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Local lockdowns by stealth – it is all looking rather chaotic – politicalbetting.com
Local lockdowns by stealth – it is all looking rather chaotic – politicalbetting.com
Govt says you *can* visit family in Bolton etc, but *shouldn't*. Public may just think it's chaos. https://t.co/7KVnSj70if
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I think that more important is that there is no prospect of hospitals collapsing because of the stunning success of the vaccination programme. Every current and future restriction should be reviewed, and ideally got rid of, on this basis.
Everyone else expects the rest of the Covid bollocks to be slung in the skip come June 21st, and will grumble about whatever elements of the apparatus of oppression are left in place.
If I were living in Bedford or Bolton I certainly wouldn't pay any attention to these edicts, and I doubt that many others would, either.
Bolton has now had several days showing cases per specimen day dropping (and most of these are now clear of data lag)
Bedford looks to have peaked.
Blackburn has either peaked or is close to it.
Hospitalisations are looking to be falling again from partial data for the next four days.
Sefton has peaked and fallen again.
This is very different to when the Kent variant swept the nation and caused cases to launch into the stratosphere. This is spluttering and backfiring at best.
I would expect hospitalisations to plateau or gently trend upwards for about four or five days until those increased cases are taken into account; if not, then vaccination has double-whammied the variant by blocking the spread and reducing the impact when it has taken hold (even with areas of low vaccine takeup)
I thought the Gover was one of the smarter ones in the confederacy of dunces. Are we approaching (dreadful thought) Fuck Gove?
Rossendale still climbing though - hopefully it will be the same pattern a few days later.
@Malmesbury said there were a few others he was looking out for.
EDIT - a few other councils around Lancashire looking like they've not yet peaked: Preston, Hyndburn, Chorley.
In truth, I expect test, trace and isolate to last past the 21st, along with curbs on international travel and probably masks on public transport, but that strikes me as altogether enough. Any further goalpost moving to try to justify a broad panoply of restrictions being left in place for years should be greatly resisted.
But that doesn't explain the half-assed way this not-a-local-lockdown was introduced and rapidly withdrawn. All the political disadvantage of doing the lockdown, none of the public health benefits, and the government looks like they've got the clown cars out of the garage again.
And whilst anyone who worked in education in the Gove years will choke on the claim that Gove is indispensable because he is the only one in the Cabinet who can get things done, he does have that reputation. Why?
Deepti Gurdasani
@dgurdasani1
·
7h
I'm sure there's going to be the usual 'but vaccines now, so this is different' -
Yes, vaccines will help, but SAGE modelling shows this is where we're headed even with current levels of vaccination with a more transmissible variant with some escape - if we continue as we are.
Michelle Hadaway gave Mr Bashir items of her daughter's clothing for DNA testing in 1991, but says no tests were done and the clothes were not returned.
She said she would like Mr Bashir to apologise, adding: "There's been no apology, even back when I found the receipt and he was approached about it with the receipt, he's still saying I don't remember."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-57242995
If it doesn't happen can we pay a lot less attention when the next variant arrives?
We know the virus is seasonal in the UK. That is, I'm 99% sure, because of the effect on behaviour of summer weather on people here. We spend much more time, especially social time, outdoors. Unlike in very hot countries with air conditioning. There will be meet ups over the bank holiday weekend but they will be barbecues. Massive amounts of barbecues as it will be the first suitable weekend of the season. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a resumption of falling case numbers from early next week onwards. Keep a look out on the Zoe app.
Based on what we've seen of the glacially slow spread of the disease outwards from the epicentres of infection so far, I'm calling the panic modelling out as bollocks. Absent a genuinely vaccine defeating variant (of which there is absolutely no sign, and which seems highly unlikely to occur,) the likelihood of a repeat of our January of Horrors would appear to be nil.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-57236414
Voter #1 Came to the door the instant I'd thrust the leaflet through his letter box.
Voter: What's your mandate?
Me: [Thinking should I go on greenery or internationalism then inspired] It's in the leaflet.
Voter: The potholes here are shocking and we pay too much. How long have this lot been in power?
Me: At least 20 years? [Actually it is since 1974 when the constituency was created]
Voter: Shocking
Me: Time for a change
Voter - yes definitely.
Voter #2 [on the doorstep]
Me: [Handing over the leaflet] We think it's time for a change
Voter: yes definitely
Voter #3 [same thing]
Voter #4
Me: [Handing over the leaflet] Time for a change
Voter: Don't give me that rubbish.
Me: Are you going to vote?
Voter: Of course I am. We are really privileged in this country. I'm 100% certain to vote. What a stupid question.
Me: Only 40% vote in by elections. If you said you weren't going to vote, I've have said to you what you just said.
Voter: Impertinent.
I avoided giving the V sign.
Conclusion: Some wealthy electors think it's time for a change and some are edgy.
"some escape" hmmm hmmmmhh
It must be said that she is not an expert, looking at her bio and publications. No more an expert than me, in fact (we appear to be a similar distance from being experts on infectious disease - and I'm no expert!)
It isn't going away (as has been said many times) but the ability of the virus to spread in any significant way is going to be increasingly limited.
The government will have to hold the line against the inevitable press panic each time there is a local outbreak.
Then another round of vaccines.
Then another three months lockdown
Once you decided to play the game, you became subject to the rules.
and here
You appear to be blaming people for accepting vaccinations as though implying not doing so would have brought forward release from lockdown. I can't see how one would lead to the other.
Besides which, based on observation of what's happened with the variants and my own very limited understanding of how coronaviruses tend to behave, I don't think that a significant degree of vaccine escape is likely. Au contraire, the disease seems to be evolving down a cul-de-sac. Each new variant carries an incrementally smaller advantage, and represents a more marginal increase in the danger of the disease to health, relative to the steps that have preceded it.
It looks very much as if this thing is over as an emergency. We probably will see more infections, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid come the Winter, but probably not nearly so many as there will be from the flu.
66% of postal votes came back, with an overall turnout of 36%, so that about 27% of the total votes counted came in by post.
Interestingly, despite all the COVID fuss, very few late or single-election PV applications. Presumably people worried about the virus just didn’t bother voting.
By road, turnout in my patch varied from 20% to over 70%, which is also useful information in terms of knowing the areas most worthwhile to campaign.
But you’re right that most ordinary voters have no idea that whether or not they voted is public information. Now and again I used to enjoy myself on the doorstep with the odd voter who claimed, just to get rid of you, that they never ever voted...
The police and secret service are entitled to inspect the ballot papers and record of who each was issued to. The details are all on the EC website if you know where to look....
NEW: Scottish Government loses court battle over £5m Ferguson shipyard insurance payout
https://twitter.com/TheScotsman/status/1397174072904232960?s=20
Wonder how much the legal fees were?
Parties should make an effort to sway all the voters not just the ones that they think might cast a vote. The fraud investigation can as easily be done by the electoral commission. Also I would have thought against data protection laws as no one has ever informed me when I do turn up to vote that the fact I voted may be sold off to political parties. This law should be changed soonest.
Latest cases data from the PHE data feed
The England, Northern Ireland, and Wales admissions data for the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd is already there.
Frankly political parties shouldn't, we already have turnout issues and only canvassing those that vote isn't going to help them. Parties should be blinded to this information so they have to try and persuade everyone to vote.
Catherine MooreMicrobeDNAFlag of European Union
@SmallRedOne
·
7h
The pandemic isn’t over, but we have to keep one step ahead because I think SARS-CoV-2 is with us now. The vaccines at the moment don’t look good enough for eradication plans and equity is still a major problem.
These people have got a screw loose. It took decades to eradicate polio. What does he suggest? Should we have intermittent lockdowns for the next 30 years while we vaccinate a generation of kids and younger people.
How does someone telling you they arent voting then on the day vote indicate fraud in any way shape or form. Besides aren't you one of those banging on about how we don't need voter id as fraud is so rare.....this seems to fall in the same category.
At least be truthful the main reason you defend this is as KJH said its enormously useful to parties to know who to talk to.
He's great on the broad brush but needs a cohesive, united, utterly loyal team beneath him who decide on details with one mind and act accordingly.
Which they don't.
It people choose not to follow the advice then accept that. It is their choice!
What you’d be looking for are a stack of suspicious voters - i.e. you canvass someone and they tell you that their son is away at university in the US - if they’ve voted you wonder whether your hypothetical nefarious opponent got the same info and arranged a personation. Of course, things like that hardly ever happen, but that’s how you’d check for them, all the same.
And only if you lost by a handful of votes, of course.
Yes, the data is tremendously useful for electoral purposes. Especially once you start cross-correlating it with other data, as most modern electoral software enables you to do. For example, in my old ward, the probability that you’d vote in a local election topped 75% if you’d lived at your address for over 20 years, but was only 20% if you’d moved in since the previous election. If you’d been canvassed, or signed one of our petitions, or corresponded with your councillor in any way, the probability that you’d vote was significantly increased. Etc.
And, most basically of all, if you’re on someone’s doorstep and they tell you they never vote, when you can see that they do, or they tell you that they voted for you last time, when you can see that they didn’t, it’s useful to take into account when weighing up whatever else they may be telling you...
There is a point at which sensible policies to prevent health system meltdown and protect people shade into excessive long term control over the population. I don't subscribe to the slippery slope theory because it's perfectly possible to make balanced judgments on the risks, but we are getting to a point with population immunity levels where things will need to normalise.
Thankfully there are some stirrings in the Liberal centre / centre-left of some of the old anti-authoritarian instinct. Dislike of both left and right wing authoritarianism is one reason I joined the Lib Dems, so it was a bit worrying seeing them seem to side wholly with the indy-SAGE worldview last year. I think (hope) that was just an artefact of the chaotic early months of the government's handling of the pandemic.
Give over this is a tool for parties to only cover those they think will vote and probably does more harm than good to turnout. If they had no insight into who voted last time and had to visit all voters who knows just maybe some of the cant be arsed might get motivated.
Every election we always get outcry that your vote can be determined by the number allocated to the ballot paper. This is in fact true. Your vote is not a secret in the sense that if your ballot paper is seen anytime after you have voted it can be determined that the paper belonged to you and therefore how you voted.
The secrecy is maintained by the fact that your ballot paper can not easily be seen. Normally a judge has to order the opening of the ballot boxes after the count if there is an issue. During the count activist will be witnessing the papers being counted so in theory could work it out also, but in practice this is impossible as you only see a subset of votes and would have to memorize numbers and votes for each and every ballot paper you saw. When doing the verification part of the count this is often done upside down, much to the annoyance of the activists who are trying to do rough counts so as to determine where to put their checkers. So you only really get to see the ballot paper clearly for the main count.
In the old days cameras weren't allowed to be used during the count. I don't know about now as everyone has one and I haven't been to a count in years.
But looking at other countries, there doesn't seem to be a strong seasonality, when taking in local climates.
Why do you think the political pressures are so different in the UK?
Will this continue all the way to the Unite Leadership Election in the summer?
(Gallant is the libel lawyer.)
All parties do this, at least in marginals, and do not report personation. Marginals would be the place most vulnerable to this, so it is supportive evidence that it is marginal or nonexistent as an electoral issue.
I do very much object to political parties being handed information on whether I voted or not as it is none of their damn business. They should be trying to get me to vote for them in every election. Especially when its used for mild titillation and prurient interest by people like yourself who finds it "amusing to check up on people who said they would vote for me but didn't vote at all"
But you’re wrong on one point: verification is done paper face up, specifically to avoid anyone monitoring it seeing the ballot paper number.
Despite voter bribery/intimidation having died a death pretty soon after the secret ballot was introduced, many of our electoral practices continue on the assumption that this is the principal threat to our democracy.
Despite progressive opening up through late spring and summer cases stayed stable. They rose again in Autumn. Tellingly the big outbreaks during the summer were in places where people worked or lived in close quarters indoors: meat processing plants, sweatshops, fruit pickers' dorms.
It's very visible how differently people socialise in the warmer months in Britain - outdoors rather than in. Particularly at multi-family and mass gatherings. In other hotter climates like Brazil or Southern US it's so hot everyone stays indoors in the air con. So of course the seasonality pattern looks different. I'm not a buyer of the Vitamin D idea (though perhaps it plays a part), I think it's simply behavioural.