It feels like SAGE have been a bit stopped watcherish, and also don’t seem well set up for modelling in an extremely fast moving environment - with presentations regularly being shown to be days or weeks out of date.
Most of their predictions haven’t been up to much, but because they’ve constantly been preaching caution based on pessimistic scenarios they’ve been credited with being right even when they often haven’t been very close. And got a bit ‘lucky’ with the emergence of the U.K. variant.
It’s a bit like political pundits who always call for the same team and look sage-ish when the likes of 2019 happen, but closer examination suggests that their prior record hasn’t been quite so impressive.
It's so big that the scope for briefing by those who are not in the majority/consensus if huge. That gives hge fodder for a media desperate to get clicks/purchases.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
They’re the wrong sort of football fans. If it was Celtic it would be less of an issue with many nationalists.
Away you half witted cretin, it matters not who it was , thugs are thugs, violence , and breaking the law are a NO NO for everyone.
I see your treatment for psychological projection isn't going too well, and neither is your diversity training.
Speaking of thugs, what are your thoughts on the future of the so-called bully and sex-pest? Will he rise up from his foul little swamp of moral relativism and march the proud fatherland to independence? Perhaps not.
Hancock says 86 council areas now have five or more cases of Indian variant
Its clearly well seeded now as there is always a delay in sequencing. So the idea of targeting specific areas just because of the Indian variant will soon be redundant.
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Get that oven ready chicken slaughtered and plucked Boris, LOL. If French shut Calais for a day the UK is stuffed.
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Get that oven ready chicken slaughtered and plucked Boris, LOL. If French shut Calais for a day the UK is stuffed.
Nonsense
There are quite a few issues quietly bubbling away with shortages as a result of Brexit, Mr G. Building supplies for one.
Guido quotes the ONS today with the estimate that the pandemic and lockdown to date has cost the taxpayer a cool USD372bn. And that's to May 2021.
Over the next 18 months Johnson & co will be trying to plug gaps and get some of that back. So no, there won't be an early election.
In fact, it would not surprise me if the colossal bill for covid/lockdown is now driving the agenda. It would explain why Johnson, after countless cave-ins, is suddenly standing up to SAGE.
He simply cannot afford not to.
I thought Modern Monetary Theory held that deficits are irrelevant and you can print money for ever without any bad stuff happening.
It is often simplified as such but MMT is essentially arguing that inflation rather than deficits is the bad thing that stops a sovereign nation printing money for ever. Of course inflation and deficits are closely linked so often conventional economics and MMT would lead to similar analysis. If we stay in this era of long term ultra low inflation then we shall see if (how long) the US and other countries can stay on MMT running massive deficits.
You have to ask what it would take for inflationary pressures to reemerge given the behaviour of central banks over the past X years.
Inflationary pressures were held in check in the developed world by China's export of deflation. The price of manufactured products didn't rise because China pegged their currency, and was happy to run trade surpluses into perpetuity.
Of course, the money has to go somewhere, so instead of it inflating the price of consumer goods, it increased the price of assets. (The 'carry trade' made a lot of rich people a little bit richer.)
I'm not convinced that China will be able to keep exporting deflation. Costs are rising there now, and their industrialisation process is mostly complete. Now, China could attempt to offset this by driving their currency lower, but it's easier to stop a currency rising than it is to drive it down.
So I would guess we're going to see a slow and steady rise in inflationary pressures over the next five to ten years.
Don't buy super long dated low coupon bonds.
What do you make of Piketty's argument that Asia's labour surplus is drying up, and so the cost of labour relative to the cost of capital will rise, reducing wealth imbalances somewhat in the longer-term?
It's going to depend on some things that haven't happened yet, but I would be surprised if it goes to 2024. I think there is a chance he could try to find a reason in 2022 if an opening (like does Scotland or UK run this country???), a crisis or an issue presents itself. And a high chance in 2023, as waiting for 2024 presents the 'surprise test' problem - he can't do it at the time of his choosing, it's chosen for him by the bell ringing the end of the round.
Even 2022 presents him with the prospect 8 years as PM, which is long in historical terms.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
Hancock says 86 council areas now have five or more cases of Indian variant
Its clearly well seeded now as there is always a delay in sequencing. So the idea of targeting specific areas just because of the Indian variant will soon be redundant.
Yes it will be everywhere soon ie in the next few weeks
So the focus should be: let's crack on with the vaccines!
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Get that oven ready chicken slaughtered and plucked Boris, LOL. If French shut Calais for a day the UK is stuffed.
Nonsense
There are quite a few issues quietly bubbling away with shortages as a result of Brexit, Mr G. Building supplies for one.
I have no idea if the shortages are covid or brexit related but we have left the EU
Guido quotes the ONS today with the estimate that the pandemic and lockdown to date has cost the taxpayer a cool USD372bn. And that's to May 2021.
Over the next 18 months Johnson & co will be trying to plug gaps and get some of that back. So no, there won't be an early election.
In fact, it would not surprise me if the colossal bill for covid/lockdown is now driving the agenda. It would explain why Johnson, after countless cave-ins, is suddenly standing up to SAGE.
He simply cannot afford not to.
I thought Modern Monetary Theory held that deficits are irrelevant and you can print money for ever without any bad stuff happening.
It is often simplified as such but MMT is essentially arguing that inflation rather than deficits is the bad thing that stops a sovereign nation printing money for ever. Of course inflation and deficits are closely linked so often conventional economics and MMT would lead to similar analysis. If we stay in this era of long term ultra low inflation then we shall see if (how long) the US and other countries can stay on MMT running massive deficits.
You have to ask what it would take for inflationary pressures to reemerge given the behaviour of central banks over the past X years.
Inflationary pressures were held in check in the developed world by China's export of deflation. The price of manufactured products didn't rise because China pegged their currency, and was happy to run trade surpluses into perpetuity.
Of course, the money has to go somewhere, so instead of it inflating the price of consumer goods, it increased the price of assets. (The 'carry trade' made a lot of rich people a little bit richer.)
I'm not convinced that China will be able to keep exporting deflation. Costs are rising there now, and their industrialisation process is mostly complete. Now, China could attempt to offset this by driving their currency lower, but it's easier to stop a currency rising than it is to drive it down.
So I would guess we're going to see a slow and steady rise in inflationary pressures over the next five to ten years.
Don't buy super long dated low coupon bonds.
What do you make of Piketty's argument that Asia's labour surplus is drying up, and so the cost of labour relative to the cost of capital will rise, reducing wealth imbalances somewhat in the longer-term?
I think that's quite a plausible scenario.
In terms of skilled labour - this has been happening for a while.
China and India are now growing their own service industries and domestic demand is soaring. Which means that increasing numbers of skilled workers are required internally.
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
They are doing much worse than people on here.
Take a bow, Sir.
For quite a long while last year the best model in the US was one guy who'd been to MIT and decided to use machine learning to train an off-the-shelf model and kept his data up to date with the latest stats. His model was routinely beating the models from all sorts of prestigious universities and national laboratories. Several of the competitor models were routinely so poor that simple extrapolation would do better. His only real rival was a university using an ensemble model.
There is definitely a lot to be learnt about modelling from this pandemic.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
So here is a question: Why is Celtic FC pronounced "sell-tik" and not "Kell-tic" as in the Celtic nations?
I think there is a chance he could try to find a reason in 2022 if an opening (like does Scotland or UK run this country???), a crisis or an issue presents itself.
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Get that oven ready chicken slaughtered and plucked Boris, LOL. If French shut Calais for a day the UK is stuffed.
Nonsense
There are quite a few issues quietly bubbling away with shortages as a result of Brexit, Mr G. Building supplies for one.
I have no idea if the shortages are covid or brexit related but we have left the EU
Time to move on
Time to accept perhaps, but "moving on" should not allow those that lied to not be called to account. They have got away lightly so far though, and maybe they hope to keep it that way.
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Is it a disaster when UVDL briefly threatened to break the Protocol but didn't, and not a disaster when Johnson continually threatens to do the same and you think he actually will?
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
Guido quotes the ONS today with the estimate that the pandemic and lockdown to date has cost the taxpayer a cool USD372bn. And that's to May 2021.
Over the next 18 months Johnson & co will be trying to plug gaps and get some of that back. So no, there won't be an early election.
In fact, it would not surprise me if the colossal bill for covid/lockdown is now driving the agenda. It would explain why Johnson, after countless cave-ins, is suddenly standing up to SAGE.
He simply cannot afford not to.
I thought Modern Monetary Theory held that deficits are irrelevant and you can print money for ever without any bad stuff happening.
It is often simplified as such but MMT is essentially arguing that inflation rather than deficits is the bad thing that stops a sovereign nation printing money for ever. Of course inflation and deficits are closely linked so often conventional economics and MMT would lead to similar analysis. If we stay in this era of long term ultra low inflation then we shall see if (how long) the US and other countries can stay on MMT running massive deficits.
You have to ask what it would take for inflationary pressures to reemerge given the behaviour of central banks over the past X years.
Inflationary pressures were held in check in the developed world by China's export of deflation. The price of manufactured products didn't rise because China pegged their currency, and was happy to run trade surpluses into perpetuity.
Of course, the money has to go somewhere, so instead of it inflating the price of consumer goods, it increased the price of assets. (The 'carry trade' made a lot of rich people a little bit richer.)
I'm not convinced that China will be able to keep exporting deflation. Costs are rising there now, and their industrialisation process is mostly complete. Now, China could attempt to offset this by driving their currency lower, but it's easier to stop a currency rising than it is to drive it down.
So I would guess we're going to see a slow and steady rise in inflationary pressures over the next five to ten years.
Don't buy super long dated low coupon bonds.
There's also the possibility, on a decade plus timescale, of a third industrial revolution (extremely low marginal cost energy; AI; synthetic biology etc), though, which I wouldn't entirely discount. (Not that I'm someone who buys super long dated low coupon bonds. )
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
Guido quotes the ONS today with the estimate that the pandemic and lockdown to date has cost the taxpayer a cool USD372bn. And that's to May 2021.
Over the next 18 months Johnson & co will be trying to plug gaps and get some of that back. So no, there won't be an early election.
In fact, it would not surprise me if the colossal bill for covid/lockdown is now driving the agenda. It would explain why Johnson, after countless cave-ins, is suddenly standing up to SAGE.
He simply cannot afford not to.
I thought Modern Monetary Theory held that deficits are irrelevant and you can print money for ever without any bad stuff happening.
It is often simplified as such but MMT is essentially arguing that inflation rather than deficits is the bad thing that stops a sovereign nation printing money for ever. Of course inflation and deficits are closely linked so often conventional economics and MMT would lead to similar analysis. If we stay in this era of long term ultra low inflation then we shall see if (how long) the US and other countries can stay on MMT running massive deficits.
You have to ask what it would take for inflationary pressures to reemerge given the behaviour of central banks over the past X years.
Inflationary pressures were held in check in the developed world by China's export of deflation. The price of manufactured products didn't rise because China pegged their currency, and was happy to run trade surpluses into perpetuity.
Of course, the money has to go somewhere, so instead of it inflating the price of consumer goods, it increased the price of assets. (The 'carry trade' made a lot of rich people a little bit richer.)
I'm not convinced that China will be able to keep exporting deflation. Costs are rising there now, and their industrialisation process is mostly complete. Now, China could attempt to offset this by driving their currency lower, but it's easier to stop a currency rising than it is to drive it down.
So I would guess we're going to see a slow and steady rise in inflationary pressures over the next five to ten years.
Don't buy super long dated low coupon bonds.
There's also the possibility, on a decade plus timescale, of a third industrial revolution (extremely low marginal cost energy; AI; synthetic biology etc), though, which I wouldn't entirely discount. (Not that I'm someone who buys super long dated low coupon bonds. )
I was about to write the same thing. It’s really hard to fathom persistent wage inflationary pressures given the technological changes about to be unleashed.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
So here is a question: Why is Celtic FC pronounced "sell-tik" and not "Kell-tic" as in the Celtic nations?
And there's Celtic Manor in Wales. Think that's a hard C.
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Is it a disaster when UVDL briefly threatened to break the Protocol but didn't, and not a disaster when Johnson continually threatens to do the same and you think he actually will?
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
With respect you misread my disaster quote re UVDL who made a catastrophic mistake over vaccines and then compounded it over her protocol threat
If the EU will not talk sense then the protocol will need to be suspended
On topic, I agree May 2024 is the most likely General Election date by some margin.
The Conservatives have a large majority, enabling them to get even controversial legislation through with some ease. Whilst there was a logic in May gambling in 2017 with an extremely thin majority (particularly in the context of Brexit) there isn't now. Although Johnson is plainly a far better campaigner than May, 2017 is still a rather startling example of support being broad but shallow, and there being a genuine risk even with a solid polling lead. There's some case for October 2023, but 31% seems overstated.
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Is it a disaster when UVDL briefly threatened to break the Protocol but didn't, and not a disaster when Johnson continually threatens to do the same and you think he actually will?
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
The difference is that UvdL wanted to use Article 16 with no notice for a purpose that was clearly outside its stated terms. On the other hand, regardless of where you assign the blame, the difficulties caused by the implementation of the protocol clearly fall within its scope:
1. If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
I think we need to chuck a load of them in the bin with the journalists....it keeps happening, remember the UoW model where they got all the basic input parameters wrong in terms of things like ICU beds and they had mental confidence intervals.
We had the firebreak one with again nonsense confidence intervals going from a firebreak might save anywhere between a few 100 and 100k lives in 3 months. If my models outputted such nonsense, I would be back looking at rewriting the model, as we might as well got binface to make the prediction.
James Melville Cherry blossom @JamesMelville · 7h SAGE members are crawling all over the broadcast media this morning trying to spook everyone over the Indian variant / saying the restrictions shouldn’t be lifted. Behavioural scientists and mathematician modellers literally telling the country to stay in their box.
And the medio lap it up with no counter balance
I am at the stage now that when I hear one of these sage/Independent sage bods seeking a zero covid policy and to hold us all to ransom I switch off
They have had too much power and are far from sage as far as I can see
The media and these organisation's need to be front, centre and throughout the public enquiry
Why do you say they've had too much power given the mistakes we've made have generally been in the other direction, ie taking action too late and easing too soon?
Well, I think we locked down too hard and for too long. There's a law of diminishing returns, and while not doing some things was sensible (mosh pits - bad idea in a pandemic), many of the restrictions introduced brought such negligible benefits in terms of controlling the spread that they did not outweigh their costs (there are no 'zero cost' measures.) And people will die as a result, through missed medical treatments, through specific avoidable poverty, and through the UK being poorer and being able to afford less in the way of healthcare. But we'll never know. We can never show the counterfactual.
Some of the individual measures were unnecessary and badly framed but it's clear that where we erred, by and large, was in consistently underestimating Covid.
Take the 1st lockdown. The virus was spreading rapidly and projections said drastic action was needed otherwise the NHS would fall over and deaths could be huge with people unable to access treatment. We eventually did it and what happened? The NHS damn near did fall over in places during the April peak. Then the measures kicked in and numbers started to fall.
That has every indication of something which was done just in time to avert catastrophe, something which really ought to have been done sooner. I've yet to hear a good counter-argument to this.
Well there’s an obvious counter-argument for the first wave (perhaps not for the second wave but then decisions there were complicated by the emergence of the uK variant), which is exactly how unprecedented the measures being implemented actually were. I mean if this pandemic had emerged 5 years ago the measures taken probably wouldn’t have been possible whilst allowing the country to continue to function. Or if it did, would have been largely pointless anyway since so many people would have been subject to “essential working” exemptions.
It goes beyond mere anecdote the number of public sector organisations in particular that appear to have only rolled out the necessary technology to enable mass home working only months, weeks or even days before everyone was sent home. And whilst one can probably look back a bit further for the private sector, much of what happened absolutely required the public sector to be up to speed.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
Is the current Rangers team any good?
Stevie says so. Says he's found something special up there.
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
Just as well we have an informative City analyst posting on here then
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
Well no. But I know it seems that way.
However, ruining my own argument, I wonder about the weather at the moment. I've just been to the local co-op (don't ask) to get an extra bottle of wine and some food (mainly a food tripe clearly!). Anyway in Islington it's sort of biblical thunderstorms - at least for May. At what point do I start to think this is odd?
The extra bottle of wine was needed because I bought a new bike recently, and it's basically rained ever since, so consolation on my cycling afternoon.
I liked Douglas Adam's rain god character, but I didn't want it to be me!
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Is it a disaster when UVDL briefly threatened to break the Protocol but didn't, and not a disaster when Johnson continually threatens to do the same and you think he actually will?
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
With respect you misread my disaster quote re UVDL who made a catastrophic mistake over vaccines and then compounded it over her protocol threat
If the EU will not talk sense then the protocol will need to be suspended
There is no free pass for the EU here
If I understand you correctly, you think the EU wants the Protocol and in some way the UK is doing the EU a favour by going along with it and therefore the EU should be reasonable.
Actually, the EU with the exception of Ireland would be delighted to get rid of the Protocol. It's a quid pro quo for not enforcing a customs border on part of the EU's external boundary. The implications are for Ireland, mainly the North, that is part of the United Kingdom, for now.
Johnson appears not to be facing up to his responsibilities. He does however say different things to different people, and not do what he says. The Protocol may last longer than people think.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
Is the current Rangers team any good?
Stevie says so. Says he's found something special up there.
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Is it a disaster when UVDL briefly threatened to break the Protocol but didn't, and not a disaster when Johnson continually threatens to do the same and you think he actually will?
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
With respect you misread my disaster quote re UVDL who made a catastrophic mistake over vaccines and then compounded it over her protocol threat
If the EU will not talk sense then the protocol will need to be suspended
There is no free pass for the EU here
If I understand you correctly, you think the EU wants the Protocol and in some way the UK is doing the EU a favour by going along with it and therefore the EU should be reasonable.
Actually, the EU with the exception of Ireland would be delighted to get rid of the Protocol. It's a quid pro quo for not enforcing a customs border on part of the EU's external boundary. The implications are for Ireland, mainly the North, that is part of the United Kingdom, for now.
Johnson appears not to be facing up to his responsibilities. He does however say different things to different people, and not do what he says. The Protocol may last longer than people think.
Guido quotes the ONS today with the estimate that the pandemic and lockdown to date has cost the taxpayer a cool USD372bn. And that's to May 2021.
Over the next 18 months Johnson & co will be trying to plug gaps and get some of that back. So no, there won't be an early election.
In fact, it would not surprise me if the colossal bill for covid/lockdown is now driving the agenda. It would explain why Johnson, after countless cave-ins, is suddenly standing up to SAGE.
He simply cannot afford not to.
I thought Modern Monetary Theory held that deficits are irrelevant and you can print money for ever without any bad stuff happening.
It is often simplified as such but MMT is essentially arguing that inflation rather than deficits is the bad thing that stops a sovereign nation printing money for ever. Of course inflation and deficits are closely linked so often conventional economics and MMT would lead to similar analysis. If we stay in this era of long term ultra low inflation then we shall see if (how long) the US and other countries can stay on MMT running massive deficits.
You have to ask what it would take for inflationary pressures to reemerge given the behaviour of central banks over the past X years.
Inflationary pressures were held in check in the developed world by China's export of deflation. The price of manufactured products didn't rise because China pegged their currency, and was happy to run trade surpluses into perpetuity.
Of course, the money has to go somewhere, so instead of it inflating the price of consumer goods, it increased the price of assets. (The 'carry trade' made a lot of rich people a little bit richer.)
I'm not convinced that China will be able to keep exporting deflation. Costs are rising there now, and their industrialisation process is mostly complete. Now, China could attempt to offset this by driving their currency lower, but it's easier to stop a currency rising than it is to drive it down.
So I would guess we're going to see a slow and steady rise in inflationary pressures over the next five to ten years.
Don't buy super long dated low coupon bonds.
What do you make of Piketty's argument that Asia's labour surplus is drying up, and so the cost of labour relative to the cost of capital will rise, reducing wealth imbalances somewhat in the longer-term?
I think that's quite a plausible scenario.
In terms of skilled labour - this has been happening for a while.
China and India are now growing their own service industries and domestic demand is soaring. Which means that increasing numbers of skilled workers are required internally.
Why is the manufacturing not just moving to the next low wage economy?
And where automation is possible, are the costs low enough to make onshoring favourable?
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
As Malc has intimated, Rangers were out of the SPL for 4 of those 10 years so it would have to be a pretty bent coin! Then we come to the question of whether the Rangers of 2016 - now are a new team which opens up a whole new can of worms..
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Is it a disaster when UVDL briefly threatened to break the Protocol but didn't, and not a disaster when Johnson continually threatens to do the same and you think he actually will?
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
The difference is that UvdL wanted to use Article 16 with no notice for a purpose that was clearly outside its stated terms. On the other hand, regardless of where you assign the blame, the difficulties caused by the implementation of the protocol clearly fall within its scope:
1. If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.
I agree UvdL screwed up baldly with her article 16 call and was rightly put in her place by the Irish within hours. Don't think I agree difficulties with implementation are a justified cause for triggering A16, while the Johnson refuses to implement what he clearly signed up to by treaty. I was astonished at the time, what he agreed to. Nevertheless he did commit and the treaty went ahead on that basis
Follow up question. If the initial disruptions of exports to the EU, administered by the French and others, have largely been overcome, how come those to Northern Ireland, administered by the UK, have not?
Isn’t it because the EU have a mutual interest with the U.K. over the flow of exports at the EU-U.K. border but have none over the border in the Irish Sea? But are using the protocol to insist on no flexibility over the implementation of controls. Which, regardless of what you think of the protocol in general, is just wrong, and an abuse of their position, for what is, in general, largely intra U.K. trading of goods, and a pretty low risk of a compromised single market (compared to the processing at other borders).
In the end the EU will have to face the likelihood of Boris withdrawing from the protocol and deal with it
Lets be fair, @Scott_xP never refers to that disaster that is UVDL who threatened to do just that some months ago
In all these issues calm heads are needed, and hopefully the UK and Irish governments will come to a mutual agreement and the EU will need to be on board, otherwise it will be unenforceable until they are
Is it a disaster when UVDL briefly threatened to break the Protocol but didn't, and not a disaster when Johnson continually threatens to do the same and you think he actually will?
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
The difference is that UvdL wanted to use Article 16 with no notice for a purpose that was clearly outside its stated terms. On the other hand, regardless of where you assign the blame, the difficulties caused by the implementation of the protocol clearly fall within its scope:
1. If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.
I agree UvdL screwed up baldly with her article 16 call and was rightly put in her place by the Irish within hours. Don't think I agree difficulties with implementation are a justified cause for triggering A16, while the Johnson refuses to implement what he clearly signed up to by treaty. I was astonished at the time, what he agreed to. Nevertheless he did commit and the treaty went ahead on that basis
Guido quotes the ONS today with the estimate that the pandemic and lockdown to date has cost the taxpayer a cool USD372bn. And that's to May 2021.
Over the next 18 months Johnson & co will be trying to plug gaps and get some of that back. So no, there won't be an early election.
In fact, it would not surprise me if the colossal bill for covid/lockdown is now driving the agenda. It would explain why Johnson, after countless cave-ins, is suddenly standing up to SAGE.
He simply cannot afford not to.
I thought Modern Monetary Theory held that deficits are irrelevant and you can print money for ever without any bad stuff happening.
It is often simplified as such but MMT is essentially arguing that inflation rather than deficits is the bad thing that stops a sovereign nation printing money for ever. Of course inflation and deficits are closely linked so often conventional economics and MMT would lead to similar analysis. If we stay in this era of long term ultra low inflation then we shall see if (how long) the US and other countries can stay on MMT running massive deficits.
You have to ask what it would take for inflationary pressures to reemerge given the behaviour of central banks over the past X years.
Inflationary pressures were held in check in the developed world by China's export of deflation. The price of manufactured products didn't rise because China pegged their currency, and was happy to run trade surpluses into perpetuity.
Of course, the money has to go somewhere, so instead of it inflating the price of consumer goods, it increased the price of assets. (The 'carry trade' made a lot of rich people a little bit richer.)
I'm not convinced that China will be able to keep exporting deflation. Costs are rising there now, and their industrialisation process is mostly complete. Now, China could attempt to offset this by driving their currency lower, but it's easier to stop a currency rising than it is to drive it down.
So I would guess we're going to see a slow and steady rise in inflationary pressures over the next five to ten years.
Don't buy super long dated low coupon bonds.
What do you make of Piketty's argument that Asia's labour surplus is drying up, and so the cost of labour relative to the cost of capital will rise, reducing wealth imbalances somewhat in the longer-term?
I think that's quite a plausible scenario.
In terms of skilled labour - this has been happening for a while.
China and India are now growing their own service industries and domestic demand is soaring. Which means that increasing numbers of skilled workers are required internally.
Why is the manufacturing not just moving to the next low wage economy?
And where automation is possible, are the costs low enough to make onshoring favourable?
Because there’s really not a lot of low-cost semi-skilled economies left in the world now, not that have economies of scale and are politically stable anyway. If China and India are becoming too expensive, where do you go next?
Computers and robots are becoming increasingly important, and have driven huge productivity gains in countries that haven’t spend the last 15 years allowing almost unlimited unskilled immigration.
Capital investment is the way forward, hopefully the people who spent £250k on an automated car wash a decade ago might eventually see a return on their investment...
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
I think we need to chuck a load of them in the bin with the journalists....it keeps happening, remember the UoW model where they got all the basic input parameters wrong in terms of things like ICU beds and they had mental confidence intervals.
We had the firebreak one with again nonsense confidence intervals going from a firebreak might save anywhere between a few 100 and 100k lives in 3 months. If my models outputted such nonsense, I would be back looking at rewriting the model, as we might as well got binface to make the prediction.
James Melville Cherry blossom @JamesMelville · 7h SAGE members are crawling all over the broadcast media this morning trying to spook everyone over the Indian variant / saying the restrictions shouldn’t be lifted. Behavioural scientists and mathematician modellers literally telling the country to stay in their box.
And the medio lap it up with no counter balance
I am at the stage now that when I hear one of these sage/Independent sage bods seeking a zero covid policy and to hold us all to ransom I switch off
They have had too much power and are far from sage as far as I can see
The media and these organisation's need to be front, centre and throughout the public enquiry
Why do you say they've had too much power given the mistakes we've made have generally been in the other direction, ie taking action too late and easing too soon?
Well, I think we locked down too hard and for too long. There's a law of diminishing returns, and while not doing some things was sensible (mosh pits - bad idea in a pandemic), many of the restrictions introduced brought such negligible benefits in terms of controlling the spread that they did not outweigh their costs (there are no 'zero cost' measures.) And people will die as a result, through missed medical treatments, through specific avoidable poverty, and through the UK being poorer and being able to afford less in the way of healthcare. But we'll never know. We can never show the counterfactual.
Some of the individual measures were unnecessary and badly framed but it's clear that where we erred, by and large, was in consistently underestimating Covid.
Take the 1st lockdown. The virus was spreading rapidly and projections said drastic action was needed otherwise the NHS would fall over and deaths could be huge with people unable to access treatment. We eventually did it and what happened? The NHS damn near did fall over in places during the April peak. Then the measures kicked in and numbers started to fall.
That has every indication of something which was done just in time to avert catastrophe, something which really ought to have been done sooner. I've yet to hear a good counter-argument to this.
Well the counter arguments are 1) the models were unnecessarily pessimistic, and 2) in all three lockdowns, cases were on their way down before lockdowns kicked in. (Though to be honest the data we have for lockdown 1 is so sketchy and you have to make so many assumptions on timescales between infection and death that you could equally draw the more intuitive conclusion that lockdown led to cases falling.) Lockdowns 2 and 3 are unequivocal though. Start of fall in positive tests - our data was pretty good by then, though not perfect - predated lockdowns. Lockdown may have led to cases falling faster, but as we've no counterfactual we can't be sure.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
Could it be that we’re headed for a golden era for none of the above? The consensus got smashed with brexit, and now we’re back to a period of generalised political apathy. The high turnouts of recent elections will decay.
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
The SAGE projections (explicitly stated as not being forecasts in their paper) were based on Cabinet office central rollout scenario - which was 2.7m vaccinations per week for England only.
And since 31stMarch - we have been doing almost exactly 2.7m vaccinations per week in England.
Not really, looking at the last few weeks I count 3.2, 3.0, 2.9 - that's 1m additional vaccine doses that have been done in just three weeks in England. Also including a bank holiday which definitely hit numbers by a fair amount. This is also after the AZ decision to not use it for 18-39 year olds which has undoubtedly hit the first dose rate to some degree.
You've failed to understand:
1) difference between projection & forecast 2) England based projection and UK based projection 3) the fact that the numbers of vaccinations are assumption INPUT into their model not an OUTPUT, and that they used the numbers they were asked to use by the Cabinet Office, which in fact look like a perfectly sensible scenario since to date they are in fact what has happened since the paper was published.
But those are numbers for England, not the UK. UK total numbers are higher than that.
Model inputs that were wrong. So they're either too stupid to recognise that, given that the city forecasters have been running rings around them and said so at the time, or knowingly used because they were too cowardly to call out the politicians looking for specific outcomes. Neither reflects well on them.
They were modelling for England, so they used the England only numbers. They explicitly stated this. Underlined it in the report and everything. You then compared to UK numbers, presumably because you misread their study.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
Is the current Rangers team any good?
Stevie says so. Says he's found something special up there.
Good enough to win in Scotland but not in Europe.
Well we'll see where he goes with it. He could be doing a Clough.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
I think we need to chuck a load of them in the bin with the journalists....it keeps happening, remember the UoW model where they got all the basic input parameters wrong in terms of things like ICU beds and they had mental confidence intervals.
We had the firebreak one with again nonsense confidence intervals going from a firebreak might save anywhere between a few 100 and 100k lives in 3 months. If my models outputted such nonsense, I would be back looking at rewriting the model, as we might as well got binface to make the prediction.
James Melville Cherry blossom @JamesMelville · 7h SAGE members are crawling all over the broadcast media this morning trying to spook everyone over the Indian variant / saying the restrictions shouldn’t be lifted. Behavioural scientists and mathematician modellers literally telling the country to stay in their box.
And the medio lap it up with no counter balance
I am at the stage now that when I hear one of these sage/Independent sage bods seeking a zero covid policy and to hold us all to ransom I switch off
They have had too much power and are far from sage as far as I can see
The media and these organisation's need to be front, centre and throughout the public enquiry
Why do you say they've had too much power given the mistakes we've made have generally been in the other direction, ie taking action too late and easing too soon?
Well, I think we locked down too hard and for too long. There's a law of diminishing returns, and while not doing some things was sensible (mosh pits - bad idea in a pandemic), many of the restrictions introduced brought such negligible benefits in terms of controlling the spread that they did not outweigh their costs (there are no 'zero cost' measures.) And people will die as a result, through missed medical treatments, through specific avoidable poverty, and through the UK being poorer and being able to afford less in the way of healthcare. But we'll never know. We can never show the counterfactual.
Some of the individual measures were unnecessary and badly framed but it's clear that where we erred, by and large, was in consistently underestimating Covid.
Take the 1st lockdown. The virus was spreading rapidly and projections said drastic action was needed otherwise the NHS would fall over and deaths could be huge with people unable to access treatment. We eventually did it and what happened? The NHS damn near did fall over in places during the April peak. Then the measures kicked in and numbers started to fall.
That has every indication of something which was done just in time to avert catastrophe, something which really ought to have been done sooner. I've yet to hear a good counter-argument to this.
Well there’s an obvious counter-argument for the first wave (perhaps not for the second wave but then decisions there were complicated by the emergence of the uK variant), which is exactly how unprecedented the measures being implemented actually were. I mean if this pandemic had emerged 5 years ago the measures taken probably wouldn’t have been possible whilst allowing the country to continue to function. Or if it did, would have been largely pointless anyway since so many people would have been subject to “essential working” exemptions.
It goes beyond mere anecdote the number of public sector organisations in particular that appear to have only rolled out the necessary technology to enable mass home working only months, weeks or even days before everyone was sent home. And whilst one can probably look back a bit further for the private sector, much of what happened absolutely required the public sector to be up to speed.
Right. But how is this an argument that we did too much and too quick of a lockdown?
Is it not just saying thank god this didn't happen years ago because then we couldn't have taken the action and there'd be far more dead?
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
Of course they can, but last time it required (in no particular order):
A purge of the hard left The Conservative government to have lost the faith of the electorate A charismatic, forward thinking and positive leader.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
Yes, I agree. And Labour was in the same place after 1983, written off, dead in the water. Both our major parties have proved very resilient. And yes, I do expect Labour to stage a recovery. Maybe not enough for 2023/24, but I wouldn't rule it out.
It just strikes me as notable that even at such a low ebb, which even its supporters acknowledge, around a third of people would still vote Labour.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
I think the risk for Labour is a LibDem/Green pincer movement on its voters. Having lost the link to “the workers”, a large chunk of the residual vote is susceptible to those two parties if Labour looks to be a lame duck. The Tories weren’t in so bad a position because the liberals never could penetrate their core vote, and the recovery was on under Cameron before UKIP really took off.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
The big difference between OneWeb and Starlink, is that the former is going to be very much a B2B business, rather than B2C. OneWeb will be the backbone of BT broadband delivered to villages in the middle of nowhere.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
I think the risk for Labour is a LibDem/Green pincer movement on its voters. Having lost the link to “the workers”, a large chunk of the residual vote is susceptible to those two parties if Labour looks to be a lame duck. The Tories weren’t in so bad a position because the liberals never could penetrate their core vote, and the recovery was on under Cameron before UKIP really took off.
Labour do well amongst the workers. They are usually about tied and sometimes ahead with workers. It is the retired where they do abysmally.
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
I think we need to chuck a load of them in the bin with the journalists....it keeps happening, remember the UoW model where they got all the basic input parameters wrong in terms of things like ICU beds and they had mental confidence intervals.
We had the firebreak one with again nonsense confidence intervals going from a firebreak might save anywhere between a few 100 and 100k lives in 3 months. If my models outputted such nonsense, I would be back looking at rewriting the model, as we might as well got binface to make the prediction.
James Melville Cherry blossom @JamesMelville · 7h SAGE members are crawling all over the broadcast media this morning trying to spook everyone over the Indian variant / saying the restrictions shouldn’t be lifted. Behavioural scientists and mathematician modellers literally telling the country to stay in their box.
And the medio lap it up with no counter balance
I am at the stage now that when I hear one of these sage/Independent sage bods seeking a zero covid policy and to hold us all to ransom I switch off
They have had too much power and are far from sage as far as I can see
The media and these organisation's need to be front, centre and throughout the public enquiry
Why do you say they've had too much power given the mistakes we've made have generally been in the other direction, ie taking action too late and easing too soon?
Well, I think we locked down too hard and for too long. There's a law of diminishing returns, and while not doing some things was sensible (mosh pits - bad idea in a pandemic), many of the restrictions introduced brought such negligible benefits in terms of controlling the spread that they did not outweigh their costs (there are no 'zero cost' measures.) And people will die as a result, through missed medical treatments, through specific avoidable poverty, and through the UK being poorer and being able to afford less in the way of healthcare. But we'll never know. We can never show the counterfactual.
Some of the individual measures were unnecessary and badly framed but it's clear that where we erred, by and large, was in consistently underestimating Covid.
Take the 1st lockdown. The virus was spreading rapidly and projections said drastic action was needed otherwise the NHS would fall over and deaths could be huge with people unable to access treatment. We eventually did it and what happened? The NHS damn near did fall over in places during the April peak. Then the measures kicked in and numbers started to fall.
That has every indication of something which was done just in time to avert catastrophe, something which really ought to have been done sooner. I've yet to hear a good counter-argument to this.
Well there’s an obvious counter-argument for the first wave (perhaps not for the second wave but then decisions there were complicated by the emergence of the uK variant), which is exactly how unprecedented the measures being implemented actually were. I mean if this pandemic had emerged 5 years ago the measures taken probably wouldn’t have been possible whilst allowing the country to continue to function. Or if it did, would have been largely pointless anyway since so many people would have been subject to “essential working” exemptions.
It goes beyond mere anecdote the number of public sector organisations in particular that appear to have only rolled out the necessary technology to enable mass home working only months, weeks or even days before everyone was sent home. And whilst one can probably look back a bit further for the private sector, much of what happened absolutely required the public sector to be up to speed.
Right. But how is this an argument that we did too much and too quick of a lockdown?
Is it not just saying thank god this didn't happen years ago because then we couldn't have taken the action and there'd be far more dead?
I think I was giving a counter argument in an “apportioning blame for bad decisions” context. A counter-argument to the idea that things would have been done differently with the benefit of hindsight (and therefore “bad” decisions), no.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
Well no. But I know it seems that way.
However, ruining my own argument, I wonder about the weather at the moment. I've just been to the local co-op (don't ask) to get an extra bottle of wine and some food (mainly a food tripe clearly!). Anyway in Islington it's sort of biblical thunderstorms - at least for May. At what point do I start to think this is odd?
The extra bottle of wine was needed because I bought a new bike recently, and it's basically rained ever since, so consolation on my cycling afternoon.
I liked Douglas Adam's rain god character, but I didn't want it to be me!
But as we keep spinning 9/10 Celtic there comes a point where we are being rational in suspecting some funny business. Question is, when does this point come? There must be an answer. How many sequences of ten? - could it be 42?
No mystery about the weather imo. Certainly bugger all to do with the gulf stream or climate change or any of that. It's raining because you've bought a bike. This is obvious.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
There is nothing in the figures which makes a Labour recovery impossible. In 1997 it took Tory atrophy, scandal, the ERM debacle, death wish, desire to lose, and a rare political genius in charge of Labour of the sort we see only every few decades.
I don't see the conditions being right for Labour as long as they have no interesting policies, a shortage of interesting people, and little political genius around.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
That’s either really impressive, or a total nightmare for the people around the table!
The Derren Brown video was the first time 10 heads had been captured on tape, although it had been done before.
For those who don’t know how it was done,
You’re watching the last minute of a ten hour video, made by a maniac obsessive who would happily spend a whole day in a TV studio flipping a coin into a bowl.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
I think the risk for Labour is a LibDem/Green pincer movement on its voters. Having lost the link to “the workers”, a large chunk of the residual vote is susceptible to those two parties if Labour looks to be a lame duck. The Tories weren’t in so bad a position because the liberals never could penetrate their core vote, and the recovery was on under Cameron before UKIP really took off.
Isn’t the problem for Labour that the Conservatives have arguably annexed a large part of their traditional core vote. To the extent that it may soon come to be seen actually as the Conservatives core vote. So fighting to get it back may actually be a futile strategy. The huge gaps opening up are actually in elements of the traditional Tory core vote - but is Labour actually at all well positioned to exploit that?
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
I think the risk for Labour is a LibDem/Green pincer movement on its voters. Having lost the link to “the workers”, a large chunk of the residual vote is susceptible to those two parties if Labour looks to be a lame duck. The Tories weren’t in so bad a position because the liberals never could penetrate their core vote, and the recovery was on under Cameron before UKIP really took off.
I agree. Though conversely if Labour isn't seen as a lame duck but as a credible government it would work the other way. Greens in particular, and some Lib Dems, would swallow their reservations about Labour because their antipathy to the Tories is much, much stronger.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
That’s either really impressive, or a total nightmare for the people around the table!
The Derren Brown video was the first time 10 heads had been captured on tape, although it had been done before.
For those who don’t know how it was done,
You’re watching the last minute of a ten hour video, made by a maniac obsessive who would happily spend a whole day in a TV studio flipping a coin into a bowl.
Happens legitimately in test matches all the time. Ultimately some captains in test cricket really are unbelievably useless tossers, and it often defines their captaincy.
Anyway, I'm off now to celebrate liberation day in my local hostelry.
My order is already in my head. Two pints of Harveys bitter, a bottle of red (shared), moules frites, sticky toffee pudding, double espresso. Can't wait, what a treat.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
OT Tom Scott new video I promise this story about microwaves is interesting.
I found an article that said "The microwave was invented to heat hamsters humanely in 1950s experiments." And I thought, no it wasn't. ...was it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y
Maybe not safe for young children, or older children with pet hamsters.
Would be a VERY sound policy by the English Tourist Board, to have a funky with a sun lamp follow Leon on his daily rounds. Plus another two with portable wind screens and sun parasol.
His lamentations and curses against the admittedly adverse climate of his native sod must are followed by legions of PB lurkers. And must have a depressive effect on tourism from the Lake District to the Lands End municipal dump.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
For an unbiased coin, no.
You probability geek, you.
But the question is whether it IS unbiased.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Are we talking Celtic vs Rangers here or a coin?
Both. It's a coin with Celtic written on one side and Rangers on the other.
Oh right. Those coins. The Celtic/Rangers coins.
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
Yes, you bail out. Good call.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
That’s either really impressive, or a total nightmare for the people around the table!
The Derren Brown video was the first time 10 heads had been captured on tape, although it had been done before.
For those who don’t know how it was done,
You’re watching the last minute of a ten hour video, made by a maniac obsessive who would happily spend a whole day in a TV studio flipping a coin into a bowl.
Happens legitimately in test matches all the time. Ultimately some captains in test cricket really are unbelievably useless tossers, and it often defines their captaincy.
I’m reluctantly coming around to the idea that the visitors should have the choice in Test cricket. It’s the only way we are going to get decent balanced pitches in many countries.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
Yes, I agree. And Labour was in the same place after 1983, written off, dead in the water. Both our major parties have proved very resilient. And yes, I do expect Labour to stage a recovery. Maybe not enough for 2023/24, but I wouldn't rule it out.
It just strikes me as notable that even at such a low ebb, which even its supporters acknowledge, around a third of people would still vote Labour.
I'm re-reading Things Can Only Get Better by John O'Farrell atm. It's kind of cheering me up and depressing me at the same time.
The opinion polls suggest that Labour is currently attracting around 33%. Given the absolutely torrid time that Labour has had over the last month, it strikes me that it is remarkably resilient. If I just read posts on here for my political information, I'd expect Labour to be on around 10% - awful leader, divided, woke-obsessed etc.
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
The Tories were on the same back in the early naughties and people were writing them off all the time. The question is can Labour repeat their recovery?
Yes, I agree. And Labour was in the same place after 1983, written off, dead in the water. Both our major parties have proved very resilient. And yes, I do expect Labour to stage a recovery. Maybe not enough for 2023/24, but I wouldn't rule it out.
It just strikes me as notable that even at such a low ebb, which even its supporters acknowledge, around a third of people would still vote Labour.
I think Labour are in a much deeper, darker hole than in 1983 because of the additional problems of Scotland & the Red Wall.
That said, the right leader can make a huge, huge difference (the Jacinda Effect).
The problem Labour face is that it is their opponents who are benefitting from the Jacinda Effect.
Both Nicola and Boris (in their very different ways) have turned out to be excellent vote-getters for Labour's opponents.
My guess is that Labour's best chance of recovery is when one of those two goes. Preferably both, from Labour's POV.
Wow - you seem a little bit unhinged about football fans celebrating a football win.
He's from Scotland. It happens so rarely...
It happens on an annual basis just like every other place
Celtic win. Or Rangers win.
A whole season, as exciting as a coin toss.....
Er, last 10 seasons - Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic Celtic RANGERS.
That's a bent coin.
Do you realise that any other sequence that you may have listed is equally unlikely?
True! Very good.
But looking at the population rather than the order ... a tad suspicious.
No not at all. If you toss a completely fair coin long enough you'll get that sequence without doubt. Just because it happens is no reason to discard the idea that the coin is fair. In fact if it never happened that would be far more suspect.
There's a chap called Jaynes who wrote some great books on probability. His work isn't easy, and I find it rather hard work, but I'm pretty sure he's got the right end of the stick.
A subject I thought I knew very well turns out to be one that I don't. I'll keep trying though.
Couple of probability geeks we are by the sounds of it. No, if I toss a coin and get 9 Celtics and a Rangers (any order) this wouldn't be particularly suspicious. Agreed. But what if I did the exercise 3 times and it went as follows -
CCCCCCCCCR CCCRCCCCCC RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
Is the current Rangers team any good?
Stevie says so. Says he's found something special up there.
Good enough to win in Scotland but not in Europe.
Well we'll see where he goes with it. He could be doing a Clough.
Those days are gone. You need serious money to do well in Europe.
Just like to point out that those SAGE forecasts had us doing 2.7m vaccinations per week, we're now at 3.7m per week and climbing. I don't understand how scientists with access to government internal data have done a worse job than city analysts who are working with third hand data we get from industry sources.
I think we need to chuck a load of them in the bin with the journalists....it keeps happening, remember the UoW model where they got all the basic input parameters wrong in terms of things like ICU beds and they had mental confidence intervals.
We had the firebreak one with again nonsense confidence intervals going from a firebreak might save anywhere between a few 100 and 100k lives in 3 months. If my models outputted such nonsense, I would be back looking at rewriting the model, as we might as well got binface to make the prediction.
James Melville Cherry blossom @JamesMelville · 7h SAGE members are crawling all over the broadcast media this morning trying to spook everyone over the Indian variant / saying the restrictions shouldn’t be lifted. Behavioural scientists and mathematician modellers literally telling the country to stay in their box.
And the medio lap it up with no counter balance
I am at the stage now that when I hear one of these sage/Independent sage bods seeking a zero covid policy and to hold us all to ransom I switch off
They have had too much power and are far from sage as far as I can see
The media and these organisation's need to be front, centre and throughout the public enquiry
Why do you say they've had too much power given the mistakes we've made have generally been in the other direction, ie taking action too late and easing too soon?
Well, I think we locked down too hard and for too long. There's a law of diminishing returns, and while not doing some things was sensible (mosh pits - bad idea in a pandemic), many of the restrictions introduced brought such negligible benefits in terms of controlling the spread that they did not outweigh their costs (there are no 'zero cost' measures.) And people will die as a result, through missed medical treatments, through specific avoidable poverty, and through the UK being poorer and being able to afford less in the way of healthcare. But we'll never know. We can never show the counterfactual.
Some of the individual measures were unnecessary and badly framed but it's clear that where we erred, by and large, was in consistently underestimating Covid.
Take the 1st lockdown. The virus was spreading rapidly and projections said drastic action was needed otherwise the NHS would fall over and deaths could be huge with people unable to access treatment. We eventually did it and what happened? The NHS damn near did fall over in places during the April peak. Then the measures kicked in and numbers started to fall.
That has every indication of something which was done just in time to avert catastrophe, something which really ought to have been done sooner. I've yet to hear a good counter-argument to this.
Well the counter arguments are 1) the models were unnecessarily pessimistic, and 2) in all three lockdowns, cases were on their way down before lockdowns kicked in. (Though to be honest the data we have for lockdown 1 is so sketchy and you have to make so many assumptions on timescales between infection and death that you could equally draw the more intuitive conclusion that lockdown led to cases falling.) Lockdowns 2 and 3 are unequivocal though. Start of fall in positive tests - our data was pretty good by then, though not perfect - predated lockdowns. Lockdown may have led to cases falling faster, but as we've no counterfactual we can't be sure.
Comments
Speaking of thugs, what are your thoughts on the future of the so-called bully and sex-pest? Will he rise up from his foul little swamp of moral relativism and march the proud fatherland to independence? Perhaps not.
Its clearly well seeded now as there is always a delay in sequencing. So the idea of targeting specific areas just because of the Indian variant will soon be redundant.
Jeez thank goodness people can go inside the pubs. They're going to be ram packed.
Building supplies for one.
Even 2022 presents him with the prospect 8 years as PM, which is long in historical terms.
CCCCCCCCCR
CCCRCCCCCC
RCCCCCCCCC
Should I now be getting twitchy?
So the focus should be: let's crack on with the vaccines!
Which is what we are doing
Time to move on
China and India are now growing their own service industries and domestic demand is soaring. Which means that increasing numbers of skilled workers are required internally.
That was their thing.
I'm not sure they will trouble the history books for much else.
There is definitely a lot to be learnt about modelling from this pandemic.
The effects will fall on Northern Ireland, which Johnson has responsibility for, but seems to think has nothing to with him.
(Not that I'm someone who buys super long dated low coupon bonds. )
You probability geek, you.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/57145397
Indian bookmarkers never get matches events fixed...never...
If the EU will not talk sense then the protocol will need to be suspended
There is no free pass for the EU here
The Conservatives have a large majority, enabling them to get even controversial legislation through with some ease. Whilst there was a logic in May gambling in 2017 with an extremely thin majority (particularly in the context of Brexit) there isn't now. Although Johnson is plainly a far better campaigner than May, 2017 is still a rather startling example of support being broad but shallow, and there being a genuine risk even with a solid polling lead. There's some case for October 2023, but 31% seems overstated.
1. If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.
How many consecutive runs of 10 with 9 Cs until we should start to suspect otherwise?
Well for those coins....oh no wait. This is too boring.
You made the error to start with and are now "doing a kini". But it's boring tbh.
It goes beyond mere anecdote the number of public sector organisations in particular that appear to have only rolled out the necessary technology to enable mass home working only months, weeks or even days before everyone was sent home. And whilst one can probably look back a bit further for the private sector, much of what happened absolutely required the public sector to be up to speed.
However, ruining my own argument, I wonder about the weather at the moment. I've just been to the local co-op (don't ask) to get an extra bottle of wine and some food (mainly a food tripe clearly!). Anyway in Islington it's sort of biblical thunderstorms - at least for May. At what point do I start to think this is odd?
The extra bottle of wine was needed because I bought a new bike recently, and it's basically rained ever since, so consolation on my cycling afternoon.
I liked Douglas Adam's rain god character, but I didn't want it to be me!
Actually, the EU with the exception of Ireland would be delighted to get rid of the Protocol. It's a quid pro quo for not enforcing a customs border on part of the EU's external boundary. The implications are for Ireland, mainly the North, that is part of the United Kingdom, for now.
Johnson appears not to be facing up to his responsibilities. He does however say different things to different people, and not do what he says. The Protocol may last longer than people think.
'Sake.
Boris Johnson Approval Rating (17 May):
Approve: 44% (-4)
Disapprove: 34% (+3)
Net: +10% (-7)
Keir Starmer Approval Rating (17 May):
Approve: 23% (-3)
Disapprove: 35% (+2)
Net: -12% (-5)
Changes +/- 10 May
Lowest ever Net Approval Rating for Starmer.
https://www.netweather.tv/live-weather/radar
Important to note this is lower than their GE19 score & Labour’s is higher
Redfield & Wilton
Westminster Voting Intention (17 May):
Conservative 42% (-3)
Labour 33% (-1)
Liberal Democrat 10% (+2)
Scottish National Party 4% (–)
Green 6% (+1)
Other 5% (+1)
Changes +/- 10 May
Lowest Lab % since May 2020
And where automation is possible, are the costs low enough to make onshoring favourable?
Just had a very jolly, boozy pub lunch in Highgate (noticeable that the pubs are only half full, there is no Liberation of Paris party atmos)
I walked out into 9C, high winds, thunder, freezing rain. Basically late November in Newcastle, but this is May in London
This is not ordinary. And it is worth noting, as a site that adores stats and data, especially unusual data
I also think it will impact the European economy
Computers and robots are becoming increasingly important, and have driven huge productivity gains in countries that haven’t spend the last 15 years allowing almost unlimited unskilled immigration.
Capital investment is the way forward, hopefully the people who spent £250k on an automated car wash a decade ago might eventually see a return on their investment...
Lockdowns 2 and 3 are unequivocal though. Start of fall in positive tests - our data was pretty good by then, though not perfect - predated lockdowns. Lockdown may have led to cases falling faster, but as we've no counterfactual we can't be sure.
But look, there's nothing boring about probability, it's the very stuff of life. And if presented in a catchy way it can grip.
For example, a trick I like. You get a deck of 52 cards, face down, and you turn them over, one at a time in quick succession, predicting red or black. A par score for that is around 29 - an average person will get 29 right - but my average is 37 and my best is 43.
I used to do it at parties and people would stop dancing and crowd around, laughing and shaking their heads.
Not so sure about 'kini' though. Sounds a bit weedy. Can we not have Special K?
I’m gonna be controversial.
Could it be that we’re headed for a golden era for none of the above? The consensus got smashed with brexit, and now we’re back to a period of generalised political apathy. The high turnouts of recent elections will decay.
Maybe.
It's running a month late - you'll be in shirtsleeves in October
Should have bought that villa in Portugal. Cliff Richard knew something.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XzYLHOX50Bc
I don't think you can write off a party that attracts 33% even when it is regarded as screamingly unpopular by most commentators, on here and elsewhere, and is being slaughtered in the press. Obituaries are premature.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56906121
Is it not just saying thank god this didn't happen years ago because then we couldn't have taken the action and there'd be far more dead?
A purge of the hard left
The Conservative government to have lost the faith of the electorate
A charismatic, forward thinking and positive leader.
It just strikes me as notable that even at such a low ebb, which even its supporters acknowledge, around a third of people would still vote Labour.
The big difference between OneWeb and Starlink, is that the former is going to be very much a B2B business, rather than B2C. OneWeb will be the backbone of BT broadband delivered to villages in the middle of nowhere.
No mystery about the weather imo. Certainly bugger all to do with the gulf stream or climate change or any of that. It's raining because you've bought a bike. This is obvious.
I don't see the conditions being right for Labour as long as they have no interesting policies, a shortage of interesting people, and little political genius around.
The Derren Brown video was the first time 10 heads had been captured on tape, although it had been done before.
For those who don’t know how it was done,
Isn’t the problem for Labour that the Conservatives have arguably annexed a large part of their traditional core vote. To the extent that it may soon come to be seen actually as the Conservatives core vote. So fighting to get it back may actually be a futile strategy. The huge gaps opening up are actually in elements of the traditional Tory core vote - but is Labour actually at all well positioned to exploit that?
My order is already in my head. Two pints of Harveys bitter, a bottle of red (shared), moules frites, sticky toffee pudding, double espresso. Can't wait, what a treat.
He should check out tonight’s GFS and GEM…
I promise this story about microwaves is interesting.
I found an article that said "The microwave was invented to heat hamsters humanely in 1950s experiments." And I thought, no it wasn't. ...was it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y
Maybe not safe for young children, or older children with pet hamsters.
His lamentations and curses against the admittedly adverse climate of his native sod must are followed by legions of PB lurkers. And must have a depressive effect on tourism from the Lake District to the Lands End municipal dump.
That said, the right leader can make a huge, huge difference (the Jacinda Effect).
The problem Labour face is that it is their opponents who are benefitting from the Jacinda Effect.
Both Nicola and Boris (in their very different ways) have turned out to be excellent vote-getters for Labour's opponents.
My guess is that Labour's best chance of recovery is when one of those two goes. Preferably both, from Labour's POV.
Just astonishing.