Its covid policies are illogical, ill-conceived and statist. Johnson is no libertarian. He's a big state interventionist, on all things from grand vanity projects to taxation to civil liberties.
A party that can move from Cameron to May to Johnson in the space of three years is not one that actually stands for anything. What makes the Tories incredibly successful is that they will pivot to whatever positions are necessary to stop other parties from winning. That is their genius. What do Tories believe in? The monarchy and maintaining entrenched privilege. Beyond that, everything is negotiable.
Incorrect. They believe in one thing. Getting and keeping power.
Beyond that, everything else is definitely negotiable.
The Tories would sacrifice the Union to retain power. They would not sacrifice the monarchy or the rights of property owners.
Then why don't they? Johnson is insistent on refusing another referendum in Scotland, but if it went it would kick Labour's Zimmer frame away.
Because currently they do not need to sacrifice the Union to retain power.
So far only the Charity Commission - currently with an Interim Chair while a permanent head is found, in case anyone is interested - has replied.
You can certainly write a very good letter!
She does, although she has asked a lot of questions and with a lot of contextual detail that I would wager she’ll get some sort of generalised reply. An alternative approach would have been to identify the three killer questions and ask these directly, making it more difficult for them not to have to address them head on.
I am not expecting a reply really. And even 3 killer questions will generate a generalised reply since there is no reason for them to reply to a member of the public. Were I in-house or a a regulator, the first set of questions about what investigation was done, who took the decision and who approved it would be where my focus would be because I am sure that is where the difficulty will lie.
But the letter is there really to set up the questions and issues which other bodies with the power to do so can look at, if they choose to. Also if the artist wants to pursue this.
A lot of the commentary was around cancellation because of views whereas I wanted to point out that the RA seems to have ignored its legal obligations.
We'll see what happens. My guess, FWIW, is that the RA is both panicking and arrogantly saying nothing in the hope that this will all pass. Pretty shabby behaviour by them frankly and indicative of the sort of muddled thinking a lot of organisations have over "diversity" etc.
Your approach is also the best prospect of protecting those views that our law is intended to protect. It is quite clear that we cannot rely upon the so called liberal establishment to do that.
Personally I find it strange how anyone might have wanted or expected a foreign trip this year. Travel is far from an entitlement to me, it’s a luxury and it seems eminently sensible not to move around too much at the moment. Others clearly take a different view.
I wonder if social media and EasyJet had existed 80 years ago there would have been people complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday to Europe.
My EU and other overseas colleagues and staff have not seen their ageing parents for over a year, and sometimes much closer family than that. It is visibly taking its toll on them. Foreign travel is not just about holidays.
Doesn’t matter, they’re apparently human vermin as they might bring “variants” into the country [where “variants” frequently appears to be little more than a new way of demonising foreigners for the ex-Farage fellaters].
My assumption is that people who move to another country are demonstrating that they are not that bothered about the family they leave behind.
Personally I find it strange how anyone might have wanted or expected a foreign trip this year. Travel is far from an entitlement to me, it’s a luxury and it seems eminently sensible not to move around too much at the moment. Others clearly take a different view.
I wonder if social media and EasyJet had existed 80 years ago there would have been people complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday to Europe.
My EU and other overseas colleagues and staff have not seen their ageing parents for over a year, and sometimes much closer family than that. It is visibly taking its toll on them. Foreign travel is not just about holidays.
The article was about holidays. Travel for other purposes is a different kettle of fish. Restrictions on seeing family is not not limited to the those abroad.
It is now. I can see my parents in Hampshire whenever I feel like it, inside or out.
Sadly care home residents still de facto under lock and key regardless of govt policy. Managed to break my father out Sunday, but had to take tests and sign papers to do it. Visiting on site still limited to 30min/fortnight behind PPE. I suspect some of the CV restrictions will stay in care home policies.
30 min/fortnight?
I think that's the homes policy not government policy.
Horrible that.
Indeed. It’s actually a complicated situation. The care staff are more kind and flexible/liberal, the administrative staff that run the booking system are strict.
It’s getting better, but there is only so much human connection you can achieve in 30min holding hands in a rubber glove, behind a mask. Whilst it’s a logistical undertaking, it’s far better to break dad out for a day.
We don’t need to put scientists on trial, but we do need to hold them to account. How many people know about the big bust on the Warwick forecasts that were used to justify the unlock delay? Why isn’t the press all over it?
Blame squarely at the media for that one. They don’t want the pandemic to end, as it’s selling lots of subscriptions, and generating millions of clicks and likes.
When it’s over, they’ll have no pandemic, and no Trump, and news media sales will fall off the proverbial cliff.
They also have jobs now, and fear losing them at the end of the pandemic, when the public stop caring about the news for a few years.
So true
The scientists are not the ones to be held accountable. The buck stops with those who make the decisions ... Ministers, Cabinet, the PM. Scientists do not make policy or take decisions, they advise. If their advice is bad, those who should be held accountable are those who first appointed, and then kept them in place. That includes the media, other scientists who are able to critique their bad advice, and us. But, again, primarily Ministers, Cabinet and PM.
The thing that annoys me is that person A sees a headline on Twitter, and then accuses the scientists of being either evil (i.e. their forecasts are tainted because they are zero Covid fanatics) or stupid ("how can they possibly have forecast 100k cases by now..."), when the reality is they are just describing scenarios.
All models rest on assumptions: will the weather be good? will people change their behaviour? etc.
If you don't like the output, then explain why the assumptions are wrong, don't rubbish the motivation of others.
Robert, the issue with this is that they've consistently produced actual predictions with their models despite it showing almost no predictive value. One might have assumed they would go back and fix the model before producing more garbage. Even at the lower end if their range the numbers are horrible and getting worse.
While I agree that it's the politicians that have got responsibility for the decision making part they're working with what's put in front of them. SAGE are briefing them with predictions of doom from data models that have not had very much predictive value at all. I'm a data person and were I in the room I'd as very hard questions of the scientists. Unfortunately our politicians aren't, one would have hoped Rishi would know to question them to within an inch of them breaking down and crying given the importance of the decisions being made but clearly he's not.
There is a lack of inquisitiveness at the top and it dies seem as though the scientists have realised this and will pass off any old bullshit which gets blindly accepted.
The models that kept us locked up predicted as a mid-point value 100k cases on June 21st. Not the upper bound, the mid point. It predicted we'd have double the number of people in hospital and 3x the admission rate. When there are so many known factors (vaccine efficacy, base transmission rates, vaccine take up, population behaviour from previous waves, other countries with high vaccination rates) to be that far out is beyond incompetent. They're absolutely pushing an agenda of keeping everyone locked up and scaring the politicians with 28k dead and 50k in hospital (mid point values). Neither figure will be close to reality and if the scientists presenting the data believe that they will be then they really are completely stupid. We have very, very high quality infection data from Israel showing that the virus basically just gives up in a highly vaccinated population and people who get the vaccine are extremely well protected from severe disease.
You're absolving the scientists of having to do a good job. I don't see why.
So far only the Charity Commission - currently with an Interim Chair while a permanent head is found, in case anyone is interested - has replied.
You can certainly write a very good letter!
She does, although she has asked a lot of questions and with a lot of contextual detail that I would wager she’ll get some sort of generalised reply. An alternative approach would have been to identify the three killer questions and ask these directly, making it more difficult for them not to have to address them head on.
It may work like the BBC, where the first couple of replies tend to be holding replies (may even be by outsourced minions). A complainant exhaustion device? It will be about three cycles before you get to the BBC itself, without some standout.
John Bercow lobbied Jeremy Corbyn to secure a peerage and wrote his own reference for his nomination, leaked emails have revealed.
The former Speaker secretly met the then Labour leader’s team in the week after the 2019 general election to discuss his nomination to the House of Lords after being snubbed by Downing Street.
He then wrote to Corbyn’s office with a reference in which he boasted of his four honorary degrees, “no fewer than five shadow ministerial roles”, a stint as deputy leader of the Tory group on Lambeth council, and experience as a tennis coach.
Now he’s making a point of very publicly joining the Labour Party as a member, in the vain hope that Starmer will nominate him for the Peerage he believes to be his entitlement.
If things turn out badly for L'Écosse tomorrow will Blackford, Sturgeon, and the rest of the secessionist movement moan that Scotland is being dragged out of the Euros against their will?
I have a wager on the Czech's, will be fun to see the reaction when the supposed world beaters are out on their pampered arse's. PS: we do not have such delicate ego's that losing at football is an issue, unlike some tossers.
Personally I find it strange how anyone might have wanted or expected a foreign trip this year. Travel is far from an entitlement to me, it’s a luxury and it seems eminently sensible not to move around too much at the moment. Others clearly take a different view.
I wonder if social media and EasyJet had existed 80 years ago there would have been people complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday to Europe.
We always take our summer holidays in the UK anyway, there are plenty of beautiful places to stay and the weather is usually decent enough in August. Foreign trips should be an occasional luxury, not the norm, if you ask me. For people with family overseas it's different, obviously, as anyone who has lived far from loved ones will know.
Foreign holidays in the UK are bloody expensive though, so a luxury in themselves. Even Germany seems cheaper. I could easily have a couple of weeks in my usual haunts in Eastern Europe for one week in the UK. After last year I have money in the bank of course, but it's instructive how a week on the piss in the UK eats through the travel fund.
Depends on what you do I suppose. A week's self-catering accommodation is about £1500. You can mostly cook yourself, which costs the same as being at home. Fuel there and back and a few day trips, about £100. Some lunches out, another £200-£300. Walking and going to the beach is free. So about £2k for a week away for 5 people, total. That doesn't strike me as that expensive.
But the delta variant wasn't in reality a big threat. It seems marginally more transmissible but no more deadly than what we had already. This is consistent with the general trend in viruses to become both more transmissible and less lethal to their hosts as time goes by since that maximises their spread.
We are now probably overdue the next variant, which I presume that we will call epsilon. Once that appears on the scene delta will go the way of Kent. That is the nature of the beast we are dealing with. The risks, as I see them, is that we find a variant beyond the protection provided by vaccines or which proves far more lethal. A tendency in the benign direction is no guarantee.
Should such a scenario arise what do we do? What can we learn from this abject failure to delay delta which might actually matter the next time around? That is what the government should be addressing. I see no sign of it. There is a smug complacency which is deeply troubling. This virus isn't finished yet. We need to prepare for the time when we really need that extra time.
Viruses don't behave like that; there's a bit of evidence that myxamatosis sites a bit in rabbits, but then you have smallpox and rabies which have had max lethality for millennia. If the effect does exist there is no reason for it to kick in after killing less than 1% of the population anyway (though August distancing mimics the effect of killing a few more %)
Might as well bin the amber list, delta is 99% here now. Just keep the red list for other variant countries.
Is the objective of the amber list to keep out the delta variant?
Or is it to keep out the omega variant?
Red list is to keep variants out.
How do you know which countries the variants are in?
Massively increasing cases is a good hint. India was obviously a problem before the delta variant got labelled up as of concern. Countries with little to no testing also need to be on, much of Africa is for this reason I think. You can have the list quite slim once you start binning off the old amber and green for the double vaxxed.
But India wasn't obviously a problem in March, quite the opposite we were playing Test cricket then with crowds.
People have rewritten history in their memory, because it was obvious for a few days in April after Bangladesh and Pakistan had been added that India should have been too. But that was not true in March. Waiting until the data shows there's a problem is inevitably always going to be a case of closing the door after the horse has bolted.
I don't expect the systems to be perfect but India should have been added at the same point as Pakistan and Bangladesh; and when added added immediately instead of giving people that ridiculous period to return and escape hotel quarantine. The state can pay for a couple of weeks if yr country is added in an emergency, cheaper than letting the delta run riot
Decision was made that Pakistan was added 2 April, what data from the end of March is the idea that India should have been at the same time based upon? And why wasn't France or the USA or a plethora of other nations added before then or at the same time? What threshold do you have? There's no data I've seen that shows India should have been added in March that doesn't apply to France a dozen times over.
I certainly 100% agree that once the decision is made that it should be enforced immediately and not give notice, but then that essentially puts the entire world on notice of being on the red list. Which kind of makes sense during a global pandemic.
But the delta variant wasn't in reality a big threat. It seems marginally more transmissible but no more deadly than what we had already. This is consistent with the general trend in viruses to become both more transmissible and less lethal to their hosts as time goes by since that maximises their spread.
We are now probably overdue the next variant, which I presume that we will call epsilon. Once that appears on the scene delta will go the way of Kent. That is the nature of the beast we are dealing with. The risks, as I see them, is that we find a variant beyond the protection provided by vaccines or which proves far more lethal. A tendency in the benign direction is no guarantee.
Should such a scenario arise what do we do? What can we learn from this abject failure to delay delta which might actually matter the next time around? That is what the government should be addressing. I see no sign of it. There is a smug complacency which is deeply troubling. This virus isn't finished yet. We need to prepare for the time when we really need that extra time.
Viruses don't behave like that; there's a bit of evidence that myxamatosis sites a bit in rabbits, but then you have smallpox and rabies which have had max lethality for millennia. If the effect does exist there is no reason for it to kick in after killing less than 1% of the population anyway (though August distancing mimics the effect of killing a few more %)
Getting some inspired autocorrects. August = social.
But the delta variant wasn't in reality a big threat. It seems marginally more transmissible but no more deadly than what we had already. This is consistent with the general trend in viruses to become both more transmissible and less lethal to their hosts as time goes by since that maximises their spread.
We are now probably overdue the next variant, which I presume that we will call epsilon. Once that appears on the scene delta will go the way of Kent. That is the nature of the beast we are dealing with. The risks, as I see them, is that we find a variant beyond the protection provided by vaccines or which proves far more lethal. A tendency in the benign direction is no guarantee.
Should such a scenario arise what do we do? What can we learn from this abject failure to delay delta which might actually matter the next time around? That is what the government should be addressing. I see no sign of it. There is a smug complacency which is deeply troubling. This virus isn't finished yet. We need to prepare for the time when we really need that extra time.
On a point of fact, David: the delta variant is significantly, not marginally, more transmissible. Studies have been very clear on this. It may be more deadly -- it's certainly more serious more often. Studies also very clear that hospitalization is about twice as likely than alpha, but too soon to say about fatality.
It's not a general trend that viruses become both more transmissible and less lethal over time. This is a myth. It's true of some viruses but not others (HIV, measles, ebola, polio, west nile virus, smallpox, rabies -- all as nasty as ever). There is no selection pressure to ensure survival of host if the virus spreads presymptomatically.
So far only the Charity Commission - currently with an Interim Chair while a permanent head is found, in case anyone is interested - has replied.
You can certainly write a very good letter!
She does, although she has asked a lot of questions and with a lot of contextual detail that I would wager she’ll get some sort of generalised reply. An alternative approach would have been to identify the three killer questions and ask these directly, making it more difficult for them not to have to address them head on.
I am not expecting a reply really. And even 3 killer questions will generate a generalised reply since there is no reason for them to reply to a member of the public. Were I in-house or a a regulator, the first set of questions about what investigation was done, who took the decision and who approved it would be where my focus would be because I am sure that is where the difficulty will lie.
But the letter is there really to set up the questions and issues which other bodies with the power to do so can look at, if they choose to. Also if the artist wants to pursue this.
A lot of the commentary was around cancellation because of views whereas I wanted to point out that the RA seems to have ignored its legal obligations.
We'll see what happens. My guess, FWIW, is that the RA is both panicking and arrogantly saying nothing in the hope that this will all pass. Pretty shabby behaviour by them frankly and indicative of the sort of muddled thinking a lot of organisations have over "diversity" etc.
Your approach is also the best prospect of protecting those views that our law is intended to protect. It is quite clear that we cannot rely upon the so called liberal establishment to do that.
Heads should roll, this is what happens when thick Hooray Henry/Henrietta chums get large sinecures on public cash to perform tasks well beyond their intellect and capability.
We don’t need to put scientists on trial, but we do need to hold them to account. How many people know about the big bust on the Warwick forecasts that were used to justify the unlock delay? Why isn’t the press all over it?
Blame squarely at the media for that one. They don’t want the pandemic to end, as it’s selling lots of subscriptions, and generating millions of clicks and likes.
When it’s over, they’ll have no pandemic, and no Trump, and news media sales will fall off the proverbial cliff.
They also have jobs now, and fear losing them at the end of the pandemic, when the public stop caring about the news for a few years.
So true
The scientists are not the ones to be held accountable. The buck stops with those who make the decisions ... Ministers, Cabinet, the PM. Scientists do not make policy or take decisions, they advise. If their advice is bad, those who should be held accountable are those who first appointed, and then kept them in place. That includes the media, other scientists who are able to critique their bad advice, and us. But, again, primarily Ministers, Cabinet and PM.
The thing that annoys me is that person A sees a headline on Twitter, and then accuses the scientists of being either evil (i.e. their forecasts are tainted because they are zero Covid fanatics) or stupid ("how can they possibly have forecast 100k cases by now..."), when the reality is they are just describing scenarios.
All models rest on assumptions: will the weather be good? will people change their behaviour? etc.
If you don't like the output, then explain why the assumptions are wrong, don't rubbish the motivation of others.
Robert, the issue with this is that they've consistently produced actual predictions with their models despite it showing almost no predictive value. One might have assumed they would go back and fix the model before producing more garbage. Even at the lower end if their range the numbers are horrible and getting worse.
While I agree that it's the politicians that have got responsibility for the decision making part they're working with what's put in front of them. SAGE are briefing them with predictions of doom from data models that have not had very much predictive value at all. I'm a data person and were I in the room I'd as very hard questions of the scientists. Unfortunately our politicians aren't, one would have hoped Rishi would know to question them to within an inch of them breaking down and crying given the importance of the decisions being made but clearly he's not.
There is a lack of inquisitiveness at the top and it dies seem as though the scientists have realised this and will pass off any old bullshit which gets blindly accepted.
The models that kept us locked up predicted as a mid-point value 100k cases on June 21st. Not the upper bound, the mid point. It predicted we'd have double the number of people in hospital and 3x the admission rate. When there are so many known factors (vaccine efficacy, base transmission rates, vaccine take up, population behaviour from previous waves, other countries with high vaccination rates) to be that far out is beyond incompetent. They're absolutely pushing an agenda of keeping everyone locked up and scaring the politicians with 28k dead and 50k in hospital (mid point values). Neither figure will be close to reality and if the scientists presenting the data believe that they will be then they really are completely stupid. We have very, very high quality infection data from Israel showing that the virus basically just gives up in a highly vaccinated population and people who get the vaccine are extremely well protected from severe disease.
You're absolving the scientists of having to do a good job. I don't see why.
I agree completely and the most obvious problem is that although in theory the growth of either the virus or any particular variant is exponential in the real world it only is for a very limited period of time. After that real world considerations come into play inhibiting its further spread. Those infected get identified and isolated, they die, the number of potential victims in the care home or other secure environment is exhausted, we change our behaviour through masks, social distancing, hygiene etc etc.
The mathematical models seem to have real problems with this, presumably because the various factors are either unknown or variable in their effect. As a result they have a built in bias towards continuing exponential growth and therefore tend over time to massively over estimate the extent of infection in the real world. The Warwick models are only the most recent example of this trend which has been obvious for 15 months. I find it bewildering that this flaw is not being addressed.
Its covid policies are illogical, ill-conceived and statist. Johnson is no libertarian. He's a big state interventionist, on all things from grand vanity projects to taxation to civil liberties.
A party that can move from Cameron to May to Johnson in the space of three years is not one that actually stands for anything. What makes the Tories incredibly successful is that they will pivot to whatever positions are necessary to stop other parties from winning. That is their genius. What do Tories believe in? The monarchy and maintaining entrenched privilege. Beyond that, everything is negotiable.
Incorrect. They believe in one thing. Getting and keeping power.
Beyond that, everything else is definitely negotiable.
The Tories would sacrifice the Union to retain power. They would not sacrifice the monarchy or the rights of property owners.
Really? New planning laws wave hello. As does King Charles III.
As for ‘would’ sacrifice, the DUP are loud in their grumbling that they already have.
Heart of stone, given the circumstances...
The planning law kerfuffle is a dispute between the wealthiest existing property owners in the shires - and slightly less wealthy future property owners in the shires.
SO’s point stands.
That letter to the Times yesterday, from a C&A Lib Dem, was hillarious in its utter lack of self-awareness.
Worthy of Polly Filler from Private Eye.
I'm beginning to get a bit irritated by this line of argument. Just because we agree that more houses need to be built doesn't mean that THIS planning law is the way to do it.
I live on a large new estate in an old market town (the town of my birth). When it was built the property company made a mockery of what they promised when they were given planning permission. The community center arrived 5 years after the houses were built, the promised bridge across the railway line never happened etc.
I object to this planning bill because it removes local democratic control and hands a considerable amount of power to large property companies. I'm a youngish person who needs affordable housing but I don't want it at the expense of the community Iive in.
John Bercow lobbied Jeremy Corbyn to secure a peerage and wrote his own reference for his nomination, leaked emails have revealed.
The former Speaker secretly met the then Labour leader’s team in the week after the 2019 general election to discuss his nomination to the House of Lords after being snubbed by Downing Street.
He then wrote to Corbyn’s office with a reference in which he boasted of his four honorary degrees, “no fewer than five shadow ministerial roles”, a stint as deputy leader of the Tory group on Lambeth council, and experience as a tennis coach.
Now he’s making a point of very publicly joining the Labour Party as a member, in the vain hope that Starmer will nominate him for the Peerage he believes to be his entitlement.
It's all about him.....
...and always has been. Which was why he was such a poor Speaker.
Its covid policies are illogical, ill-conceived and statist. Johnson is no libertarian. He's a big state interventionist, on all things from grand vanity projects to taxation to civil liberties.
A party that can move from Cameron to May to Johnson in the space of three years is not one that actually stands for anything. What makes the Tories incredibly successful is that they will pivot to whatever positions are necessary to stop other parties from winning. That is their genius. What do Tories believe in? The monarchy and maintaining entrenched privilege. Beyond that, everything is negotiable.
You are HYUFD and I claim my £5.
What's so special about the monarchy that they must be believed in. Quite a few republican Tories (or former Tories) on this site, TSE and myself included.
Individual Tories may be republicans. The Conservative party never will be under any circumstances.
So if the majority of the electorate were republicans, considered that issue to be the defining issue of the day, so only a republican party could win an election - and perhaps if a referendum had determined that the monarchy should be abolished although that hadn't happened yet, then do you think under those circumstances the Tories could never be a republican party?
The Tories would have ceased to exist long before that happens as they would have failed totally.
How would they have failed and why would the party cease to exist?
The party has survived by evolving and not holding to principles of the past like a shibboleth.
Its covid policies are illogical, ill-conceived and statist. Johnson is no libertarian. He's a big state interventionist, on all things from grand vanity projects to taxation to civil liberties.
A party that can move from Cameron to May to Johnson in the space of three years is not one that actually stands for anything. What makes the Tories incredibly successful is that they will pivot to whatever positions are necessary to stop other parties from winning. That is their genius. What do Tories believe in? The monarchy and maintaining entrenched privilege. Beyond that, everything is negotiable.
Incorrect. They believe in one thing. Getting and keeping power.
Beyond that, everything else is definitely negotiable.
The Tories would sacrifice the Union to retain power. They would not sacrifice the monarchy or the rights of property owners.
Really? New planning laws wave hello. As does King Charles III.
As for ‘would’ sacrifice, the DUP are loud in their grumbling that they already have.
Heart of stone, given the circumstances...
The planning law kerfuffle is a dispute between the wealthiest existing property owners in the shires - and slightly less wealthy future property owners in the shires.
SO’s point stands.
Disagree - NIMBYism doesn't stop with a wealth of say under a million, and it doesn't stop in the shires.
NIMBYism is about excessive desire to control the immediate environment, and everything goes on the bonfire including laws designed for other purposes that can be abused incidentally (have you seen some of the stranger 'village green' claims, sometimes the welfare of the community, and future housing prospects for young people even from the same community.
We don’t need to put scientists on trial, but we do need to hold them to account. How many people know about the big bust on the Warwick forecasts that were used to justify the unlock delay? Why isn’t the press all over it?
Blame squarely at the media for that one. They don’t want the pandemic to end, as it’s selling lots of subscriptions, and generating millions of clicks and likes.
When it’s over, they’ll have no pandemic, and no Trump, and news media sales will fall off the proverbial cliff.
They also have jobs now, and fear losing them at the end of the pandemic, when the public stop caring about the news for a few years.
So true
The scientists are not the ones to be held accountable. The buck stops with those who make the decisions ... Ministers, Cabinet, the PM. Scientists do not make policy or take decisions, they advise. If their advice is bad, those who should be held accountable are those who first appointed, and then kept them in place. That includes the media, other scientists who are able to critique their bad advice, and us. But, again, primarily Ministers, Cabinet and PM.
If scientists hadn’t started going on TV making their case directly to influence outcomes that would be one thing…
Might as well bin the amber list, delta is 99% here now. Just keep the red list for other variant countries.
Is the objective of the amber list to keep out the delta variant?
Or is it to keep out the omega variant?
Red list is to keep variants out.
There is nothing special about travel, or in being abroad, that creates a variant. Yet time and again people seem to conflate the two.
So long as we have high case rates - as we do now amongst the unvaccinated young - a variant is just as likely to arise in the UK.
The point is that if there is a known geographically-based variant (with negative consequences like transmissibility) then we should have restrictions to and from that particular location. As we should have done straight away with India, had Boris not been so dozy.
Too many people leap straight to ‘stop travel’ as if somehow that is the antidote to new variants.
Except that the Indian Delta variant wasn't known to be a concern until after India was put on the red list, not before it. 🤦♂️
Yes if you want to stop variants, halting travel is the antidote. Because by the time you know that a variant is concerning, its far, far, far too late. Your proposal would have meant not adding India to the red list for even longer.
That's simply illogical.
The risk of spreading a variant is correlated with the number of potentially infected people you mix with, not your geographical location.
I'd wager that, with the possible exception of party travellers, most holidaymakers have fewer close personal contacts away on holiday than they would during 'normal' life in the UK.
The problem is the party travellers. The big resorts of Southern Europe and the Med are desparate for visitors, and are opening up at a time when almost none of their young clientele have been vaccinated - including all the nightclubs that closed last year.
The Balearics and Greek resorts, are going to be absolute carnage about a month from now.
Hopefully we will be able to nip off to our usual place in Corfu in September.
Personally I find it strange how anyone might have wanted or expected a foreign trip this year. Travel is far from an entitlement to me, it’s a luxury and it seems eminently sensible not to move around too much at the moment. Others clearly take a different view.
I wonder if social media and EasyJet had existed 80 years ago there would have been people complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday to Europe.
The constant emphasis on foreign holidays is really annoying, when there’s millions of people who really need to travel on business, or who haven’t seen their family in two years.
There’s way more to travel than a week on a beach, and relaxing restrictions on those who really need to travel should be the priority.
I remain bewildered that the government ran so scared and so quickly from the idea of vaccine passports. A few whinges about alleged civil liberties had them back off and in doing so they massively undermined the progress that was available through vaccination.
Vaccination was supposed to be our way out of this but it can only be so if there is evidence which allows the vaccinated and the unvaccinated to be differentiated. Doing so is not only sensible but an incentive to the laggards to get their vaccinations done. Its about as win win as we can get.
The result of failing to proceed down this path is excessive restrictions on the vaccinated to protect the idiots who choose not to be. This is, in a word, crazy. Those who are double vaccinated are at absolutely minimal risk when travelling anywhere and are extremely unlikely to bring back a variant in a viable form. They should not be restricted in their movements. Similarly, as @rcs1000 was pointing out overnight, those from other countries who are double vaccinated are no risk to us and should be welcomed.
I think it’s coming, and quickly. The issue being that the U.K. government doesn’t want to discriminate until everyone has been offered a vaccine, as in the US.
Rightly so. The clamour to open up for the early jabbed only leaving the young suffering again was surprisingly popular amongst the early jabbed.....
I would still be against vaccine passports for normal life but no longer vociferously so now everyone can get access, and don't mind if they are part of opening up for travel and the events with massive crowds (not all events, perhaps 10k or 20k and above might be the right sort of threshold).
Ken Clarke on BBC R4 Today absolutely destroying de Pfeffel.
My god, Ken’s good. Royal Yacht = populist nonsense.
The timeline for the Carrie Celeste looks absolutely mad on the face of it. It's a one off design of a type of ship that hasn't been built in the UK for 50+ years. The is no fucking way they are going to cut steel on it in 2022. It's one of those schemes that's so ill considered you can't help but assume The Fireplace Salesman was involved somewhere.
Personally I find it strange how anyone might have wanted or expected a foreign trip this year. Travel is far from an entitlement to me, it’s a luxury and it seems eminently sensible not to move around too much at the moment. Others clearly take a different view.
I wonder if social media and EasyJet had existed 80 years ago there would have been people complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday to Europe.
My EU and other overseas colleagues and staff have not seen their ageing parents for over a year, and sometimes much closer family than that. It is visibly taking its toll on them. Foreign travel is not just about holidays.
Doesn’t matter, they’re apparently human vermin as they might bring “variants” into the country [where “variants” frequently appears to be little more than a new way of demonising foreigners for the ex-Farage fellaters].
My assumption is that people who move to another country are demonstrating that they are not that bothered about the family they leave behind.
I agree completely and the most obvious problem is that although in theory the growth of either the virus or any particular variant is exponential in the real world it only is for a very limited period of time. After that real world considerations come into play inhibiting its further spread. Those infected get identified and isolated, they die, the number of potential victims in the care home or other secure environment is exhausted, we change our behaviour through masks, social distancing, hygiene etc etc.
The mathematical models seem to have real problems with this, presumably because the various factors are either unknown or variable in their effect. As a result they have a built in bias towards continuing exponential growth and therefore tend over time to massively over estimate the extent of infection in the real world. The Warwick models are only the most recent example of this trend which has been obvious for 15 months. I find it bewildering that this flaw is not being addressed.
Yes, there's a generalised Le Chatalier principle at work here - the system responds when disturbed by reacting in such a way as to minimise the effects of the disturbance.
The current Conservative party reminds me of the AI in ZX Spectrum version of Monopoly, which would stop at nothing to gain a set, including trading the properties in the set it owned. Once you’d figured that out the game was rather pointless.
The Conservative party will hold on to power at any cost, trading any ideas or principles it may have cherished moments ago. Similarly apart from the most tribal or careerist Conservative politician the whole exercise is rendered rather pointless.
That's excellent news, but it is worth remembering that some other clinical trials (and there have been quite a few) have been rather more equivocal.
It's not a clinical trial. It's a meta analysis of twenty small clinical trials (avg number of participants 170), and therefore unlikely to be statistically valid for the benefits it claims.
We saw exactly the same pattern with hydroxychloroquine, with similar claims being made until a larger trial showed them to be nonsense.
What's bizarre is that the same folks who say vaccines have been inadequately tested fall for this guff. It's possible that ivermectin has some effect, but this study doesn't demonstrate that. A similar recent meta analysis showed it had no benefit at all.
Shocking. I'll say it again, at some point there must be a reckoning for the scientists. From masks to models to lab leak. A litany of failure, idiocy and obfuscation - right up to potential corruption and complicity
The modellers look like being spectacularly wrong on the summer surge. Time for ministers to govern and ignore these models until they are rebuilt and recoded to actually reflect what happens in this pandemic.
Interesting thought of the evening.
One of the main things that this pandemic has revealed is that "scientific" modelers are basically useless in this sort of field. They can't predict with any accuracy what's going to happen within a couple of weeks, never mind over longer timescales. It also looks as if it's quite easy to decide what you think will happen, then make your model fit it, and it's certainly not inplausible that some scientists (consciously or otherwise) may be doing just this.
At what point are the continuing failures of the infection modelers in this pandemic going to bleed over into the public perception of that other paradise of dubious modeling - climate science. I've long suspected that most if not all climate modelling is pretty much bunk, and it very much tends to presenting doomsday scenarios in a similar way to the Covid models. In a further uncanny parallel, all this modeling is also mainly presented to (largely innumerate) politicians and the (even more innumerate) media, who then rush off to reshape our way of life without ever asking if the modeling in question is likely to be right, or if the modelers have any track record of accurately predicting anything.
Currently if you question the recived wisdom about what given levels of Co² emissions will do to the climate, and ask whether banning gas central heating is actually a clever idea you are greeted with much screaming about "settled science" and promptly declared an unperson. If this pandemic brings modelers into general disrepute (and they seem presently to be working hard towards this goal), it's presumably also going to be a lot easier to take issue with the more outrageous forms of climate modelling. This isn't a bad thing, but the pushback from the various "climate science" vested interests is going to be something else!
Any complex adaptive or chaotic system is inherently unpredictable at an epistemological level. Making models of such systems helps us better understand the key drivers within those systems, and so helps to guide policy- and decision-making. But these models should not be used for predictions.
Personally, I blame the media and journalists far more than any others. There the ones with the power to amplify, suppress, oversimplify, distort, and cherry-pick, and they do so ruthlessly in the course of seeking attention. There are some very prominent exceptions (eg John Burn-Murdoch, Hugo Gye, Tom Whipple - basically, the specialist journalists), but the mainstream ones and the ones that seem to get the ear of the editors and those who choose which stories to run have consistently misrepresented or overemphasised the wrong things in order to stoke up outrage and misunderstanding.
It is class not race that matters but unless the term white privilege is much older than I imagined, it can hardly account for decades of underachievement.
Ken Clarke on BBC R4 Today absolutely destroying de Pfeffel.
My god, Ken’s good. Royal Yacht = populist nonsense.
The timeline for the Carrie Celeste looks absolutely mad on the face of it. It's a one off design of a type of ship that hasn't been built in the UK for 50+ years. The is no fucking way they are going to cut steel on it in 2022. It's one of those schemes that's so ill considered you can't help but assume The Fireplace Salesman was involved somewhere.
The renders seem inspired by the work of the Rev W Awdry.
So far only the Charity Commission - currently with an Interim Chair while a permanent head is found, in case anyone is interested - has replied.
Excellent letter - did you get anything more from the Charity Commission than a holding statement?
Within a couple of hours I got this -
" I write to confirm receipt of your email directed to the Chair of the Charity Commission.
I assure you that your concerns have been forwarded to the relevant case manager within the Commission for review and consideration. You will receive a response from them as soon as it is possible to do so.
If I were legal counsel at the RA and got a letter like this I'd be furious because either I wasn't involved and now I have a problem to solve, assuming the chief bods let me get involved (not always a given). Or I was, got it wrong and now have to explain myself.
There really needs to be a bit of pressure put on them to explain what on earth they thought they were doing. But, as ever, all these organizations are utterly useless at crisis management and manage to make a small mistake, probably taken at a relatively junior level, many times worse by their reaction.
Its covid policies are illogical, ill-conceived and statist. Johnson is no libertarian. He's a big state interventionist, on all things from grand vanity projects to taxation to civil liberties.
A party that can move from Cameron to May to Johnson in the space of three years is not one that actually stands for anything. What makes the Tories incredibly successful is that they will pivot to whatever positions are necessary to stop other parties from winning. That is their genius. What do Tories believe in? The monarchy and maintaining entrenched privilege. Beyond that, everything is negotiable.
Incorrect. They believe in one thing. Getting and keeping power.
Beyond that, everything else is definitely negotiable.
The Tories would sacrifice the Union to retain power. They would not sacrifice the monarchy or the rights of property owners.
Really? New planning laws wave hello. As does King Charles III.
As for ‘would’ sacrifice, the DUP are loud in their grumbling that they already have.
Heart of stone, given the circumstances...
The planning law kerfuffle is a dispute between the wealthiest existing property owners in the shires - and slightly less wealthy future property owners in the shires.
SO’s point stands.
That letter to the Times yesterday, from a C&A Lib Dem, was hillarious in its utter lack of self-awareness.
Worthy of Polly Filler from Private Eye.
I'm beginning to get a bit irritated by this line of argument. Just because we agree that more houses need to be built doesn't mean that THIS planning law is the way to do it.
I live on a large new estate in an old market town (the town of my birth). When it was built the property company made a mockery of what they promised when they were given planning permission. The community center arrived 5 years after the houses were built, the promised bridge across the railway line never happened etc.
I object to this planning bill because it removes local democratic control and hands a considerable amount of power to large property companies. I'm a youngish person who needs affordable housing but I don't want it at the expense of the community Iive in.
You give a good example of why there has been failure in the market, and the council have failed to hold the developer to account.
In any case, and away from sterile blamestorming, modelling-wise, James Ward (who's had a far better pandemic model-wise than many others, and who always manages to get across the message that there are several unknowns and his models explore the more likely outcomes of changing each one rather than provide a prophetic view of the future) has plugged in the latest Ve data to his models:
"1. In my central case, the summer 2021 wave should be relatively small compared to previous waves (peaking around 5k hospitalisations per week) 2. Even in downside scenarios with higher R0 for Delta or a larger Step 4, there should be little risk of overwhelming the NHS 3. 3. However, opening earlier than 19th July would significantly increase those risks, and is not recommended 4. Assuming things go well in the summer (i.e. with a small wave), we may yet face the challenge of finding a few more % points of immunity in the autumn. Options include boosters and vaccinating teenagers, although that may not be needed if heterogeneity effects turn out to be significant. 5. Stronger seasonality effects (or waning immunity) could counter-act the benefits of extra vaccinations &/or heterogeneity. So we may still have some complex waters to navigate in the autumn and winter, but I think our course for the next couple of months is clear: open up to Step 4 on 19th July, deal with the (hopefully small) summer wave, and review strategy again in August. "
Central case with 45% transmission gain for Delta, updated Ve and assumptions on vaccine rollout and takeup, and reopening on 19th July:
"As you can see, there’s a moderate wave in the short term (caused by Delta and Step 3) which peaks in mid-July, just before we move to Step 4 – this then extends the wave through August, and it continues through the autumn/winter with R not far off 1 while schools are open. Then something odd happens – we get a new wave in Spring 2022. This is an artefact of the model’s assumption that we remove the ‘baseline controls’ (e.g. TTI) and go back to full pre-pandemic normal behaviour from January 2022" (He looks at options for higher Delta transmission and higher behavioural changes on 19th July, as well as opening earlier on the 5th of July. The latter gives bad outcomes if the downside scenarios come to pass; they're far more limited if the reopening is 19th July)
If we either extend vaccination to 12-17 year olds, or if infections provide greater transmission reduction than vaccination, and the spring wave disappears as well. Extending vaccination: Heterogeneity:
Its covid policies are illogical, ill-conceived and statist. Johnson is no libertarian. He's a big state interventionist, on all things from grand vanity projects to taxation to civil liberties.
A party that can move from Cameron to May to Johnson in the space of three years is not one that actually stands for anything. What makes the Tories incredibly successful is that they will pivot to whatever positions are necessary to stop other parties from winning. That is their genius. What do Tories believe in? The monarchy and maintaining entrenched privilege. Beyond that, everything is negotiable.
Incorrect. They believe in one thing. Getting and keeping power.
Beyond that, everything else is definitely negotiable.
The Tories would sacrifice the Union to retain power. They would not sacrifice the monarchy or the rights of property owners.
Really? New planning laws wave hello. As does King Charles III.
As for ‘would’ sacrifice, the DUP are loud in their grumbling that they already have.
Heart of stone, given the circumstances...
The planning law kerfuffle is a dispute between the wealthiest existing property owners in the shires - and slightly less wealthy future property owners in the shires.
SO’s point stands.
That letter to the Times yesterday, from a C&A Lib Dem, was hillarious in its utter lack of self-awareness.
Worthy of Polly Filler from Private Eye.
I'm beginning to get a bit irritated by this line of argument. Just because we agree that more houses need to be built doesn't mean that THIS planning law is the way to do it.
I live on a large new estate in an old market town (the town of my birth). When it was built the property company made a mockery of what they promised when they were given planning permission. The community center arrived 5 years after the houses were built, the promised bridge across the railway line never happened etc.
I object to this planning bill because it removes local democratic control and hands a considerable amount of power to large property companies. I'm a youngish person who needs affordable housing but I don't want it at the expense of the community Iive in.
You give a good example of why there has been failure in the market, and the council have failed to hold the developer to account.
Depends a little on who made the promises.
They can be held to deliver what is promised to the Council under law ... Planning Conditions, Planning Gain etc.
If the "Property Company" is essentially an estate agent, then it is much more difficult.
Perhaps the bridge was poleaxed by Network Rail, or some type of force majeure? If a third party can stop something and refuses to comply, that can be impossible to identify at planning stage.
Personally I find it strange how anyone might have wanted or expected a foreign trip this year. Travel is far from an entitlement to me, it’s a luxury and it seems eminently sensible not to move around too much at the moment. Others clearly take a different view.
I wonder if social media and EasyJet had existed 80 years ago there would have been people complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday to Europe.
My EU and other overseas colleagues and staff have not seen their ageing parents for over a year, and sometimes much closer family than that. It is visibly taking its toll on them. Foreign travel is not just about holidays.
Doesn’t matter, they’re apparently human vermin as they might bring “variants” into the country [where “variants” frequently appears to be little more than a new way of demonising foreigners for the ex-Farage fellaters].
My assumption is that people who move to another country are demonstrating that they are not that bothered about the family they leave behind.
John Bercow lobbied Jeremy Corbyn to secure a peerage and wrote his own reference for his nomination, leaked emails have revealed.
The former Speaker secretly met the then Labour leader’s team in the week after the 2019 general election to discuss his nomination to the House of Lords after being snubbed by Downing Street.
He then wrote to Corbyn’s office with a reference in which he boasted of his four honorary degrees, “no fewer than five shadow ministerial roles”, a stint as deputy leader of the Tory group on Lambeth council, and experience as a tennis coach.
Ken Clarke on BBC R4 Today absolutely destroying de Pfeffel.
My god, Ken’s good. Royal Yacht = populist nonsense.
The timeline for the Carrie Celeste looks absolutely mad on the face of it. It's a one off design of a type of ship that hasn't been built in the UK for 50+ years. The is no fucking way they are going to cut steel on it in 2022. It's one of those schemes that's so ill considered you can't help but assume The Fireplace Salesman was involved somewhere.
Personally I find it strange how anyone might have wanted or expected a foreign trip this year. Travel is far from an entitlement to me, it’s a luxury and it seems eminently sensible not to move around too much at the moment. Others clearly take a different view.
I wonder if social media and EasyJet had existed 80 years ago there would have been people complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday to Europe.
My EU and other overseas colleagues and staff have not seen their ageing parents for over a year, and sometimes much closer family than that. It is visibly taking its toll on them. Foreign travel is not just about holidays.
Doesn’t matter, they’re apparently human vermin as they might bring “variants” into the country [where “variants” frequently appears to be little more than a new way of demonising foreigners for the ex-Farage fellaters].
My assumption is that people who move to another country are demonstrating that they are not that bothered about the family they leave behind.
From my experience..... son, cousin ...... that's not an assumption that one can make nowadays, anymore than assuming that because one moves from Lancashire to Essex one 'isn't bothered' about those 250 miles away.
People move somewhere else for the opportunities they see, opportunities that don't exist at home. I doubt, for example that my father would have moved from Wales to Essex if a suitable teaching post had been available closer to home. Similarly with my mother; she moved to develop her career, although she didn't move quite as far.
Comments
But referring to “artistic bodies” in the context of Mary Whitehouse? 😂😂
My god, Ken’s good. Royal Yacht = populist nonsense.
It’s getting better, but there is only so much human connection you can achieve in 30min holding hands in a rubber glove, behind a mask. Whilst it’s a logistical undertaking, it’s far better to break dad out for a day.
While I agree that it's the politicians that have got responsibility for the decision making part they're working with what's put in front of them. SAGE are briefing them with predictions of doom from data models that have not had very much predictive value at all. I'm a data person and were I in the room I'd as very hard questions of the scientists. Unfortunately our politicians aren't, one would have hoped Rishi would know to question them to within an inch of them breaking down and crying given the importance of the decisions being made but clearly he's not.
There is a lack of inquisitiveness at the top and it dies seem as though the scientists have realised this and will pass off any old bullshit which gets blindly accepted.
The models that kept us locked up predicted as a mid-point value 100k cases on June 21st. Not the upper bound, the mid point. It predicted we'd have double the number of people in hospital and 3x the admission rate. When there are so many known factors (vaccine efficacy, base transmission rates, vaccine take up, population behaviour from previous waves, other countries with high vaccination rates) to be that far out is beyond incompetent. They're absolutely pushing an agenda of keeping everyone locked up and scaring the politicians with 28k dead and 50k in hospital (mid point values). Neither figure will be close to reality and if the scientists presenting the data believe that they will be then they really are completely stupid. We have very, very high quality infection data from Israel showing that the virus basically just gives up in a highly vaccinated population and people who get the vaccine are extremely well protected from severe disease.
You're absolving the scientists of having to do a good job. I don't see why.
PS: we do not have such delicate ego's that losing at football is an issue, unlike some tossers.
I certainly 100% agree that once the decision is made that it should be enforced immediately and not give notice, but then that essentially puts the entire world on notice of being on the red list. Which kind of makes sense during a global pandemic.
It's not a general trend that viruses become both more transmissible and less lethal over time. This is a myth. It's true of some viruses but not others (HIV, measles, ebola, polio, west nile virus, smallpox, rabies -- all as nasty as ever). There is no selection pressure to ensure survival of host if the virus spreads presymptomatically.
--AS
The mathematical models seem to have real problems with this, presumably because the various factors are either unknown or variable in their effect. As a result they have a built in bias towards continuing exponential growth and therefore tend over time to massively over estimate the extent of infection in the real world. The Warwick models are only the most recent example of this trend which has been obvious for 15 months. I find it bewildering that this flaw is not being addressed.
F1: Styrian win market up, but not each way. I'd be tempted by Perez for that.
I live on a large new estate in an old market town (the town of my birth). When it was built the property company made a mockery of what they promised when they were given planning permission. The community center arrived 5 years after the houses were built, the promised bridge across the railway line never happened etc.
I object to this planning bill because it removes local democratic control and hands a considerable amount of power to large property companies. I'm a youngish person who needs affordable housing but I don't want it at the expense of the community Iive in.
The party has survived by evolving and not holding to principles of the past like a shibboleth.
NIMBYism is about excessive desire to control the immediate environment, and everything goes on the bonfire including laws designed for other purposes that can be abused incidentally (have you seen some of
the stranger 'village green' claims, sometimes the welfare of the community, and future housing prospects for young people even from the same community.
I would still be against vaccine passports for normal life but no longer vociferously so now everyone can get access, and don't mind if they are part of opening up for travel and the events with massive crowds (not all events, perhaps 10k or 20k and above might be the right sort of threshold).
The Conservative party will hold on to power at any cost, trading any ideas or principles it may have cherished moments ago. Similarly apart from the most tribal or careerist Conservative politician the whole exercise is rendered rather pointless.
But you ruined it. 😤
We saw exactly the same pattern with hydroxychloroquine, with similar claims being made until a larger trial showed them to be nonsense.
What's bizarre is that the same folks who say vaccines have been inadequately tested fall for this guff.
It's possible that ivermectin has some effect, but this study doesn't demonstrate that. A similar recent meta analysis showed it had no benefit at all.
There the ones with the power to amplify, suppress, oversimplify, distort, and cherry-pick, and they do so ruthlessly in the course of seeking attention. There are some very prominent exceptions (eg John Burn-Murdoch, Hugo Gye, Tom Whipple - basically, the specialist journalists), but the mainstream ones and the ones that seem to get the ear of the editors and those who choose which stories to run have consistently misrepresented or overemphasised the wrong things in order to stoke up outrage and misunderstanding.
" I write to confirm receipt of your email directed to the Chair of the Charity Commission.
I assure you that your concerns have been forwarded to the relevant case manager within the Commission for review and consideration. You will receive a response from them as soon as it is possible to do so.
Thank you again for writing.
Yours sincerely,
Office of the Chair
w: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission"
I'll keep you posted on what the others say.
If I were legal counsel at the RA and got a letter like this I'd be furious because either I wasn't involved and now I have a problem to solve, assuming the chief bods let me get involved (not always a given). Or I was, got it wrong and now have to explain myself.
There really needs to be a bit of pressure put on them to explain what on earth they thought they were doing. But, as ever, all these organizations are utterly useless at crisis management and manage to make a small mistake, probably taken at a relatively junior level, many times worse by their reaction.
https://twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/1406978310022774788
"1. In my central case, the summer 2021 wave should be relatively small compared to previous waves (peaking around 5k hospitalisations per week)
2. Even in downside scenarios with higher R0 for Delta or a larger Step 4, there should be little risk of overwhelming the NHS
3. 3. However, opening earlier than 19th July would significantly increase those risks, and is not recommended
4. Assuming things go well in the summer (i.e. with a small wave), we may yet face the challenge of finding a few more % points of immunity in the autumn. Options include boosters and vaccinating teenagers, although that may not be needed if heterogeneity effects turn out to be significant.
5. Stronger seasonality effects (or waning immunity) could counter-act the benefits of extra vaccinations &/or heterogeneity.
So we may still have some complex waters to navigate in the autumn and winter, but I think our course for the next couple of months is clear: open up to Step 4 on 19th July, deal with the (hopefully small) summer wave, and review strategy again in August. "
Central case with 45% transmission gain for Delta, updated Ve and assumptions on vaccine rollout and takeup, and reopening on 19th July:
"As you can see, there’s a moderate wave in the short term (caused by Delta and Step 3) which peaks in mid-July, just before we move to Step 4 – this then extends the wave through August, and it continues through the autumn/winter with R not far off 1 while schools are open. Then something odd happens – we get a new wave in Spring 2022. This is an artefact of the model’s assumption that we remove the ‘baseline controls’ (e.g. TTI) and go back to full pre-pandemic normal behaviour from January 2022"
(He looks at options for higher Delta transmission and higher behavioural changes on 19th July, as well as opening earlier on the 5th of July. The latter gives bad outcomes if the downside scenarios come to pass; they're far more limited if the reopening is 19th July)
If we either extend vaccination to 12-17 year olds, or if infections provide greater transmission reduction than vaccination, and the spring wave disappears as well.
Extending vaccination:
Heterogeneity:
They can be held to deliver what is promised to the Council under law ... Planning Conditions, Planning Gain etc.
If the "Property Company" is essentially an estate agent, then it is much more difficult.
Perhaps the bridge was poleaxed by Network Rail, or some type of force majeure? If a third party can stop something and refuses to comply, that can be impossible to identify at planning stage.
People move somewhere else for the opportunities they see, opportunities that don't exist at home. I doubt, for example that my father would have moved from Wales to Essex if a suitable teaching post had been available closer to home. Similarly with my mother; she moved to develop her career, although she didn't move quite as far.