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Will the controls all be lifted on June 21st? Now there’s a betting market – politicalbetting.com
Will the controls all be lifted on June 21st? Now there’s a betting market – politicalbetting.com
There is little doubt that the big political story between now and June 21st when the final COVID controls are due to be lifted will be whether there will be a deferment. Smarkets have now got a betting market up with deferment currently at 1.51 and the timetable being followed at 2.26. These are the rules:
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And smarkets both trade the market for themselves and decide which way to settle an ambiguous situation.
Better than Hamilton.
An excellent list of top British tucker. I salute you
Many still mock, in far flung lands, but Britain has a great wealth of native food and drink, from London dry gin (the gin and tonic!) to a perfect Stilton
I have a theory that we feel unnecessarily self conscious about our food because we are neighbours to Spain, Italy and France, three of the greatest cuisines in the world. We compare ourselves and feel inadequate (wrongly, especially now), but that is our psychological inheritance
You can see the same in reverse. French people are still self-conscious about their popular music. They deem it as inadequate, but theirs, and this is in part because they are neighbours to the UK, which has (until recently) probably had the best popular music in the world, bar maybe America
British music is not what it was, nor is French food and wine
Wont supermarkets, as only one example, be able to require mask wearing to continue for a while if they want to ?
Was Donald Trump wearing his pants BACKWARDS at rally? Former president's unusual attire drives critics wild as they joke he's entered the 'no-fly zone' and sparks comparisons to 90s hip-hop duo Kriss Kross
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9657667/Was-Donald-Trump-wearing-pants-BACKWARDS-rally.html
Another perhaps strange legal case. A gender critical feminist activist charged with alleged hate crime in Scotland wrt transgender / gay people, under the Malicious Communciations Act.
As far as I can see, it relates to an allegedly hateful tweet or two, but seems potentially to involve a picture of a pink 'suffragette' ribbon on twitter being mistaken for a picture of a noose, and a complaint being made.
The name of the person charged is Marion Millar.
I won't say any more here beyond this bare summary due to the no comment on live legal action policy, but one to watch.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland/mid2019april2020localauthoritydistrictcodes/ukmidyearestimates20192020ladcodes.xls
Still better than Hamilton.
One of the main virologists defending the "natural origins" thesis is K G Anderson
Weirdly enough, he mentioned a possible "engineered" aspect to the virus to Anthony Fauci, in a FOIA'd email back in January 2020. Four days later he was on board with natural zoonosis, 100%, with no obvious data interim to change his mind. Why?
Who knows. But ever since he has been furiously denouncing "lab leak" and presenting concepts for "wet market" - or whatever
Until this week. For the last few hours he has been deleting tweets en masse, and now he has deleted his entire account, as citizen journalists probe what he has said
It's a cover up. It came from the lab. Enough
"Kristian G. Anderson in a January 31, 2020 email to Anthony Fauci:
“…Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”
The hypocrisy of these people is simply stunning."
https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1400107600889319424?s=20
Zero covid loons: "That can't be right"
But, that doesn’t mean our food is bad.
I believe is what she now claims.
It is anyway harder for government business managers to play the “be loyal to the government” card when it is led by Boris Johnson, a man with his own revolting history. The government has a choice to make. It can obdurately refuse to budge, at the risk of a humiliating defeat on Monday, or it can decide to retreat with as much dignity as it can muster.
The compromise that the rebels would accept is a cast-iron commitment to restore the aid budget from next year. The alternative is for the prime minister and chancellor to insist on trying to carry on with cuts that are as unnecessary and indefensible as they are damaging to the poorest people on the planet, Britain’s influence in the world and our global reputation.
Snoopes.com - No, Trump Did Not Wear His Pants Backwards at Rally
You asked, so we watched the 90-minute speech.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-wear-pants-backwards/
They are by far the biggest stories of the moment, dwarfing even the chances of the Lib Dems in Batley and Spen!
If a lab leak is proved (at least beyond reasonable doubt), it could cause a Cold War: China v the West. Even a Hot War
If aliens are here, human civilisation is upended
I suspect both have some betting implications
Personally, I would like to see Chinese wet markets closed down. They are an offence against animals, and particularly against threatened species. If the Chinese were serious then they should do that.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9658009/Ollie-Robinson-suspended-international-cricket.html
No wonder some people now have an approach of never apologising for anything. 10 years ago, you lose your job, you rebuild your career, you play for England, it comes back up again, you say sorry, and they throw you under the bus.
Professor Sunetra Gupta: Neil Ferguson should debate lockdown with me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgF5kmoEdI
Pre-Covid, 2019, if you walked into:
A British gastropub
A French bistro
A foodie Spanish taverna
An Italian trattoria
Which would feed you best?
Hard to say. The Brits would do OK, for sure.
But Covid has changed everything, so we wait and see the new landscape
They’re nothing more than scatological juvenilia.
If Ollie can be cancelled, anyone can.
We just have to do it and if over 50s unvaccinated die then it's a consequence of their own stupidity.
It's been barely 6 months since the first vaccination was administered in the UK so the logistical triumph is clear for all to see.
However, advance three or four months and what are September/October looking like? It seems inconceivable Covid will disappear and as summer ends and life returns indoors, the threat of a renewed wave of the virus is obvious.
Will this matter? Not if those vaccinated continue to be afforded high levels of protection but we don't know if that will be the case so the Government has purchased enough additional vaccinations to give everyone a third vaccination in the autumn.
I presume there is a lot of monitoring of the efficacy of the various vaccines - by October, there will be other vaccines available - will we see, for example, those with Pfizer continuing to enjoy high levels of protection while those with AZ will be less well off and might need a booster either of AZ or of J&J or Moderna or some other vaccine?
None of this is an argument for a re-imposition of restrictions per se - the only rationale would be a variant or new virus against which all current vaccines are ineffective. It's plausible but unlikely. I could envisage, if it were shown those with AZ for example were seeing their levels of protection diminish, a prioritised programme of booster vaccinations beginning in the autumn.
The sooner they are closed the better.
Apologies for raising the W-word on what appears to have otherwise been an evening free from the war-on-Woke but this article from Friday's Guardian got me thinking and is, I feel, well worth a read.
The paradox it highlights is that Britain is a fundamentally conservative country, usually run by Conservative govenments, and yet over the past 70 years social attitudes have tranformed dramatically in a most un-conservative direction. Maybe it doesn't really matter what hue of government we elect?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/04/history-conservatives-social-change-britain
A new report, in perhaps the most thorough soul-searching done by either party this year, points to an urgent need for the party to present a positive economic agenda and rebut Republican misinformation.
. . . . A review of the 2020 election, conducted by several prominent Democratic advocacy groups, has concluded that the party is at risk of losing ground with Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters unless it does a better job presenting an economic agenda and countering Republican efforts to spread misinformation and tie all Democratic candidates to the far left.
The 73-page report, obtained by The New York Times, was assembled at the behest of three major Democratic interest groups: Third Way, a centrist think tank, and the Collective PAC and the Latino Victory Fund, which promote Black and Hispanic candidates. It appears to be the most thorough act of self-criticism carried out by Democrats or Republicans after the last campaign.
The document is all the more striking because it is addressed to a victorious party: Despite their successes, Democrats had hoped to achieve more robust control of both chambers of Congress, rather than the ultra-precarious margins they enjoy.
In part, the study found, Democrats fell short of their aspirations because many House and Senate candidates failed to match Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s support with voters of color who loathed Mr. Trump but distrusted the Democratic Party as a whole. Those constituencies included Hispanic voters in Florida and Texas, Vietnamese American and Filipino American voters in California, and Black voters in North Carolina.
Overall, the report warns, Democrats in 2020 lacked a core argument about the economy and recovering from the coronavirus pandemic — one that might have helped candidates repel Republican claims that they wanted to “keep the economy shut down,” or worse. The party “leaned too heavily on ‘anti-Trump’ rhetoric,” the report concludes.
“Win or lose, self-described progressive or moderate, Democrats consistently raised a lack of strong Democratic Party brand as a significant concern in 2020,” the report states. “In the absence of strong party branding, the opposition latched on to G.O.P. talking points, suggesting our candidates would ‘burn down your house and take away the police.’”
SSI2 - here is link to the actual report (not sure if it is also behind paywall)
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/2020-postelection-analysis/871b6e27d1b7c544/full.pdf
I believe one of his Asian team mates came out when all this blew up and said he been nothing but a top bloke since he played here.
I shan't bore PBers understandably obsessed with the recent polling in Bodmin West, and a possible shift of Mebyon Kernow to fifth place to fourth, BUT the latest news on Lab Leak suggest Anthony Fauci might go to jail
However, on the main thrust of your question the ongoing Moderna long term trial shows that the Moderna vaccine (and likely Pfizer and probably AZ with our 8-12 week dosing gap) gives very high levels of immunity for 10 months at least if not much longer.
If we let the zero COVID idiots win this time then we'll never get out from under. Every time we get close to freedom day they'll come up with some new garbage models and keep everyone locked up. They're authoritarians who want to impose their love of lockdowns on the rest of us. If they want to stay at home and wear masks all the time that's their business. Now that the over 50s are almost all double jabbed the reason for keeping any restrictions are over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
We have in many ways been remarkably lucky with Covid; the fatality rate could be a lot worse with the next pandemic.
"Now then lads, calm it down....."
What SARS-CoV-2 might do in the future, 5, 10 or 20 years ahead is be possibly something like the common cold.
The issue with SARS-CoV-2 was its novel nature, meaning we had no immunity. Once everyone has immunity to it, then it might become like a general circulating common cold coronavirus, that people get exposed to first normally when young so they don't get especially ill from it.
A really bad pandemic would be a different virus not this one, but would have many of the features of this one: novel (so no immunity), asymptomatic transmission, period of high infectivity before onset of symptoms etc - but combined with a more lethal impact if caught.
On the other hand if it was more lethal, then people would probably lock down harder and faster than happened this time.
The Tweeter who forwards it is prone to conspiracy theories, but if you ban people from talking about entirely plausible shit, you are forced to rely on the lunatics for information. That's what happens when you censor
https://twitter.com/LHatesYouALot/status/1401577063866327044?s=20
For example, homosexuality and abortion were legalised under Wilson's Labour government and contraception also made available on the NHS under Labour then too and civil partnerships came in under the Blair government and even gay marriage came in only under a Tory-LD coalition government with most Tory MPs voting against.
Tories may come to accept social change but as conservatives they do not drive it.
It is also Labour councils leading consultations on removing statues for being unwoke, not Tory ones and this Tory government is also trying to restrict their ability to do so
Our kids know that saying anything beyond bland nods to convention is something that is oral, not written, it will be a lesser society as a result as bland conformism or the right sort of (conformist) rebellion are the corporate choices,
Defoe (or Hazlitt) once said that there were a hundred thousand stout country-fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse
Its said that Moderna's mRNA vaccine took two days to develop, but then obviously it needed months of trials etc before it could be given out to people.
If in the future there's another pandemic for an as or more serious novel virus and we were to need to go into a lockdown, given the UK is likely to have vaccine manufacturing capacity domestically, would it be possible to be in a position to manufacture enough vaccines to vaccinate everyone vulnerable at least by the time the trial gives positive results.
IE have the MHRA give the green light in the future and have 80 million or so doses in the freezer/fridge ready and waiting to go immediately?
Fauci, Daszak, Andersen, several members of the Wellcome Trust: all going to prison
"Andersen's letter was perhaps even more effective in shaping the narrative than Daszak's letter. Fauci famously cited it while standing next to Trump on Apr 17, omitting that he himself was involved in instigating it even feigning not to know Andersen."
https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1401580722574528521
Further that the government is planning on an autumn booster shot campaign for the whole adult population - on the basis that the cost of having it and not needing it is tiny vs the cost of needing it and no having it.
Telling young people "there's a virus out there that won't harm you so stay at home" is a bit of a difficult message to always be listened to.
There might be something to it being a lab leak, but it does the theory little credit to be banging on about Fauci going to prison and other claptrap. Tars everything as being insane when you do that.
Similarly Asian flu 1957 and Hong Kong flu 1968 weakened over time as viruses do - under natural selection, they mostly become more infectious and less deadly - and the various strains became what we call 'seasonal flu'.
Especially given how well the VTF have done at every other stage, if the VTF are investigating this then hopefully they've got a good answer for that too.
Leaving the way clear for ReformUK to be the only main party committed to keeping June 21st as 'Freedom Day' if Boris retains some restrictions beyond that date
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1401655641756811268?s=20
The main item definitely not going to be lifted on 21st is the directive to WFH, the government have signalled as such to make it a good bet, all to do with hit on R rate already over 1 on 21st.
Masks indoors and 2 metre rule I would say 50/50 to be lifted on 21st, though that is not such a great shock based on government hints that it seems business v scientist lobby not on same page.
What definitely won’t be harmed is travelling distances to go to domestic holiday destinations. If hospitalisations join infections on up curve, this one is probably the biggest risk the government will take.
1. Fauci funded gain of function research in Wuhan on bat coronaviruses (he admits this), he gave it directly to Daszak who has explicitly said Wuhan was manufacturing new, more virulent SARS-like viruses
2. Fauci did this without telling Trump (because Obama had banned it, as dangerous)
3. When the news of the virus broke, Fauci was told: in an email: this virus was very possibly engineered, in Wuhan (via "gain of function")
4. Fauci convened, over the next weekend, everyone he knew, to come out with a different story: it had to be natural zoonosis, not the lab (personally inverting the evidence of his scientists).
Now, it is possible Fauci believed this, but he had no new evidence to suddenly say this, other than his desire to get a different narrative "out there"
5. Fauci thereafter contradicted Trump, and Fauci said "lab leak" was clownish, even as the evidence of lab-leak remained, and then surged
6. Fauci in the last week suddenly changes his mind. Lab leak is possible
He PAID for the gain-of-function research, Fauci is culpable for Covid, and he knows it
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1401657007015346177?s=20
Of course there has always been the theoretical ability to determine how individuals voted - via linking individuals to the number on their ballot - but the hurdles to being allowed to do this are presumably significant. Requiring prima facie evidence of fraud and a court order to allow it to happen. None of which is happening here, it appears...