Seeing stories on Fury-Joshua et al, am I the only one who finds Boxers engaging in trash talk to be really boring and tiresome? I can't figure out if they mean it, because they get all worked up, which I guess I get but just looks childish, or they just go through the motions as it is part of building a narrative for a fight, in which case it is just childish and boring. Sure, personality is needed to make things more interesting, but I don't know how effective it really is at building hype - wrestling would be the place to go if trash talk is wanted.
Yeah I love boxing but the trash talk stuff is just silly.
The Midlands is now moving from the key marginal region to the Tories safest region due to its strong Brexit vote (bar a few Remain areas like Warwick and Leamington which used to be marginal but are now Labour).
Indeed, of the top 100 Labour target seats it would need to gain in 2024 to be able to form a government, just 19 are in the East or West Midlands. By contrast there are now 18 seats in London, the South East and South West in the top 100 Labour target seats, almost as many as the traditionally bellwether Midlands.
Instead the new bellwether swing area is now the North, which thanks to the Red Wall has moved from safe Labour to the key swing region. In fact 32 of the top 100 Labour target seats, almost a third, come from the North East, the North West or Yorkshire and Humber.
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Don't forget Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Also I would say Curry & Chips, but that was 1969.
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Jezza fulfilling a manifesto commitment.
On top of that, you even had one of his loony left mayors seizing his local airport for the proletariat.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Boris brings back British Rail.
Expect a decline in rail passenger numbers from now on.
Well there will be less demand because of hybrid working.
But great to see the end of franchising - a ludicrous system.
I feel like the Midlands gets overlooked a lot, not just politically. Marquee Mark (I refuse to remember posters' real names, out of principle!) is right to highlight it. Given some movement, though, I suspect they might focus on the chimera prospects of the South, even though that may take some time to chip away at.
I had lunch in Repton today. Billed itself as the historical capital of Mercia…
The Midlands is now moving from a marginal region to the Tories safest region due to its strong Brexit vote (bar a few Remain areas like Warwick and Leamington which used to be marginal but are now Labour).
Indeed, of the top 100 Labour target seats it would need to gain in 2024 to be able to form a government, just 19 are in the East or West Midlands. By contrast there are now 18 seats in London, the South and South West in the top 100 Labour target seats, almost as many as the traditionally bellwether Midlands.
Instead the new bellwether swing area is now the North, which thanks to the Red Wall has moved from safe Labour to the key swing region. In fact 32 of the top 100 Labour target seats, almost a third, come from the North East, the North West or Yorkshire and Humber.
Hmmm......and people were worried about having to deep in with your vaccine passport for the pub....
Holiday 'police' to knock on your door: As hopes rise for full freedom in June, Priti Patel reveals plans for up to 10,000 quarantine checks EVERY day to make sure Britons returning from abroad are in isolation
There is a strong chance that I'm being stupid, but I don't get traveller quarantine post herd immunity.
A traveller can return as one of three states:
1) No covid, no problem
2) With a covid strain unresistant to vaccines, which is no problem.
3) With a covid strain that largely escapes vaccines, which is a problem.
Under current rules the isolation period is shorter than the incubation period, and naturally porous via family members/ some people not isolating properly so no matter how many rona police there are some will escape the net. Lets be *extremely* generous and assume that quarantine/test & release prevents 95% of cases imported going on to infect someone else vs every single imported case infecting at least 1 other person without quarantine.
R of Kentish/Indian Covid seems to be somewhere between 3-6 in a population that largely isn't social distancing and doesn't have rules in place.
Lets give a rough estimate of 1m people entering and leaving the country every week this summer (which is low), and say 0.05% have vaccine resistant COVID (500 cases per week), using the assumptions above all bar 25 of the cases imported per week would be stopped under current rules, only issue is that in one generation those 25 cases (among a vulnerable population) would have a R of ~4/5 (generation 1: 113, generation 2: 506), so at most quarantine buys us 20 days head start.
If a vaccine resistant strain emerges it *will* find it's way in unless we shut our borders completely, so the current isolation rules seem to impose maximum cost while giving us extremely limited benefits.
Because you're viewing it as a boolean state of "its out" or "its in" and if "its in" then there's nothing we can do about it.
If a problem variant comes in then its better to have those cases at a low number that can be suppressed and not simply (at this stage) give up and let it rip.
In March 2020 we were struggling to do thousands of tests per day, now we can do a million plus tests per day. If limited outbreaks occur then surge testing etc can squish it, which isn't the case if its just letting it run wild without a care. 20 days head start is absolutely massive.
If surge testing worked we would have stopped the Indian and Saffa variants via testing, but as a nation we are just far too interconnected for that sort of thing to work effectively.
By the time we're aware that we have a problem with a vaccine resistant strain (which would probably be around the same threshold of cases, so those 20 days are likely misleading), it will be too late.
Applied for a job at a University today. Regular readers will be delighted to know I was asked to self-define my gender, whether it was the same at birth and my preferred pronouns.
Big Sam finally relegated. Quite an impressive record he had until this season, considering the clubs he took on sometimes.
Unusual final day of the season with not only the Champion long confirmed, but all 3 relegated clubs long since confirmed too. Only question is whether Chelsea, Liverpool or Leicester miss out on the Champions League and its not looking good for the foxes.
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
And Stuart Hall with his It's A Knockout mini marathons. Emphasis on the mini.....
Boris loves a bit of rail nationalisation. Renationalised the god awful Anglia lines into the Overground as mayor: one of his few real achievements. It was a shambles. It’s now one of the best parts of TFL.
Hmmm......and people were worried about having to deep in with your vaccine passport for the pub....
Holiday 'police' to knock on your door: As hopes rise for full freedom in June, Priti Patel reveals plans for up to 10,000 quarantine checks EVERY day to make sure Britons returning from abroad are in isolation
There is a strong chance that I'm being stupid, but I don't get traveller quarantine post herd immunity.
A traveller can return as one of three states:
1) No covid, no problem
2) With a covid strain unresistant to vaccines, which is no problem.
3) With a covid strain that largely escapes vaccines, which is a problem.
Under current rules the isolation period is shorter than the incubation period, and naturally porous via family members/ some people not isolating properly so no matter how many rona police there are some will escape the net. Lets be *extremely* generous and assume that quarantine/test & release prevents 95% of cases imported going on to infect someone else vs every single imported case infecting at least 1 other person without quarantine.
R of Kentish/Indian Covid seems to be somewhere between 3-6 in a population that largely isn't social distancing and doesn't have rules in place.
Lets give a rough estimate of 1m people entering and leaving the country every week this summer (which is low), and say 0.05% have vaccine resistant COVID (500 cases per week), using the assumptions above all bar 25 of the cases imported per week would be stopped under current rules, only issue is that in one generation those 25 cases (among a vulnerable population) would have a R of ~4/5 (generation 1: 113, generation 2: 506), so at most quarantine buys us 20 days head start.
If a vaccine resistant strain emerges it *will* find it's way in unless we shut our borders completely, so the current isolation rules seem to impose maximum cost while giving us extremely limited benefits.
Because you're viewing it as a boolean state of "its out" or "its in" and if "its in" then there's nothing we can do about it.
If a problem variant comes in then its better to have those cases at a low number that can be suppressed and not simply (at this stage) give up and let it rip.
In March 2020 we were struggling to do thousands of tests per day, now we can do a million plus tests per day. If limited outbreaks occur then surge testing etc can squish it, which isn't the case if its just letting it run wild without a care. 20 days head start is absolutely massive.
If surge testing worked we would have stopped the Indian and Saffa variants via testing, but as a nation we are just far too interconnected for that sort of thing to work effectively.
By the time we're aware that we have a problem with a vaccine resistant strain (which would probably be around the same threshold of cases, so those 20 days are likely misleading), it will be too late.
We have squished the Saffa variant via testing and we have just started testing for the Indian variant in the same way and already case numbers overall are going back down again.
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
Indeed it is. But, as others have said, that can turn. It did between the 2005 and 2015 elections.
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
Well the Mirror is running a front page that another 5 well known tv celebs have sex abuse claims against them.....
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Don't forget Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Also I would say Curry & Chips, but that was 1969.
Ooops, I meant It Ain't Half Hot Mum. I don't think Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em is particularly dodgy today, unless I've missed something obvious
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
So - the Seventies Golden Age of Telly was - The Sweeney?
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
So - the Seventies Golden Age of Telly was - The Sweeney?
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
And Stuart Hall with his It's A Knockout mini marathons. Emphasis on the mini.....
However. 3 channels. And no TV at all between 11 pm and midday.
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
Indeed it is. But, as others have said, that can turn. It did between the 2005 and 2015 elections.
But in the Tories' favour.
Similar changes in favor of Labour are pretty much limited to, er, Tony Blair.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?
It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
Yes but even just a 3.2% swing could be enough to make Starmer PM, given the DUP would not support the Tories unless the Irish Sea border is removed and if SF took their seats. Even if the Tories led by 12 seats and the parties were level on votes then Starmer would become PM with SNP and LD support.
A Labour majority is near impossible yes, a Starmer Premiership in a hung parliament however most certainly is not
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?
It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is it workable? I don’t know Do I agree with it? Not really
But I still find it refreshing for a Conservative government to pursue a policy that will poll very well with the British public despite it being ‘unconservative’.
It becomes awfully hard for Labour to attack the government when Boris steals and implements their most popular policies without the opposition having even pressurised them into it.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?
It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
And it gives the public one arse to kick under a unified GBR brand - instead of having several companies with different protocols, brand names and fare structures, blaming each other.
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
Indeed it is. But, as others have said, that can turn. It did between the 2005 and 2015 elections.
But in the Tories' favour.
Similar changes in favor of Labour are pretty much limited to, er, Tony Blair.
Was on about the efficiency/inefficiency tbf. That has always fluctuated. I can envisage the circumstances where the Tory vote gets more efficient. But not much more.
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
Indeed it is. But, as others have said, that can turn. It did between the 2005 and 2015 elections.
But in the Tories' favour.
Similar changes in favor of Labour are pretty much limited to, er, Tony Blair.
It took the Tories 18 years after their 1997 defeat to win a majority, the same time it took Labour to win a majority after its 1979 defeat.
However Cameron was able to form a government in 2010 even without a majority. You do not have to win a Blair landslide or even a majority to become PM.
Labour may not be able to win a majority again until 2029, 19 years after its 2010 defeat but it could still form a government in a hung parliament in 2024
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
So - the Seventies Golden Age of Telly was - The Sweeney?
Hmmm......and people were worried about having to deep in with your vaccine passport for the pub....
Holiday 'police' to knock on your door: As hopes rise for full freedom in June, Priti Patel reveals plans for up to 10,000 quarantine checks EVERY day to make sure Britons returning from abroad are in isolation
There is a strong chance that I'm being stupid, but I don't get traveller quarantine post herd immunity.
A traveller can return as one of three states:
1) No covid, no problem
2) With a covid strain unresistant to vaccines, which is no problem.
3) With a covid strain that largely escapes vaccines, which is a problem.
Under current rules the isolation period is shorter than the incubation period, and naturally porous via family members/ some people not isolating properly so no matter how many rona police there are some will escape the net. Lets be *extremely* generous and assume that quarantine/test & release prevents 95% of cases imported going on to infect someone else vs every single imported case infecting at least 1 other person without quarantine.
R of Kentish/Indian Covid seems to be somewhere between 3-6 in a population that largely isn't social distancing and doesn't have rules in place.
Lets give a rough estimate of 1m people entering and leaving the country every week this summer (which is low), and say 0.05% have vaccine resistant COVID (500 cases per week), using the assumptions above all bar 25 of the cases imported per week would be stopped under current rules, only issue is that in one generation those 25 cases (among a vulnerable population) would have a R of ~4/5 (generation 1: 113, generation 2: 506), so at most quarantine buys us 20 days head start.
If a vaccine resistant strain emerges it *will* find it's way in unless we shut our borders completely, so the current isolation rules seem to impose maximum cost while giving us extremely limited benefits.
Because you're viewing it as a boolean state of "its out" or "its in" and if "its in" then there's nothing we can do about it.
If a problem variant comes in then its better to have those cases at a low number that can be suppressed and not simply (at this stage) give up and let it rip.
In March 2020 we were struggling to do thousands of tests per day, now we can do a million plus tests per day. If limited outbreaks occur then surge testing etc can squish it, which isn't the case if its just letting it run wild without a care. 20 days head start is absolutely massive.
If surge testing worked we would have stopped the Indian and Saffa variants via testing, but as a nation we are just far too interconnected for that sort of thing to work effectively.
By the time we're aware that we have a problem with a vaccine resistant strain (which would probably be around the same threshold of cases, so those 20 days are likely misleading), it will be too late.
We have squished the Saffa variant via testing and we have just started testing for the Indian variant in the same way and already case numbers overall are going back down again.
The Indian variant is pretty clearly it hitting an unvaccinated pocket and running out of hosts to spread to (see the limited geographical spread), as for the Saffa strain it's errrr, 0.1% off of it's peak in terms of the proportion of cases sequenced being Saffa strain (as for absolute numbers the previous peak was w/e 27th of March, where 22 sequenced genomes were saffa strain, the last two weeks have had 26 and 22.5(?) saffa strain cases sequenced). https://covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw?
Then bear in mind that these two strains are not resistant to vaccines, and consequently any variant largely immune to vaccines will spread far more rapidly, to far more people than those relatively hard to spread strains that we have failed to crush. If a genuinely vaccine resistant strain finds it's way into the UK, unless we catch every case of it basically instantly, it will rip through society.
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
And Stuart Hall with his It's A Knockout mini marathons. Emphasis on the mini.....
However. 3 channels. And no TV at all between 11 pm and midday.
There were Open University Modules in the dead time. In black and white, with lecturers in corduroy jackets with leather elbow patches.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?
It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
And it gives the public one arse to kick under a unified GBR brand - instead of having several companies with different protocols, brand names and fare structures, blaming each other.
It will be popular.
And it will put more onus on the Treasury to fund the railways, which the Treasury will prioritise Schools N Hospitals, so investment will fall and the railways will ossify and passenger numbers will fall.
I'm wondering how this compares to, say, 1987, which was the most recent other time that the Tories had a majority larger than 50.
Is this simply what you would expect when one party is so far ahead of another in the national vote, or has the Labour vote become so concentrated in the big cities, and therefore inefficient, that there's an actual difference?
Maybe Labour's problem is just to become more popular, and the electoral geography will look after itself.
Nah.
The tories can win many more seats with fewer votes. Its not just about Labour becoming more popular, Labour have to become more popular in the right areas
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
Network Rail will cease to exist, it will be a part of GBR.
Brexit, inflation and now British Rail is back. It’s the 70s, but with shit music and films.
Golden age of TV though.
Black and White Minstrels, Wheeltappers and Shunters, Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language....watch the little woke heads explode at that telly line up!
Chuck in every other show presented by Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris. You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
So - the Seventies Golden Age of Telly was - The Sweeney?
Indoor League
Ah'll sithey. Bar billiards and fussball. Quality.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Hmmm......and people were worried about having to deep in with your vaccine passport for the pub....
Holiday 'police' to knock on your door: As hopes rise for full freedom in June, Priti Patel reveals plans for up to 10,000 quarantine checks EVERY day to make sure Britons returning from abroad are in isolation
There is a strong chance that I'm being stupid, but I don't get traveller quarantine post herd immunity.
A traveller can return as one of three states:
1) No covid, no problem
2) With a covid strain unresistant to vaccines, which is no problem.
3) With a covid strain that largely escapes vaccines, which is a problem.
Under current rules the isolation period is shorter than the incubation period, and naturally porous via family members/ some people not isolating properly so no matter how many rona police there are some will escape the net. Lets be *extremely* generous and assume that quarantine/test & release prevents 95% of cases imported going on to infect someone else vs every single imported case infecting at least 1 other person without quarantine.
R of Kentish/Indian Covid seems to be somewhere between 3-6 in a population that largely isn't social distancing and doesn't have rules in place.
Lets give a rough estimate of 1m people entering and leaving the country every week this summer (which is low), and say 0.05% have vaccine resistant COVID (500 cases per week), using the assumptions above all bar 25 of the cases imported per week would be stopped under current rules, only issue is that in one generation those 25 cases (among a vulnerable population) would have a R of ~4/5 (generation 1: 113, generation 2: 506), so at most quarantine buys us 20 days head start.
If a vaccine resistant strain emerges it *will* find it's way in unless we shut our borders completely, so the current isolation rules seem to impose maximum cost while giving us extremely limited benefits.
Because you're viewing it as a boolean state of "its out" or "its in" and if "its in" then there's nothing we can do about it.
If a problem variant comes in then its better to have those cases at a low number that can be suppressed and not simply (at this stage) give up and let it rip.
In March 2020 we were struggling to do thousands of tests per day, now we can do a million plus tests per day. If limited outbreaks occur then surge testing etc can squish it, which isn't the case if its just letting it run wild without a care. 20 days head start is absolutely massive.
If surge testing worked we would have stopped the Indian and Saffa variants via testing, but as a nation we are just far too interconnected for that sort of thing to work effectively.
By the time we're aware that we have a problem with a vaccine resistant strain (which would probably be around the same threshold of cases, so those 20 days are likely misleading), it will be too late.
We have squished the Saffa variant via testing and we have just started testing for the Indian variant in the same way and already case numbers overall are going back down again.
The Indian variant is pretty clearly it hitting an unvaccinated pocket and running out of hosts to spread to (see the limited geographical spread), as for the Saffa strain it's errrr, 0.1% off of it's peak in terms of the proportion of cases sequenced being Saffa strain (as for absolute numbers the previous peak was w/e 27th of March, where 22 sequenced genomes were saffa strain, the last two weeks have had 26 and 22.5(?) saffa strain cases sequenced). https://covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw?
Then bear in mind that these two strains are not resistant to vaccines, and consequently any variant largely immune to vaccines will spread far more rapidly, to far more people than those relatively hard to spread strains that we have failed to crush. If a genuinely vaccine resistant strain finds it's way into the UK, unless we catch every case of it basically instantly, it will rip through society.
That's too completely misunderstand vaccine resistance, again it isn't boolean. You're making everything all or nothing, but it doesn't work that way.
A vaccine resistant strain will still have vaccines working, just working less efficiently allowing more infections and more disease, but with vaccines still stopping some infections and some disease. The odds of vaccines ceasing to work at all in one go are quite miniscule.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
Yes, it’s a concessionaire model - a la London Overground. A good move, and one that will be popular. London Overground works very well and although the contractor runs the line, the buck stops with the state: TFL.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Though is it British-wide?
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
Network Rail will cease to exist, it will be a part of GBR.
Yes, but I meant for those saying it’s just a rebranding of Network Rail it clearly is more than just one organisation managing all the infrastructure. Not quite back to the British Rail days though, so hopefully a happy medium is struck for people like myself who are sceptical about the taxpayer benefits of renationalising the railways.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?
It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
And it gives the public one arse to kick under a unified GBR brand - instead of having several companies with different protocols, brand names and fare structures, blaming each other.
It will be popular.
And it will put more onus on the Treasury to fund the railways, which the Treasury will prioritise Schools N Hospitals, so investment will fall and the railways will ossify and passenger numbers will fall.
Just like they fell on London Overground when Silverlink and Anglia were nationalised as concessions? 🧐
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?
It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
And it gives the public one arse to kick under a unified GBR brand - instead of having several companies with different protocols, brand names and fare structures, blaming each other.
It will be popular.
And it will put more onus on the Treasury to fund the railways, which the Treasury will prioritise Schools N Hospitals, so investment will fall and the railways will ossify and passenger numbers will fall.
We have ourselves the most economically interventionist Leftist government since 1979. Arguably earlier. Amazed so many haven't caught on. The PM is a southern Harold Wilson. I'm Backing Britain!
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?
It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
And it gives the public one arse to kick under a unified GBR brand - instead of having several companies with different protocols, brand names and fare structures, blaming each other.
It will be popular.
And it will put more onus on the Treasury to fund the railways, which the Treasury will prioritise Schools N Hospitals, so investment will fall and the railways will ossify and passenger numbers will fall.
Just like they fell on London Overground when Silverlink and Anglia were nationalised as concessions? 🧐
We'll see.
Something tells me that 2019 will be around about the peak and the ever increasing numbers will stop just as has happened before until privatisation.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Though is it British-wide?
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
Scotrail is just a franchise currently but is being fully renationalised next March.
NI Rail was never privatised in the first place, ditto London Underground / TfL.
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
Though that ignores the fact the SNP will insist upon a Labour PM (but also insist upon an indy referendum from them).
What would be fun is to do the electoral calculus for a UK shorn of Scots, but with no other changes. Afterall on the current numbers, minus Scotland, the Tories would have a higher vote share but would also have 359 out of 591 MPs, a majority of 127.
Hmmm......and people were worried about having to deep in with your vaccine passport for the pub....
Holiday 'police' to knock on your door: As hopes rise for full freedom in June, Priti Patel reveals plans for up to 10,000 quarantine checks EVERY day to make sure Britons returning from abroad are in isolation
There is a strong chance that I'm being stupid, but I don't get traveller quarantine post herd immunity.
A traveller can return as one of three states:
1) No covid, no problem
2) With a covid strain unresistant to vaccines, which is no problem.
3) With a covid strain that largely escapes vaccines, which is a problem.
Under current rules the isolation period is shorter than the incubation period, and naturally porous via family members/ some people not isolating properly so no matter how many rona police there are some will escape the net. Lets be *extremely* generous and assume that quarantine/test & release prevents 95% of cases imported going on to infect someone else vs every single imported case infecting at least 1 other person without quarantine.
R of Kentish/Indian Covid seems to be somewhere between 3-6 in a population that largely isn't social distancing and doesn't have rules in place.
Lets give a rough estimate of 1m people entering and leaving the country every week this summer (which is low), and say 0.05% have vaccine resistant COVID (500 cases per week), using the assumptions above all bar 25 of the cases imported per week would be stopped under current rules, only issue is that in one generation those 25 cases (among a vulnerable population) would have a R of ~4/5 (generation 1: 113, generation 2: 506), so at most quarantine buys us 20 days head start.
If a vaccine resistant strain emerges it *will* find it's way in unless we shut our borders completely, so the current isolation rules seem to impose maximum cost while giving us extremely limited benefits.
Because you're viewing it as a boolean state of "its out" or "its in" and if "its in" then there's nothing we can do about it.
If a problem variant comes in then its better to have those cases at a low number that can be suppressed and not simply (at this stage) give up and let it rip.
In March 2020 we were struggling to do thousands of tests per day, now we can do a million plus tests per day. If limited outbreaks occur then surge testing etc can squish it, which isn't the case if its just letting it run wild without a care. 20 days head start is absolutely massive.
If surge testing worked we would have stopped the Indian and Saffa variants via testing, but as a nation we are just far too interconnected for that sort of thing to work effectively.
By the time we're aware that we have a problem with a vaccine resistant strain (which would probably be around the same threshold of cases, so those 20 days are likely misleading), it will be too late.
We have squished the Saffa variant via testing and we have just started testing for the Indian variant in the same way and already case numbers overall are going back down again.
The Indian variant is pretty clearly it hitting an unvaccinated pocket and running out of hosts to spread to (see the limited geographical spread), as for the Saffa strain it's errrr, 0.1% off of it's peak in terms of the proportion of cases sequenced being Saffa strain (as for absolute numbers the previous peak was w/e 27th of March, where 22 sequenced genomes were saffa strain, the last two weeks have had 26 and 22.5(?) saffa strain cases sequenced). https://covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw?
Then bear in mind that these two strains are not resistant to vaccines, and consequently any variant largely immune to vaccines will spread far more rapidly, to far more people than those relatively hard to spread strains that we have failed to crush. If a genuinely vaccine resistant strain finds it's way into the UK, unless we catch every case of it basically instantly, it will rip through society.
That's too completely misunderstand vaccine resistance, again it isn't boolean. You're making everything all or nothing, but it doesn't work that way.
A vaccine resistant strain will still have vaccines working, just working less efficiently allowing more infections and more disease, but with vaccines still stopping some infections and some disease. The odds of vaccines ceasing to work at all in one go are quite miniscule.
I've stated at several points that variants can escape vaccines to a small, large, or complete extent. However if a variant only escapes some vaccines to a minimal degree (i.e. not by enough to push it's Rx above 1) then it also falls into the bucket of 'who gives a shit'.
So, if as you state, the odds of a variant completely escaping the vaccines is minimal (which I agree with), then why are the Government pursuing the high cost, low impact quarantine intervention?
The Government does not have the capability to crush variants even when we're in lockdown, the quarantine system is only marginally effective at best, and it's (ineffectually) covering for a relatively rare scenario (variant pushes R above 1 in a population that will be 90%ish vaccinated by the time the school kids are done).
Hmmm......and people were worried about having to deep in with your vaccine passport for the pub....
Holiday 'police' to knock on your door: As hopes rise for full freedom in June, Priti Patel reveals plans for up to 10,000 quarantine checks EVERY day to make sure Britons returning from abroad are in isolation
There is a strong chance that I'm being stupid, but I don't get traveller quarantine post herd immunity.
A traveller can return as one of three states:
1) No covid, no problem
2) With a covid strain unresistant to vaccines, which is no problem.
3) With a covid strain that largely escapes vaccines, which is a problem.
Under current rules the isolation period is shorter than the incubation period, and naturally porous via family members/ some people not isolating properly so no matter how many rona police there are some will escape the net. Lets be *extremely* generous and assume that quarantine/test & release prevents 95% of cases imported going on to infect someone else vs every single imported case infecting at least 1 other person without quarantine.
R of Kentish/Indian Covid seems to be somewhere between 3-6 in a population that largely isn't social distancing and doesn't have rules in place.
Lets give a rough estimate of 1m people entering and leaving the country every week this summer (which is low), and say 0.05% have vaccine resistant COVID (500 cases per week), using the assumptions above all bar 25 of the cases imported per week would be stopped under current rules, only issue is that in one generation those 25 cases (among a vulnerable population) would have a R of ~4/5 (generation 1: 113, generation 2: 506), so at most quarantine buys us 20 days head start.
If a vaccine resistant strain emerges it *will* find it's way in unless we shut our borders completely, so the current isolation rules seem to impose maximum cost while giving us extremely limited benefits.
Because you're viewing it as a boolean state of "its out" or "its in" and if "its in" then there's nothing we can do about it.
If a problem variant comes in then its better to have those cases at a low number that can be suppressed and not simply (at this stage) give up and let it rip.
In March 2020 we were struggling to do thousands of tests per day, now we can do a million plus tests per day. If limited outbreaks occur then surge testing etc can squish it, which isn't the case if its just letting it run wild without a care. 20 days head start is absolutely massive.
If surge testing worked we would have stopped the Indian and Saffa variants via testing, but as a nation we are just far too interconnected for that sort of thing to work effectively.
By the time we're aware that we have a problem with a vaccine resistant strain (which would probably be around the same threshold of cases, so those 20 days are likely misleading), it will be too late.
We have squished the Saffa variant via testing and we have just started testing for the Indian variant in the same way and already case numbers overall are going back down again.
The Indian variant is pretty clearly it hitting an unvaccinated pocket and running out of hosts to spread to (see the limited geographical spread), as for the Saffa strain it's errrr, 0.1% off of it's peak in terms of the proportion of cases sequenced being Saffa strain (as for absolute numbers the previous peak was w/e 27th of March, where 22 sequenced genomes were saffa strain, the last two weeks have had 26 and 22.5(?) saffa strain cases sequenced). https://covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw?
Then bear in mind that these two strains are not resistant to vaccines, and consequently any variant largely immune to vaccines will spread far more rapidly, to far more people than those relatively hard to spread strains that we have failed to crush. If a genuinely vaccine resistant strain finds it's way into the UK, unless we catch every case of it basically instantly, it will rip through society.
That's too completely misunderstand vaccine resistance, again it isn't boolean. You're making everything all or nothing, but it doesn't work that way.
A vaccine resistant strain will still have vaccines working, just working less efficiently allowing more infections and more disease, but with vaccines still stopping some infections and some disease. The odds of vaccines ceasing to work at all in one go are quite miniscule.
I've stated at several points that variants can escape vaccines to a small, large, or complete extent. However if a variant only escapes some vaccines to a minimal degree (i.e. not by enough to push it's Rx above 1) then it also falls into the bucket of 'who gives a shit'.
So, if as you state, the odds of a variant completely escaping the vaccines is minimal (which I agree with), then why are the Government pursuing the high cost, low impact quarantine intervention?
The Government does not have the capability to crush variants even when we're in lockdown, the quarantine system is only marginally effective at best, and it's (ineffectually) covering for a relatively rare scenario.
The Government does have the capability to crush variants from low levels, that's what has been done.
And a variant doesn't need to "completely escape" the vaccines in order to cause havoc, especially prior to vaccinating all adults. A variant that makes the young adults more sick would also be rather concerning when there's tens of millions of unvaccinated young adults too.
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Though is it British-wide?
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
Scotrail is just a franchise currently but is being fully renationalised next March.
NI Rail was never privatised in the first place, ditto London Underground / TfL.
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
No comfort to the rest of us paying £4.50 to travel 3 miles from the nearest stop 1.5 miles away. But we rejoice in your good fortune.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Though is it British-wide?
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
Scotrail is just a franchise currently but is being fully renationalised next March.
NI Rail was never privatised in the first place, ditto London Underground / TfL.
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
I've had a play on electoral calculus to get a rough idea of how the electoral geography affects things.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
Though that ignores the fact the SNP will insist upon a Labour PM (but also insist upon an indy referendum from them).
What would be fun is to do the electoral calculus for a UK shorn of Scots, but with no other changes. Afterall on the current numbers, minus Scotland, the Tories would have a higher vote share but would also have 359 out of 591 MPs, a majority of 127.
As the current government is currently refusing an indyref2 for the rest of its term not really relevant, as as long as there remains a Tory majority Scotland will be in the Union with no indyref2 allowed whatever Sturgeon thinks.
Though yes if Labour did get in in 2024 it would almost certainly be reliant on SNP support in a hung parliament which would require an indyref2 which if lost could then see it lose power again to the Tories without even the need for another general election
Re variants escaping the vaccine, can I give you an analogy.
Imagine you are a city, and you have fighter planes that can defend it from incoming bombers.
If you get no notice of the bombers at all, then they will do terrible damage to your city.
If you get lots of notice, then all the bombers will be shot down before they reach you.
The more notice you get, the more bombers you can shoot down before they reach you. Old people have fewer fighter jets, and need more notice.
Vaccines give your immune system radar.
And vaccine resistance makes the cross section of the attackers smaller.
But vaccine efficacy stacks. Pfizer (for which there is by far the best data) is 90-91% effective at preventing *any* measurable infection. It's about 95% effective at preventing symptomatic infection. It's 99% effective at preventing serious Covid. And it's probably 99.9% effective (population adjusted) at preventing death.
A vaccine resistant variant *might* move the measurable infection rate to (say) 80%, and the symptomatic infection rate to 90%. But it's unlikely to move it more than that.
Why? Because the coronavirus works by sticking that spike protein in the cells in your lungs. It then uses those cells in your lungs to generate new viral particles.
The vaccines target the spike protein.
If you get rid of the spike protein then you evade the vaccines, but at the expense of making the virus massively less effective at infecting and killing people.
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
Oh dear, we've hit the number of drinks that turns you into a melancholy depressive.
No doubt later this week you'll be regaling us about the glorious future of London as cities are great and thriving and where everyone will want to be post pandemic.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Though is it British-wide?
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
Scotrail is just a franchise currently but is being fully renationalised next March.
NI Rail was never privatised in the first place, ditto London Underground / TfL.
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
And I'm not imagining it. Tube use is still at 40% normal, buses at 60%, and not really moving. And in central London it feels much lower
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
I very often get the bus. Easier than driving and like a nearly free taxi after the pub. I’ve been amazed how busy they are recently. So I think we’ll survive!
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
And I'm not imagining it. Tube use is still at 40% normal, buses at 60%, and not really moving. And in central London it feels much lower
Strangely people prefer to travel by car (where they don't need to wear a mask and where they won't be surrounded by potential plague carriers) during a pandemic.
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
No comfort to the rest of us paying £4.50 to travel 3 miles from the nearest stop 1.5 miles away. But we rejoice in your good fortune.
The buses up north are shit. An embarrassment in most cities. I do agree they should be regulated by TFManchester TFNewcastle etc.
Politico.com - [US Sen] Sherrod Brown presses Biden bank cop to take harder line on cryptocurrency In a letter, the Ohio Democrat warned against granting federal charters to companies trying to expand access to “risky and unproven” digital assets and technologies.
Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown on Wednesday urged the Biden administration’s new bank cop to halt regulatory moves that make it easier for cryptocurrency companies to operate nationally, signaling a new Washington crackdown on Bitcoin and other digital assets.
In a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, the Ohio Democrat warned against granting federal charters to companies trying to expand access to “risky and unproven” digital assets and technologies. He asked acting Comptroller Michael Hsu, appointed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week, to reconsider recent decisions to let three crypto firms — Paxos, Protego and Anchorage — become national trust banks.
Brown said the tech firms would use their new OCC charters to convince customers that their business models are “as safe, stable and dependable for customers as a local community bank” — an assertion that he argued they should not be able to make. He also said the OCC couldn’t regulate those companies like traditional banks, in part because crypto assets have such severe price swings.
“Not only could these charter approvals lead customers to underestimate the risks related to these assets, but it could undermine faith in the safety and stability of the entire banking system,” Brown wrote in the letter, provided to POLITICO.
The letter, which Brown sent on the same day that Bitcoin’s price fluctuated wildly . . .
“Given the many uncertainties present in the digital asset landscape as identified by other regulators, the volatility of digital asset valuations, and the disproportionate influence individuals can have on entire cryptocurrency markets, the OCC is not in a position to regulate these entities comparably to traditional banks,” Brown said.
In the Trump era, the OCC pursued a series of crypto-friendly moves. Former acting Comptroller Brian Brooks last year encouraged companies operating at the heart of digital currency trading to apply with the agency to become national trusts, special types of financial institutions that are allowed to manage client assets without taking deposits. The charters would help the firms operate across state borders with a single set of rules, as well as to potentially expand the suite of financial services they offer.
After leaving the OCC, Brooks became CEO of the U.S. arm of cryptocurrency exchange Binance. . . .
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
And I'm not imagining it. Tube use is still at 40% normal, buses at 60%, and not really moving. And in central London it feels much lower
Strangely people prefer to travel by car (where they don't need to wear a mask and where they won't be surrounded by potential plague carriers) during a pandemic.
As do I. My point is that London relies on heavy public transport use, and doesn't really work without it
If the London economy fails, the UK seizes up. Like a heart attack. Just a fact
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
Always thought that Margaret Thatcher did NOT approve of proper adults riding a bus. As in ""A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."
HOWEVER, turns out that she did NOT say that, or rather there is no hard evidence that she did. According to a GUARDIAN journalist!
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Jezza fulfilling a manifesto commitment.
On top of that, you even had one of his loony left mayors seizing his local airport for the proletariat.
Yes...there are actually quite a few Labour pledges being delivered, from the magic money tree support for furlough to rail nationalisation to accelerated housebuilding to subsidies for industry to diverse greenery to an interesting animal welfare strategy. I'm a Labour loyalist, but I can't say I feel especially anti-Government at the moment. If the Tories want to deliver Corbynism, it would be churlish to grumble.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Jezza fulfilling a manifesto commitment.
On top of that, you even had one of his loony left mayors seizing his local airport for the proletariat.
Yes...there are actually quite a few Labour pledges being delivered, from the magic money tree support for furlough to rail nationalisation to accelerated housebuilding to subsidies for industry to diverse greenery to an interesting animal welfare strategy. I'm a Labour loyalist, but I can't say I feel especially anti-Government at the moment. If the Tories want to deliver Corbynism, it would be churlish to grumble.
Feeling likewise. The unabashed grift and open mendacity are the only things that grate tbh.
Woke up this morning with light in my eyes And then realized it was still dark outside It was a light coming down from the sky I don't know who or why
Must be those strangers that come every night Those saucer shaped lights put people uptight Leave blue green footprints that glow in the dark I hope they get home alright
Hey, Mr. Spaceman Won't you please take me along I won't do anything wrong Hey, Mr. Spaceman Won't you please take me along for a ride
Woke up this morning, I was feeling quite weird Had flies in my beard, my toothpaste was smeared Over my window, they'd written my name Said, "So long, we'll see you again"
Hey, Mr. Spaceman Won't you please take me along I won't do anything wrong Hey, Mr. Spaceman Won't you please take me along for a ride
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
And I'm not imagining it. Tube use is still at 40% normal, buses at 60%, and not really moving. And in central London it feels much lower
Strangely people prefer to travel by car (where they don't need to wear a mask and where they won't be surrounded by potential plague carriers) during a pandemic.
As do I. My point is that London relies on heavy public transport use, and doesn't really work without it
If the London economy fails, the UK seizes up. Like a heart attack. Just a fact
Personally I think some employers are going to make a big mistake in the levels of cutbacks they are trying to make to office use. Online training is rubbish and you actually really learn when you are using a new system/process in the Office , when you can ask each other how to do the more infrequently used processes etc. Plus it is so much quicker to get answers to questions when you can just chat across the office instead of hanging on waiting for an answer in google chat. And don't talk to me about trying to pin a manager down to solve a difficult problem via messenger, it's so much easier when you can stand at there desk and make them do it, and keep pestering them throughout the day to finally do it, compared to the weeks of fruitless messages when remote working is in place.
I suspect some places will make some big headline cuts and within 5 years will have taken back a lot of sublet space.
Not that remote working is not here to stay, just that the extent of it and how well it actually works varies widely depending on what type of tasks you are trying to do.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
I'm not convinced British Rail is the kind of thing that made people believe in a British identity.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Jezza fulfilling a manifesto commitment.
On top of that, you even had one of his loony left mayors seizing his local airport for the proletariat.
Yes...there are actually quite a few Labour pledges being delivered, from the magic money tree support for furlough to rail nationalisation to accelerated housebuilding to subsidies for industry to diverse greenery to an interesting animal welfare strategy. I'm a Labour loyalist, but I can't say I feel especially anti-Government at the moment. If the Tories want to deliver Corbynism, it would be churlish to grumble.
Feeling likewise. The unabashed grift and open mendacity are the only things that grate tbh.
I would hope that USAF pilots never get that tired .
Of course they do. A 391st Strike Eagle crew flew a 15+ hour mission over Afghanistan. That's over 15 hours strapped into ejection seats, releasing weapons, multiple air-to-air refuelling, talking to AWACS, TAC, etc. How tired do you think those two were?
I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.
I would hope that USAF pilots never get that tired .
Of course they do. A 391st Strike Eagle crew flew a 15+ hour mission over Afghanistan. That's over 15 hours strapped into ejection seats, releasing weapons, multiple air-to-air refuelling, talking to AWACS, TAC, etc. How tired do you think those two were?
I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.
Stop whining. You just need really good amphetamines. The Germans invented several expressly for this purpose
I would hope that USAF pilots never get that tired .
Of course they do. A 391st Strike Eagle crew flew a 15+ hour mission over Afghanistan. That's over 15 hours strapped into ejection seats, releasing weapons, multiple air-to-air refuelling, talking to AWACS, TAC, etc. How tired do you think those two were?
I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.
I would hope that USAF pilots never get that tired .
Of course they do. A 391st Strike Eagle crew flew a 15+ hour mission over Afghanistan. That's over 15 hours strapped into ejection seats, releasing weapons, multiple air-to-air refuelling, talking to AWACS, TAC, etc. How tired do you think those two were?
I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.
Back in the 1970s knew a fellow, an old reprobate down in Louisiana (one time he told me the story of how he escaped from a Florida chain-gang) who had flown during WW2 as a USAAF crewman on B-17s. Said they were issued amphetamines to stay awake night after night after night.
Definitely gave him a taste for the wonders of modern chemistry.
I would hope that USAF pilots never get that tired .
Of course they do. A 391st Strike Eagle crew flew a 15+ hour mission over Afghanistan. That's over 15 hours strapped into ejection seats, releasing weapons, multiple air-to-air refuelling, talking to AWACS, TAC, etc. How tired do you think those two were?
I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.
Stop whining. You just need really good amphetamines. The Germans invented several expressly for this purpose
And not just the Germans.
EDIT - Besides US Army Air Force bomber crew example, IIRC when Monty launched his offensive at El Alamein, many (if not most) of the Desert Rats speeded into battle, if you get my drift.
I would hope that USAF pilots never get that tired .
Of course they do. A 391st Strike Eagle crew flew a 15+ hour mission over Afghanistan. That's over 15 hours strapped into ejection seats, releasing weapons, multiple air-to-air refuelling, talking to AWACS, TAC, etc. How tired do you think those two were?
I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.
Coming back on topic - Nottinghamshire doesnt get a mention, but the fact that Mansfield is now held by a young(ish) Conservative with a 16000 majority (it had Labour majorities of 10k-20K) during the Blair years to me is almost as astounding as Hartlepool. Notingham itself stayed red but is now a small island. Labour really needs to work out how you rebrand and retain London but win back Mansfield, Gedling etc
Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
And I'm not imagining it. Tube use is still at 40% normal, buses at 60%, and not really moving. And in central London it feels much lower
Strangely people prefer to travel by car (where they don't need to wear a mask and where they won't be surrounded by potential plague carriers) during a pandemic.
As do I. My point is that London relies on heavy public transport use, and doesn't really work without it
If the London economy fails, the UK seizes up. Like a heart attack. Just a fact
Or the UK economy evolves.
London could be the future past industrial north.
The Tube subsidizes the buses. And once the tourists flood back next year, that problem will be fixed. As much as anything is ever fixed with the Underground.
Personally I think some employers are going to make a big mistake in the levels of cutbacks they are trying to make to office use. Online training is rubbish and you actually really learn when you are using a new system/process in the Office , when you can ask each other how to do the more infrequently used processes etc. Plus it is so much quicker to get answers to questions when you can just chat across the office instead of hanging on waiting for an answer in google chat. And don't talk to me about trying to pin a manager down to solve a difficult problem via messenger, it's so much easier when you can stand at there desk and make them do it, and keep pestering them throughout the day to finally do it, compared to the weeks of fruitless messages when remote working is in place.
I suspect some places will make some big headline cuts and within 5 years will have taken back a lot of sublet space.
Not that remote working is not here to stay, just that the extent of it and how well it actually works varies widely depending on what type of tasks you are trying to do.
An interesting perspective and some very fair points. I think one of the biggest downsides to home working is you don’t get to know new colleagues very well (mind you, my team is now split across the country, so that’s here to stay).
On your point about not being able to pin down a senior member of staff, that can be a problem. However, I try to make it their problem and not mine!
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Though is it British-wide?
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
Scotrail is just a franchise currently but is being fully renationalised next March.
NI Rail was never privatised in the first place, ditto London Underground / TfL.
"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."
Jezza fulfilling a manifesto commitment.
On top of that, you even had one of his loony left mayors seizing his local airport for the proletariat.
Yes...there are actually quite a few Labour pledges being delivered, from the magic money tree support for furlough to rail nationalisation to accelerated housebuilding to subsidies for industry to diverse greenery to an interesting animal welfare strategy. I'm a Labour loyalist, but I can't say I feel especially anti-Government at the moment. If the Tories want to deliver Corbynism, it would be churlish to grumble.
Feeling likewise. The unabashed grift and open mendacity are the only things that grate tbh.
Coming back on topic - Nottinghamshire doesnt get a mention, but the fact that Mansfield is now held by a young(ish) Conservative with a 16000 majority (it had Labour majorities of 10k-20K) during the Blair years to me is almost as astounding as Hartlepool. Notingham itself stayed red but is now a small island. Labour really needs to work out how you rebrand and retain London but win back Mansfield, Gedling etc
Bassetlaw is another example. Never held by the Tories in the 80s (although due to UDM support they came close in 1987) but in 2019 the Labour vote was literally cut in half and the Tories gained the seat with over 50% of the vote.
All the old English coalfields, and there were plenty in the Midlands, seem to be trending Tory. Still no sign of that in South Wales though
A little like @Leon ’s account of Obama, which transformed ‘there’s some stuff we can’t explain’ into ‘Obama confirms existence of unexplained technology’.
“GBR will also collect fare revenue, run the network and set most fares and timetables when it comes into existence in 2023. However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day. These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later. The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
It also sounds, to me, like a move against Scottish Nationalism
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
Though is it British-wide?
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
Scotrail is just a franchise currently but is being fully renationalised next March.
NI Rail was never privatised in the first place, ditto London Underground / TfL.
Indeed but its not being renationalised as part of GB Rail is it? It will be owned by the Scottish Government not the UK one.
So is GB Rail really England Rail with a GB name? Or is it actually GB wide?
It will be interesting to see what changes.
Keep the good of the previous model and improve the poor.
What will happen to TUs?
I am guessing, looking at the management structure, that they’re much more likely to keep the poor and disimprove on the good. For a start, there is unlikely to be any effort to sort out the obscene pensions situation as a government will be scared of being blamed for a strike. Similarly, where’s the incentive to run trains people need that was a real success of the franchise model? Finally, we may get rid of a few lawyers milking the contract system but replacing them with the deadweight of the Department for Transport would eliminate that advantage.
I don’t think anyone will mourn the loss of Network Rail and the franchise model, but this looks like a bad structure to me. It would be better to have smaller regional companies managing track and trains directly, even if they were all state owned, than to have civil servants in direct charge.
Coming back on topic - Nottinghamshire doesnt get a mention, but the fact that Mansfield is now held by a young(ish) Conservative with a 16000 majority (it had Labour majorities of 10k-20K) during the Blair years to me is almost as astounding as Hartlepool. Notingham itself stayed red but is now a small island. Labour really needs to work out how you rebrand and retain London but win back Mansfield, Gedling etc
Bassetlaw is another example. Never held by the Tories in the 80s (although due to UDM support they came close in 1987) but in 2019 the Labour vote was literally cut in half and the Tories gained the seat with over 50% of the vote.
All the old English coalfields, and there were plenty in the Midlands, seem to be trending Tory. Still no sign of that in South Wales though
Just had a look at the former list of local collieries, and here in my bit of North Notts there are around a dozen more within 4-5 miles. Plus a further 4 or 5 in Derbyshire within the same radius.
Le Courbusier was arguably the single most malign influence on architecture, instilling dogma and a love of concrete in the profession, which persists to this day.
Boris is currently doing to Labour what Blair did to the Conservatives and then some: stealing all their best ideas and plopping them into aspiration, which is the vote winner for the people who matter.
We're about to see the return of a nationalised rail network as Great British Railways, the kind of idea that everyone of us who uses trains is cheering about from the gantries.
We've got a super fast HS2 rail network spreading out. It may annoy a few home counties tories but, hey, the West Midlands will get the jobs and speedy trains.
Tesla may be about to build a factory in the W Midlands and, if they don't, Boris will lure others to do so with massive tax incentives.
And a revolution in planning may well see house buying come back into reach, to go with the surge in house prices for those who already do.
If this all continues then I see no future for the Labour Party.
Comments
Indeed, of the top 100 Labour target seats it would need to gain in 2024 to be able to form a government, just 19 are in the East or West Midlands. By contrast there are now 18 seats in London, the South East and South West in the top 100 Labour target seats, almost as many as the traditionally bellwether Midlands.
Instead the new bellwether swing area is now the North, which thanks to the Red Wall has moved from safe Labour to the key swing region. In fact 32 of the top 100 Labour target seats, almost a third, come from the North East, the North West or Yorkshire and Humber.
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour
You wouldn't have to be woke for that.
A 3.2% swing denies the Tories a majority, leaving them ahead 324-237.
If you put Labour and Tory level on votes, a 5.85% swing, then the Tories lead by 284-272 on seats.
If you swap the 2019GE vote shares, so Labour lead 44.7-33.0 with a 11.7% swing, then Labour win 324-226, just short of a majority.
If you give Labour a vote lead of 14.8%, equal to the largest lead that either party has had since WWII (in 1983), then Labour do have a majority, 344-207.
You have to give Labour a lead of 17.7% until they reach a majority of 80-something, as the Tories have now.
On the face of it, the current electoral geography is shockingly bad for Labour.
On top of that, you even had one of his loony left mayors seizing his local airport for the proletariat.
But great to see the end of franchising - a ludicrous system.
By the time we're aware that we have a problem with a vaccine resistant strain (which would probably be around the same threshold of cases, so those 20 days are likely misleading), it will be too late.
Unusual final day of the season with not only the Champion long confirmed, but all 3 relegated clubs long since confirmed too. Only question is whether Chelsea, Liverpool or Leicester miss out on the Champions League and its not looking good for the foxes.
It did between the 2005 and 2015 elections.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9597715/We-discover-UFO-truth-there.html
Similar changes in favor of Labour are pretty much limited to, er, Tony Blair.
This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.
It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.
A Labour majority is near impossible yes, a Starmer Premiership in a hung parliament however most certainly is not
Do I agree with it? Not really
But I still find it refreshing for a Conservative government to pursue a policy that will poll very well with the British public despite it being ‘unconservative’.
It becomes awfully hard for Labour to attack the government when Boris steals and implements their most popular policies without the opposition having even pressurised them into it.
It will be popular.
That has always fluctuated. I can envisage the circumstances where the Tory vote gets more efficient. But not much more.
However Cameron was able to form a government in 2010 even without a majority. You do not have to win a Blair landslide or even a majority to become PM.
Labour may not be able to win a majority again until 2029, 19 years after its 2010 defeat but it could still form a government in a hung parliament in 2024
However, many reforms will come into force before then, including the introduction of flexible season tickets, offering savings on certain routes for people who do not travel to work every day.
These will go on sale on 21 June, for use seven days later.
The carnet-style tickets will allow passengers to travel on any eight days in a 28-day period.“
The above suggests clear water between the role of Great British Railways and Network Rail. Carnet tickets should be popular with flexible workers.
Then bear in mind that these two strains are not resistant to vaccines, and consequently any variant largely immune to vaccines will spread far more rapidly, to far more people than those relatively hard to spread strains that we have failed to crush. If a genuinely vaccine resistant strain finds it's way into the UK, unless we catch every case of it basically instantly, it will rip through society.
The tories can win many more seats with fewer votes. Its not just about Labour becoming more popular, Labour have to become more popular in the right areas
The UKG is recreating British-wide institutions to fortify British identity
A vaccine resistant strain will still have vaccines working, just working less efficiently allowing more infections and more disease, but with vaccines still stopping some infections and some disease. The odds of vaccines ceasing to work at all in one go are quite miniscule.
Won't ScotRail be owned by the Scottish Government still? So how will that work?
Amazed so many haven't caught on.
The PM is a southern Harold Wilson.
I'm Backing Britain!
Let’s just rejoice at that news.
Something tells me that 2019 will be around about the peak and the ever increasing numbers will stop just as has happened before until privatisation.
NI Rail was never privatised in the first place, ditto London Underground / TfL.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56432919
What would be fun is to do the electoral calculus for a UK shorn of Scots, but with no other changes. Afterall on the current numbers, minus Scotland, the Tories would have a higher vote share but would also have 359 out of 591 MPs, a majority of 127.
So, if as you state, the odds of a variant completely escaping the vaccines is minimal (which I agree with), then why are the Government pursuing the high cost, low impact quarantine intervention?
The Government does not have the capability to crush variants even when we're in lockdown, the quarantine system is only marginally effective at best, and it's (ineffectually) covering for a relatively rare scenario (variant pushes R above 1 in a population that will be 90%ish vaccinated by the time the school kids are done).
And a variant doesn't need to "completely escape" the vaccines in order to cause havoc, especially prior to vaccinating all adults. A variant that makes the young adults more sick would also be rather concerning when there's tens of millions of unvaccinated young adults too.
So is GB Rail really England Rail with a GB name? Or is it actually GB wide?
But we rejoice in your good fortune.
In the same way that TGV trains go into Italy etc.
And now bankrupt. Entirely empty London buses go past my flat every few minutes. I really do wonder how London Transport survives the plague
I just saw another one. A double decker. Zero passengers. It's like this for much of the day. London is dying
Though yes if Labour did get in in 2024 it would almost certainly be reliant on SNP support in a hung parliament which would require an indyref2 which if lost could then see it lose power again to the Tories without even the need for another general election
Re variants escaping the vaccine, can I give you an analogy.
Imagine you are a city, and you have fighter planes that can defend it from incoming bombers.
If you get no notice of the bombers at all, then they will do terrible damage to your city.
If you get lots of notice, then all the bombers will be shot down before they reach you.
The more notice you get, the more bombers you can shoot down before they reach you. Old people have fewer fighter jets, and need more notice.
Vaccines give your immune system radar.
And vaccine resistance makes the cross section of the attackers smaller.
But vaccine efficacy stacks. Pfizer (for which there is by far the best data) is 90-91% effective at preventing *any* measurable infection. It's about 95% effective at preventing symptomatic infection. It's 99% effective at preventing serious Covid. And it's probably 99.9% effective (population adjusted) at preventing death.
A vaccine resistant variant *might* move the measurable infection rate to (say) 80%, and the symptomatic infection rate to 90%. But it's unlikely to move it more than that.
Why? Because the coronavirus works by sticking that spike protein in the cells in your lungs. It then uses those cells in your lungs to generate new viral particles.
The vaccines target the spike protein.
If you get rid of the spike protein then you evade the vaccines, but at the expense of making the virus massively less effective at infecting and killing people.
And that's why you shouldn't worry too much.
No doubt later this week you'll be regaling us about the glorious future of London as cities are great and thriving and where everyone will want to be post pandemic.
You can tell by the empty cans and discarded papers full of Rangers and Celtic.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-use-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic
In a letter, the Ohio Democrat warned against granting federal charters to companies trying to expand access to “risky and unproven” digital assets and technologies.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/19/sherrod-brown-biden-cryptocurrency-489676
Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown on Wednesday urged the Biden administration’s new bank cop to halt regulatory moves that make it easier for cryptocurrency companies to operate nationally, signaling a new Washington crackdown on Bitcoin and other digital assets.
In a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, the Ohio Democrat warned against granting federal charters to companies trying to expand access to “risky and unproven” digital assets and technologies. He asked acting Comptroller Michael Hsu, appointed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week, to reconsider recent decisions to let three crypto firms — Paxos, Protego and Anchorage — become national trust banks.
Brown said the tech firms would use their new OCC charters to convince customers that their business models are “as safe, stable and dependable for customers as a local community bank” — an assertion that he argued they should not be able to make. He also said the OCC couldn’t regulate those companies like traditional banks, in part because crypto assets have such severe price swings.
“Not only could these charter approvals lead customers to underestimate the risks related to these assets, but it could undermine faith in the safety and stability of the entire banking system,” Brown wrote in the letter, provided to POLITICO.
The letter, which Brown sent on the same day that Bitcoin’s price fluctuated wildly . . .
“Given the many uncertainties present in the digital asset landscape as identified by other regulators, the volatility of digital asset valuations, and the disproportionate influence individuals can have on entire cryptocurrency markets, the OCC is not in a position to regulate these entities comparably to traditional banks,” Brown said.
In the Trump era, the OCC pursued a series of crypto-friendly moves. Former acting Comptroller Brian Brooks last year encouraged companies operating at the heart of digital currency trading to apply with the agency to become national trusts, special types of financial institutions that are allowed to manage client assets without taking deposits. The charters would help the firms operate across state borders with a single set of rules, as well as to potentially expand the suite of financial services they offer.
After leaving the OCC, Brooks became CEO of the U.S. arm of cryptocurrency exchange Binance. . . .
If the London economy fails, the UK seizes up. Like a heart attack. Just a fact
HOWEVER, turns out that she did NOT say that, or rather there is no hard evidence that she did. According to a GUARDIAN journalist!
https://www.theguardian.com/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1560453,00.html
Wish this guy would turn his forensic skills on the whole UAP Controversy!
AND when THAT's cleared up, the still-burning Heligoland Question!!
Unidentified aerial phenomena offer a lesson on the residue problem in science
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ufos-uaps-and-craps/
The unabashed grift and open mendacity are the only things that grate tbh.
Roger McGuinn
Woke up this morning with light in my eyes
And then realized it was still dark outside
It was a light coming down from the sky
I don't know who or why
Must be those strangers that come every night
Those saucer shaped lights put people uptight
Leave blue green footprints that glow in the dark
I hope they get home alright
Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won't you please take me along
I won't do anything wrong
Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won't you please take me along for a ride
Woke up this morning, I was feeling quite weird
Had flies in my beard, my toothpaste was smeared
Over my window, they'd written my name
Said, "So long, we'll see you again"
Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won't you please take me along
I won't do anything wrong
Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won't you please take me along for a ride
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoD0-5DTqpU
London could be the future past industrial north.
I suspect some places will make some big headline cuts and within 5 years will have taken back a lot of sublet space.
Not that remote working is not here to stay, just that the extent of it and how well it actually works varies widely depending on what type of tasks you are trying to do.
Rather the reverse, in fact.
I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.
Definitely gave him a taste for the wonders of modern chemistry.
EDIT - Besides US Army Air Force bomber crew example, IIRC when Monty launched his offensive at El Alamein, many (if not most) of the Desert Rats speeded into battle, if you get my drift.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YiJCM1gHtI
Nottinghamshire waves Hi.
(Harrumph)
On your point about not being able to pin down a senior member of staff, that can be a problem. However, I try to make it their problem and not mine!
Keep the good of the previous model and improve the poor.
What will happen to TUs?
All the old English coalfields, and there were plenty in the Midlands, seem to be trending Tory. Still no sign of that in South Wales though
A little like @Leon ’s account of Obama, which transformed ‘there’s some stuff we can’t explain’ into ‘Obama confirms existence of unexplained technology’.
I don’t think anyone will mourn the loss of Network Rail and the franchise model, but this looks like a bad structure to me. It would be better to have smaller regional companies managing track and trains directly, even if they were all state owned, than to have civil servants in direct charge.
http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/Fatalities/Pits.html
I wonder how former pit villages have done by area. That is not something I have studied, though different places have very varied reputations.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/may/19/why-are-our-cities-built-for-6ft-tall-men-the-female-architects-who-fought-back
Le Courbusier was arguably the single most malign influence on architecture, instilling dogma and a love of concrete in the profession, which persists to this day.
We're about to see the return of a nationalised rail network as Great British Railways, the kind of idea that everyone of us who uses trains is cheering about from the gantries.
We've got a super fast HS2 rail network spreading out. It may annoy a few home counties tories but, hey, the West Midlands will get the jobs and speedy trains.
Tesla may be about to build a factory in the W Midlands and, if they don't, Boris will lure others to do so with massive tax incentives.
And a revolution in planning may well see house buying come back into reach, to go with the surge in house prices for those who already do.
If this all continues then I see no future for the Labour Party.