British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
White Stilton is an underrated classic.
I have a theory that White Stilton is actually what works best with port - nuking the taste buds with a heavy blue, then drinking a fine port seems ridiculous.
I've had white Stilton, but not with port. I'll certainly give it a try!
As a suggestion have both blue and white soliton on the cheese board. Try the white with port first. That way if you don't like the combination, you can go back to blue without missing a beat....
'Blue and white soliton' looks like a brilliant typo to unite the cheese debate with the maths/physics discussion...
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
The escaped version is virulent as fuck, so why didn't it propagate from the non biosecure spot from which it was collected rather than the lab which at least made gestures towards biosecurity, if it wasn't altered by the lab? Isn't it more likely that it acquired extra virulence in a lab whose reason for existing was to make viruses more virulent?
Hang on.
The R ratio for CV19 is not very different from SARS or MERS - the big difference with those diseases is that people got sick quicker with them, and therefore you were able to identify and quarantine carriers earlier.
Virulent by the standards of coronaviruses in general, not coronaviruses which are known to affect humans.
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Trump Derangement Syndrome being more accurately described as having the smarts and intuition to appreciate the horror and danger of the man whilst tedious complacent farts were bandying round the term Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Usually after a good, old 'I'm no fan of Trump but..' I sense the two terms in tandem are going to make a comeback, like Dollar reforming except worse.
Yes, I fear you could be right. Absence makes the heart and all. It's a truly grim prospect. But grimmer than Dollar reforming? Hmm. Tough one.
Howard Beckett, a candidate for general secretary of UNITE has tweeted this afternoon about UNITE TV, which appears to be one of his platforms, where they could, according to Mr. Beckett, be live-streaming the rebuilding of Gaza. This is, apparently, central to the class struggle. I am dead certain the members would love their subs to be spent on something so central to their needs. In other news, the tories are over 10 years into government and 10 points ahead in the polls. Nothing whatsoever to do with the focus of leaders of the Labour movement like that of Mr. Beckett being so razor sharp in what the workers need from their representatives.
It's going to depend on why. What could be correct is that the centre left vote has shifted slightly towards LD and Green for now; there is not much movement in the Tory vote. But, ignoring nationalists for a moment, this poll is Tories 43, centre left 45 and I should not be surprised if that's about right and very close to the 2019 election result. This poll may, within a point or two be OK.
I imagine Tory strategy will want to keep the three centre left parties both afloat and split. I think it would be wise to draw up a centre left deal soon, as if Tories win in 2024 you are looking at 5 in a row, and 18/19 years. At which point a centre left alliance is a forced choice I think.
But then we are back to all the familiar problems that prevent the "progressive alliance" from ever taking off:
1. Labour is the dominant party, and thinks it will win again if it just waits long enough for the pendulum to swing back in its direction. And that might even be possible. 2. Any meaningful pact will entail Labour standing aside for other parties to give them a free run in a large number of seats. This effectively involves Labour admitting to all of the following:
(a) We feel that we can never win a majority under FPTP again (in which case, the "I must vote Labour as the only party that can get rid of the Tories" crowd evaporates, and their support likely tanks a lot further) (b) We have decided to attempt to game the electoral system, with a view to changing it to something else that will suit us (and the smaller losers) better - which won't necessarily go down at all well with the public, and may also lose more voters who want to keep FPTP than the number of PR proponents that it attracts (c) We feel we need the support of the Lib Dems, Greens and the Celtic nationalists to govern. The Lib Dems they can probably get away with, but the Greens are very far left and the SNP is actively loathed by a huge chunk of the English electorate. It risks sending even more wet centrist and social conservative voters running screaming into the arms of the Tories, for fear that the alternative will be worse
3. All the parties have to agree on a wide ranging programme of constitutional reform. They're unlikely to get away with simply promising to ram through electoral reform and then call another election, as some have proposed. What method of PR should be chosen to replace FPTP? Should this be implemented based on the authority of Parliament, or should there be a referendum? And what about the structure of the country itself: will there be independence plebiscites agreed for Scotland (and possibly Wales) as part of the pact? If the UK isn't to be broken up, then what structural changes ought to be made: is there going to be a constitutional convention? Will there be federalism? Will there be one national or a number of regional parliaments for England, or none at all? Will the Barnett formula finally be replaced? What about the role of the upper house? Will any or all of this be put to a referendum? It's a minefield - and will enough of the population be willing to vote to walk into it?
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
I think that's correct:
People I know who know things about viruses are very sceptical of the strong theory. They basically say "we don't know enough about how viruses work to be able to do that".
So, the choice between "made the jump in the wild" and "accidentally escaped from the lab" is a really difficult one. The reality is that diseases jump from animals to humans all the time (AIDS, SARS, MERS, Ebola, etc.). But against that, it seems an awfully big coincidence that the place that was the epicenter of the outbreak was also the place that collected and studied these kind of viruses.
That is tantamount to saying "there is no such thing as gain of function research" when actually, there is. You don't need to know how viruses work - you can still arbitrarily tweak one and see if that makes a difference to how it behaves.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
Would add that most of my favourite cheeses seem to be French, unpastuerised ones (loads of them available at Waitrose).
Why can't I find British raw cheese?
In the Lenny Henry series Chef (a minor classic), there is an episode where he buys unpasteurised cheese. They quite carefully made it look like a drug deal, which upset some people....
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Also, to paraphrase Portia, there are a lot of people who say they want justice but might be very disappointed if they actually got it.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
United did not turn up in the Europa league final, Swansea did not turn up in today's Championship play off, so who is not going to turn up in the biggest one of all tonight, the Champions League final, Chelsea or City
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
I think that's correct:
People I know who know things about viruses are very sceptical of the strong theory. They basically say "we don't know enough about how viruses work to be able to do that".
So, the choice between "made the jump in the wild" and "accidentally escaped from the lab" is a really difficult one. The reality is that diseases jump from animals to humans all the time (AIDS, SARS, MERS, Ebola, etc.). But against that, it seems an awfully big coincidence that the place that was the epicenter of the outbreak was also the place that collected and studied these kind of viruses.
That is tantamount to saying "there is no such thing as gain of function research" when actually, there is. You don't need to know how viruses work - you can still arbitrarily tweak one and see if that makes a difference to how it behaves.
You're making exactly my point:
You can download the genotype for CV19 very easily: it comes to about 30 kilobytes - or, to put it in binary, 7.8 million on-off switches.
Let's say you can manipulate it to turn on or off 50 or 100 at a time. (Which, by the way is perfectly possible, but doing that and then creating a few million of them is an extremely expensive proposition.)
And even if you get there, you still have to test it. And viruses work by entering human cells, and then getting them to do the replicating. Given how specific CV19 is (the spike protein does the difficult entry stuff), you've got to make sure that what you create is able to still enter the cells in the human lung and make them replicate more easily.
United did not turn up in the Europa league final, Swansea did not turn up in today's Championship play off, so who is not going to turn up in the biggest one of all tonight, the Champions League final, Chelsea or City
United did not turn up in the Europa league final, Swansea did not turn up in today's Championship play off, so who is not going to turn up in the biggest one of all tonight, the Champions League final, Chelsea or City
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Covid hospital rates running lower than envisaged in any of the five Sage reopening scenarios
The likes of Christina Pagel are obsessed with how much case numbers are rising and matching “scary” models and then it appears stubbornly refusing to also look at real world data on hospitalisations/deaths vs models at the same time. She’ll still be going on about “33% protection” long after it has been superseded by the real world.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
I discovered an American "cheese" called Velveeta that features in this fine example of US cuisine:
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
White Stilton is an underrated classic.
I have a theory that White Stilton is actually what works best with port - nuking the taste buds with a heavy blue, then drinking a fine port seems ridiculous.
Please. Some of us haven't had dinner yet. Oh, the memory.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
Teaching is secure in the sense that it is difficult (though not completely impossible: having it discovered that the clear fluid in your water bottle is not actually water will do it for example) to get fired, but given that the average time teachers last before deciding to go off and do something else is about five years it's not exactly a job for life for most. There are exceptions: I've been teaching since John Major was PM for instance and there are a handful of teachers at my school who have been there even longer, but there are far more ex-teachers than current teachers out there. Having said that, I still remember the atmosphere in the staffroom on the day after they 1992 election: it was as if someone had died...
For how long have the French official death figures only been including deaths in hospitals?
Is that true?
I suppose you might want to do that if you had an election coming next year and you didn't want everyone to know if and when your Covid mortality rate passed that of Britain and Italy...?
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
I discovered an American "cheese" called Velveeta that features in this fine example of US cuisine:
Not much angle on the Champions league tonight so gone 2pts on Man C half time Man City full time at 12/5 (Redzone) and 1pt on Chelsea and Man City getting the same number of corners at a rather generous (imho) 8/1 with Skybet
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
I discovered an American "cheese" called Velveeta that features in this fine example of US cuisine:
Covid hospital rates running lower than envisaged in any of the five Sage reopening scenarios
The likes of Christina Pagel are obsessed with how much case numbers are rising and matching “scary” models and then it appears stubbornly refusing to also look at real world data on hospitalisations/deaths vs models at the same time. She’ll still be going on about “33% protection” long after it has been superseded by the real world.
As I observed recently, it looks suspiciously like a lot of the scientific community begins with the outcome that they want (as many restrictions as possible for as long as possible - some of the more extreme fruitloops have suggested in the past that masks and elements of social distancing should continue literally forever,) and then work backwards from there in their efforts to justify said outcome. It would certainly help to explain some of the more wildly inaccurate modelling attempts, and their extremely pessimistic assumptions about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
The escaped version is virulent as fuck, so why didn't it propagate from the non biosecure spot from which it was collected rather than the lab which at least made gestures towards biosecurity, if it wasn't altered by the lab? Isn't it more likely that it acquired extra virulence in a lab whose reason for existing was to make viruses more virulent?
Yes, I am now tending to the "escaped from the lab with extra nasty bits" hypothesis. Not certain, but it looks increasingly suggestive
Meanwhile the wet market hypothesis recedes into unlikeliness. As those guys I linked to, at the beginning of the thread, point out, for it to go from Yunnan to central Wuhan and jump from an animal into a person, without infecting anyone else en route, requires a lot of strange events
Moreover, a certain contradiction has been screaming at us in the face, for months. To wit:
The Zoonati are claiming it is almost impossible for a virus to escape a lab blah blah
Yet Shi Zhengli - the batwoman at the lab - has said herself "when I heard about Covid my initial reaction was OMG did it come from my lab" - then she went and checked her freezers and Wow, surprise surprise, thank God, it didn't come from her lab. Phew. Close,
So if the batwoman herself initially thought Wow it must have come from my lab, then it means it is highly plausible, in theory, that a virus can escape from a lab. And all the wet marketeers are idiots, or liars, or both
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Th point is that people (in general) will buy into policies that are universal. Applying policies through the Social Justice matrix is explicitly saying that some errr..... humans are more equal than others.
Yes - you have to lie. That's the actual point you're making. There's no magic 'everyone a winner' politics. But you can pretend there is and hope people swallow it.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
Quite. That's a wilful misinterpretation of what I actually said.
"Very useful" and "hard leftist who is likely still to have a secure job even if private business gets the shit kicked out of it in a pseudo-Marxist revolution" are not mutually exclusive states.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
The Tories can. Its called growing the pie.
Its why the party is the natural party of government.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
I'm not sure that teachers and health care workers would see their jobs as pampered and comfortable - far from it. Not so sure about train drivers, mind you.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Th point is that people (in general) will buy into policies that are universal. Applying policies through the Social Justice matrix is explicitly saying that some errr..... humans are more equal than others.
Yes - you have to lie. That's the actual point you're making. There's no magic 'everyone a winner' politics. But you can pretend there is and hope people swallow it.
For example, if someone invented an actual panacea then what would happen to all those employed by the NHS?
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
I will make it a point to study it... but if you believe you can brush antisemitism under the carpet because Corbyn has gone that's nonsense... it a de minimus to understand that that' changing the leader doesn't wipe the slate clean.. .Go away and think about why I am right.
You're wrong. The genuine antisemitism arose due to the climate he allowed to develop. The false charges of antisemitism were driven by the desire of opponents to get rid of him. Both have gone with the man. Hard lefters have departed in droves. People labelling Labour as hard left influenced or antisemitic now are either badly informed or nefariously motivated.
Oh really? So Rebecca Long Bailey etc have all been expelled from the Party? Or is she and others like her still there?
Anti-Semitism is like a cancer that spread throughout the body of the Labour Party. You can't remove a tumour like Corbyn alone and claim that it is the problem solved without removing all the mets that have spread.
That you are so quick to deny there's a problem, just as you were quick to deny it while Corbyn was there too, turning a blind eye to those left show you haven't learnt anything. 👀
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
I think that's correct:
People I know who know things about viruses are very sceptical of the strong theory. They basically say "we don't know enough about how viruses work to be able to do that".
So, the choice between "made the jump in the wild" and "accidentally escaped from the lab" is a really difficult one. The reality is that diseases jump from animals to humans all the time (AIDS, SARS, MERS, Ebola, etc.). But against that, it seems an awfully big coincidence that the place that was the epicenter of the outbreak was also the place that collected and studied these kind of viruses.
The people who are Meant to Know These Things have been telling us it came from the wet market FOR SURE for over a year. They are clueless or mendacious
One other question on the "man made virus" theory: if the Chinese are so good at this, how come there is no Chinese mRNA vaccine?
Because making a replica spike protein with mRNA is childs play compared to altering a virus in a lab to make it more virulent.
"Dr. Shi [of the Wuhan lab] has publicly described doing experiments, including in 2018 and 2019, to see if various bat coronaviruses could use a certain spike protein on their surfaces to bind to an enzyme in human cells known as ACE2. That is how both the SARS virus and SARS-CoV-2 infect humans.
Those experiments involved combining one bat coronavirus with the spike protein of another and then infecting mice genetically engineered to contain human ACE2, Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team in February, according to its report."
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
I'm not sure that teachers and health care workers would see their jobs as pampered and comfortable - far from it. Not so sure about train drivers, mind you.
I'm sure you can find plenty of examples in those fields. GPs pay, for example.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
I'm not sure that teachers and health care workers would see their jobs as pampered and comfortable - far from it. Not so sure about train drivers, mind you.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
Quite. That's a wilful misinterpretation of what I actually said.
"Very useful" and "hard leftist who is likely still to have a secure job even if private business gets the shit kicked out of it in a pseudo-Marxist revolution" are not mutually exclusive states.
You said "pampered and comfortable leftists", didn't you? I don't think health care workers or teachers would agree. Train drivers probably wouldn't either.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
Would add that most of my favourite cheeses seem to be French, unpastuerised ones (loads of them available at Waitrose).
Why can't I find British raw cheese?
In the Lenny Henry series Chef (a minor classic), there is an episode where he buys unpasteurised cheese. They quite carefully made it look like a drug deal, which upset some people....
How strange. I was trying to recall that very episode yesterday when my partner was offered some unpasteurised milk. Thinking the show was called "Whites" didn't help.
Whites was the Alan Davies chef series. Chef was the Lenny Henry chef series.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Th point is that people (in general) will buy into policies that are universal. Applying policies through the Social Justice matrix is explicitly saying that some errr..... humans are more equal than others.
Yes - you have to lie. That's the actual point you're making. There's no magic 'everyone a winner' politics. But you can pretend there is and hope people swallow it.
No. Take the state pension. Everyone knows that everyone gets the same. So to ex-bankers, it is coffee money. To ex-barristas, it's worth more than that.
The point is the universality - the same rules apply to everyone.
Another example is income tax - even though it is progressive in rates. The same rules apply to everyone.
If you have a special income tax rate for one-legged Yezidi with green hair (or something) then you start to divide the community into tribes of special interests.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
Quite. That's a wilful misinterpretation of what I actually said.
"Very useful" and "hard leftist who is likely still to have a secure job even if private business gets the shit kicked out of it in a pseudo-Marxist revolution" are not mutually exclusive states.
You said "pampered and comfortable leftists", didn't you? I don't think health care workers or teachers would agree. Train drivers probably wouldn't either.
Given what train drivers earn (about £55k according to a quick Google search) I think most health care workers and teachers would agree that train drivers are indeed pampered...
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Th point is that people (in general) will buy into policies that are universal. Applying policies through the Social Justice matrix is explicitly saying that some errr..... humans are more equal than others.
Yes - you have to lie. That's the actual point you're making. There's no magic 'everyone a winner' politics. But you can pretend there is and hope people swallow it.
For example, if someone invented an actual panacea then what would happen to all those employed by the NHS?
I am trying the remember the SF novel set in the UK - a rather authoritarian government gives people nanite based eternal life (with self repair). In return you lose your benefits. Including pension. Work forever....
Covid hospital rates running lower than envisaged in any of the five Sage reopening scenarios
The likes of Christina Pagel are obsessed with how much case numbers are rising and matching “scary” models and then it appears stubbornly refusing to also look at real world data on hospitalisations/deaths vs models at the same time. She’ll still be going on about “33% protection” long after it has been superseded by the real world.
As I observed recently, it looks suspiciously like a lot of the scientific community begins with the outcome that they want (as many restrictions as possible for as long as possible - some of the more extreme fruitloops have suggested in the past that masks and elements of social distancing should continue literally forever,) and then work backwards from there in their efforts to justify said outcome. It would certainly help to explain some of the more wildly inaccurate modelling attempts, and their extremely pessimistic assumptions about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
The number of people is academia who believe that they are Philosopher Guardians that Plato spoke of, but actually just have feet of clay....
They are generally blind to the fact that their *views and beliefs* are not scientific facts.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
Would add that most of my favourite cheeses seem to be French, unpastuerised ones (loads of them available at Waitrose).
Why can't I find British raw cheese?
In the Lenny Henry series Chef (a minor classic), there is an episode where he buys unpasteurised cheese. They quite carefully made it look like a drug deal, which upset some people....
How strange. I was trying to recall that very episode yesterday when my partner was offered some unpasteurised milk. Thinking the show was called "Whites" didn't help.
Whites was the Alan Davies chef series. Chef was the Lenny Henry chef series.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Th point is that people (in general) will buy into policies that are universal. Applying policies through the Social Justice matrix is explicitly saying that some errr..... humans are more equal than others.
Yes - you have to lie. That's the actual point you're making. There's no magic 'everyone a winner' politics. But you can pretend there is and hope people swallow it.
For example, if someone invented an actual panacea then what would happen to all those employed by the NHS?
I am trying the remember the SF novel set in the UK - a rather authoritarian government gives people nanite based eternal life (with self repair). In return you lose your benefits. Including pension. Work forever....
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
To be fair that's a task most teachers struggle with.
We have a significant number of teachers who are part time. Guess which day off is most requested?
Edit: To answer you more substantive point: I think lockdown showed that we could automate a lot of teaching IF we were prepared for about 50% of pupils to effectively drop out, unable to self-motivate enough to gain from online lessons. A smaller but significant number might actually do better...
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
{Scene - the near future}
AI Robot - "So, we have the equation s = ut + 0.5at2...."
{wasp enters stage left.... AI Robot fires nano scale flechette at mach 16... wasp evaporates with pretty sparkles}
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Th point is that people (in general) will buy into policies that are universal. Applying policies through the Social Justice matrix is explicitly saying that some errr..... humans are more equal than others.
Yes - you have to lie. That's the actual point you're making. There's no magic 'everyone a winner' politics. But you can pretend there is and hope people swallow it.
For example, if someone invented an actual panacea then what would happen to all those employed by the NHS?
I am trying the remember the SF novel set in the UK - a rather authoritarian government gives people nanite based eternal life (with self repair). In return you lose your benefits. Including pension. Work forever....
Was it called Britannia Unchained?
No... have a feeling it was one of the Scottish chaps...
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
I would suspect the use of online teaching during this time has hastened the day. The only real issue (apart from for the teachers) is the kids cannot be left at home unattended.
It is entirely possible that cubicle based online learning may not be too far away.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
I'm not sure that teachers and health care workers would see their jobs as pampered and comfortable - far from it. Not so sure about train drivers, mind you.
I'm sure you can find plenty of examples in those fields. GPs pay, for example.
If you look at your GP's web site, it will show (presumably following some hamfisted government diktat) the average earnings of the doctors, but with no information or adjustment for how many days are worked by each quack: just blind averaging of full and part-time doctors, trainees and fully-qualified, salaried and partner.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Ran out of other people's money to spend.
Just had "grow the pie" and now this.
Is it Tory Cliché night?
The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication
Until furlough ends fully and we see the economic impact of any spending cuts and tax rises and the post Brexit trade deals we will not fully be able to see where the land lies.
Voters clearly felt the government locked down too late last year but the success of the vaccination programme this year has boosted its reputation on the handling of the Covid pandemic
As I have repeatedly said, the Government had a good start to the crisis, a very poor middle and an excellent end.
Which they would probably have settled for. A very poor end to a crisis is not the way you want to be remembered....
Gee. I don't wish to contemplate what a bad start would have looked like then.
The government was initially very good at getting the public on board, recognising they had to wash hands, stay home, save the NHS.
And then Cummings fired the starting the pistol for the middle of the crisis, by travelling to Barnard Castle.
And then got his arse fired for being mean about Carrie. Which, coincidentally, fired the gun to set the Massive National Jab Machine in motion - and the route out of the clutches of this Bastard Bug
I prefer an American Football timeline. Poor 1st qtr. Coach asleep on the bus. Strong 2nd qtr. Makes the dugout and manages to belatedly call the right play. Dire 3rd qtr. Loses all focus, things on the pitch go to hell in a handbasket. Storming 4th and final qtr. Late and super expensive signing - Victor Vax - sent on and damn near turns the game.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
Quite. That's a wilful misinterpretation of what I actually said.
"Very useful" and "hard leftist who is likely still to have a secure job even if private business gets the shit kicked out of it in a pseudo-Marxist revolution" are not mutually exclusive states.
You said "pampered and comfortable leftists", didn't you? I don't think health care workers or teachers would agree. Train drivers probably wouldn't either.
You suggested that I thought they were useless. I don't.
I will withdraw "pampered", but certainly not "comfortable." When you have a secure income and a pension plan, that's basically guaranteed for so long as you want it provided that you don't commit professional misconduct, then you are more comfortable than most workers today. There are vast numbers of people working in minimum wage, insecure crap jobs who are far more likely to end up unemployed through the actions of the kind of far left Government that many of the major public sector trades unions would like to see installed. Ditto better off, salaried workers who nonetheless find themselves at risk of the sack every time their employer drafts in new management with new ideas, or is taken over by private equity asset strippers, or is simply forced into retrenchment with each new recessionary event.
There are a lot of people in the unionized public sector who are both very socialist and appreciate that they are privileged in this fashion, and therefore feel comfortable about the notion of inflicting dangerous experiments on the rest of the country, the likely consequences of which they know they'll be insulated from themselves. A little bit like all those luvvies in acting and music who used to support Corbyn - safe in the knowledge that they could afford to move themselves, their careers and their money to New York for a few years if and when it all went to shit.
If the country were to suffer an episode of very high taxation and regulation that precipitated a collapse in business confidence and an unemployment spike, then just about the last heads to go on the chopping block would be those of core public sector workers like schoolteachers and hospital doctors - who are also amongst the groups disproportionately likely to have voted for that outcome. That's all.
Covid hospital rates running lower than envisaged in any of the five Sage reopening scenarios
The likes of Christina Pagel are obsessed with how much case numbers are rising and matching “scary” models and then it appears stubbornly refusing to also look at real world data on hospitalisations/deaths vs models at the same time. She’ll still be going on about “33% protection” long after it has been superseded by the real world.
As I observed recently, it looks suspiciously like a lot of the scientific community begins with the outcome that they want (as many restrictions as possible for as long as possible - some of the more extreme fruitloops have suggested in the past that masks and elements of social distancing should continue literally forever,) and then work backwards from there in their efforts to justify said outcome. It would certainly help to explain some of the more wildly inaccurate modelling attempts, and their extremely pessimistic assumptions about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
This extremely unfair. There are indeed a few with extreme views -- both vehemently pro- and anti-lockdown -- who argue backwards from the conclusion. They have a loud voice because they tend to appear in the media often, and they reflect badly on everyone else. But the vast majority of scientists are trying to weigh the evidence as best they can; the very best are comfortable with recognizing that the answers to some important questions are not yet known (which is I believe the case at the moment) but nobody wants to interview them. Or they are ridiculed for giving a wide range of predictions, when this merely reflects genuine lack of evidence.
I've also been irritated by some posters saying that scientists need to be "put back in their box". I wonder what box they think we should live in. One where we aren't allowed to say things that disagree with *their* preconceptions, perhaps?
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
{Scene - the near future}
AI Robot - "So, we have the equation s = ut + 0.5at2...."
{wasp enters stage left.... AI Robot fires nano scale flechette at mach 16... wasp evaporates with pretty sparkles}
{9Z gulp collectively, then write furiously}
I knew teachers who could do that with a bit of chalk...
When I was at primary school one of the teachers was a Polish guy who had been a commando in WW2. Rumour was he knew how to kill in thirteen different ways, none of which left a mark.
He wasn't someone who had any discipline problems.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
I would suspect the use of online teaching during this time has hastened the day. The only real issue (apart from for the teachers) is the kids cannot be left at home unattended.
It is entirely possible that cubicle based online learning may not be too far away.
As I said (in an edit) upthread: I think lockdown showed that we could automate a lot of teaching IF we were prepared for about 50% of pupils to effectively drop out, unable to self-motivate enough to gain from online lessons. A smaller but significant number might actually do better...
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Ran out of other people's money to spend.
Just had "grow the pie" and now this.
Is it Tory Cliché night?
The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication
Well I'm for the many not the few. And when we put our minds to it there's nothing this country cannot do. Our best days lie ahead. I truly believe that.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
I would suspect the use of online teaching during this time has hastened the day. The only real issue (apart from for the teachers) is the kids cannot be left at home unattended.
It is entirely possible that cubicle based online learning may not be too far away.
As I said (in an edit) upthread: I think lockdown showed that we could automate a lot of teaching IF we were prepared for about 50% of pupils to effectively drop out, unable to self-motivate enough to gain from online lessons. A smaller but significant number might actually do better...
Haven’t seen that. A very interesting perspective. Thank you.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
I'm not sure they said those jobs were useless.
Quite. That's a wilful misinterpretation of what I actually said.
"Very useful" and "hard leftist who is likely still to have a secure job even if private business gets the shit kicked out of it in a pseudo-Marxist revolution" are not mutually exclusive states.
You said "pampered and comfortable leftists", didn't you? I don't think health care workers or teachers would agree. Train drivers probably wouldn't either.
You suggested that I thought they were useless. I don't.
I will withdraw "pampered", but certainly not "comfortable." When you have a secure income and a pension plan, that's basically guaranteed for so long as you want it provided that you don't commit professional misconduct, then you are more comfortable than most workers today. There are vast numbers of people working in minimum wage, insecure crap jobs who are far more likely to end up unemployed through the actions of the kind of far left Government that many of the major public sector trades unions would like to see installed. Ditto better off, salaried workers who nonetheless find themselves at risk of the sack every time their employer drafts in new management with new ideas, or is taken over by private equity asset strippers, or is simply forced into retrenchment with each new recessionary event.
There are a lot of people in the unionized public sector who are both very socialist and appreciate that they are privileged in this fashion, and therefore feel comfortable about the notion of inflicting dangerous experiments on the rest of the country, the likely consequences of which they know they'll be insulated from themselves. A little bit like all those luvvies in acting and music who used to support Corbyn - safe in the knowledge that they could afford to move themselves, their careers and their money to New York for a few years if and when it all went to shit.
If the country were to suffer an episode of very high taxation and regulation that precipitated a collapse in business confidence and an unemployment spike, then just about the last heads to go on the chopping block would be those of core public sector workers like schoolteachers and hospital doctors - who are also amongst the groups disproportionately likely to have voted for that outcome. That's all.
To be fair, a good recession is great for teacher recruitment...
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Ran out of other people's money to spend.
Just had "grow the pie" and now this.
Is it Tory Cliché night?
The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication
Well I'm for the many not the few. And when we put our minds to it there's nothing this country cannot do. Our best days lie ahead. I truly believe that.
"I’m not saying that the UAP/UFO stuff is Extraterrestrial alien. I am saying that we’re being *told* it’s Extraterrestrial alien in a game.
The game: we present a mystery (UFOs) and then take away all but one option. If you guess *anything* but Extraterrestrial alien, we tell you it is de facto been ruled out.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Like commercial nuclear fusion. Always in sight but as likely to happen as Sisyphus getting his ball to the top of the slope.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Besides which, the Union movement is not what it once was and is weighted heavily towards the public sector (i.e. largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains.) This is reflected in the existence of Corbyn-friendly leadership figures like McCluskey. They might simply decide that, if the electoral situation is hopeless, they've nothing left to lose by going for another Corbyn figure whom (i) will be far more to their liking and (ii) might just do a little better than 2017 (they fervently hope,) under the right conditions, and knock out the Tories.
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
largely pampered, comfortable leftists in very secure employment like teaching, healthcare and driving trains
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Train drivers will probably be the first of those to be made redundant by tech, with teachers and doctors fighting for second. Nurses will last the longest I expect.
Teachers will be fine until there is an AI that can keep 9Z attentive on a windy Friday afternoon. When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
{Scene - the near future}
AI Robot - "So, we have the equation s = ut + 0.5at2...."
{wasp enters stage left.... AI Robot fires nano scale flechette at mach 16... wasp evaporates with pretty sparkles}
{9Z gulp collectively, then write furiously}
I knew teachers who could do that with a bit of chalk...
When I was at primary school one of the teachers was a Polish guy who had been a commando in WW2. Rumour was he knew how to kill in thirteen different ways, none of which left a mark.
He wasn't someone who had any discipline problems.
When I was at secondary school one of the teachers was a rather attractive even if middle aged woman. Rumour was it that she was in pornography when she was younger.
She wasn't someone who had any discipline problems.
Comments
I am dead certain the members would love their subs to be spent on something so central to their needs.
In other news, the tories are over 10 years into government and 10 points ahead in the polls. Nothing whatsoever to do with the focus of leaders of the Labour movement like that of Mr. Beckett being so razor sharp in what the workers need from their representatives.
1. Labour is the dominant party, and thinks it will win again if it just waits long enough for the pendulum to swing back in its direction. And that might even be possible.
2. Any meaningful pact will entail Labour standing aside for other parties to give them a free run in a large number of seats. This effectively involves Labour admitting to all of the following:
(a) We feel that we can never win a majority under FPTP again (in which case, the "I must vote Labour as the only party that can get rid of the Tories" crowd evaporates, and their support likely tanks a lot further)
(b) We have decided to attempt to game the electoral system, with a view to changing it to something else that will suit us (and the smaller losers) better - which won't necessarily go down at all well with the public, and may also lose more voters who want to keep FPTP than the number of PR proponents that it attracts
(c) We feel we need the support of the Lib Dems, Greens and the Celtic nationalists to govern. The Lib Dems they can probably get away with, but the Greens are very far left and the SNP is actively loathed by a huge chunk of the English electorate. It risks sending even more wet centrist and social conservative voters running screaming into the arms of the Tories, for fear that the alternative will be worse
3. All the parties have to agree on a wide ranging programme of constitutional reform. They're unlikely to get away with simply promising to ram through electoral reform and then call another election, as some have proposed. What method of PR should be chosen to replace FPTP? Should this be implemented based on the authority of Parliament, or should there be a referendum? And what about the structure of the country itself: will there be independence plebiscites agreed for Scotland (and possibly Wales) as part of the pact? If the UK isn't to be broken up, then what structural changes ought to be made: is there going to be a constitutional convention? Will there be federalism? Will there be one national or a number of regional parliaments for England, or none at all? Will the Barnett formula finally be replaced? What about the role of the upper house? Will any or all of this be put to a referendum? It's a minefield - and will enough of the population be willing to vote to walk into it?
... a month after it gets here.
It's what first made me want to try raw cheese
(Although, quite possibly, not as delighted as your good self!)
Quite how what remains of the PLP will react to such circumstances may only be guessed at.
https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1398629922319618052
Covid hospital rates running lower than envisaged in any of the five Sage reopening scenarios
You can download the genotype for CV19 very easily: it comes to about 30 kilobytes - or, to put it in binary, 7.8 million on-off switches.
Let's say you can manipulate it to turn on or off 50 or 100 at a time. (Which, by the way is perfectly possible, but doing that and then creating a few million of them is an extremely expensive proposition.)
And even if you get there, you still have to test it. And viruses work by entering human cells, and then getting them to do the replicating. Given how specific CV19 is (the spike protein does the difficult entry stuff), you've got to make sure that what you create is able to still enter the cells in the human lung and make them replicate more easily.
That's a non-trivial challenge.
Mock the Week from yesterday https://youtube.com/watch?v=MN7ynsc3DqI
Equal opportunity roasting of politicians from all sides.
Highlight joke from Dara - we would have scored more than zero points if we’d entered Martin Bashir, singing ‘Candle in the Wind’.
https://twitter.com/GAZELLIO/status/1398644668729118724
and is backed up my by the heat map here:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=Bolton
https://twitter.com/wuankidd/status/1397331181847392261
Because making a replica spike protein with mRNA is childs play compared to altering a virus in a lab to make it more virulent.
Having said that, I still remember the atmosphere in the staffroom on the day after they 1992 election: it was as if someone had died...
I suppose you might want to do that if you had an election coming next year and you didn't want everyone to know if and when your Covid mortality rate passed that of Britain and Italy...?
Quite right, pampered leftists in useless public sector jobs. I mean, what on earth is the point of having teachers, doctors and nurses, and train drivers? Sack them all, I say.
Meanwhile the wet market hypothesis recedes into unlikeliness. As those guys I linked to, at the beginning of the thread, point out, for it to go from Yunnan to central Wuhan and jump from an animal into a person, without infecting anyone else en route, requires a lot of strange events
Moreover, a certain contradiction has been screaming at us in the face, for months. To wit:
The Zoonati are claiming it is almost impossible for a virus to escape a lab blah blah
Yet Shi Zhengli - the batwoman at the lab - has said herself "when I heard about Covid my initial reaction was OMG did it come from my lab" - then she went and checked her freezers and Wow, surprise surprise, thank God, it didn't come from her lab. Phew. Close,
So if the batwoman herself initially thought Wow it must have come from my lab, then it means it is highly plausible, in theory, that a virus can escape from a lab. And all the wet marketeers are idiots, or liars, or both
Started on bud but now switched to red wine (merlot)
"Very useful" and "hard leftist who is likely still to have a secure job even if private business gets the shit kicked out of it in a pseudo-Marxist revolution" are not mutually exclusive states.
Anti-Semitism is like a cancer that spread throughout the body of the Labour Party. You can't remove a tumour like Corbyn alone and claim that it is the problem solved without removing all the mets that have spread.
That you are so quick to deny there's a problem, just as you were quick to deny it while Corbyn was there too, turning a blind eye to those left show you haven't learnt anything. 👀
Those experiments involved combining one bat coronavirus with the spike protein of another and then infecting mice genetically engineered to contain human ACE2, Dr. Shi told the WHO-led team in February, according to its report."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/wuhan-lab-leak-question-chinese-mine-covid-pandemic-11621871125
The Chinese may or may not be good at it, but they are certainly giving it a go.
They weren't fussed about vaccines because they didn't foresee the virus being released in China.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9632763/Boris-Johnson-Carrie-Symonds-wed-secret-Bank-Holiday-ceremony-Westminster-Cathedral.html
The point is the universality - the same rules apply to everyone.
Another example is income tax - even though it is progressive in rates. The same rules apply to everyone.
If you have a special income tax rate for one-legged Yezidi with green hair (or something) then you start to divide the community into tribes of special interests.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1398716018139320327?s=19
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8776615/TALK-TOWN-Speculation-mounts-Boris-Carrie-opt-Catholic-ceremony.html
Speculation is mounting that Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds may opt for a Catholic ceremony when they eventually tie the knot.
The Catholic Herald and religious magazine The Tablet report that the couple will honour Carrie's faith.
They are generally blind to the fact that their *views and beliefs* are not scientific facts.
When there's a wasp in the room.
Fortunate teachers.
(Serious point: some jobs are automatable, others don't seem to be. One of the problems for the public sector is that it gets lumbered with the sort of jobs where there aren't huge, order of magnitude, efficiency gains to be had.)
Is it Tory Cliché night?
We have a significant number of teachers who are part time. Guess which day off is most requested?
Edit:
To answer you more substantive point: I think lockdown showed that we could automate a lot of teaching IF we were prepared for about 50% of pupils to effectively drop out, unable to self-motivate enough to gain from online lessons.
A smaller but significant number might actually do better...
AI Robot - "So, we have the equation s = ut + 0.5at2...."
{wasp enters stage left.... AI Robot fires nano scale flechette at mach 16... wasp evaporates with pretty sparkles}
{9Z gulp collectively, then write furiously}
It is entirely possible that cubicle based online learning may not be too far away.
https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/other-doctors-pay-scales/salaried-gps-pay-ranges
If you look at your GP's web site, it will show (presumably following some hamfisted government diktat) the average earnings of the doctors, but with no information or adjustment for how many days are worked by each quack: just blind averaging of full and part-time doctors, trainees and fully-qualified, salaried and partner.
I will withdraw "pampered", but certainly not "comfortable." When you have a secure income and a pension plan, that's basically guaranteed for so long as you want it provided that you don't commit professional misconduct, then you are more comfortable than most workers today. There are vast numbers of people working in minimum wage, insecure crap jobs who are far more likely to end up unemployed through the actions of the kind of far left Government that many of the major public sector trades unions would like to see installed. Ditto better off, salaried workers who nonetheless find themselves at risk of the sack every time their employer drafts in new management with new ideas, or is taken over by private equity asset strippers, or is simply forced into retrenchment with each new recessionary event.
There are a lot of people in the unionized public sector who are both very socialist and appreciate that they are privileged in this fashion, and therefore feel comfortable about the notion of inflicting dangerous experiments on the rest of the country, the likely consequences of which they know they'll be insulated from themselves. A little bit like all those luvvies in acting and music who used to support Corbyn - safe in the knowledge that they could afford to move themselves, their careers and their money to New York for a few years if and when it all went to shit.
If the country were to suffer an episode of very high taxation and regulation that precipitated a collapse in business confidence and an unemployment spike, then just about the last heads to go on the chopping block would be those of core public sector workers like schoolteachers and hospital doctors - who are also amongst the groups disproportionately likely to have voted for that outcome. That's all.
I've also been irritated by some posters saying that scientists need to be "put back in their box". I wonder what box they think we should live in. One where we aren't allowed to say things that disagree with *their* preconceptions, perhaps?
--AS
When I was at primary school one of the teachers was a Polish guy who had been a commando in WW2. Rumour was he knew how to kill in thirteen different ways, none of which left a mark.
He wasn't someone who had any discipline problems.
A smaller but significant number might actually do better...
Few: Labour.
You cool with that?
"I’m not saying that the UAP/UFO stuff is Extraterrestrial alien. I am saying that we’re being *told* it’s Extraterrestrial alien in a game.
The game: we present a mystery (UFOs) and then take away all but one option. If you guess *anything* but Extraterrestrial alien, we tell you it is de facto been ruled out.
Guess Extraterrestrial alien, and we shrug"
https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1398455298411565057?s=20
“Opinium were, of course, etc etc...”
She wasn't someone who had any discipline problems.