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Why lockdown scepticism doesn’t resonate much with the voters – politicalbetting.com
Why lockdown scepticism doesn’t resonate much with the voters – politicalbetting.com
What Brits think matters more with regards to COVID-19: Trying to save every life: 55% Protecting economy: 22%https://t.co/L7VRviUiZV pic.twitter.com/py52WX26HR
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Never mind sausages, or @Leon's crap beer... can anyone settle the most important issue of the day:
Is the England-Denmark game on BBC as well as ITV?
(Obviously if it's ITV only we lose ☹️)
Also no UHD.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/guide/bbcone/20210707
Here's Gary Lineker confirming it.
https://twitter.com/GaryLineker/status/1411453879544434688
At least with Prince Philip’s death it was a major national occasion.
So we'd rather be alive than rich - who'd have thunk it?
Perhaps this may be a clue that public policy aimed at improving the quality of life (however you define that) will always resonate more than "here's some cash - it's up to you what you do with it".
It follows (I think) it may be possible to sell tax rises on the back of said improvements. "Making Life Better for All" - could be someone's campaign slogan.
The morning after the night before - the most one-sided conflict in Rome since Genseric vs Petronius Maximus in 455. I'm much less confident about Denmark but I'm hoping my office sweep pick, Spain, will somehow luck out against Italy but I'm not hopeful.
If England had been knocked out last night then ITV would have taken Tuesday's semi between Italy and Spain.
I want the current restrictions to be eased but I like the idea people value life more than economic prosperity because it changes or re-frames the national debate and priorities.
https://twitter.com/SkySportsNews/status/1411672253935280129
Edited
As if 'saving every life' versus 'protecting the economy' were the choice on offer. Its an utterly false choice.
Ask any country that does not have a good economy.
Same thing with the de Santis Florida approach. Maybe some more deaths of some types, fewer of others.
A brave politicians takes their choice and stands by it.
Alternatively, Boris Johnson and his government. The course of minimum responsibility, regardless of lives.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jul/04/schools-bleeding-out-covid-isolation-rules-headteachers-england
I remember when the same people were all moaning that teaching kids was all far too risky and schools must be shut at all times....at the time, the government said it harms in particular vulnerable and poor kids.
Tenants of a John Lewis-owned home will have the option of renting the property fully furnished with the department store’s products
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/04/john-lewis-plans-to-build-10000-rental-homes-on-its-land-waitrose
People disagree about that, with you at the extreme 'no' end, but it is perfectly consistent for people to think the answer was 'yes', but by this time is 'no'.
Look at the England bench and deeper into the squad, and tell me those guys would not be first name on the team sheet for 90% of the sides in this competition.
Foden has barely been used and might well not be again, but I bet the Danes would love a player like that, for example. Ukraine would. Almost anybody would. For England its Phil who?
At international level you can only play the cards you are dealt. Southgate has an amazing hand. He's competent sure, but genius? nope.
Absurd.
Trump was the first one-term Republican to be voted out of office in a very long time. Ford lost in 1976 but he had never been "elected" (he wasn't on the 1972 GOP ticket). Indeed, he nearly lost the 1976 nomination to Reagan so it was perhaps inevitable by 1980 Reagan would be the obvious choice.
We'll never know whether Ford might have considered a 1984 run has Reagan lost in 1980 but for all his Presidency was short-lived and under the long shadow of Nixon and Watergate, I think history has been pretty kind to Gerald Ford.
Before Ford, you had Herbert Hoover who lost to FDR in 1932. That ended a 12-year period of Republican control of the White House. Hoover remained a strong critic of FDR and the "New Deal" and, like Ford, was mentioned as a possible challenger in 1936 but stood aside - Alf Landon eventually got the nomination but was crushed in the General Election.
Before Hoover, there was Taft who lost the 1912 election in extraordinary circumstances to Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt who split the Republicans and ran as a Progressive candidate.
A better parallel might be Benjamin Harrison, who, as with Trump, lost the popular vote twice - in 1888 he won enough ECV to become President but in 1892 he was decisively defeated by Grover Cleveland.
Apparently his whole vision is driven by desire to minimize what he calls "chaotic" situations i.e. he doesn't think England should play the sort of high press high energy that most Premier League teams successfully deploy. He thinks that can lead to too many risky situations that could expose England, thus he opts for an approach which is much slower and condenses / marks space.
So good so far....
The big question is if England fall behind and then face say an Italy who will become very negative and happy to block out the game, does Southgate have a plan B that can successfully combine all the attacking talent to unlock a team whose only goal is to block out time.
England under Southgate so far have never really shown this ability.
I wonder if the last days of Kabul will see similar scenes?
It's a choice between public and political policy aimed at improving how we live in terms of the provision of health care and wellbeing (both physical and mental) as against a purely economically driven policy agenda which prioritises wellbeing via material consumption and the accumulation of material possessions (houses, cars, phones and things).
In essence, "how we live" is more important than "what we have".
Perhaps if the coronavirus experience has taught us anything, it's that the accumulation of material possessions does not bring happiness or fulfilment and it is those more intangible aspects to wellbeing (including socialisation) that are more important. Public policy to encourage the latter would seem to be the way forward so less work and more "play"?
A life worth £27k.
Good health worth £13k.
Sanity worth £16k.
A social life worth £8k.
Peace of mind worth £11k.
Freedom of assembly £3k.
Etc.
Ultimately people will say "yes, of course the government should prioritise lives above all else." This is a problem for the government, because they'll want to turn off the taps before it becomes obvious what a clusterfuck we're facing economically. Labour will gladly exploit this difficulty.
Also, worth noting that the Ragin' Cajun is the hero of one Dominic Cummings.
We are where we are because HMG is running two policies in parallel that do not quite fit. First, the government decided not to vaccinate schoolchildren because they did not become ill when infected. That's fine but when combined with aggressive testing and self-isolation in bubbles, this is what was bound to happen.
But as I said, schools break up in a week or two and then there will be six weeks to think of some new rules.
I was the one urging earlier and harder lockdowns in the autumn, because it was obvious without that we’d have a catastrophe. And we did.
But due to vaccines, that danger has been, if not eliminated, at least sufficiently diminished that we should be loosening restrictions. Especially given that the restrictions themselves are very onerous and one reason why schools were becoming totally unmanageable in the autumn. That hasn’t changed either, by the way.
When the facts change, sensible people change their minds.
But sadly there are no sensible people at the DfE.
It's pretty clear the current generations would never have made it through the war.
Taxes on other people are like restrictions on other people ie popular.
I agree with kinabalu that having common currency to discuss choices is healthy (it's the procedure adopted by NICE in judging whether new drugs should be available on the NHS). That would enable us to weigh up freedoms we think are important (right to change governments, £1 billion) ones that are nice to have (right to go to a crowded pub, £20) and ones that most of us don't care about (right not to have to carry a piece of paper to go to a crowded pub, £0.01). People who treat all freedom as indivisible and therefore of equal value tend not to be taken seriously.
There seems a reasonable chance that those who want to protect themselves are doing so and everyone else is at the Arkell v Pressdram stage anyway.
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The average age of COVID admission has decreased by around 20 years! It fell from 66 in mid-February to 46 in late June).
It’s offices that may be the problem - but equally, they may not be going back yet. And schools, but in two/three weeks they break up.
I'm still going to wear mine for some time yet.
But they may still be of value in shops.
The only thing to say against it is I see no evidence of infection rates falling after they started to be widely used - that said, proving a negative is very hard work.
That said, I think it's a false choice. There was always going to be a horrendous amount of short-term economic damage, because many people would have avoided discretionary activities that put them at risk of infection. One advantage of a government imposing restrictions should have been that it would have instilled more confidence in the general public that things were safe when those restrictions were removed.
However, until this spring and summer - when the risk balance has finally reversed - the government failed to instil this confidence in many people, as its decisions were to prioritise the economy over public health, right up to the brim of NHS capacity (and I think a bit beyond this last winter).
Quite scary figures here from the British Journal of Anaesthesia:
3/ This represents the cancellation or postponement of ~1.5 million surgical procedures due to the pandemic. We estimate that by the end of 2021 there will be a backlog of ~2.4 million surgical procedures in England and Wales. https://t.co/NmiTMSwPdv https://t.co/yjOa4EcCLP
https://twitter.com/_tomabbott/status/1405791198942482433?s=19
I really like drinks parties, but not so much the ones I actually get invited to.
e.g It has cost my free movement and work in Europe, and subsequent rights for my decendents, a fishing industry, a farming industry, invisible earnings from the city, and our reputation abroad, all of which are priceless, whereas its value as far as I am concerned, is bugger all.
F1: stewards a bit too trigger happy with penalties, I think.
For myself, I’m keeping my cloth masks to wear when cycling in cold weather. The others - never again.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/07/austria-post-race-analysis-2021.html
In short, taking extra precautions might delay when you catch Plague, but are unlikely to prevent it.
I seem to recall that, back when this all started, Sir Patrick Vallance suggested that pretty much everyone would catch Covid-19 eventually. Perhaps he was right?
In other news: just announced on radio that Wimbledon will be operating at 100% capacity for Centre and No.1 Courts from the quarter-finals onwards. First instance of full capacity being permitted at large sports stadia since the start of the pandemic.
e.g. https://www.zoro.co.uk/shop?query=ffp3&flag=1
There was a period of maybe 2 months where there was a wait, but since last summer no real issue.
I got a respirator style one where you can easily change the filters, and the filters aren't very expensive. All widely used in things like paint spraying.
30 years ago Andrew Neil used his paper to make up bullshit about HIV and AIDS. Apparently hasn't learnt a thing.
Anti-vax tweet from GB News featuring anti-scientific diatribe from Neil Oliver labelled as misleading by @Twitter
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1411702849051021324
The biter bit, if so.
AsI said yesterday. I've now switched from the N95 to a scarf.