
I always found people choosing to use Gideon in a negative sense to be antisemitic. A precursor of what was to come.
Like its insulting to have a Hebrew name.
Interesting thought. I'd never considered it. He's not Jewish is he? Or you mean just the implication.
[pause]
OK just did a bit of google-fu and thought - oh he's the son of a long line of baronets hence is def not Jewish. Then I read further and see that his mother is Jewish and hence I think that "makes" him Jewish so you could well be right.
It depends on what you count as Jewish, but under halacha (Jewish religious law/rules) you are right that the religion of the mother is the only test so he is Jewish. In the modern world a lot of people, both Jewish and otherwise, consider it to be more a test of self-identification but other people (including a lot of more traditional Jews) stick to the maternal bloodline test.
Interesting thanks. So could be although I would like to think it was the more playground-y out of fashion as @Nigelb has noted rather than anything more sinister.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
I'm fairly sure I heard something to that effect before, I can't remember from who though. It wouldn't make sense to have a model that assumes approval of vaccines, at the very least you ought to have separate models for all the different approval scenarios.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
April 1 million (Remaining over 50s) May 3 million (40 - 49) June 5.9 million (30 - 39) July 7.25 million (18 - 30)
General message for anyone under 50: if you can find any reason to have yourself promoted out of your age category then do it, or you'll be waiting a bloody long time - albeit that you may need to be prepared to do some chasing about. Through keeping myself informed, I found out last week about a little-heralded change in the rules that got me moved from cohort 10 to cohort 6, but (a) I had to ring the GP surgery and explain to them what the new rules were, and (b) I am still waiting for my vaccine appointment, so will have to start ringing them up and pestering them for it again if I've had no further contact from them by the start of next week.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
The vaccine bounce will DEFINITELY disappear if we have a fourth wave/another lockdown even as the EU overtakes us on vaccines.
This is the one big thing Boris got right, if it turns out he didn't get it right, whether it was his fault or not - ouch. The reckoning will be rigorous
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
Not the case -
"...Sars-CoV-2 variant B117 – known as the UK or Kent variant because of where it emerged – was the dominant strain. B117, which is highly transmissible, was responsible for 80% of tested cases in Israel during the study period. It now accounts for about 98% of cases in the UK and is also common around the world...."
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
How does news of an impounding of Australian exports get out but not news of this alleged impounding of exports to the UK? Serious question?
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
"hardcoded class privilege" = the only thing they own, their home and their pension.
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
By definition you are not putting on a hedge to win or lose. You are doing it to keep yourself neutral whatever the outcome.
A City boy like you should not have forgotten that.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
Wait, so the Cabinet Office produced pessimistic vaccination forecasts to enable SAGE to produce pessimistic models to enable us all to be kept locked down forever? So do we blame the Cabinet Office or SAGE, or both?
Max, I respect your contributions on vaccine efforts a great deal (and many of your posts in general) but I do think you need to take a deep breath here and think about why. Even if you believe in evil power-crazed scientists, they've already, thanks to Covid, secured massive increases in future funding and the ear of senor politicians whenever they want. Why would they want to prolong lockdown restrictions, which are a real pain in the arse for science and scientists. Trust me, we're all zoomed-out and we want our foreign conferences back!
I do think (some on) SAGE are worried about the government cocking this up and getting everyone partying in pubs before the vaccination levels are high enough. Possibly too worried, but they'll have a better idea of what the government is thinking, so maybe not... But if they really want another lockdown/longer restrictions then the most effective way to do it would be to engineer another wave by opening up too fast. Pessimistic models can buy weeks to a month or two before they're ovetaken by reality, another wave could get us months of lovely lockdowns with Whitty and co on the tellybox.
I just have completely lost any trust in SAGE and the government scientists. They churn out incorrect model after incorrect model and continue to expect the people to (literally) live and die by them. There is no peer review process, none of them are made properly public, we're essentially just told to "trust the process" and even after they're proved to be hopelessly pessimistic they keep using the same broken models to churn out yet more garbage.
I could understand using models that weren't properly up to date when this all started, it's not something we're going to be prepared for. We're now over a year into the pandemic and yet the same government advisors are still using barely modified versions of the same models that didn't work very well the first time around. I either have to put that down to basic incompetence or some purposeful misdirection by the scientists to continue keeping the population under lock and key. The first actually seems less likely than the second scenario.
Like the government there is a complete lack of scrutiny of the scientific advice that is going into the decision making process. They've had a year to open everything up and yet we're still basically just left hoping that either the model leaks or they decide to release it.
@MaxPB, I was going to say what @Selebian said, but he said it first and better.
Can I beg you to consider the following piece of meta-advice: it's difficult for any of us to make good predictions when we are angry. Take some time, and come back to it from first principles in a couple of weeks.
I share some of your concerns about the models but I see this as a reflection of poor rigor (sorry @Selebian!) in epidemiology in general rather than particular defects in this work. I think it's fair to say that the SPI-M process is that the various research groups do the modelling, and then the committee functions as a kind of peer review.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
Not the case -
"...Sars-CoV-2 variant B117 – known as the UK or Kent variant because of where it emerged – was the dominant strain. B117, which is highly transmissible, was responsible for 80% of tested cases in Israel during the study period. It now accounts for about 98% of cases in the UK and is also common around the world...."
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
How does news of an impounding of Australian exports get out but not news of this alleged impounding of exports to the UK? Serious question?
Theory:
Because this news about the 3.1m jabs seems to have come from the Aussie government (it may not be true, of course). The Oz government has an incentive to leak this info, as it explains their faltering vax drive. And the Oz govt has no way of retaliating anyway
I have read reports that the EU has gamed the UK end of this, and decided that if it blocked AZ shipments to the UK, the UK would not retaliate (eg by blocking lipid exports) because ultimately everyone would suffer (and we wouldn't get our Pfizer jabs from the EU)
However the only way the UK government could resist enormous public pressure to retaliate would be by taking it on the chin, and staying quiet, so voters never find out. So the news has NOT leaked from HMG, unlike Canberra
Likely? No. Impossible? Also no
The EU has been behaving like a crazed drunk for several months. Their politicians live in fear of the voters taking revenge. eg Macron
The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet
"A Department of Health spokesman said: "Our vaccination programme continues to make exceptional progress - with over 37 million jabs administered so far.
""Vaccine supply was always going to vary over time, but we are on course to offer a first vaccine dose to those aged 50 and over by mid-April, and all adults by the end of July.""
In England according to PHE by 01 April there were 6.3 million under 50s who had received a first dose. Spent about 2 mins teasing out some stats but I reckon that’s about a quarter of the under 50s already jabbed.
I now know so many people in their 30s who have had the first dose for spurious reasons it barely warrants a mention on the whatsapp anymore. Without this I can’t help but think the government could have declared mission accomplished ages ago for the over 50s but have some cunning plan as to why they wanted it delayed.
Whether it’s to do with supply negotiations or the behavioural scientists I don’t know. Could be as well to build a fire break within the young before the big reopening. Quite significant when added to the circa 30% with acquired immunity (less double counting).
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
My 18, 28 and 30 year old sons have all had first does - elder 2 of them have second dose tomorrow
The EU is demanding AZ give it some doses from India, and using sheer force to secure that outcome. So the 5m doses meant for the UK have been delayed again......
That 5m neatly fits in with the new, expected shortfall
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, and all the remaining adults will still, of course, be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
Not the case -
"...Sars-CoV-2 variant B117 – known as the UK or Kent variant because of where it emerged – was the dominant strain. B117, which is highly transmissible, was responsible for 80% of tested cases in Israel during the study period. It now accounts for about 98% of cases in the UK and is also common around the world...."
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, so all the remaining adults will still be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
This is nonsense. See my message above. I know so many people in their 30s who have been added to Cat 6 in just the last few weeks it’s become more a case of “what sucker left on this whatsapp group still hasn’t been jabbed”.
April 1 million (Remaining over 50s) May 3 million (40 - 49) June 5.9 million (30 - 39) July 7.25 million (18 - 30)
General message for anyone under 50: if you can find any reason to have yourself promoted out of your age category then do it, or you'll be waiting a bloody long time - albeit that you may need to be prepared to do some chasing about. Through keeping myself informed, I found out last week about a little-heralded change in the rules that got me moved from cohort 10 to cohort 6, but (a) I had to ring the GP surgery and explain to them what the new rules were, and (b) I am still waiting for my vaccine appointment, so will have to start ringing them up and pestering them for it again if I've had no further contact from them by the start of next week.
Can you point me in the direction of the change in rules to which you refer?
The EU is demanding AZ give it some doses from India, and using sheer force to secure that outcome. So the 5m doses meant for the UK have been delayed again......
That 5m neatly fits in with the new, expected shortfall
I can't think of anything more stupid than the EU seeking to punish Australia because of their links with the UK, if of course there's any truth in that accusation.
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
How does news of an impounding of Australian exports get out but not news of this alleged impounding of exports to the UK? Serious question?
Theory:
Because this news about the 3.1m jabs seems to have come from the Aussie government (it may not be true, of course). The Oz government has an incentive to leak this info, as it explains their faltering vax drive. And the Oz govt has no way of retaliating anyway
I have read reports that the EU has gamed the UK end of this, and decided that if it blocked AZ shipments to the UK, the UK would not retaliate (eg by blocking lipid exports) because ultimately everyone would suffer (and we wouldn't get our Pfizer jabs from the EU)
However the only way the UK government could resist enormous public pressure to retaliate would be by taking it on the chin, and staying quiet, so voters never find out. So the news has NOT leaked from HMG, unlike Canberra
Likely? No. Impossible? Also no
The EU has been behaving like a crazed drunk for several months. Their politicians live in fear of the voters taking revenge. eg Macron
The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet
"The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet".
Well, that's conclusive. I was under the impression that nearly all our AZ came from Wrexham, Keele and the Serum Institute in India. Oh well.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
Edit: And that the others may have gone by their second names with most others is hardly the point. The use of 'real' suggests going by a different name with others is fake somehow, which is nonsense. Our politics seems set up for this sort of thing, given you can put your full name on the ballot, or what you are known as.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
Edit: And that the others may have gone by their second names with most others is hardly the point. The use of 'real' suggests going by a different name with others is fake somehow, which is nonsense. Our politics seems set up for this sort of thing, given you can put your full name on the ballot, or what you are known as.
I came quite late into that discussion , but my comment was little more than an observation rather than a criticism. What would be the impact if Labour and other politicians suddenly started refering on a regular basis to 'Mr Alexander Johnson'?The public reaction would be interesting.
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Your obsession on this is rather pathetic. It's really sad.
I can't recall a single Tory banging on about Mr James Brown when Labour were last in office.
You were, but the EU decided it doesn't matter about being first in the Queue
Looking at our recently revised vaccine forecasts, they might just be right ?
Tbh, it doesn't pass the sniff test. The forecasts are inputs to reach an output that predicts a horrible 3rd/4th wave. The context of everything from SAGE at the moment is "how can we scare the government into listening to us" and that can be seen on everything they're saying and briefing out. They have to use ultra pessimistic inputs to ensure the output delivers for their goal.
I know it's just the Daily Mail but Whitty and Valance apparently not wanting to let go of social distancing is what this is all about. Vaccines let us out of this nightmare. The scientists, for whatever reason, want to delay that by much longer than June 21st. Doomsday predictions and pessimistic forecasts is the easiest way to do that as politicians won't understand the data anyway.
The wording in the paper is "per cabinet office scenarios". If SAGE were pulling numbers out of their butts, then presumably government would have said so ?
I don't defend any of their other assumptions, but that did give me concern.
That's the same Cabinet Office that is run by lockdown and vaccine passport ultra Michael Gove.
Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what the real numbers are over the next few weeks/months. We've got Moderna and Novavax coming, they will necessitate a large number of first doses and we also have enough supply of AZ and Pfizer to cover all of the second doses. Something just doesn't add up.
If I was being charitable I'd say that the official forecasts may not include Novavax and J&J until they have received MHRA approval.
It seems quite difficult to get any hard information - but you could well be right about the as yet unapproved (by MHRA) vaccines.
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
By definition you are not putting on a hedge to win or lose. You are doing it to keep yourself neutral whatever the outcome.
A City boy like you should not have forgotten that.
The emotional hedge, Topping. It's a sophisticated iteration.
You get either betting win + emotional pain, or betting loss + emotional ecstasy. If you stake such that the equivalent £££ value of your pain or ecstasy = your betting result you are perfectly hedged.
No reason we can't launch this as a new OTC product if you're prepared to do the legwork in the square mile (which I can't face these days).
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, so all the remaining adults will still be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
This is nonsense. See my message above. I know so many people in their 30s who have been added to Cat 6 in just the last few weeks it’s become more a case of “what sucker left on this whatsapp group still hasn’t been jabbed”.
The young un's I know who have had it either have asthma OR have clinical vulnerable people in their households....
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
How does news of an impounding of Australian exports get out but not news of this alleged impounding of exports to the UK? Serious question?
Theory:
Because this news about the 3.1m jabs seems to have come from the Aussie government (it may not be true, of course). The Oz government has an incentive to leak this info, as it explains their faltering vax drive. And the Oz govt has no way of retaliating anyway
I have read reports that the EU has gamed the UK end of this, and decided that if it blocked AZ shipments to the UK, the UK would not retaliate (eg by blocking lipid exports) because ultimately everyone would suffer (and we wouldn't get our Pfizer jabs from the EU)
However the only way the UK government could resist enormous public pressure to retaliate would be by taking it on the chin, and staying quiet, so voters never find out. So the news has NOT leaked from HMG, unlike Canberra
Likely? No. Impossible? Also no
The EU has been behaving like a crazed drunk for several months. Their politicians live in fear of the voters taking revenge. eg Macron
The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet
Maybe we're about to stop using AZ for the U40s. That would evidently have a major impact on our short term ability to vaccinate everyone.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, so all the remaining adults will still be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
This is nonsense. See my message above. I know so many people in their 30s who have been added to Cat 6 in just the last few weeks it’s become more a case of “what sucker left on this whatsapp group still hasn’t been jabbed”.
How have they managed to get onto Cat 6? My wife is 46 and wants her jab!
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
How does news of an impounding of Australian exports get out but not news of this alleged impounding of exports to the UK? Serious question?
Theory:
Because this news about the 3.1m jabs seems to have come from the Aussie government (it may not be true, of course). The Oz government has an incentive to leak this info, as it explains their faltering vax drive. And the Oz govt has no way of retaliating anyway
I have read reports that the EU has gamed the UK end of this, and decided that if it blocked AZ shipments to the UK, the UK would not retaliate (eg by blocking lipid exports) because ultimately everyone would suffer (and we wouldn't get our Pfizer jabs from the EU)
However the only way the UK government could resist enormous public pressure to retaliate would be by taking it on the chin, and staying quiet, so voters never find out. So the news has NOT leaked from HMG, unlike Canberra
Likely? No. Impossible? Also no
The EU has been behaving like a crazed drunk for several months. Their politicians live in fear of the voters taking revenge. eg Macron
The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet
"The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet".
Well, that's conclusive. I was under the impression that nearly all our AZ came from Wrexham, Keele and the Serum Institute in India. Oh well.
I've read conflicting accounts. Some are convinced we are expecting serious AZ exports from the EU, others agree with you
It is incredibly murky. I guess it has to be, to an extent
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Why on earth would have have to say that? I can just imagine the press conference now "Yes, you can call me Boris Johnson". If he didn't want people to call him that, I am sure we would have heard that.
It would be a bit late in the day! Reminiscent of when Andy Cole decided that henceforth he was to be known as 'Andrew'.
Not, by the way, that I am maligning Andy Cole here. There's never really a right time to tell everyone they're using the wrong name. A friend of mine went through her entire legal career being known by her middle name professionally because there was never a right time to correct an administrative mishap in her first week of work experience when she assumed she wouldn't be staying for long enough for it to matter.
Similar to what happened when Hiram Ulysses Grant was appointed to West Point by his congressman, who screwed up his name in the paperwork.
Hence Ulysses S. Grant.
Fellow cadets - including some he later fought with & against in the Civil War - called him Sam.
April 1 million (Remaining over 50s) May 3 million (40 - 49) June 5.9 million (30 - 39) July 7.25 million (18 - 30)
General message for anyone under 50: if you can find any reason to have yourself promoted out of your age category then do it, or you'll be waiting a bloody long time - albeit that you may need to be prepared to do some chasing about. Through keeping myself informed, I found out last week about a little-heralded change in the rules that got me moved from cohort 10 to cohort 6, but (a) I had to ring the GP surgery and explain to them what the new rules were, and (b) I am still waiting for my vaccine appointment, so will have to start ringing them up and pestering them for it again if I've had no further contact from them by the start of next week.
Can you point me in the direction of the change in rules to which you refer?
The latest notification concerns adults living with other adults who are immunosuppressed. Turns out that NHS England sent directions out on 31 March, the details are here:
I doubt there are that many of us but this might be useful to a few people.
For reasons previously explained I'm not entirely confident of the efficiency of my GP surgery, but I'm now hoping that I'll at least be waiting weeks rather than until about 2087.
This is nonsense. See my message above. I know so many people in their 30s who have been added to Cat 6 in just the last few weeks it’s become more a case of “what sucker left on this whatsapp group still hasn’t been jabbed”.
Whatever. I don't know anyone who's managed to escape their age group apart from shielders.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, so all the remaining adults will still be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
This is nonsense. See my message above. I know so many people in their 30s who have been added to Cat 6 in just the last few weeks it’s become more a case of “what sucker left on this whatsapp group still hasn’t been jabbed”.
How have they managed to get onto Cat 6? My wife is 46 and wants her jab!
A good ruse is anyone who has had past pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes or premature labour. Might be a struggle to convince the GP you’re trying if she’s 46 though
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, and all the remaining adults will still, of course, be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
Bully for them is unfair and as a matter of fact neither had any underlining conditions
They progressed through their GP practice list and were vaccinated in Venue Cymru in Llandudno in the last ten days
The practice is now vaccinating the under 50s as well as second doses
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
The EU is demanding AZ give it some doses from India, and using sheer force to secure that outcome. So the 5m doses meant for the UK have been delayed again......
That 5m neatly fits in with the new, expected shortfall
I can't think of anything more stupid than the EU seeking to punish Australia because of their links with the UK, if of course there's any truth in that accusation.
If the 3.1m jabs thing is true (and it has been reported by various reliable outlets) then I don't believe it's got anything to do with Oz/UK links. It really is just the EU wanting to use as many jabs as possible for the EU, as they can now see from Israel/UK that vaccines are THE way out, and contract law can go hang, for now
Australia is easier to steal from than most because it is faraway, not very powerful, it is rich, and it has very few deaths, so the EU can kinda justify it, morally
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
By definition you are not putting on a hedge to win or lose. You are doing it to keep yourself neutral whatever the outcome.
A City boy like you should not have forgotten that.
The emotional hedge, Topping. It's a sophisticated iteration.
You get either betting win + emotional pain, or betting loss + emotional ecstasy. If you stake such that the equivalent £££ value of your pain or ecstasy = your betting result you are perfectly hedged.
No reason we can't launch this as a new OTC product if you're prepared to do the legwork in the square mile (which I can't face these days).
I'd be careful - some angry shrubbery might rise up claiming that you're infringing on the rights.
More fun busting. Hopefully Brillo will have them in a GB news spoiler event where the 3 auld dinosaurs can compare their blood pressure meds and bellow away to their hearts content.
I am no fan of Salmond or Galloway but your attitude is exactly why Scotland is heading for intolerance, hate and division for years to come
I think it's hilarious how TUD comes here and affects some sort of moral superiority over the 'PB Tories' when he supports the dirty compromised authoritarians. Clearly hasn't had his 'Do you think we're the baddies?' moment yet. Probably comes quite hard to someone who's built the equivalent of Edinburgh castle on the moral high ground.
Based on your powers of prediction I'll be safe for a while yet. When it comes I'll be sure to to ask you how you've coped with your cause being associated with the worst people in politics.
There are SOME pretty odious people in the Tory Party, as there are in most parties. The interesting thing is that the most odious have unintentional similarities with the vast majority of Scottish Nationalists. These are the Little Englanders that are very very similar to the narrow mindset of the Little Scotlanders of the SNP. Nationalism is a poisonous, divisive creed. On this matter Khan was spot on
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
"hardcoded class privilege" = the only thing they own, their home and their pension.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, so all the remaining adults will still be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
This is nonsense. See my message above. I know so many people in their 30s who have been added to Cat 6 in just the last few weeks it’s become more a case of “what sucker left on this whatsapp group still hasn’t been jabbed”.
To be honest, as I later posted, bully for them is unwarranted
April 1 million (Remaining over 50s) May 3 million (40 - 49) June 5.9 million (30 - 39) July 7.25 million (18 - 30)
General message for anyone under 50: if you can find any reason to have yourself promoted out of your age category then do it, or you'll be waiting a bloody long time - albeit that you may need to be prepared to do some chasing about. Through keeping myself informed, I found out last week about a little-heralded change in the rules that got me moved from cohort 10 to cohort 6, but (a) I had to ring the GP surgery and explain to them what the new rules were, and (b) I am still waiting for my vaccine appointment, so will have to start ringing them up and pestering them for it again if I've had no further contact from them by the start of next week.
Can you point me in the direction of the change in rules to which you refer?
The latest notification concerns adults living with other adults who are immunosuppressed. Turns out that NHS England sent directions out on 31 March, the details are here:
I doubt there are that many of us but this might be useful to a few people.
For reasons previously explained I'm not entirely confident of the efficiency of my GP surgery, but I'm now hoping that I'll at least be waiting weeks rather than until about 2087.
This is nonsense. See my message above. I know so many people in their 30s who have been added to Cat 6 in just the last few weeks it’s become more a case of “what sucker left on this whatsapp group still hasn’t been jabbed”.
Whatever. I don't know anyone who's managed to escape their age group apart from shielders.
I know several people who can’t even figure out why they were moved to Cat 6. “Being a bit chubby” is all some can come up with.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
Edit: And that the others may have gone by their second names with most others is hardly the point. The use of 'real' suggests going by a different name with others is fake somehow, which is nonsense. Our politics seems set up for this sort of thing, given you can put your full name on the ballot, or what you are known as.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
Edit: And that the others may have gone by their second names with most others is hardly the point. The use of 'real' suggests going by a different name with others is fake somehow, which is nonsense. Our politics seems set up for this sort of thing, given you can put your full name on the ballot, or what you are known as.
I came quite late into that discussion , but my comment was little more than an observation rather than a criticism. What would be the impact if Labour and other politicians suddenly started refering on a regular basis to 'Mr Alexander Johnson'?The public reaction would be interesting.
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Your obsession on this is rather pathetic. It's really sad.
I can't recall a single Tory banging on about Mr James Brown when Labour were last in office.
"A Department of Health spokesman said: "Our vaccination programme continues to make exceptional progress - with over 37 million jabs administered so far.
""Vaccine supply was always going to vary over time, but we are on course to offer a first vaccine dose to those aged 50 and over by mid-April, and all adults by the end of July.""
In England according to PHE by 01 April there were 6.3 million under 50s who had received a first dose. Spent about 2 mins teasing out some stats but I reckon that’s about a quarter of the under 50s already jabbed.
I now know so many people in their 30s who have had the first dose for spurious reasons it barely warrants a mention on the whatsapp anymore. Without this I can’t help but think the government could have declared mission accomplished ages ago for the over 50s but have some cunning plan as to why they wanted it delayed.
Whether it’s to do with supply negotiations or the behavioural scientists I don’t know. Could be as well to build a fire break within the young before the big reopening. Quite significant when added to the circa 30% with acquired immunity (less double counting).
Using the NIMIS population data, for England, the status, as of 28th March (released 1st April)
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
Is it not just the promised vaccine glut coming to fruition? Part of what made the EU's temper tantrums so inexplicable was that they were right that they had ordered more than enough - it just wasn't going to arrive soon enough to forestall any Winter waves, and sabre rattling was not going to help that, so they needed to focus on using as much of what they did have as they could, rather than trash the vaccines they did have.
Dunno. This looks like an unexpected amount of AZ. Gosh, how did that happen? Maybe the EU found it in a fridge in Krakow?
At this rate we will still be in lockdown by August and the EU will be free in June. Quite the reversal
Not really. They'll have enough to vaccinate most people by end of June. Meanwhile we had enough to vaccinate most people by the end of March.
So in three months time they will be where we are now. That's not a glut!
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
How does news of an impounding of Australian exports get out but not news of this alleged impounding of exports to the UK? Serious question?
Theory:
Because this news about the 3.1m jabs seems to have come from the Aussie government (it may not be true, of course). The Oz government has an incentive to leak this info, as it explains their faltering vax drive. And the Oz govt has no way of retaliating anyway
I have read reports that the EU has gamed the UK end of this, and decided that if it blocked AZ shipments to the UK, the UK would not retaliate (eg by blocking lipid exports) because ultimately everyone would suffer (and we wouldn't get our Pfizer jabs from the EU)
However the only way the UK government could resist enormous public pressure to retaliate would be by taking it on the chin, and staying quiet, so voters never find out. So the news has NOT leaked from HMG, unlike Canberra
Likely? No. Impossible? Also no
The EU has been behaving like a crazed drunk for several months. Their politicians live in fear of the voters taking revenge. eg Macron
The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet
Maybe we're about to stop using AZ for the U40s. That would evidently have a major impact on our short term ability to vaccinate everyone.
Hadn't thought of that. Interesting possibility (albeit depressing).
It would be nice if the government just told us, to end this speculation. They eventually told us about the Indian shortfall and the bad AZ batch, and tho the news was a bit bleak, it was better than the mad conspiracy theories (which I am happily multiplying, obvs)
"A Department of Health spokesman said: "Our vaccination programme continues to make exceptional progress - with over 37 million jabs administered so far.
""Vaccine supply was always going to vary over time, but we are on course to offer a first vaccine dose to those aged 50 and over by mid-April, and all adults by the end of July.""
In England according to PHE by 01 April there were 6.3 million under 50s who had received a first dose. Spent about 2 mins teasing out some stats but I reckon that’s about a quarter of the under 50s already jabbed.
I now know so many people in their 30s who have had the first dose for spurious reasons it barely warrants a mention on the whatsapp anymore. Without this I can’t help but think the government could have declared mission accomplished ages ago for the over 50s but have some cunning plan as to why they wanted it delayed.
Whether it’s to do with supply negotiations or the behavioural scientists I don’t know. Could be as well to build a fire break within the young before the big reopening. Quite significant when added to the circa 30% with acquired immunity (less double counting).
Using the NIMIS population data, for England, the status, as of 28th March (released 1st April)
Not a bad back of envelope on my part then! It does mean that the 30s and 40s age groups will be much easier to get done than the pessimists are assuming I think.
The EU is demanding AZ give it some doses from India, and using sheer force to secure that outcome. So the 5m doses meant for the UK have been delayed again......
That 5m neatly fits in with the new, expected shortfall
I can't think of anything more stupid than the EU seeking to punish Australia because of their links with the UK, if of course there's any truth in that accusation.
It is possible that there is truth in it but it might well be bollox. What is certain is that if "Leon" read somewhere that the EU Commission is made up of Lizard People he would believe it.
If they have impounded our vaccines, they may have a point.....oh well, if the UK vaccine roll out does slow down I guess that will rule out holidays in Europe this summer....
If they have impounded our vaccines they are lucky we haven't lobbed a nuke
I wonder how many European countries rely on British tourists for a substantial proportion of their GDP.
"Spain, France, Italy, the US and the Republic of Ireland, in that order, remain the top five most popular countries for UK residents to visit (Figure 4), accounting for 46% of all visits abroad and approximately 43% of total spend abroad. Overall, 72% of visits were to EU countries....
UK residents travelling abroad for holidays spent £43.4 billion in 2019"
Hopefully that nice Mr Sunak from No.11 prevails, and we end up with a massive advertising campaign on the benefits of taking local holidays this summer. Because his spreadsheets can certainly see the benefits of it.
BBC News leading on predictions of a third wave of Covid-19 after all restrictions are lifted.
Like what happened in Israel? oh wait.........
The problem in the UK will be that in June when restrictions are due for full lifting, we will not have fully vaccinated a large proportion of our under 50s. This appears to be due to our slowdown in vaccine supply.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
How do you know that
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
Well bully for them. I don't suppose we have the necessary statistics available, but take out the people already in priority groups e.g. healthcare workers and I would imagine that the number of under 50s who have been vaccinated, in England at least, is very small. Clinicians have, indeed, expressly been told to go searching for all the outstanding over 50s and not to attempt to move on to the younger cohorts for the time being.
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, and all the remaining adults will still, of course, be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
Bully for them is unfair and as a matter of fact neither had any underlining conditions
They progressed through their GP practice list and were vaccinated in Venue Cymru in Llandudno in the last ten days
The practice is now vaccinating the under 50s as well as second doses
Sorry, I wasn't setting out to be rude. It's purely envy. I think that most of us who are still waiting are impatient to get our turn before we end up catching this bloody thing, because you just know if it happens to you you're going to end up as one of these wretched Long Covid invalids.
Once again, I don't know how the Welsh NHS is doing it (perhaps, unbeknown to most of us, the second coming of Christ happened in Llandrindod Wells circa 1990, and he's now going around making all the vials miraculously multiply,) but if it wasn't for the fact that I've recently found I'm entitled to prioritisation I might still be waiting for mine in June. It's very disheartening.
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
I think emotional hedge is an excellent term.
As in emotional support hedge?
"Sir, why are you trying to bring that boxwood onto the airplane?"
"This is my emotional support hedge, Steward. I'll just keep it on my lap."
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
Edit: And that the others may have gone by their second names with most others is hardly the point. The use of 'real' suggests going by a different name with others is fake somehow, which is nonsense. Our politics seems set up for this sort of thing, given you can put your full name on the ballot, or what you are known as.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
Calling Johnson "Boris" of course is also ridiculous. He is Johnson, just as Theresa was May, Tony was Blair etc
He's Boris, its his name.
Just like in Blair's day he was often called Tony, in Cameron's day he was often called Dave, Sturgeon is often called Nicola. Trump was often called Donald, even Biden has sometimes been called Jo.
Starmer is sometimes called Keith.
It happens. We don't live in a prim and proper 19th century society when people can only use surnames.
He is not known as Boris in private life - by his family and close friends. His real name is Alexander or Alex.
I know this has been addressed, but it really is worth reflecting that that is an even sillier criticism that some people make of him being known as Boris (though I don't think you are making it as a criticism). Someone with your exhaustive knowledge of historical politics will have no trouble listing the many PMs and politicians who did not go by their first or 'real' names. Some altered their surnames at various points in their lives too.
Edit: And that the others may have gone by their second names with most others is hardly the point. The use of 'real' suggests going by a different name with others is fake somehow, which is nonsense. Our politics seems set up for this sort of thing, given you can put your full name on the ballot, or what you are known as.
I came quite late into that discussion , but my comment was little more than an observation rather than a criticism. What would be the impact if Labour and other politicians suddenly started refering on a regular basis to 'Mr Alexander Johnson'?The public reaction would be interesting.
It'd be very petty. If he wants to be known as Mr Boris Johnson, that's his choice.
Has he actually said that - rather than having just gone along with it? I have read somewhere that he himself pointed out to somebody that 'Boris' is not his real name - as used by family etc.
Your obsession on this is rather pathetic. It's really sad.
I can't recall a single Tory banging on about Mr James Brown when Labour were last in office.
More fun busting. Hopefully Brillo will have them in a GB news spoiler event where the 3 auld dinosaurs can compare their blood pressure meds and bellow away to their hearts content.
I am no fan of Salmond or Galloway but your attitude is exactly why Scotland is heading for intolerance, hate and division for years to come
I think it's hilarious how TUD comes here and affects some sort of moral superiority over the 'PB Tories' when he supports the dirty compromised authoritarians. Clearly hasn't had his 'Do you think we're the baddies?' moment yet. Probably comes quite hard to someone who's built the equivalent of Edinburgh castle on the moral high ground.
Based on your powers of prediction I'll be safe for a while yet. When it comes I'll be sure to to ask you how you've coped with your cause being associated with the worst people in politics.
Personally I decide to support a cause based on that cause, and I care very little who else may or may not support it, or why. That's me. Given that your posting ouevre seems to consist almost solely of trashing people who don't pass the moral approval of the Twitter commentariat, the nasties leaching out of the SNP cesspool on an almost hourly basis must come quite hard. Oh well.
Have you thought about analysing why that might be, and as such why it might change over the next few months?
I have no doubt thathe Tories currently enjoy a clear lead. Today's Hartlepool poll ,however, implies a Tory lead of 27% , and - unlike a year ago - there is no sign of that.
I have pondered long and hard as to why that might be, reflecting on a mixed package of results over the year from the Johnson Government.
I have long been of the view (as was Adolf Hitler) that propoganda wins support. I mentioned yesterday that whilst in the car I try and pre-empt the first words of a BBC R2 news bulletin by saying "Boris Johnson" before the announcer. I got three out of four that I listened to today correct, and the wrong one started with "the Prime Minister". The second and third stories in most bulletins positively quoted or at least referenced Boris Johnson too. I am not implying bias, but Johnson at present owns the news agenda. I suppose under the circumstances that is hardly surprising, but my view is that wall to wall Johnson won't always be the case.
Re the (excellent) Header, I’d add in 2 specifics to avoid if you can when betting. These apply only if you care about the outcome - and therefore do apply to most of us here when it comes to politics.
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
By definition you are not putting on a hedge to win or lose. You are doing it to keep yourself neutral whatever the outcome.
A City boy like you should not have forgotten that.
The emotional hedge, Topping. It's a sophisticated iteration.
You get either betting win + emotional pain, or betting loss + emotional ecstasy. If you stake such that the equivalent £££ value of your pain or ecstasy = your betting result you are perfectly hedged.
No reason we can't launch this as a new OTC product if you're prepared to do the legwork in the square mile (which I can't face these days).
You said at first that it was bad practice but now say it's perfect and want to launch it as a product.
Andrew Wakefield and his ilk are going to have a field day with this.
A trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on children has been paused while the UK's medicines regulator investigates a possible link with rare blood clots in adults.
Prof Andrew Pollard from the University of Oxford told the BBC there were no safety concerns with the trial itself, but its scientists were waiting for further information.
Whilst everyone is panicking about how a shortage of doses might lead to a "third wave" it is surely worth considering that if that third wave is almost entirely concentrated in the U50s then it is quite likely that it will not result in a large number of deaths, and possibly not a too high level of hospitalisations.
It is worth considering that what we arguably have at the moment is a situation where we could put into practice some of the ideas from the "lockdown sceptics" without the downsides (ie. lock up the old and vulnerable, and let the virus spread through the young). With the bonus that you don't actually have to lock up the old and vulnerable.
Mildly encouraging, but there's still a very long way to go. Besides anything else, there still aren't nearly enough Tory rebels to win a vote, assuming (given that this is, AIUI, an England only measure) that the Northern Irish MPs and the Scots and Welsh Nats sit on their hands.
On topic, I've identified a way to make money as far as football betting is concerned.
Whenever a goal is scored, sentiment moves far too far in favour of the team that's just scored compared to any rational assessment of the situation. You can take advantage of that, usually by cashing out (rather than waiting to the end of the game).
I shouldn't really be giving my betting strategies away, but since it's PB I don't mind.
Comments
"A Department of Health spokesman said: "Our vaccination programme continues to make exceptional progress - with over 37 million jabs administered so far.
""Vaccine supply was always going to vary over time, but we are on course to offer a first vaccine dose to those aged 50 and over by mid-April, and all adults by the end of July.""
https://news.sky.com/story/vaccine-rollout-to-be-considerably-slower-until-end-of-july-government-advisers-say-12267668
UK residents travelling abroad for holidays spent £43.4 billion in 2019"
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/articles/traveltrends/2019
Basically, they got what they paid for.
https://twitter.com/v_dendrinou/status/1379388246430519296?s=20
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-06/eu-will-near-virus-immunity-by-end-june-internal-memo-shows?sref=ejDoqBan
Taken with the Australian vaccine news, I reckon the EU has simply impounded all contracted AZ exports, including, perhaps, some of ours. I will hold off on nuking them until I get further proof, but I am close to calling it
Reminiscent of when Andy Cole decided that henceforth he was to be known as 'Andrew'.
https://www.football-italia.net/168781/italy-ready-host-fans-euro-2020
According to news agency ANSA, the Italian Government has given UEFA assurances the Euro 2020 games in Rome will have some fans present.
I do not see much reason for a change in the coming months but of course there could be an unforeseen black Swan event
April 1 million (Remaining over 50s)
May 3 million (40 - 49)
June 5.9 million (30 - 39)
July 7.25 million (18 - 30)
https://twitter.com/BenjaminRamm/status/1379374374852177921?s=20
At this rate we will still be in lockdown by August and the EU will be free in June. Quite the reversal
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5720781/Former-chancellor-George-Osborne-discovers-Jewish-grandmother-Clarisse-Loxton-Peacock.html
Gideon was probably a name passed down from the same branch of the family. It's an extremely uncommon choice otherwise.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
The Kent strain is more virulent than the strains in Israel and so more under 50s will be affected and even a very small percentage of deaths in that group will still be pretty large. Although nowhere near like previous waves.
Where do they think they will get their boomerangs now
#weholdallthekangaroos
My 49 year old daughter and 45 year old son have both been vaccinated
This is the one big thing Boris got right, if it turns out he didn't get it right, whether it was his fault or not - ouch. The reckoning will be rigorous
There's a story to be told about Brian Rose's run for London Mayor, I'm sure. I wonder what it will be?
"...Sars-CoV-2 variant B117 – known as the UK or Kent variant because of where it emerged – was the dominant strain. B117, which is highly transmissible, was responsible for 80% of tested cases in Israel during the study period. It now accounts for about 98% of cases in the UK and is also common around the world...."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/11/israeli-real-world-data-on-pfizer-vaccine-shows-high-covid-protection
First one is the dreaded Confirmation Bias. We all know about this and if we don’t “Casino Royale” will soon put us right. It’s where you so want a particular outcome that you analyse all the data looking for how it supports the outcome whilst finding ways to ignore things which indicate otherwise. A current example is how the marginalized and sulking Corbynite Left in Labour interpret everything as proof positive that Keir Starmer is a dud and Jeremy would be doing miles better. Fine, I’m tempted myself, I do miss Jeremy, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
The second one is less discussed but imo is more insidious. It’s where you do the opposite of the above. Negative Confirmation Bias, if you like, but best described as the Emotional Hedge. Here, you don’t go looking for why what you want to happen will happen, you go looking for why what you fear will happen will happen. You overestimate the likelihood of what you dread coming to pass and you bet accordingly. The idea is that if (say) as a Remainer your worst fears are justified and the country votes in a Referendum to become an insular, impoverished backwater, living in the past, pretty much doomed to irrelevance on the international stage, your anguish is cushioned by the fact that you’ve won a few quid on betfair and can take your sweetheart out for a chicken dinner. Again, fine, but if you habitually bet this way you’ll lose money.
Good example of this from recent history, how many PB Tories talked themselves into believing Corbyn might well pull off a shock hung parliament in the last GE. This wasn’t just overreliance on recent history (GE17), it was pure unadulterated, ‘wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat’ fear of the man. Fear of an actual socialist in actual power who would attack all that they hold dear – i.e. hardcoded class privilege – and possibly even remove a vestige of it. But, phew, it didn’t happen. Cons by 80. Their betting losses were a small price to pay for such a flood of relief.
So there you go, Confirmation Bias and the Emotional Hedge. Bad betting practice and very very common. You need to avoid both - and you want to be on the other side of bets made by those who succumb.
A City boy like you should not have forgotten that.
Can I beg you to consider the following piece of meta-advice: it's difficult for any of us to make good predictions when we are angry. Take some time, and come back to it from first principles in a couple of weeks.
I share some of your concerns about the models but I see this as a reflection of poor rigor (sorry @Selebian!) in epidemiology in general rather than particular defects in this work. I think it's fair to say that the SPI-M process is that the various research groups do the modelling, and then the committee functions as a kind of peer review.
--AS
Because this news about the 3.1m jabs seems to have come from the Aussie government (it may not be true, of course). The Oz government has an incentive to leak this info, as it explains their faltering vax drive. And the Oz govt has no way of retaliating anyway
I have read reports that the EU has gamed the UK end of this, and decided that if it blocked AZ shipments to the UK, the UK would not retaliate (eg by blocking lipid exports) because ultimately everyone would suffer (and we wouldn't get our Pfizer jabs from the EU)
However the only way the UK government could resist enormous public pressure to retaliate would be by taking it on the chin, and staying quiet, so voters never find out. So the news has NOT leaked from HMG, unlike Canberra
Likely? No. Impossible? Also no
The EU has been behaving like a crazed drunk for several months. Their politicians live in fear of the voters taking revenge. eg Macron
The only thing we DO know is that the UK has downgraded its forecast vaccine supplies AGAIN, and they won't say why, yet
I now know so many people in their 30s who have had the first dose for spurious reasons it barely warrants a mention on the whatsapp anymore. Without this I can’t help but think the government could have declared mission accomplished ages ago for the over 50s but have some cunning plan as to why they wanted it delayed.
Whether it’s to do with supply negotiations or the behavioural scientists I don’t know. Could be as well to build a fire break within the young before the big reopening. Quite significant when added to the circa 30% with acquired immunity (less double counting).
On the other hand mine (2nd) is early June ....
The EU is demanding AZ give it some doses from India, and using sheer force to secure that outcome. So the 5m doses meant for the UK have been delayed again......
That 5m neatly fits in with the new, expected shortfall
Nobody who has not had their first dose plus the three weeks for it to take effect can be considered protected come June 21st (if the last step of the plan is executed then, which now has to be in serious doubt.) That means everyone who hasn't been vaccinated by the end of May. At the rate things are going, we may very well have failed to finish the over 40s by the end of May, and all the remaining adults will still, of course, be waiting. And it'll be July before the second doses for Phase One begin to seriously tail off.
Well, that's conclusive. I was under the impression that nearly all our AZ came from Wrexham, Keele and the Serum Institute in India. Oh well.
I can't recall a single Tory banging on about Mr James Brown when Labour were last in office.
You get either betting win + emotional pain, or betting loss + emotional ecstasy. If you stake such that the equivalent £££ value of your pain or ecstasy = your betting result you are perfectly hedged.
No reason we can't launch this as a new OTC product if you're prepared to do the legwork in the square mile (which I can't face these days).
It is incredibly murky. I guess it has to be, to an extent
Hence Ulysses S. Grant.
Fellow cadets - including some he later fought with & against in the Civil War - called him Sam.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/publication/vaccination-of-adult-household-contacts-of-severely-immunosuppressed-individuals-alongside-jcvi-priority-cohort-6-and-completion-of-cohorts-1-9/
I doubt there are that many of us but this might be useful to a few people.
For reasons previously explained I'm not entirely confident of the efficiency of my GP surgery, but I'm now hoping that I'll at least be waiting weeks rather than until about 2087. Whatever. I don't know anyone who's managed to escape their age group apart from shielders.
They progressed through their GP practice list and were vaccinated in Venue Cymru in Llandudno in the last ten days
The practice is now vaccinating the under 50s as well as second doses
Australia is easier to steal from than most because it is faraway, not very powerful, it is rich, and it has very few deaths, so the EU can kinda justify it, morally
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/27/parallels-scottish-nationalism-racism-sadiq-khan
Under 50 23.57%
50-54 77.76%
55-59 82.50%
60-64 86.94%
65-69 90.45%
70-74 93.31%
75-79 94.37%
80+ 93.85%
So in three months time they will be where we are now. That's not a glut!
It would be nice if the government just told us, to end this speculation. They eventually told us about the Indian shortfall and the bad AZ batch, and tho the news was a bit bleak, it was better than the mad conspiracy theories (which I am happily multiplying, obvs)
Labour MPs Told The Party Will Vote Against Domestic Vaccine Passports
Exclusive: A briefing sent to Labour MPs confirms the party's opposition to the proposals as they stand.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-vaccine-passports-labour-vote_uk_606c904ec5b68872efebd478?ncid=other_twitter_cooo9wqtham&utm_campaign=share_twitter
https://twitter.com/MKarnitschnig/status/1379453500086751245?s=20
Once again, I don't know how the Welsh NHS is doing it (perhaps, unbeknown to most of us, the second coming of Christ happened in Llandrindod Wells circa 1990, and he's now going around making all the vials miraculously multiply,) but if it wasn't for the fact that I've recently found I'm entitled to prioritisation I might still be waiting for mine in June. It's very disheartening.
"Sir, why are you trying to bring that boxwood onto the airplane?"
"This is my emotional support hedge, Steward. I'll just keep it on my lap."
I have long been of the view (as was Adolf Hitler) that propoganda wins support. I mentioned yesterday that whilst in the car I try and pre-empt the first words of a BBC R2 news bulletin by saying "Boris Johnson" before the announcer. I got three out of four that I listened to today correct, and the wrong one started with "the Prime Minister". The second and third stories in most bulletins positively quoted or at least referenced Boris Johnson too. I am not implying bias, but Johnson at present owns the news agenda. I suppose under the circumstances that is hardly surprising, but my view is that wall to wall Johnson won't always be the case.
You are confused.
A trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on children has been paused while the UK's medicines regulator investigates a possible link with rare blood clots in adults.
Prof Andrew Pollard from the University of Oxford told the BBC there were no safety concerns with the trial itself, but its scientists were waiting for further information.
Around 300 volunteers signed up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56656356
It is worth considering that what we arguably have at the moment is a situation where we could put into practice some of the ideas from the "lockdown sceptics" without the downsides (ie. lock up the old and vulnerable, and let the virus spread through the young). With the bonus that you don't actually have to lock up the old and vulnerable.
Whenever a goal is scored, sentiment moves far too far in favour of the team that's just scored compared to any rational assessment of the situation. You can take advantage of that, usually by cashing out (rather than waiting to the end of the game).
I shouldn't really be giving my betting strategies away, but since it's PB I don't mind.