@DavidL are you expecting the SNP to get a majority?
Its going to be close. I think (hope) that they will fall just short but their little green helpers will get them over the line once again. I expect the Tories to fall back a bit, possibly to 3rd and Labour to pick up a bit but not necessarily win many more seats.
Most of the campaigning seems to revolve around the regional list vote, where the MSM and broadcasters are continuing to blank the Alba party. Salmond needs something to give them a second push. I expect an assault on all the lead SNP candidate in the regional lists, all of whom IIRC received a tiny proportion of members' votes, but have been advanced to the top as preferred BAME/disabled status (self ID'd or not).
That would be interesting. Salmond must be getting just a little bit desperate. He is an ego maniac and he is seriously in danger of being completely humiliated. He may well lash out at some point.
But the campaign has been almost non existent. Which has suited Nicola just fine of course.
Like a lot of pols I believe Salmond, wily campaigner though he is, has been listening to ill chosen advisors & believed twitter was real life. He's maybe been out of the ring too long.
'You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself.'
I haven't been following it but I did catch a few of his interviews at the start and it seemed to me he had a potential comms problem with the "sex pest" thing. Every interviewer was asking him if he had reflected on his behaviour and felt there were lessons there (for him) as regards future interactions with women. Clearly angling for something like "Of course I did nothing criminal, a court has confirmed that, but yes I've reflected long and hard, and yes I can see that perhaps I did occasionally behave in a way that made people uncomfortable, and I'm sorry if that was the case, and I have absolutely taken this on board."
But he wouldn't go anywhere near it. All he kept doing was stone walling with "Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent". Refusing to acknowledge any territory existed between totally ok behaviour and criminal behaviour (when everyone knows that not only does such territory exist but that it's quite spacious).
I do get that it's a sensitive area and that his approach might be the only one he thought he could manage or risk, but it didn't come over well. Not to me it didn't anyway. And I thought to myself, mmm, this is a non answer to a big and juicy question, therefore it's probably going to keep coming back - a la Farron and gay sex - and maybe Alex would be better off biting the bullet and getting an answer sorted out.
So, I don't know if he has? Or has it gone away?
That's a fair characterisation of Salmond's reaction.
No, it hasn't gone away, but Alba & Salmond's exclusion from the debates (which is their latest cry of IT'S NO BLOODY FAIR!) has prevented it being addressed, and I'm fairly sure he'd have carried on with the found innocent of every charge line in any case. Salmond's personal ratings in polling implies that the damage is pretty fixed in folks' minds.
As you suggest even a modest admission of naughty behaviour would probably have worked for him. No one is expecting him to spend the rest of his earthly existence working in a leper colony but 'admitting fallibility isn't a sign of weakness' is a lesson Salmond is never going to learn.
Getting the Telegraph, Spectator, Brillo and David fucking Davis out to bat for you was also a major error. If an aversion to populist politics reeking of rancid testosterone, Tories and Brexit are a driving force in Scottish politics, distancing yourself from that fester fest would have been a smart move.
Well I can't say I'm heartbroken if he's flopping. Especially if he's hanging with that crowd. Going by the betting it's looking pretty good for your preferred outcome of a 'clean' SNP majority. Game on if so and we'll see which of our many "scotch" experts have called the consequences right. Legal ref? Illegal ref? No ref? UDI? Gunboats from Boris? Nicola and her team go to ground armed and "hit the mattresses" in Glasgow? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
My preferred option is for Nicola to do as she has said she will and to continue the covid battle, and then seek a Section 30 agreement in 2022/2023
I would like that to be discussed calmly and respectably in the HOC and then put to a free vote
I think it is unlikely to receive HOC approval, but even then I do not fear indyref2 and am confident it can be won by the union
The one thing everyone should agree is this cannot continue indefinitely
I'd like to see ANYTHING "discussed calmly and respectfully in the HOC". Don't think it's terribly likely to happen, though.
There is a third trap for Starmer, and perhaps the biggest one of all. That is that Labour is as corrupt as the Conservatives are. So, while it may be tempting to do his duty as LOTO and make hay on this particular scandal, rather too many people remember New Labour's record in office. And there's no reason to think that Whatever-Labour-Starmer-Leads would be any better in government. Although, because government under Starmer would probably be bigger, there would be correspondingly more opportunities for public sector corruption.
Starmer should definitely go after this scandal - as LOTO it's his duty, and, let's face it, he hasn't made much of an impact elsewhere. But I don't think it will necessarily be in his long- or even medium-term interests to do so.
Come off it. This lot are in a different league. When you think about what someone like David Blunkett resigned over its absolutely trifling in comparison to the stuff this lot regularly get away with.
It is of course noteworthy that the Labour FM of Wales for a decade is a senior board member of Gupta's GFG.
This entire affair reminds me of the dodgy donors radio bit from The Thick of It.
> Here's the fucking thing. Nobody talks about fucking dodgy donors, okay? Because it makes everybody look bad. - M Tucker
The financial markets really are a different world to us mere mortals.
At times I struggle to understand it, and I've been working in the banking/financial services sector for a decade this coming September.
Which probably something the Head of Regulatory Affairs SHOULD NOT admit to.
It is not too crazy if you look at everything in entirety.
First, money is cheap, is likely to remain cheap and a number of asset classes (cash, bonds and now property) are out of bounds because returns will be non-existent. So money has to go somewhere.
Second, the stock market reflects the value of companies, not necessarily the wider economy. In the past, it might have been the domestic economy was crap but a firm sold a lot overseas so it wasn't exposed, or that its product wasn't necessarily cyclical. But increasingly the story is about more share of wealth going to companies over (certainly) workers and, to a degree, Governments (because, in many cases, they are paying lower taxes). That doesn't look to be changing.
Third, the share price reflects predicted future profits. So you can get tech companies at crazy valuations but, if you think we are on the cusp of a revolution and these companies will benefit, they don't look so crazy on future earnings (look at the PEG ratio). Which is why all these efficiency software tools have rocketed - the market believes the way in which we work is being transformed and we are the start of that process, with a lot more to go. The winners will make out like bandits
PS on the third point, it's why I am negative on the future for many people economically - a lot of tasks will be replaced.
Explain NFTs!
I mean where's the fucking value in buying a £20 phone (current price in CEX) for £3 million because some third rate celebrity once sent out a tweet on that phone?
"Hong Kong’s government has proposed a new law that threatens prison sentences for anyone found guilty of urging others not to vote or or to cast a blank or invalid ballot, in advance of controversial elections expected later this year."
The obvious mistake you are making is Labour voters now vote Tory.
Not from the 2016 and 2017 locals they don't, given Labour is now on 34% in the latest Yougov and Labour only got 31% in the 2016 locals and 27% in the 2017 locals.
I still politely disagree HY. Labour can go up, marginally on your stats, whilst still losing lots of voters to the Tories, who surge into the 40’s themselves. It’s a roundabout effect not swing. What’s remarkable in the Boris getting brexit and covid done era is the shear scale of Lab to Con switchers, Labour steal other party voters not Torys.
Labour are on for a terrible night in May, getting nowhere near Westminster voting polls on votes casts, Tories will get 40% plus and until perceptions unravel maybe in 2030’s Labour are long way behind for the rest of this decade.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I still politely disagree HY. Labour can go up, marginally on your stats, whilst still losing lots of voters to the Tories, who surge into the 40’s themselves. It’s a roundabout effect not swing. What’s remarkable in the Boris getting brexit and covid done era is the shear scale of Lab to Con switchers, Labour steal other party voters not Torys.
Labour are on for a terrible night in May, getting nowhere near Westminster voting polls on votes casts, Tories will get 40% plus and until perceptions unravel maybe in 2030’s Labour are long way behind for the rest of this decade.
Tories are down on 2017 in the polls and in 2017 they only got 38% in the locals.
As always in the locals people will vote for the various "pothole parties" that never get a look in at real elections because people don't actually support them: Independents, Residents Association, Liberal Democrats and other assorted oddballs like them.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I'm not so sure. ~25,000 people a year die of flu. That averages out to a 9/11 every month of every year.
Society as a whole has decided that it is an acceptable level of loss in order to keep society going, and already daily death figures are largely fading into the background.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
The death count is the lowest on a Wednesday since September.
The 7-day figure is currently distorted the the catch-up after Easter being included I suspect, it should start falling again tomorrow.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
Nah; personally, I've been expecting a brief plateau until the second doses kick in. It's at a very low level, the CFR is down to 0.4% (from over 3.6% in December), and the Hospitalisation Fatality Rate down to under 8% (from over 33% in early January). If I could see it coming, the Government could as well. Arguably, they evidently did, with the big pivot to Second Dose April. I really can't see any case for slowing the unlocking. Hospitalisations down to around 200 per day, as well.
(And besides; ignore the reported day figures nowadays; they're far too noisy. We're at "low twenties to high teens" of deaths per day, with occasional spikes upwards and downwards; the deaths-by-date-occurred data is heavily lagged, but when things are changing so slowly, there's no reason not to wait for it any more)
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
Opportunism from both sides - Labour saw an opportunity to spin out a story that they felt they couldn't lose on, the Tories felt it was easy enough to shut it down. I think though, as @Cyclefree has pointed out in her (apologies if it's his) good header not only are there questions to answer (not very serious), but there are also questions for the future.
I think your gravy train may well have more carriages than I've allowed platform space for though.
@DavidL are you expecting the SNP to get a majority?
Its going to be close. I think (hope) that they will fall just short but their little green helpers will get them over the line once again. I expect the Tories to fall back a bit, possibly to 3rd and Labour to pick up a bit but not necessarily win many more seats.
Most of the campaigning seems to revolve around the regional list vote, where the MSM and broadcasters are continuing to blank the Alba party. Salmond needs something to give them a second push. I expect an assault on all the lead SNP candidate in the regional lists, all of whom IIRC received a tiny proportion of members' votes, but have been advanced to the top as preferred BAME/disabled status (self ID'd or not).
That would be interesting. Salmond must be getting just a little bit desperate. He is an ego maniac and he is seriously in danger of being completely humiliated. He may well lash out at some point.
But the campaign has been almost non existent. Which has suited Nicola just fine of course.
Like a lot of pols I believe Salmond, wily campaigner though he is, has been listening to ill chosen advisors & believed twitter was real life. He's maybe been out of the ring too long.
'You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself.'
I haven't been following it but I did catch a few of his interviews at the start and it seemed to me he had a potential comms problem with the "sex pest" thing. Every interviewer was asking him if he had reflected on his behaviour and felt there were lessons there (for him) as regards future interactions with women. Clearly angling for something like "Of course I did nothing criminal, a court has confirmed that, but yes I've reflected long and hard, and yes I can see that perhaps I did occasionally behave in a way that made people uncomfortable, and I'm sorry if that was the case, and I have absolutely taken this on board."
But he wouldn't go anywhere near it. All he kept doing was stone walling with "Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent". Refusing to acknowledge any territory existed between totally ok behaviour and criminal behaviour (when everyone knows that not only does such territory exist but that it's quite spacious).
I do get that it's a sensitive area and that his approach might be the only one he thought he could manage or risk, but it didn't come over well. Not to me it didn't anyway. And I thought to myself, mmm, this is a non answer to a big and juicy question, therefore it's probably going to keep coming back - a la Farron and gay sex - and maybe Alex would be better off biting the bullet and getting an answer sorted out.
So, I don't know if he has? Or has it gone away?
That's a fair characterisation of Salmond's reaction.
No, it hasn't gone away, but Alba & Salmond's exclusion from the debates (which is their latest cry of IT'S NO BLOODY FAIR!) has prevented it being addressed, and I'm fairly sure he'd have carried on with the found innocent of every charge line in any case. Salmond's personal ratings in polling implies that the damage is pretty fixed in folks' minds.
As you suggest even a modest admission of naughty behaviour would probably have worked for him. No one is expecting him to spend the rest of his earthly existence working in a leper colony but 'admitting fallibility isn't a sign of weakness' is a lesson Salmond is never going to learn.
Getting the Telegraph, Spectator, Brillo and David fucking Davis out to bat for you was also a major error. If an aversion to populist politics reeking of rancid testosterone, Tories and Brexit are a driving force in Scottish politics, distancing yourself from that fester fest would have been a smart move.
Well I can't say I'm heartbroken if he's flopping. Especially if he's hanging with that crowd. Going by the betting it's looking pretty good for your preferred outcome of a 'clean' SNP majority. Game on if so and we'll see which of our many "scotch" experts have called the consequences right. Legal ref? Illegal ref? No ref? UDI? Gunboats from Boris? Nicola and her team go to ground armed and "hit the mattresses" in Glasgow? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
My preferred option is for Nicola to do as she has said she will and to continue the covid battle, and then seek a Section 30 agreement in 2022/2023
I would like that to be discussed calmly and respectably in the HOC and then put to a free vote
I think it is unlikely to receive HOC approval, but even then I do not fear indyref2 and am confident it can be won by the union
The one thing everyone should agree is this cannot continue indefinitely
That's fair comment and I second you on the hope for a grown up approach by all sides.
Although we do want different ultimate outcomes. I'm rooting for Sindy for 2 reasons, one respectable, one not. The respectable reason is I sense Scotland has deviated so much from the prevailing vibe in England that it's just a different country, with a distinct demos, and so it's right and inevitable that it separates legally. I can't see an alternative other than muddling on, which as you say is not really tenable long term. None of the other options, federalism, devomax, devoreversal, look goers to me.
And then the less respectable reason is that it will be one in the eye for a certain political tendency that I dislike. By which I mean Brexiteers of the imperialist variety such as Andrew Neil and Jacob Rees Mogg and Leon. They've been riding high and I'd like that to change.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
The death count is the lowest on a Wednesday since September.
The 7-day figure is currently distorted the the catch-up after Easter being included I suspect, it should start falling again tomorrow.
Though at low numbers it will fluctuate more.
Look at the deaths by day of death rather than by report date. Continuing to fall, gradually - by about 80% a month. Though an 80% fall from 100 drops by 80; an 80% fall from 20 only drops by 16.
Though as PT says, at figures this low there are much higher fluctuations. I wonder to what extent deaths are still linked to positive tests? If there is still a link, we could expect to see a halving in the next week or two. Though I suspect the link is now fully broken.
I sympathise with Black Rook's scepticism. There has, for whatever reason, been a significant cabal within government and its advisors which always attempts to put the worst possible spin on whatever data is presented. Indeed, when I picked my daughter up from holiday club at school earlier, there was a sign on the door - produced by the Council - which starkly declared that 'Coronavirus is very much still with us in Trafford and cases are rising nationally', which simply isn't true. When scaremongering flips over into lying, it can make you feel a little paranoid. But I take kinbalu's earlier point that I am expecting what I fear to happen, not what rationally should happen. That said, when the public sector behaves like the one we have, it's not easy to forecast based on rationality.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
The roadmap is safe - don't worry about that - but you have a good point here. It would make a difference, atmospherically, if we were to drop the daily reporting of cases and deaths. I wonder when such a move might be contemplated.
What is the point of the LDems in the 2020s? Would their members and voters influence be more powerful as factions within the Tories and Labour instead?
There is a third trap for Starmer, and perhaps the biggest one of all. That is that Labour is as corrupt as the Conservatives are. So, while it may be tempting to do his duty as LOTO and make hay on this particular scandal, rather too many people remember New Labour's record in office. And there's no reason to think that Whatever-Labour-Starmer-Leads would be any better in government. Although, because government under Starmer would probably be bigger, there would be correspondingly more opportunities for public sector corruption.
Starmer should definitely go after this scandal - as LOTO it's his duty, and, let's face it, he hasn't made much of an impact elsewhere. But I don't think it will necessarily be in his long- or even medium-term interests to do so.
Come off it. This lot are in a different league. When you think about what someone like David Blunkett resigned over its absolutely trifling in comparison to the stuff this lot regularly get away with.
I love this.. you are bigger crooks than we are 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Each to their own. I'll continue hoping and voting for a govt that has higher standards.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
I notice Israel can’t seem to get down below around 8 deaths a day.
'The obvious mistake you are making is Labour voters now vote Tory.
Not from the 2016 and 2017 locals they don't, given Labour is now on 34% in the latest Yougov and Labour only got 31% in the 2016 locals and 27% in the 2017 locals.
I still politely disagree HY. Labour can go up, marginally on your stats, whilst still losing lots of voters to the Tories, who surge into the 40’s themselves. It’s a roundabout effect not swing. What’s remarkable in the Boris getting brexit and covid done era is the shear scale of Lab to Con switchers, Labour steal other party voters not Torys.
Labour are on for a terrible night in May, getting nowhere near Westminster voting polls on votes casts, Tories will get 40% plus and until perceptions unravel maybe in 2030’s Labour are long way behind for the rest of this decade.'
Labour were 11% behind in 2017 in the county elections, they are only 7% behind on the new Comres, so Labour will make gains from the Tories in the counties and both Labour and the Tories should make gains from the LDs.
Labour were 1% ahead though in the 2016 district elections so yes the Tories may make gains from Labour there
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
Nah; personally, I've been expecting a brief plateau until the second doses kick in. It's at a very low level, the CFR is down to 0.4% (from over 3.6% in December), and the Hospitalisation Fatality Rate down to under 8% (from over 33% in early January). If I could see it coming, the Government could as well. Arguably, they evidently did, with the big pivot to Second Dose April. I really can't see any case for slowing the unlocking. Hospitalisations down to around 200 per day, as well.
(And besides; ignore the reported day figures nowadays; they're far too noisy. We're at "low twenties to high teens" of deaths per day, with occasional spikes upwards and downwards; the deaths-by-date-occurred data is heavily lagged, but when things are changing so slowly, there's no reason not to wait for it any more)
I think that we may soon be at the point (or maybe we're already there) where the death figures on the standard 'death [from any cause] within 28 days of a positive Covid test' become seriously misleading. My reasoning is as follows: imagine the vaccines are very highly effective at preventing serious illness and death, but not so effective at preventing low-level infections which PCR tests can pick up, which is very much what is expected. In that case, you'd get to the point where most of the 'Covid deaths' really do become deaths with Covid rather than deaths caused by Covid, but they'd still show up in the 28-day cutoff figures, which would therefore flatten off to become just the background figure of non-Covid deaths multiplied by the proportion of the population testing positive with mild or asymptomatic cases.
Of course the Covid deniers were claiming that months ago, which was nonsense given the scale of deaths at the time, but there must come a point, if the vaccinations work as we think they probably do, where it would be true. What's more, most of those spurious figures would show up amongst the elderly.
The fact that we're now getting negative 'excess' deaths would tend to support this hypothesis.
On topic, Cyclefree makes an interesting point about Labour and the civil service. As one myself I don’t look at the SCS as being like me (I mean professionally rather than politically). The gap between those at the top of service and us underlings is huge.
So I don’t think Starmer ought to fear a backlash from the rank and file for going after the great and the good. But he himself was part of that world, albeit in a more specific role without (at least I hope!) any such temptations.
If anyone AT ALL is interested in the BARX fat finger I just took a look at the prints (thanks @Pulpstar ) it looks to me like someone had some shares to sell and stuck it in an algo with a stupid price (168 instead of 186) at which point the stock dropped as bids were hit and continued to be hit. As that happened, other algos would have thought "oh f***" and started selling also thinking it was a sustained short term drift.
After some short amount of time the stock would have gone into a volatility auction triggered by the fall at which time the first trader would also have thought "oh f***".
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
Ideally, the end point would be to desist from reporting the Covid stats as something special and fold them into the overall death statistics. That won't happen though. They are an instrument of power.
Whilst what @Chameleon said about the flu is factually correct, it's been around forever and folk at large don't pay much attention to the body count. It's just something sad that happens to people if they're very decrepit or unlucky. We ignore it and move on.
Covid, on the other hand, is novel, highly publicised and scares a large fraction of the population witless. Unless the death count falls to practically nothing then it provides an excuse for endless bossiness, rules and regulations that paranoid scientists, and the (probably in many cases traumatised) ministers that they advise, are desperate to keep in place. The reason why Boris Johnson gives virtually all the credit for the crash in case numbers to lockdown, and gives almost none to the vaccines (and spends precious little time talking about how much better they will make things in future, either) is that he doesn't want to let the restrictions go.
Re: the South African Plague outbreak in London, I do sometimes wonder if the Government's lax border policies are actually a deliberate attempt to keep a steady stream of these variant cases coming into the country? So long as they're happening it's just one more factor contributing to the ongoing, all-pervasive atmosphere of emergency. So long as we've got a rolling wave of surge testing going on, and scientists talking about going back into lockdown if variants become more widespread, then it's impossible to get back to normal - and that suits the Government fine. Emergency is an excuse for ID cards. Emergency is an excuse for keeping the restrictions. Emergency keeps the Opposition at bay and the Tories' polling numbers buoyant. Emergency plays well with an awful lot of elderly hermits who are still very frightened and don't want to go back to normal.
But equally it's not simple enough to score electoral points (and votes)..
There needs to be months (even years) of sleaze stories before the average voter notices to the point actual votes might change. As we say many times on PB, so few listen or view to anything more than a brief snippet of news on music stations.
What is the point of the LDems in the 2020s? Would their members and voters influence be more powerful as factions within the Tories and Labour instead?
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
I notice Israel can’t seem to get down below around 8 deaths a day.
I think it's lkely stll decreasng, "reported" deaths wll have a very long tail anywhere.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
I don't think the issue is the stats - it is the constant reporting of cases and deaths at this point in the pandemic. In reality we ought now to move away from constantly highlighting the very small number of deaths (getting close to the number that die on the roads each day, but we don't breathlessly report that). I suspect this will be hard to do - any reduction in data release will be seen as covering up something, but we are in a strange place right now.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
I notice Israel can’t seem to get down below around 8 deaths a day.
Which seems fantastic given where we have been with covid.
If it is endemic and we must live with as we live with flu then politicians must start to accept that some people will sadly die of this disease. Now maybe the vaccines will live up to the US trial data - which should 100% reduction in deaths - when scaled to an entire population - but I suspect not.
What is the point of the LDems in the 2020s? Would their members and voters influence be more powerful as factions within the Tories and Labour instead?
The problem is which one would I join?
An optimist might be thinking how might those parties adapt and change to attract your vote?
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
Nah; personally, I've been expecting a brief plateau until the second doses kick in. It's at a very low level, the CFR is down to 0.4% (from over 3.6% in December), and the Hospitalisation Fatality Rate down to under 8% (from over 33% in early January). If I could see it coming, the Government could as well. Arguably, they evidently did, with the big pivot to Second Dose April. I really can't see any case for slowing the unlocking. Hospitalisations down to around 200 per day, as well.
(And besides; ignore the reported day figures nowadays; they're far too noisy. We're at "low twenties to high teens" of deaths per day, with occasional spikes upwards and downwards; the deaths-by-date-occurred data is heavily lagged, but when things are changing so slowly, there's no reason not to wait for it any more)
I think that we may soon be at the point (or maybe we're already there) where the death figures on the standard 'death [from any cause] within 28 days of a positive Covid test' become seriously misleading. My reasoning is as follows: imagine the vaccines are very highly effective at preventing serious illness and death, but not so effective at preventing low-level infections which PCR tests can pick up, which is very much what is expected. In that case, you'd get to the point where most of the 'Covid deaths' really do become deaths with Covid rather than deaths caused by Covid, but they'd still show up in the 28-day cutoff figures, which would therefore flatten off to become just the background figure of non-Covid deaths multiplied by the proportion of the population testing positive with mild or asymptomatic cases.
Of course the Covid deniers were claiming that months ago, which was nonsense given the scale of deaths at the time, but there must come a point, if the vaccinations work as we think they probably do, where it would be true. What's more, most of those spurious figures would show up amongst the elderly.
The fact that we're now getting negative 'excess' deaths would tend to support this hypothesis.
Very rough rule of thumb: 0.1%-0.2% CFR is the point where that happens. The cases by age and sex do distribute enough for us to wet-finger a guesstimate that 0.1-0.2% of those testing positive should die, on average, within a month of any random event by all causes. So that's 5-10 deaths per day; we're currently running at just under 30. Getting there, but not quite there yet. (We can cross check after the fact by comparing the deaths-within-60-days metric and seeing if that runs at very close to double the deaths-within-28-days metric from 32 days earlier; if it does, that provides further evidence to support that the deaths-from-covid are statistically close to zero by then.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
Ideally, the end point would be to desist from reporting the Covid stats as something special and fold them into the overall death statistics. That won't happen though. They are an instrument of power.
Whilst what @Chameleon said about the flu is factually correct, it's been around forever and folk at large don't pay much attention to the body count. It's just something sad that happens to people if they're very decrepit or unlucky. We ignore it and move on.
Covid, on the other hand, is novel, highly publicised and scares a large fraction of the population witless. Unless the death count falls to practically nothing then it provides an excuse for endless bossiness, rules and regulations that paranoid scientists, and the (probably in many cases traumatised) ministers that they advise, are desperate to keep in place. The reason why Boris Johnson gives virtually all the credit for the crash in case numbers to lockdown, and gives almost none to the vaccines (and spends precious little time talking about how much better they will make things in future, either) is that he doesn't want to let the restrictions go.
Re: the South African Plague outbreak in London, I do sometimes wonder if the Government's lax border policies are actually a deliberate attempt to keep a steady stream of these variant cases coming into the country? So long as they're happening it's just one more factor contributing to the ongoing, all-pervasive atmosphere of emergency. So long as we've got a rolling wave of surge testing going on, and scientists talking about going back into lockdown if variants become more widespread, then it's impossible to get back to normal - and that suits the Government fine. Emergency is an excuse for ID cards. Emergency is an excuse for keeping the restrictions. Emergency keeps the Opposition at bay and the Tories' polling numbers buoyant. Emergency plays well with an awful lot of elderly hermits who are still very frightened and don't want to go back to normal.
On travel, we are keeping people in 6 hr long queues at Heathrow apparently. I hope they are doing this in a covid secure way, as 6 hrs trapped together with thousands of others in a confined and poorly ventilated space is ideal for the virus to spread.
What is the point of the LDems in the 2020s? Would their members and voters influence be more powerful as factions within the Tories and Labour instead?
The problem is which one would I join?
An optimist might be thinking how might those parties adapt and change to attract your vote?
I must admit, I'm half-considering giving the Lib Dems a look. Of the major parties, they seem to be the only one with any qualms of any sort about the rather cavalier way in which parliament has ceded ground to government, and the seem to be rather more reliably opposed to vaccine passports. There ought to be a lot for liberals to be saying at the moment. I wish they were rather more confident about speaking up a bit on these issues.
Interesting article by Frum, suggesting that Republican voter suppression efforts might not be terrifically effective in terms of their political consequences.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
Nah; personally, I've been expecting a brief plateau until the second doses kick in. It's at a very low level, the CFR is down to 0.4% (from over 3.6% in December), and the Hospitalisation Fatality Rate down to under 8% (from over 33% in early January). If I could see it coming, the Government could as well. Arguably, they evidently did, with the big pivot to Second Dose April. I really can't see any case for slowing the unlocking. Hospitalisations down to around 200 per day, as well.
(And besides; ignore the reported day figures nowadays; they're far too noisy. We're at "low twenties to high teens" of deaths per day, with occasional spikes upwards and downwards; the deaths-by-date-occurred data is heavily lagged, but when things are changing so slowly, there's no reason not to wait for it any more)
I think that we may soon be at the point (or maybe we're already there) where the death figures on the standard 'death [from any cause] within 28 days of a positive Covid test' become seriously misleading. My reasoning is as follows: imagine the vaccines are very highly effective at preventing serious illness and death, but not so effective at preventing low-level infections which PCR tests can pick up, which is very much what is expected. In that case, you'd get to the point where most of the 'Covid deaths' really do become deaths with Covid rather than deaths caused by Covid, but they'd still show up in the 28-day cutoff figures, which would therefore flatten off to become just the background figure of non-Covid deaths multiplied by the proportion of the population testing positive with mild or asymptomatic cases.
Of course the Covid deniers were claiming that months ago, which was nonsense given the scale of deaths at the time, but there must come a point, if the vaccinations work as we think they probably do, where it would be true. What's more, most of those spurious figures would show up amongst the elderly.
The fact that we're now getting negative 'excess' deaths would tend to support this hypothesis.
Very rough rule of thumb: 0.1%-0.2% CFR is the point where that happens. The cases by age and sex do distribute enough for us to wet-finger a guesstimate that 0.1-0.2% of those testing positive should die, on average, within a month of any random event by all causes. So that's 5-10 deaths per day; we're currently running at just under 30. Getting there, but not quite there yet. (We can cross check after the fact by comparing the deaths-within-60-days metric and seeing if that runs at very close to double the deaths-within-28-days metric from 32 days earlier; if it does, that provides further evidence to support that the deaths-from-covid are statistically close to zero by then.
And, a bit later, we can cross-check with the ONS figures to project an IFR, which, if it gets down to 0.1%, will mean that covid deaths are statistically indistinguishable from zero by that stage. We're currently at 0.25% or so on that (down from 1.4% at the peak. Vaccines work).
What is the point of the LDems in the 2020s? Would their members and voters influence be more powerful as factions within the Tories and Labour instead?
The problem is which one would I join?
An optimist might be thinking how might those parties adapt and change to attract your vote?
I must admit, I'm half-considering giving the Lib Dems a look. Of the major parties, they seem to be the only one with any qualms of any sort about the rather cavalier way in which parliament has ceded ground to government, and the seem to be rather more reliably opposed to vaccine passports. There ought to be a lot for liberals to be saying at the moment. I wish they were rather more confident about speaking up a bit on these issues.
I think they either need to get there act together and do that, or exit stage left. This passive existence of a party doing and saying little but just enough to survive does the causes of liberalism and centralism more harm than good.
Very rough rule of thumb: 0.1%-0.2% CFR is the point where that happens. The cases by age and sex do distribute enough for us to wet-finger a guesstimate that 0.1-0.2% of those testing positive should die, on average, within a month of any random event by all causes. So that's 5-10 deaths per day; we're currently running at just under 30. Getting there, but not quite there yet. (We can cross check after the fact by comparing the deaths-within-60-days metric and seeing if that runs at very close to double the deaths-within-28-days metric from 32 days earlier; if it does, that provides further evidence to support that the deaths-from-covid are statistically close to zero by then.
Good reasoning. That would mean that we're possibly already at the point where the effect is beginning to distort the figures.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
That's only half the story. I think in 1992, people were already tired of the Conservatives being in power. The reason they didn't boot them out in 1992 was because Labour didn't look like a serious alternative. You need both factors to get a change of government.
My prediction, as things stand, is that 2023 or 2024 will be like 1992: the Conservatives very discredited, but Labour not ready to be trusted to take over.
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
Also Thatcher represented a political epoch in a way that Cameron didn’t. 2019 is potentially more like a 1979 than a 1992.
Very rough rule of thumb: 0.1%-0.2% CFR is the point where that happens. The cases by age and sex do distribute enough for us to wet-finger a guesstimate that 0.1-0.2% of those testing positive should die, on average, within a month of any random event by all causes. So that's 5-10 deaths per day; we're currently running at just under 30. Getting there, but not quite there yet. (We can cross check after the fact by comparing the deaths-within-60-days metric and seeing if that runs at very close to double the deaths-within-28-days metric from 32 days earlier; if it does, that provides further evidence to support that the deaths-from-covid are statistically close to zero by then.
Good reasoning. That would mean that we're possibly already at the point where the effect is beginning to distort the figures.
The virus is transposing to younger members of the population though and with cases still decreasing won't the "background" fatalities also decrease ?
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
1994 had the highest rate of economic growth of any year since 1990, and 1995 to 1997 weren't bad either.
Interesting article by Frum, suggesting that Republican voter suppression efforts might not be terrifically effective in terms of their political consequences.
Isn't that always the way - those who will vote against the party who tried to stop them voting will move heaven and earth to continue voting, those who vote for that party will go meh as soon as it's difficult and not bother.
Load of tosh, that Daily Mail article, which apparently inspired the tweet. By the time Australia has vaccinated its population, it will be absolutely clear whether, and how effectively vaccination prevents transmission, so Hunt's statement doesn't represent any kind of change of policy.
The early vaccinators like us will be test case, and our current plan for lifting restrictions seems fairly reasonable to me.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
I thought the data showed that Black Wednesday holed the Tories’ economic credibility below the waterline, early in their final term?
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
This seems a far bigger scandal to me than an inflation based pay rise for nurses.
Whilst I'd be in favour of paying nurses more if we can afford it (we probably cant), imo we must find more money to pay care staff appropriately, which means significant year on year increases maintained over several years.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
That's only half the story. I think in 1992, people were already tired of the Conservatives being in power. The reason they didn't boot them out in 1992 was because Labour didn't look like a serious alternative. You need both factors to get a change of government.
My prediction, as things stand, is that 2023 or 2024 will be like 1992: the Conservatives very discredited, but Labour not ready to be trusted to take over.
Could be - don't forget they only invented the "match your plans" pledge in 1997 for precisely that reason. A 2023/4 Lab pledge not to frighten the horses for a couple of years might go some way to address that.
Very rough rule of thumb: 0.1%-0.2% CFR is the point where that happens. The cases by age and sex do distribute enough for us to wet-finger a guesstimate that 0.1-0.2% of those testing positive should die, on average, within a month of any random event by all causes. So that's 5-10 deaths per day; we're currently running at just under 30. Getting there, but not quite there yet. (We can cross check after the fact by comparing the deaths-within-60-days metric and seeing if that runs at very close to double the deaths-within-28-days metric from 32 days earlier; if it does, that provides further evidence to support that the deaths-from-covid are statistically close to zero by then.
Good reasoning. That would mean that we're possibly already at the point where the effect is beginning to distort the figures.
The virus is transposing to younger members of the population though and with cases still decreasing won't the "background" fatalities also decrease ?
Yes, but not as fast (if the vaccines are highly effective) as the 'true' figure for deaths genuinely caused by Covid,
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
Also Thatcher represented a political epoch in a way that Cameron didn’t. 2019 is potentially more like a 1979 than a 1992.
That is also true. And with the polls as they are looking likelier still.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
I thought the data showed that Black Wednesday holed the Tories’ economic credibility below the waterline, early in their final term?
Maybe but 1997 the economy was looking pretty good.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
I notice Israel can’t seem to get down below around 8 deaths a day.
Which is interesting as that's equivalent to 60/day in the UK and we are below that already.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
I notice Israel can’t seem to get down below around 8 deaths a day.
Which is interesting as that's equivalent to 60/day in the UK and we are below that already.
There is a large percentage of the Israeli population who won't accept the vaccine...
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
I thought the data showed that Black Wednesday holed the Tories’ economic credibility below the waterline, early in their final term?
Maybe but 1997 the economy was looking pretty good.
It doesn't matter as the Tories were dead from Black Wednesday onwards.
Its like a patient that is braindead but on life support. Either they then die a natural death, or the life support is turned off, but there is no coming back from that. From Black Wednesday onwards the Tory party were the equivalent of braindead.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
I thought the data showed that Black Wednesday holed the Tories’ economic credibility below the waterline, early in their final term?
Maybe but 1997 the economy was looking pretty good.
Black Wednesday set an agenda that even a booming economy couldn't fix...
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
That's only half the story. I think in 1992, people were already tired of the Conservatives being in power. The reason they didn't boot them out in 1992 was because Labour didn't look like a serious alternative. You need both factors to get a change of government.
My prediction, as things stand, is that 2023 or 2024 will be like 1992: the Conservatives very discredited, but Labour not ready to be trusted to take over.
The Tories aren't at all discredited yet, your disillusionment with Brexit is clouding your judgement.
2019 was like 1979 and 1983 merged into one, it was putting the past behind us and starting a new era (1979) and with a completely discredited opposition (1983). I suspect the next election to be more like 1987 - a country looking in a better position than before with a decently competent government and an opposition that has started to face its challenges but still not taken that seriously.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
That's only half the story. I think in 1992, people were already tired of the Conservatives being in power. The reason they didn't boot them out in 1992 was because Labour didn't look like a serious alternative. You need both factors to get a change of government.
My prediction, as things stand, is that 2023 or 2024 will be like 1992: the Conservatives very discredited, but Labour not ready to be trusted to take over.
The Tories aren't at all discredited yet, your disillusionment with Brexit is clouding your judgement.
2019 was like 1979 and 1983 merged into one, it was putting the past behind us and starting a new era (1979) and with a completely discredited opposition (1983). I suspect the next election to be more like 1987 - a country looking in a better position than before with a decently competent government and an opposition that has started to face its challenges but still not taken that seriously.
You're suggesting we haven't yet reached the highpoint of Tory hubris ? You might be correct.
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
This seems a far bigger scandal to me than an inflation based pay rise for nurses.
Whilst I'd be in favour of paying nurses more if we can afford it (we probably cant), imo we must find more money to pay care staff appropriately, which means significant year on year increases maintained over several years.
And that requires finding a means of paying for social care.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
I think the fact we still have 2,481 patients ill enough to be in hospital guarantees more deaths in the next few weeks and months, Of those 370 are reported as on ventilation, I am also a bit suspicious of the lags in death reporting. Its not unknown for deaths to hit the figures months after the actual passing, for whatever reason.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Telegraph reported this morning that many of the recent deaths were definitely 'with' rather than 'of' covid.
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
I notice Israel can’t seem to get down below around 8 deaths a day.
Which seems fantastic given where we have been with covid.
If it is endemic and we must live with as we live with flu then politicians must start to accept that some people will sadly die of this disease. Now maybe the vaccines will live up to the US trial data - which should 100% reduction in deaths - when scaled to an entire population - but I suspect not.
Except that you do wonder how much willingness there is to "live with" Covid. As I said earlier, the Government has every incentive to prolong the emergency. Indeed, the entire Covid crisis could very easily be used as an excuse to weaponize the flu to this end as well. It is easy enough to see the logic that could be deployed:
+ Restrictions eliminated flu last year. We do not need to let people die of flu! If we just keep masks and social distancing every Winter for the rest of time, no-one will die of flu ever again. If you don't agree with this then you are not merely selfish but a cold-hearted murderer. + Moreover, if we don't have restrictions this Winter then there will be a massive, unprecedented wave of flu, because population immunity to it will now have reduced. That will combine with Winter Covid to cause Hospitals To Become Overwhelmed™. If you don't agree with restrictions you therefore want hospitals to become overwhelmed, you hate Our Beloved NHS and you must be burned at the stake for heresy.
Old people who stay at home in front of the TV most of the time will love all of this and vote Conservative with even greater enthusiasm. Younger people will resent and detest yet more restrictions but we don't matter.
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
This seems a far bigger scandal to me than an inflation based pay rise for nurses.
Whilst I'd be in favour of paying nurses more if we can afford it (we probably cant), imo we must find more money to pay care staff appropriately, which means significant year on year increases maintained over several years.
And that requires finding a means of paying for social care.
Not for me. Id rank this requirement well in the top half of useful government spending, so would do it anyway. Then either decide to run a bigger deficit, tax more or cut something else - I don't know which option as I don't work at the Treasury.
We don't have a hypothecated tax and spending system apart from when its to give the govt excuses for maintaining status quo and avoiding taking action.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
That's only half the story. I think in 1992, people were already tired of the Conservatives being in power. The reason they didn't boot them out in 1992 was because Labour didn't look like a serious alternative. You need both factors to get a change of government.
My prediction, as things stand, is that 2023 or 2024 will be like 1992: the Conservatives very discredited, but Labour not ready to be trusted to take over.
The Tories aren't at all discredited yet, your disillusionment with Brexit is clouding your judgement.
2019 was like 1979 and 1983 merged into one, it was putting the past behind us and starting a new era (1979) and with a completely discredited opposition (1983). I suspect the next election to be more like 1987 - a country looking in a better position than before with a decently competent government and an opposition that has started to face its challenges but still not taken that seriously.
They're not very discredited yet, it is true. I'm predicting they will be, based on the 50 years I've been observing politics.
I might be wrong, but I very much doubt it TBH. This is the government with Gavin Williamson in a senior position, a dishonest charlatan as PM, and is anti-business, anti-prosperity - curious attributes for a party which traditionally has had competence and understanding of business as its strongest points.
However, as I said I don't think Labour will be able to present a credible alternative by 2023/2024. Starmer is poor, his team is extraordinarily weak, and they don't seem to have a coherent position on anything very much. The time remaining for Labour to turn this round doesn't look sufficient. So I fear we are stuck with extremely bad government for at least a decade.
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
I thought the data showed that Black Wednesday holed the Tories’ economic credibility below the waterline, early in their final term?
Maybe but 1997 the economy was looking pretty good.
Black Wednesday set an agenda that even a booming economy couldn't fix...
So Black Wednesday and a mere five years later the Cons are thrown out of power on account of it?
The 1997 Cons govt didn't fall because of their management of the economy, it fell because people were tired of the Cons being in power (Boris might have swerved that because he positioned himself as a new administration) and, of course, because of sleaze.
I thought the data showed that Black Wednesday holed the Tories’ economic credibility below the waterline, early in their final term?
Maybe but 1997 the economy was looking pretty good.
Black Wednesday set an agenda that even a booming economy couldn't fix...
So Black Wednesday and a mere five years later the Cons are thrown out of power on account of it?
Black Wednesday and the next available opportunity the Cons are thrown out of power on account of it, yes.
The Cons were on life support from Black Wednesday onwards. Had the dates of Black Wednesday and the General Election been reversed in 1992 then we would have had Prime Minister Kinnock.
The cases look pretty decent; there's only one local authority area with a seven day rate above 100 per 100k left, and the zones of extremely low prevalence are gradually edging across the map.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
Nah; personally, I've been expecting a brief plateau until the second doses kick in. It's at a very low level, the CFR is down to 0.4% (from over 3.6% in December), and the Hospitalisation Fatality Rate down to under 8% (from over 33% in early January). If I could see it coming, the Government could as well. Arguably, they evidently did, with the big pivot to Second Dose April. I really can't see any case for slowing the unlocking. Hospitalisations down to around 200 per day, as well.
(And besides; ignore the reported day figures nowadays; they're far too noisy. We're at "low twenties to high teens" of deaths per day, with occasional spikes upwards and downwards; the deaths-by-date-occurred data is heavily lagged, but when things are changing so slowly, there's no reason not to wait for it any more)
I think that we may soon be at the point (or maybe we're already there) where the death figures on the standard 'death [from any cause] within 28 days of a positive Covid test' become seriously misleading. My reasoning is as follows: imagine the vaccines are very highly effective at preventing serious illness and death, but not so effective at preventing low-level infections which PCR tests can pick up, which is very much what is expected. In that case, you'd get to the point where most of the 'Covid deaths' really do become deaths with Covid rather than deaths caused by Covid, but they'd still show up in the 28-day cutoff figures, which would therefore flatten off to become just the background figure of non-Covid deaths multiplied by the proportion of the population testing positive with mild or asymptomatic cases.
Of course the Covid deniers were claiming that months ago, which was nonsense given the scale of deaths at the time, but there must come a point, if the vaccinations work as we think they probably do, where it would be true. What's more, most of those spurious figures would show up amongst the elderly.
The fact that we're now getting negative 'excess' deaths would tend to support this hypothesis.
This is what I was trying to articulate last night, badly, after five pints.
I suggest @LostPassword uses your explanation instead!
@DavidL are you expecting the SNP to get a majority?
Its going to be close. I think (hope) that they will fall just short but their little green helpers will get them over the line once again. I expect the Tories to fall back a bit, possibly to 3rd and Labour to pick up a bit but not necessarily win many more seats.
Most of the campaigning seems to revolve around the regional list vote, where the MSM and broadcasters are continuing to blank the Alba party. Salmond needs something to give them a second push. I expect an assault on all the lead SNP candidate in the regional lists, all of whom IIRC received a tiny proportion of members' votes, but have been advanced to the top as preferred BAME/disabled status (self ID'd or not).
That would be interesting. Salmond must be getting just a little bit desperate. He is an ego maniac and he is seriously in danger of being completely humiliated. He may well lash out at some point.
But the campaign has been almost non existent. Which has suited Nicola just fine of course.
Like a lot of pols I believe Salmond, wily campaigner though he is, has been listening to ill chosen advisors & believed twitter was real life. He's maybe been out of the ring too long.
'You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself.'
I haven't been following it but I did catch a few of his interviews at the start and it seemed to me he had a potential comms problem with the "sex pest" thing. Every interviewer was asking him if he had reflected on his behaviour and felt there were lessons there (for him) as regards future interactions with women. Clearly angling for something like "Of course I did nothing criminal, a court has confirmed that, but yes I've reflected long and hard, and yes I can see that perhaps I did occasionally behave in a way that made people uncomfortable, and I'm sorry if that was the case, and I have absolutely taken this on board."
But he wouldn't go anywhere near it. All he kept doing was stone walling with "Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent. Court found me innocent". Refusing to acknowledge any territory existed between totally ok behaviour and criminal behaviour (when everyone knows that not only does such territory exist but that it's quite spacious).
I do get that it's a sensitive area and that his approach might be the only one he thought he could manage or risk, but it didn't come over well. Not to me it didn't anyway. And I thought to myself, mmm, this is a non answer to a big and juicy question, therefore it's probably going to keep coming back - a la Farron and gay sex - and maybe Alex would be better off biting the bullet and getting an answer sorted out.
So, I don't know if he has? Or has it gone away?
That's a fair characterisation of Salmond's reaction.
No, it hasn't gone away, but Alba & Salmond's exclusion from the debates (which is their latest cry of IT'S NO BLOODY FAIR!) has prevented it being addressed, and I'm fairly sure he'd have carried on with the found innocent of every charge line in any case. Salmond's personal ratings in polling implies that the damage is pretty fixed in folks' minds.
As you suggest even a modest admission of naughty behaviour would probably have worked for him. No one is expecting him to spend the rest of his earthly existence working in a leper colony but 'admitting fallibility isn't a sign of weakness' is a lesson Salmond is never going to learn.
Getting the Telegraph, Spectator, Brillo and David fucking Davis out to bat for you was also a major error. If an aversion to populist politics reeking of rancid testosterone, Tories and Brexit are a driving force in Scottish politics, distancing yourself from that fester fest would have been a smart move.
Well I can't say I'm heartbroken if he's flopping. Especially if he's hanging with that crowd. Going by the betting it's looking pretty good for your preferred outcome of a 'clean' SNP majority. Game on if so and we'll see which of our many "scotch" experts have called the consequences right. Legal ref? Illegal ref? No ref? UDI? Gunboats from Boris? Nicola and her team go to ground armed and "hit the mattresses" in Glasgow? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
My preferred option is for Nicola to do as she has said she will and to continue the covid battle, and then seek a Section 30 agreement in 2022/2023
I would like that to be discussed calmly and respectably in the HOC and then put to a free vote
I think it is unlikely to receive HOC approval, but even then I do not fear indyref2 and am confident it can be won by the union
The one thing everyone should agree is this cannot continue indefinitely
That's fair comment and I second you on the hope for a grown up approach by all sides.
Although we do want different ultimate outcomes. I'm rooting for Sindy for 2 reasons, one respectable, one not. The respectable reason is I sense Scotland has deviated so much from the prevailing vibe in England that it's just a different country, with a distinct demos, and so it's right and inevitable that it separates legally. I can't see an alternative other than muddling on, which as you say is not really tenable long term. None of the other options, federalism, devomax, devoreversal, look goers to me.
And then the less respectable reason is that it will be one in the eye for a certain political tendency that I dislike. By which I mean Brexiteers of the imperialist variety such as Andrew Neil and Jacob Rees Mogg and Leon. They've been riding high and I'd like that to change.
I had a chat with an Indy supporter the other day and it was refreshing to hear his reasoning. Yes, he knew it would be tough, but he believed that Scotland should be held accountable (and determine) its own decisions via Indy. Refreshing honesty - I.e economic aspect is tough, but emotionally, absolutely
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
This seems a far bigger scandal to me than an inflation based pay rise for nurses.
Whilst I'd be in favour of paying nurses more if we can afford it (we probably cant), imo we must find more money to pay care staff appropriately, which means significant year on year increases maintained over several years.
Liz 4% Kendall sneering at "shelf stackers" not a good look either.
Does she really even think there is a job called that,and after shop workers have risked their lives too to keep the shops open why sneer at them..
Typical out of touch Politician or just terrible wording from a talentless individual?
Comments
95 majority
This entire affair reminds me of the dodgy donors radio bit from The Thick of It.
> Here's the fucking thing. Nobody talks about fucking dodgy donors, okay? Because it makes everybody look bad. - M Tucker
Replace donors with lobbyists.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/prison-terms-for-hong-kong-activists-who-urge-others-not-to-vote-in-elections-b80ht35pk
1. Basic route = market fundamentals
2. Herd leaders = technical trading
3. Floods affecting river fords etc... = unpredictable events
4. Lion prides = emotions moving the herd
5. Expectations of food at the end = differing market prediction models and algorithms
The obvious mistake you are making is Labour voters now vote Tory.
Not from the 2016 and 2017 locals they don't, given Labour is now on 34% in the latest Yougov and Labour only got 31% in the 2016 locals and 27% in the 2017 locals.
I still politely disagree HY. Labour can go up, marginally on your stats, whilst still losing lots of voters to the Tories, who surge into the 40’s themselves. It’s a roundabout effect not swing. What’s remarkable in the Boris getting brexit and covid done era is the shear scale of Lab to Con switchers, Labour steal other party voters not Torys.
Labour are on for a terrible night in May, getting nowhere near Westminster voting polls on votes casts, Tories will get 40% plus and until perceptions unravel maybe in 2030’s Labour are long way behind for the rest of this decade.
The death count, however... if that becomes sticky then the excuse for stalling the unlockdown plan presents itself. The fact that maybe 11,000 people kick the bucket every week in the UK is irrelevant: 250-odd is an entire Airbus-A330 load of corpses every week, and will be presented (and understood by ignorant and frightened members of the public) in those sorts of terms. Casualties enormous, not safe, sorry.
As always in the locals people will vote for the various "pothole parties" that never get a look in at real elections because people don't actually support them: Independents, Residents Association, Liberal Democrats and other assorted oddballs like them.
Society as a whole has decided that it is an acceptable level of loss in order to keep society going, and already daily death figures are largely fading into the background.
The 7-day figure is currently distorted the the catch-up after Easter being included I suspect, it should start falling again tomorrow.
Though at low numbers it will fluctuate more.
It's at a very low level, the CFR is down to 0.4% (from over 3.6% in December), and the Hospitalisation Fatality Rate down to under 8% (from over 33% in early January).
If I could see it coming, the Government could as well. Arguably, they evidently did, with the big pivot to Second Dose April.
I really can't see any case for slowing the unlocking. Hospitalisations down to around 200 per day, as well.
(And besides; ignore the reported day figures nowadays; they're far too noisy. We're at "low twenties to high teens" of deaths per day, with occasional spikes upwards and downwards; the deaths-by-date-occurred data is heavily lagged, but when things are changing so slowly, there's no reason not to wait for it any more)
I think your gravy train may well have more carriages than I've allowed platform space for though.
Although we do want different ultimate outcomes. I'm rooting for Sindy for 2 reasons, one respectable, one not. The respectable reason is I sense Scotland has deviated so much from the prevailing vibe in England that it's just a different country, with a distinct demos, and so it's right and inevitable that it separates legally. I can't see an alternative other than muddling on, which as you say is not really tenable long term. None of the other options, federalism, devomax, devoreversal, look goers to me.
And then the less respectable reason is that it will be one in the eye for a certain political tendency that I dislike. By which I mean Brexiteers of the imperialist variety such as Andrew Neil and Jacob Rees Mogg and Leon. They've been riding high and I'd like that to change.
Hopefully though the direction of travel for deaths within 28 days of a test will stay the same.
Though as PT says, at figures this low there are much higher fluctuations.
I wonder to what extent deaths are still linked to positive tests? If there is still a link, we could expect to see a halving in the next week or two. Though I suspect the link is now fully broken.
I sympathise with Black Rook's scepticism. There has, for whatever reason, been a significant cabal within government and its advisors which always attempts to put the worst possible spin on whatever data is presented. Indeed, when I picked my daughter up from holiday club at school earlier, there was a sign on the door - produced by the Council - which starkly declared that 'Coronavirus is very much still with us in Trafford and cases are rising nationally', which simply isn't true. When scaremongering flips over into lying, it can make you feel a little paranoid. But I take kinbalu's earlier point that I am expecting what I fear to happen, not what rationally should happen.
That said, when the public sector behaves like the one we have, it's not easy to forecast based on rationality.
@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 42% (-)
LAB: 35% (-)
LDEM: 7% (-1)
GRN: 4% (+1)
via
@SavantaComRes
, 09 - 11 Apr
Chgs. w/ 04 Apr"
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1382361620240814081
Assuming we can't get case numbers to zero then there will always be some deaths 'with' presumably, even for the vaccinated? e.g. in hospital with later stage cancer but a mild or even non symptomatic case of covid 23 days previous.
Time to tighten up the stats?
That would lead to only 63 SNP seats and no SNP majority at Holyrood
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1382363721054453771?s=20
I don’t think this story goes away.
I still politely disagree HY. Labour can go up, marginally on your stats, whilst still losing lots of voters to the Tories, who surge into the 40’s themselves. It’s a roundabout effect not swing. What’s remarkable in the Boris getting brexit and covid done era is the shear scale of Lab to Con switchers, Labour steal other party voters not Torys.
Labour are on for a terrible night in May, getting nowhere near Westminster voting polls on votes casts, Tories will get 40% plus and until perceptions unravel maybe in 2030’s Labour are long way behind for the rest of this decade.'
Labour were 11% behind in 2017 in the county elections, they are only 7% behind on the new Comres, so Labour will make gains from the Tories in the counties and both Labour and the Tories should make gains from the LDs.
Labour were 1% ahead though in the 2016 district elections so yes the Tories may make gains from Labour there
@leicesterliz
You’re better off stacking shelves at Morrison’s than caring for older and disabled people, and that’s not good enough for our country. #COVID19 has exposed the urgent need to reform staff pay, terms & conditions. My question in Parliament today...."
https://twitter.com/leicesterliz/status/1381937874900226054
https://twitter.com/izakaminska/status/1382289084148748289
(FT Blog editor, not any old tweeter).
What did happen yesterday? Seems all very odd.
Of course the Covid deniers were claiming that months ago, which was nonsense given the scale of deaths at the time, but there must come a point, if the vaccinations work as we think they probably do, where it would be true. What's more, most of those spurious figures would show up amongst the elderly.
The fact that we're now getting negative 'excess' deaths would tend to support this hypothesis.
So I don’t think Starmer ought to fear a backlash from the rank and file for going after the great and the good. But he himself was part of that world, albeit in a more specific role without (at least I hope!) any such temptations.
After some short amount of time the stock would have gone into a volatility auction triggered by the fall at which time the first trader would also have thought "oh f***".
It was a lie.
Whilst what @Chameleon said about the flu is factually correct, it's been around forever and folk at large don't pay much attention to the body count. It's just something sad that happens to people if they're very decrepit or unlucky. We ignore it and move on.
Covid, on the other hand, is novel, highly publicised and scares a large fraction of the population witless. Unless the death count falls to practically nothing then it provides an excuse for endless bossiness, rules and regulations that paranoid scientists, and the (probably in many cases traumatised) ministers that they advise, are desperate to keep in place. The reason why Boris Johnson gives virtually all the credit for the crash in case numbers to lockdown, and gives almost none to the vaccines (and spends precious little time talking about how much better they will make things in future, either) is that he doesn't want to let the restrictions go.
Re: the South African Plague outbreak in London, I do sometimes wonder if the Government's lax border policies are actually a deliberate attempt to keep a steady stream of these variant cases coming into the country? So long as they're happening it's just one more factor contributing to the ongoing, all-pervasive atmosphere of emergency. So long as we've got a rolling wave of surge testing going on, and scientists talking about going back into lockdown if variants become more widespread, then it's impossible to get back to normal - and that suits the Government fine. Emergency is an excuse for ID cards. Emergency is an excuse for keeping the restrictions. Emergency keeps the Opposition at bay and the Tories' polling numbers buoyant. Emergency plays well with an awful lot of elderly hermits who are still very frightened and don't want to go back to normal.
If it is endemic and we must live with as we live with flu then politicians must start to accept that some people will sadly die of this disease. Now maybe the vaccines will live up to the US trial data - which should 100% reduction in deaths - when scaled to an entire population - but I suspect not.
Civil servants, one of whom has passed away, are seemingly involved and I expect it to become very complex
https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1382352468386930689?s=20
The cases by age and sex do distribute enough for us to wet-finger a guesstimate that 0.1-0.2% of those testing positive should die, on average, within a month of any random event by all causes.
So that's 5-10 deaths per day; we're currently running at just under 30.
Getting there, but not quite there yet.
(We can cross check after the fact by comparing the deaths-within-60-days metric and seeing if that runs at very close to double the deaths-within-28-days metric from 32 days earlier; if it does, that provides further evidence to support that the deaths-from-covid are statistically close to zero by then.
There ought to be a lot for liberals to be saying at the moment. I wish they were rather more confident about speaking up a bit on these issues.
They will suppress votes, but not necessarily the right ones from a Republican POV ...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/republicans-are-making-four-key-mistakes/618575/
We're currently at 0.25% or so on that (down from 1.4% at the peak. Vaccines work).
https://twitter.com/tedgioia/status/1382342416280162309
My prediction, as things stand, is that 2023 or 2024 will be like 1992: the Conservatives very discredited, but Labour not ready to be trusted to take over.
By the time Australia has vaccinated its population, it will be absolutely clear whether, and how effectively vaccination prevents transmission, so Hunt's statement doesn't represent any kind of change of policy.
The early vaccinators like us will be test case, and our current plan for lifting restrictions seems fairly reasonable to me.
Whilst I'd be in favour of paying nurses more if we can afford it (we probably cant), imo we must find more money to pay care staff appropriately, which means significant year on year increases maintained over several years.
Its like a patient that is braindead but on life support. Either they then die a natural death, or the life support is turned off, but there is no coming back from that. From Black Wednesday onwards the Tory party were the equivalent of braindead.
2019 was like 1979 and 1983 merged into one, it was putting the past behind us and starting a new era (1979) and with a completely discredited opposition (1983). I suspect the next election to be more like 1987 - a country looking in a better position than before with a decently competent government and an opposition that has started to face its challenges but still not taken that seriously.
You might be correct.
+ Restrictions eliminated flu last year. We do not need to let people die of flu! If we just keep masks and social distancing every Winter for the rest of time, no-one will die of flu ever again. If you don't agree with this then you are not merely selfish but a cold-hearted murderer.
+ Moreover, if we don't have restrictions this Winter then there will be a massive, unprecedented wave of flu, because population immunity to it will now have reduced. That will combine with Winter Covid to cause Hospitals To Become Overwhelmed™. If you don't agree with restrictions you therefore want hospitals to become overwhelmed, you hate Our Beloved NHS and you must be burned at the stake for heresy.
Old people who stay at home in front of the TV most of the time will love all of this and vote Conservative with even greater enthusiasm. Younger people will resent and detest yet more restrictions but we don't matter.
from case data
from hospitalisation data
We don't have a hypothecated tax and spending system apart from when its to give the govt excuses for maintaining status quo and avoiding taking action.
I might be wrong, but I very much doubt it TBH. This is the government with Gavin Williamson in a senior position, a dishonest charlatan as PM, and is anti-business, anti-prosperity - curious attributes for a party which traditionally has had competence and understanding of business as its strongest points.
However, as I said I don't think Labour will be able to present a credible alternative by 2023/2024. Starmer is poor, his team is extraordinarily weak, and they don't seem to have a coherent position on anything very much. The time remaining for Labour to turn this round doesn't look sufficient. So I fear we are stuck with extremely bad government for at least a decade.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1382378078287069185?s=19
The Cons were on life support from Black Wednesday onwards. Had the dates of Black Wednesday and the General Election been reversed in 1992 then we would have had Prime Minister Kinnock.
I suggest @LostPassword uses your explanation instead!
Does she really even think there is a job called that,and after shop workers have risked their lives too to keep the shops open why sneer at them..
Typical out of touch Politician or just terrible wording from a talentless individual?