FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
It kinda isn't, the double jabbed have friends/family who haven't been double jabbed yet, so worry about them.
They should go and moan at their MP and force the government to ignore the JCVI on the arbitrary 8 week gap. It's solving tomorrow's problem by ignoring today's. We can solve tomorrow's problem tomorrow by extending booster jabs down to all adults. Get them to bitch about no decision on vaccines for 12-17 year olds as well while you're at it. Completely idiotic that we're not getting on with it asap for all teenagers who want it or parents who want their kids to have it.
We are now seeing Pfizer vaccine doses pile up as our 60m order has commenced.
There is defintely not a shortage of supply of vaccines in the UK whatsoever.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Do those Conservatives who do not support taking the knee also support BOOING those taking the knee? I very much doubt most do.
That's the big danger for Johnson. In pandering to the base (an activity of which I know you are a huge fan) he's allowed himself to be cast in a bad light even for those in his base. This issue could have been closed down pre-tournament, but Patel's comments weren't corrected, and headbanger Tory MPs weren't disciplined.
I'd also note that 38% is a heck of a lot of Tories. Not saying at all that this issue will do it on its own, but Major only needed to lose around a quarter of voters in his 1992 triumph to go down in flames in 1997. Indeed, it's that 38% that Conservatives need to pander to most of all as they are the ones most likely to shop elsewhere for their political leaders.
This is what Cameron understood with his "hug a hoody" and "hug a huskie" messaging, the 0.7% of GDP stuff etc. None of that was about the base - the Tory base varies from agnostic to hostile on such things. It's about the Blair voters and soggy centre.
If you ignore the 62% as 2019 showed they will go to Farage and not only would you lose government, you would cease being the main party of opposition too.
Remember too Major lost almost a million votes to the Referendum Party and UKIP in 1997.
Cameron failed to get a majority in 2010 after 'hug a hoody' and even in 2015 got far smaller a majority than Boris did in 2019 when he carried his base with him.
You don't need to support booing as such, all you need to say is taking the knee is personal choice and not actually do it yourself or say it must be done
Cameron wasn't up against Corbyn in either of the elections he fought.
For Johnson in 2019, he faced a Labour Party that had vacated the centre ground (and Lib Dems who had too, frankly - "Bollocks to Brexit" was not one to appeal to the pragmatist). He did face a threat from the right.
But times change. Brexit is done and Farage is (for now) retired. Corbyn is no longer a Labour MP, and Swinson is not an MP at all. That doesn't mean disaster for Johnson - Starmer and Davey have plenty of problems of their own, while he has a big majority and a decent poll rating. But you're talking about fighting the last war, not the next.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
Getting the updates as weekly stats would look terrifying given the weekly jumps in numbers.
Not really we get the weekly infection survey data once a week and no one cares about that too much. I'd also move death and hospital reporting to %age based measures of deaths and hospitalisations that week. To actually put COVID into much better context of what happens in the country.
For too many people 1 COVID death is 1 too many but we're never going back to a world where we have zero COVID deaths. There has been a complete lack of explanation of this new reality to the public. The politicians and scientists are trying to maintain a false pretence that we have the capability to control this and bring it back to something like zero. That's just not going to happen. Treating it like every other disease that ails us is the first step among many that need to be taken.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
Gun resembling Lego toy sparks backlash in US https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57832053 ...It is illegal in the US to produce a children's toy that precisely resembles a real gun, but the laws do not explicitly prevent manufacturers from making a gun that resembles a toy...
Lord Frost tells Lords Ctte that increased cross border trade in Ireland is ‘in many ways a problem’ & he doesn’t want to encourage more of it.
Pressed by the Ctte chair he says it’s a problem because it reflects the fact NI businesses are finding it more difficult to source goods from preferred GB suppliers.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
It kinda isn't, the double jabbed have friends/family who haven't been double jabbed yet, so worry about them.
They should go and moan at their MP and force the government to ignore the JCVI on the arbitrary 8 week gap. It's solving tomorrow's problem by ignoring today's. We can solve tomorrow's problem tomorrow by extending booster jabs down to all adults. Get them to bitch about no decision on vaccines for 12-17 year olds as well while you're at it. Completely idiotic that we're not getting on with it asap for all teenagers who want it or parents who want their kids to have it.
We are now seeing Pfizer vaccine doses pile up as our 60m order has commenced.
There is defintely not a shortage of supply of vaccines in the UK whatsoever.
Indeed, loads is currently sitting in fridges unused because the JCVI are flunking the decision on kids and forcing under 40s to wait for 8 weeks completely unnecessarily. We could bring that gap down to 3/4 weeks tomorrow and start doing 300-400k second doses per day and get the whole programme complete by the second week of August.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Do those Conservatives who do not support taking the knee also support BOOING those taking the knee? I very much doubt most do.
That's the big danger for Johnson. In pandering to the base (an activity of which I know you are a huge fan) he's allowed himself to be cast in a bad light even for those in his base. This issue could have been closed down pre-tournament, but Patel's comments weren't corrected, and headbanger Tory MPs weren't disciplined.
I'd also note that 38% is a heck of a lot of Tories. Not saying at all that this issue will do it on its own, but Major only needed to lose around a quarter of voters in his 1992 triumph to go down in flames in 1997. Indeed, it's that 38% that Conservatives need to pander to most of all as they are the ones most likely to shop elsewhere for their political leaders.
This is what Cameron understood with his "hug a hoody" and "hug a huskie" messaging, the 0.7% of GDP stuff etc. None of that was about the base - the Tory base varies from agnostic to hostile on such things. It's about the Blair voters and soggy centre.
If you ignore the 62% as 2019 showed they will go to Farage and not only would you lose government, you would cease being the main party of opposition too.
Remember too Major lost almost a million votes to the Referendum Party and UKIP in 1997.
Cameron failed to get a majority in 2010 after 'hug a hoody' and even in 2015 got far smaller a majority than Boris did in 2019 when he carried his base with him.
You don't need to support booing as such, all you need to say is taking the knee is personal choice and not actually do it yourself or say it must be done
Cameron wasn't up against Corbyn in either of the elections he fought.
For Johnson in 2019, he faced a Labour Party that had vacated the centre ground (and Lib Dems who had too, frankly - "Bollocks to Brexit" was not one to appeal to the pragmatist). He did face a threat from the right.
But times change. Brexit is done and Farage is (for now) retired. Corbyn is no longer a Labour MP, and Swinson is not an MP at all. That doesn't mean disaster for Johnson - Starmer and Davey have plenty of problems of their own, while he has a big majority and a decent poll rating. But you're talking about fighting the last war, not the next.
Corbyn was a better campaigner than either Brown or Ed Miliband, even if ideologically more extreme.
Indeed even in 2019 Corbyn got a higher voteshare than Brown got in 2010 and Miliband got in 2015 and in 2017 he got the highest Labour voteshare since Blair in 2001
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
Getting the updates as weekly stats would look terrifying given the weekly jumps in numbers.
Not really we get the weekly infection survey data once a week and no one cares about that too much. I'd also move death and hospital reporting to %age based measures of deaths and hospitalisations that week. To actually put COVID into much better context of what happens in the country.
For too many people 1 COVID death is 1 too many but we're never going back to a world where we have zero COVID deaths. There has been a complete lack of explanation of this new reality to the public. The politicians and scientists are trying to maintain a false pretence that we have the capability to control this and bring it back to something like zero. That's just not going to happen. Treating it like every other disease that ails us is the first step among many that need to be taken.
The problem is Boris does his usual and over does the optimism, Witty and Valance often speak in a way that I don't think people fully grasp what they are actually saying and then we have the dishonest zero covid lot who say if we only lockdown for a bit longer and a bit longer and a bit longer that will sort it.
12/07: 610 Hospital occupancy in England: 14/07: 3,110 Mechanical ventilation beds occupied in England: 14/07: 489
On the government summary sheet for 7th July the number of people in hospital for the whole of the UK was 2731 so 3110 for England alone shows an increase but not as bad as I feared to be honest. Maybe 25%? I suspect the number in hospital in Scotland may now be falling again given the sharp reduction in new infections.
Are we talking just of/with Covid?
Yes.
Thx. Not to be sniffed at, of course it will likely rise, and we don't have that many beds to play with, but that is 2.5% of hospital occupancy (122k available beds in the NHS in England).
Agreed. Or to look at it another way there are 1257 hospitals in the UK so it is an average of something under 3 patients per hospital. Currently. Given the massive back logs of treatment, however, we don't want this number increasing too much.
Very interesting piece on R4 this morning saying that they are expecting/beginning to see a wave of viral infections esp. in children right now. These are the infections and illnesses that would have taken place naturally but were supressed because everyone has been at home for the past 18 months.
Yes, the last flu season was the smallest on record due to precautions being taken about Covid which enormously helped. If we had had a bad flu season a hell of a lot more people would have died in January and February and the NHS would really have struggled.
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
It seems to have spread a lot in last 4 to 5 days
Several pubs where I used to live have had outbreaks confirmed last few days
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
I struggle to see why any sensible politician wants to get involved in the debate.
I'm happy for England players to take the knee before matches. I'm happy if they don't. I'd like them to be able to make their minds up, individually or as a team, without politicians getting hysterical about it and anyone booing them.
Politicians can't always CHOOSE which debates to get involved in. You're going to get "do you condemn?" and "do you condone?" questions - and can't sidestep as it's "X refuses to condemn Y". If you're a leader, you're going to get MPs and Home Secretaries wading in, and need to decide how to respond.
There has been a debate over whether taking the knee should be replaced with a more "unifying" symbol (presumably a badge stitched on a sleeve with a nice slogan dreamt up in a clever ad agency). But that misses the point. Symbols aren't always meant to unify. Some of them are intended to prevent the politicians you mention (and others in society) from dodging the debate - they confront, force people to take sides, and require public debate. In that respect, taking a knee (whatever you think of it) has been enormously powerful.
I condone choosing to take the knee. I condone choosing not to take the knee. I condemn booing people for taking the knee.
Simple. (Maybe I'd be a terrible politician, but that's the position which would make me most likely to vote for someone, all else being equal).
I agree about the power of the gesture. All the deabte about it has certainly raised the profile of the issues.
That's a reasonable start, and a hell of a lot better than the Home Secretary and (initially at least) the PM managed. But the questions don't stop... Would you take the knee? Why? Should the boo boys be flung out? What about your MP for Nowhereshire North who said... and on it goes.
The point is that opting out of debates which are in fact raging in society is unrealistic in top level politics.
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
Yes, it would be the least-worst option to reach herd immunity as quickly as possible. (Even though the government can't officially acknowledge that they want certain groups of people, like children, to catch the virus).
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
12/07: 610 Hospital occupancy in England: 14/07: 3,110 Mechanical ventilation beds occupied in England: 14/07: 489
On the government summary sheet for 7th July the number of people in hospital for the whole of the UK was 2731 so 3110 for England alone shows an increase but not as bad as I feared to be honest. Maybe 25%? I suspect the number in hospital in Scotland may now be falling again given the sharp reduction in new infections.
Are we talking just of/with Covid?
Yes.
Thx. Not to be sniffed at, of course it will likely rise, and we don't have that many beds to play with, but that is 2.5% of hospital occupancy (122k available beds in the NHS in England).
Agreed. Or to look at it another way there are 1257 hospitals in the UK so it is an average of something under 3 patients per hospital. Currently. Given the massive back logs of treatment, however, we don't want this number increasing too much.
Very interesting piece on R4 this morning saying that they are expecting/beginning to see a wave of viral infections esp. in children right now. These are the infections and illnesses that would have taken place naturally but were supressed because everyone has been at home for the past 18 months.
Yes, the last flu season was the smallest on record due to precautions being taken about Covid which enormously helped. If we had had a bad flu season a hell of a lot more people would have died in January and February and the NHS would really have struggled.
One reason I've already booked a Flu jab in September is that I expect this years flu to either none existent or horrendous. I just cannot see how any middle ground will occur.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Again you miss the point and add to my despair I have with you over this
HYUFD's superpower is utterly to frustrate all who attempt to argue with him. I've grown to find it endearing.
He secretes the intellectual equivalent of those superglues which barnacles synthesise to cling to their rocks as the breakers of logic smash over their heads.
He still hasn't admitted that a few self selected skippers of big long range trawlers do not represent the entire workforce of the Scottish fishing industry when it comes to actual votes. What I don't understand is wht this doesn't damage the faith some on PB have on him.
I remember my arguments with him over Trafalgar Group polling and the supposed existence of an "English American Voting Bloc" in the US. Seems like a lifetime ago.
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
It seems to have spread a lot in last 4 to 5 days
Several pubs where I used to live have had outbreaks confirmed last few days
Not sure where you are. But I had the same experience a couple of weeks back. It seemed like everyone I knew was getting it. And, lo and behold, my area put in a huge surge in the following few days to hit the front.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
Your chances of dying of, as opposed to with, Covid are vanishingly small once double vaxxed but much more material numbers are needing hospital treatment and a lot of them will have long covid symptons for some time to come.
We are paying the price of slow vaccination rates in May, June and now July as well. Not enough of us are double vaxxed.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Do those Conservatives who do not support taking the knee also support BOOING those taking the knee? I very much doubt most do.
That's the big danger for Johnson. In pandering to the base (an activity of which I know you are a huge fan) he's allowed himself to be cast in a bad light even for those in his base. This issue could have been closed down pre-tournament, but Patel's comments weren't corrected, and headbanger Tory MPs weren't disciplined.
I'd also note that 38% is a heck of a lot of Tories. Not saying at all that this issue will do it on its own, but Major only needed to lose around a quarter of voters in his 1992 triumph to go down in flames in 1997. Indeed, it's that 38% that Conservatives need to pander to most of all as they are the ones most likely to shop elsewhere for their political leaders.
This is what Cameron understood with his "hug a hoody" and "hug a huskie" messaging, the 0.7% of GDP stuff etc. None of that was about the base - the Tory base varies from agnostic to hostile on such things. It's about the Blair voters and soggy centre.
If you ignore the 62% as 2019 showed they will go to Farage and not only would you lose government, you would cease being the main party of opposition too.
Remember too Major lost almost a million votes to the Referendum Party and UKIP in 1997.
Cameron failed to get a majority in 2010 after 'hug a hoody' and even in 2015 got far smaller a majority than Boris did in 2019 when he carried his base with him.
You don't need to support booing as such, all you need to say is taking the knee is personal choice and not actually do it yourself or say it must be done
Cameron wasn't up against Corbyn in either of the elections he fought.
For Johnson in 2019, he faced a Labour Party that had vacated the centre ground (and Lib Dems who had too, frankly - "Bollocks to Brexit" was not one to appeal to the pragmatist). He did face a threat from the right.
But times change. Brexit is done and Farage is (for now) retired. Corbyn is no longer a Labour MP, and Swinson is not an MP at all. That doesn't mean disaster for Johnson - Starmer and Davey have plenty of problems of their own, while he has a big majority and a decent poll rating. But you're talking about fighting the last war, not the next.
Corbyn was a better campaigner than either Brown or Ed Miliband, even if ideologically more extreme.
Indeed even in 2019 Corbyn got a higher voteshare than Brown got in 2010 and Miliband got in 2015 and in 2017 he got the highest Labour voteshare since Blair in 2001
My point wasn't that Johnson faces a bigger threat than in 2019 (although he may). My point is he faces a DIFFERENT threat.
You need to understand which voter groups are most up for grabs - who are your main opponents targeting, which parts of your coalition are most fragile, and who in your opponent's camp is unhappy?
That calculation is different now than it was in 2019. Doesn't mean the game is harder... but it is not the same. That 38% of Tory pro-kneers is an at risk group for Johnson in a way that wasn't really the case when the Equality and Human Rights Commission were all over Corbyn.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
~300 deaths a day are "avoidable mortality" (treatable conditions, accidents, lifestyle)
Clearly, up to now, covid has been building up, peaking at and subsiding at levels way beyond this background.
With a significant percentage of double-jabbage, this wave is also going to be at levels significant against this background.
You are, right, though, that eventually waves will be peaking well below these "all other reasons" levels, and that's when we will be living with it
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
I really think this needs more investigation though. Pre Delta kids either didn't get Covid much or were asymptomatic so they were less likely to be picked up. It seems to me that Delta is not just more infectious but more infectious to the young. We should really be looking at that when deciding if vaccinating school kids is a good idea or not.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Again you miss the point and add to my despair I have with you over this
The point is no political party can survive ignoring the views of most of its voters, the same as no business can survive ignoring what its customers want
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
Of course they're scared with the type of reporting the mainstream news channels are engaging in. If they reported each year's flu statistics in the same way everyone would be scared stiff of flu.
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
It seems to have spread a lot in last 4 to 5 days
Several pubs where I used to live have had outbreaks confirmed last few days
Any... Any event in the last few days that may have caused crowds to gather in pubs?
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
It seems to have spread a lot in last 4 to 5 days
Several pubs where I used to live have had outbreaks confirmed last few days
Any... Any event in the last few days that may have caused crowds to gather in pubs?
And positively encouraged (in general) by some of the powers that be?
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Again you miss the point and add to my despair I have with you over this
The point is no political party can survive ignoring the views of most of its voters, the same as no business can survive ignoring what its customers want
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
Of course they're scared with the type of reporting the mainstream news channels are engaging in. If they reported each year's flu epidemic in the same way everyone would be scared stiff of flu.
Nope.
The government says it's all ok if you're double jabbed.
Yet 1/3 of the public aren't double jabbed.
The public can do the maths about reopening on July 19th.
The other things that have got totally lost with vaccine rollout....not being a fatty helps a lot, evidence that vitamin D deficiency isn't good either, etc....stuff everybody can do to give themselves a better chance.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
Even I’m bored of the relentless discussion on “taking the knee”. Boring.
Ps the Government’s investment in industry in the North East is very impressive. I’m getting involved in quite a bit of it in my new job and there’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. It doesn’t undo decades of neglect but it’s a start. Credit where it’s due.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
Yep. And continuing to publish daily new infections, in a sort of gruesome 4pm fright-fest, is stoking that fear. The fact that a new infection post vaccine roll-out is not the same as a new infection pre-vaccine is not acknowledged in the continuance of this daily ritual.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
LOL! Not much sign of a Batley Bounce for Labour is there?
No, they were on 30% yesterday with YouGov. Looks like a definite bounce for the LDs though.
Yeah Lib-Dems have had a real bounce after C&A.
Well it's be expected as I guess the publicity made millions of people suddenly realize the Lib-Dems are actually a "thing" for the first time in 6 years!
Even I’m bored of the relentless discussion on “taking the knee”. Boring.
Ps the Government’s investment in industry in the North East is very impressive. I’m getting involved in quite a bit of it in my new job and there’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. It doesn’t undo decades of neglect but it’s a start. Credit where it’s due.
I'll say it again. The PM is Harold Wilson. With messy hair and no pipe.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
It kinda isn't, the double jabbed have friends/family who haven't been double jabbed yet, so worry about them.
They should go and moan at their MP and force the government to ignore the JCVI on the arbitrary 8 week gap. It's solving tomorrow's problem by ignoring today's. We can solve tomorrow's problem tomorrow by extending booster jabs down to all adults. Get them to bitch about no decision on vaccines for 12-17 year olds as well while you're at it. Completely idiotic that we're not getting on with it asap for all teenagers who want it or parents who want their kids to have it.
We are now seeing Pfizer vaccine doses pile up as our 60m order has commenced.
There is defintely not a shortage of supply of vaccines in the UK whatsoever.
Indeed, loads is currently sitting in fridges unused because the JCVI are flunking the decision on kids and forcing under 40s to wait for 8 weeks completely unnecessarily. We could bring that gap down to 3/4 weeks tomorrow and start doing 300-400k second doses per day and get the whole programme complete by the second week of August.
Protection is better if you wait until 8 weeks -> so not unnecessarily.
Has there been enough discussion about the chaos at Wembley on Sunday? Or in deed some of the chaos that was present outside Wembley for the Denmark game.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Again you miss the point and add to my despair I have with you over this
The point is no political party can survive ignoring the views of most of its voters, the same as no business can survive ignoring what its customers want
47% is not "most".
62% certainly is
You were implying the other day that 47% was enough!
The Economist asks the important question of the moment.
"@TheEconomist The most striking aspect of Italy’s 26-man squad before it took to the pitch was that, alone among the main contenders, it did not include a single player considered as being of colour"
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
It kinda isn't, the double jabbed have friends/family who haven't been double jabbed yet, so worry about them.
They should go and moan at their MP and force the government to ignore the JCVI on the arbitrary 8 week gap. It's solving tomorrow's problem by ignoring today's. We can solve tomorrow's problem tomorrow by extending booster jabs down to all adults. Get them to bitch about no decision on vaccines for 12-17 year olds as well while you're at it. Completely idiotic that we're not getting on with it asap for all teenagers who want it or parents who want their kids to have it.
We are now seeing Pfizer vaccine doses pile up as our 60m order has commenced.
There is defintely not a shortage of supply of vaccines in the UK whatsoever.
Indeed, loads is currently sitting in fridges unused because the JCVI are flunking the decision on kids and forcing under 40s to wait for 8 weeks completely unnecessarily. We could bring that gap down to 3/4 weeks tomorrow and start doing 300-400k second doses per day and get the whole programme complete by the second week of August.
Protection is better if you wait until 8 weeks -> so not unnecessarily.
That is only the case for AZ, it's not so true for the other vaccines. Getting this round of vaccines out of the way would make most sense.
However I suspect we are doing 18-30 until the end of August so that people are available to do the boosters in September
It certainly feels like Johnson has hit his peak and begun the long slide but more importantly the mood of the nation seems to be changing.
That can only be a good thing for the progressives whichever opposition party takes the lead
LOL Roger! It's the hope that burns eternal isn't it?
To me the current polling situation looks exactly in line with what I'm expecting at the next election.
Conservative majority but reduced (maybe halved) with Con losing quite a few seats in the south to the Lib-Dems and Labour retaking a few in the north (Con may still take a handful off Labour in the Red Wall too)
It will be 1992 and 2005 all over again!
Con majority around 20-40 seats. Boris goes a couple of years later and Labour, under Burnham, win a small majority around 2029 bringing an end to 19 years of Tory rule (either under coalition or on their own)
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
It kinda isn't, the double jabbed have friends/family who haven't been double jabbed yet, so worry about them.
They should go and moan at their MP and force the government to ignore the JCVI on the arbitrary 8 week gap. It's solving tomorrow's problem by ignoring today's. We can solve tomorrow's problem tomorrow by extending booster jabs down to all adults. Get them to bitch about no decision on vaccines for 12-17 year olds as well while you're at it. Completely idiotic that we're not getting on with it asap for all teenagers who want it or parents who want their kids to have it.
We are now seeing Pfizer vaccine doses pile up as our 60m order has commenced.
There is defintely not a shortage of supply of vaccines in the UK whatsoever.
Indeed, loads is currently sitting in fridges unused because the JCVI are flunking the decision on kids and forcing under 40s to wait for 8 weeks completely unnecessarily. We could bring that gap down to 3/4 weeks tomorrow and start doing 300-400k second doses per day and get the whole programme complete by the second week of August.
Protection is better if you wait until 8 weeks -> so not unnecessarily.
But two jab protection is better now. We can worry about *possible* waning immunity in the future and give under 40s a third dose along with everyone else. We're solving tomorrow's problem, which is great but it's coming at the expense of solving today's very real issue of not enough immunity among younger cohorts.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
Yep. And continuing to publish daily new infections, in a sort of gruesome 4pm fright-fest, is stoking that fear. The fact that a new infection post vaccine roll-out is not the same as a new infection pre-vaccine is not acknowledged in the continuance of this daily ritual.
If the govt stops publishing COVID data -> that isn't going to calm people down, it is going to get them more worried.
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
I really think this needs more investigation though. Pre Delta kids either didn't get Covid much or were asymptomatic so they were less likely to be picked up. It seems to me that Delta is not just more infectious but more infectious to the young. We should really be looking at that when deciding if vaccinating school kids is a good idea or not.
I can't understand why we aren't already vaccinating teenagers. We could have done a first dose before the school holidays start, and then a second dose at the start of the new school year.
We are in the exact same position as Europe was when they were being sniffy about the effectiveness of AZ, or of extending the gap between doses to 12 weeks - there is masses of real-world evidence that vaccinating teenagers is very safe. I didn't understand why Europe was so sceptical then, and I don't understand why we're finding this such a hard decision to take now.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
Did I say that?
An average of zero UK citizens dies per year in plane crashes (rounded to the nearest person).
So fear of covid isn't quite like a fear of a plane crash (which is indeed irrational, and also rather binary - you die or you don't. There are vanishingly few people who suffer long term conditions as a result of a plane crash).
It certainly feels like Johnson has hit his peak and begun the long slide but more importantly the mood of the nation seems to be changing.
That can only be a good thing for the progressives whichever opposition party takes the lead
LOL Roger! It's the hope that burns eternal isn't it?
To me the current polling situation looks exactly in line with what I'm expecting at the next election.
Conservative majority but reduced (maybe halved) with Con losing quite a few seats in the south to the Lib-Dems and Labour retaking a few in the north (Con may still take a handful off Labour in the Red Wall too)
It will be 1992 and 2005 all over again!
Con majority around 20-40 seats. Boris goes a couple of years later and Labour, under Burnham, win a small majority around 2029 bringing an end to 19 years of Tory rule (either under coalition or on their own)
2030's *might* be a Labour decade!
Mmm. From a decidedly different political standpoint, that's my view too. If it's nearer 20, I reckon Boris will be off sharpish.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
Yep. And continuing to publish daily new infections, in a sort of gruesome 4pm fright-fest, is stoking that fear. The fact that a new infection post vaccine roll-out is not the same as a new infection pre-vaccine is not acknowledged in the continuance of this daily ritual.
If the govt stops publishing COVID data -> that isn't going to calm people down, it is going to get them more worried.
They shouldn't stop publishing data but they should recontextualize the way the data is presented with an emphasis on how many people in hospital and died had both Covid jabs.
The world faces an onslaught of coastal flooding starting in the mid-2030s due to a "wobble" in the moon's orbit, Nasa has warned.
Numbers of floods could quadruple as the gravitational effects of the lunar cycle combine with climate change to produce "a decade of dramatic increases" in water disasters.
It certainly feels like Johnson has hit his peak and begun the long slide but more importantly the mood of the nation seems to be changing.
That can only be a good thing for the progressives whichever opposition party takes the lead
We're still too divided Roger. The two parts of Labour still hate each other, the Greens are fracturing over Trans rights (see today) and I have seen almost as many false dawns for the Lib Dems in my lifetime as I've seen the sun actually rise in the east.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
You're massively less likely to die in a plane crash compared to other modes of transport.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
I struggle to see why any sensible politician wants to get involved in the debate.
I'm happy for England players to take the knee before matches. I'm happy if they don't. I'd like them to be able to make their minds up, individually or as a team, without politicians getting hysterical about it and anyone booing them.
Politicians can't always CHOOSE which debates to get involved in. You're going to get "do you condemn?" and "do you condone?" questions - and can't sidestep as it's "X refuses to condemn Y". If you're a leader, you're going to get MPs and Home Secretaries wading in, and need to decide how to respond.
There has been a debate over whether taking the knee should be replaced with a more "unifying" symbol (presumably a badge stitched on a sleeve with a nice slogan dreamt up in a clever ad agency). But that misses the point. Symbols aren't always meant to unify. Some of them are intended to prevent the politicians you mention (and others in society) from dodging the debate - they confront, force people to take sides, and require public debate. In that respect, taking a knee (whatever you think of it) has been enormously powerful.
I condone choosing to take the knee. I condone choosing not to take the knee. I condemn booing people for taking the knee.
Simple. (Maybe I'd be a terrible politician, but that's the position which would make me most likely to vote for someone, all else being equal).
I agree about the power of the gesture. All the deabte about it has certainly raised the profile of the issues.
I agree with this in most part.
Priti Patel was right to say that people had the right to boo the gesture. She was wrong not to condemn that booing as both oafish and potentially racist in effect. I have increasing reservations about supporting a government that thinks she is a suitable person to be Home Secretary. This and the points made by @Cyclefree in her header this morning, even although I thought they were overstated, drive me to the conclusion that she does not engender British attitudes of tolerance, mutual respect and kindness. We need a better Home Secretary.
My views on the gesture itself have developed from some degree of skepticism and incredulity that this gesture reflecting American racial tensions and then police murder was thought to be relevant to our experience in the UK to an increasing degree of acceptance that a significant number of our ethnic minorities feel oppressed in this way and that their concerns are worthy of respect and proper consideration.
To be clear I would never have been so obnoxious as to boo this but I am now a lot more supportive of the gesture than I was 6 months ago.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Again you miss the point and add to my despair I have with you over this
The point is no political party can survive ignoring the views of most of its voters, the same as no business can survive ignoring what its customers want
47% is not "most".
62% certainly is
You were implying the other day that 47% was enough!
The other things that have got totally lost with vaccine rollout....not being a fatty helps a lot, evidence that vitamin D deficiency isn't good either, etc....stuff everybody can do to give themselves a better chance.
A government that said "lose some weight fatties" would get it in the neck even if that would be excellent advice regarding covid and more generally.
It certainly feels like Johnson has hit his peak and begun the long slide but more importantly the mood of the nation seems to be changing.
That can only be a good thing for the progressives whichever opposition party takes the lead
LOL Roger! It's the hope that burns eternal isn't it?
To me the current polling situation looks exactly in line with what I'm expecting at the next election.
Conservative majority but reduced (maybe halved) with Con losing quite a few seats in the south to the Lib-Dems and Labour retaking a few in the north (Con may still take a handful off Labour in the Red Wall too)
It will be 1992 and 2005 all over again!
Con majority around 20-40 seats. Boris goes a couple of years later and Labour, under Burnham, win a small majority around 2029 bringing an end to 19 years of Tory rule (either under coalition or on their own)
2030's *might* be a Labour decade!
Mmm. From a decidedly different political standpoint, that's my view too. If it's nearer 20, I reckon Boris will be off sharpish.
Well I've voted Labour before and could see myself doing so again under someone sensible like Burnham... We shall see...
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
You're massively less likely to die in a plane crash compared to other modes of transport.
The other things that have got totally lost with vaccine rollout....not being a fatty helps a lot, evidence that vitamin D deficiency isn't good either, etc....stuff everybody can do to give themselves a better chance.
A government that said "lose some weight fatties" would get it in the neck even if that would be excellent advice regarding covid and more generally.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
Yep. And continuing to publish daily new infections, in a sort of gruesome 4pm fright-fest, is stoking that fear. The fact that a new infection post vaccine roll-out is not the same as a new infection pre-vaccine is not acknowledged in the continuance of this daily ritual.
If the govt stops publishing COVID data -> that isn't going to calm people down, it is going to get them more worried.
See your point, but I would carry on with hospitalisations as a weekly announcement not daily, stop reporting new infections as they are irrelevant (or as irrelevant as they will ever be post-vaccine) and if deaths are still to be reported make it weekly not daily and sort out the of/with aspect which must be creating much noise in the current low figures.
But two jab protection is better now. We can worry about *possible* waning immunity in the future and give under 40s a third dose along with everyone else. We're solving tomorrow's problem, which is great but it's coming at the expense of solving today's very real issue of not enough immunity among younger cohorts.
I have to say in the end I've not been that impressed by the vaccination programme, it really started to wane once the second jabs began. It's depressing to turn up at a vaccination centre with ten booths for vaccination and see maybe 3-4 other people waiting for a jab.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
You're massively less likely to die in a plane crash compared to other modes of transport.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
You're massively less likely to die in a plane crash compared to other modes of transport.
I think you're making the right point but it sounds wrong.
Per mile travelled, your safest going by plane.
If you're in a crash, however, a plane is a bad place to be. You'd be better off in a car crash than a plane crash.
Even the former stat is maybe a bit misleading - planes do misleadingly well because they go very fast and therefore a long distance. When you compare by time spent travelling rather than distance travelled the slower modes do a lot better,
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
Did I say that?
An average of zero UK citizens dies per year in plane crashes (rounded to the nearest person).
So fear of covid isn't quite like a fear of a plane crash (which is indeed irrational, and also rather binary - you die or you don't. There are vanishingly few people who suffer long term conditions as a result of a plane crash).
That stat on UK citizens dying in plane crashes cannot possibly be correct. I believe the worst ever in the UK was in the 1972 and killed some 118 passengers (I think almost all British). That's enough for one per year for the entire history of manned flight. So we've already got to one UK citizen per year from a single incident in the history of flight.
I understand your broad point, but that stat MUST be wrong.
Even if you were for some reason citing a modal or median average, I can't believe that's right either. Even ignoring small private aircraft incidents etc, there are a small number of scheduled passenger aircraft crashes every year somewhere in the world, and they often have a handful of UK citizens involved.
Even I’m bored of the relentless discussion on “taking the knee”. Boring.
Ps the Government’s investment in industry in the North East is very impressive. I’m getting involved in quite a bit of it in my new job and there’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. It doesn’t undo decades of neglect but it’s a start. Credit where it’s due.
Is it all Teesside based or is any of it, apart from the two battery factories finding its was up to Tyne and Wear and the surrounding areas ?
Even I’m bored of the relentless discussion on “taking the knee”. Boring.
Ps the Government’s investment in industry in the North East is very impressive. I’m getting involved in quite a bit of it in my new job and there’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. It doesn’t undo decades of neglect but it’s a start. Credit where it’s due.
Is it all Teesside based or is any of it, apart from the two battery factories finding its was up to Tyne and Wear and the surrounding areas ?
1 factory and a pipe dream without a customer(s) you mean.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
I struggle to see why any sensible politician wants to get involved in the debate.
I'm happy for England players to take the knee before matches. I'm happy if they don't. I'd like them to be able to make their minds up, individually or as a team, without politicians getting hysterical about it and anyone booing them.
Politicians can't always CHOOSE which debates to get involved in. You're going to get "do you condemn?" and "do you condone?" questions - and can't sidestep as it's "X refuses to condemn Y". If you're a leader, you're going to get MPs and Home Secretaries wading in, and need to decide how to respond.
There has been a debate over whether taking the knee should be replaced with a more "unifying" symbol (presumably a badge stitched on a sleeve with a nice slogan dreamt up in a clever ad agency). But that misses the point. Symbols aren't always meant to unify. Some of them are intended to prevent the politicians you mention (and others in society) from dodging the debate - they confront, force people to take sides, and require public debate. In that respect, taking a knee (whatever you think of it) has been enormously powerful.
I condone choosing to take the knee. I condone choosing not to take the knee. I condemn booing people for taking the knee.
Simple. (Maybe I'd be a terrible politician, but that's the position which would make me most likely to vote for someone, all else being equal).
I agree about the power of the gesture. All the deabte about it has certainly raised the profile of the issues.
I agree with this in most part.
Priti Patel was right to say that people had the right to boo the gesture. She was wrong not to condemn that booing as both oafish and potentially racist in effect. I have increasing reservations about supporting a government that thinks she is a suitable person to be Home Secretary. This and the points made by @Cyclefree in her header this morning, even although I thought they were overstated, drive me to the conclusion that she does not engender British attitudes of tolerance, mutual respect and kindness. We need a better Home Secretary.
My views on the gesture itself have developed from some degree of skepticism and incredulity that this gesture reflecting American racial tensions and then police murder was thought to be relevant to our experience in the UK to an increasing degree of acceptance that a significant number of our ethnic minorities feel oppressed in this way and that their concerns are worthy of respect and proper consideration.
To be clear I would never have been so obnoxious as to boo this but I am now a lot more supportive of the gesture than I was 6 months ago.
That's probably where I am too with this - not often I agree with David L.
Wholesale Americanisation of our race relations seems a mistake but in many ways I do think the players have taken ownership of the knee gesture for themselves and if it reflects the abuse directed on social media then I can understand it. I wouldn't assume booing equals racism but a healthly scepticism towards the protagonists seems wise.
Even I’m bored of the relentless discussion on “taking the knee”. Boring.
Ps the Government’s investment in industry in the North East is very impressive. I’m getting involved in quite a bit of it in my new job and there’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. It doesn’t undo decades of neglect but it’s a start. Credit where it’s due.
Is it all Teesside based or is any of it, apart from the two battery factories finding its was up to Tyne and Wear and the surrounding areas ?
Not just Teesside but not everything is as sexy as "battery gigafactory" so will get less headlines
But two jab protection is better now. We can worry about *possible* waning immunity in the future and give under 40s a third dose along with everyone else. We're solving tomorrow's problem, which is great but it's coming at the expense of solving today's very real issue of not enough immunity among younger cohorts.
I have to say in the end I've not been that impressed by the vaccination programme, it really started to wane once the second jabs began. It's depressing to turn up at a vaccination centre with ten booths for vaccination and see maybe 3-4 other people waiting for a jab.
The Courier is reporting that 46% of men 18-30 in Dundee and Tayside are not vaccinated at all. I don't know if this is this a reflection of the sort of idiocy we see amongst Republicans in the US (a vaccine provided by the UK government can't be good or something) or just chronic stupidity ( a local Sheriff once got into quite a lot of trouble for referring to "Dundee man" as something pre sapiens). It is going to make the tail of this pandemic painful.
Thanks to Cyclefree for the last header. I wasn't aware of all those parts of the bill - exactly the sort of thing governments will try to get away with when avoiding annoyance is more important that fairness.
But two jab protection is better now. We can worry about *possible* waning immunity in the future and give under 40s a third dose along with everyone else. We're solving tomorrow's problem, which is great but it's coming at the expense of solving today's very real issue of not enough immunity among younger cohorts.
I have to say in the end I've not been that impressed by the vaccination programme, it really started to wane once the second jabs began. It's depressing to turn up at a vaccination centre with ten booths for vaccination and see maybe 3-4 other people waiting for a jab.
The Courier is reporting that 46% of men 18-30 in Dundee and Tayside are not vaccinated at all. I don't know if this is this a reflection of the sort of idiocy we see amongst Republicans in the US (a vaccine provided by the UK government can't be good or something) or just chronic stupidity ( a local Sheriff once got into quite a lot of trouble for referring to "Dundee man" as something pre sapiens). It is going to make the tail of this pandemic painful.
Reclassify the vaccine as class A in Dundee. Problem solved.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Lord Frost tells Lords Ctte that increased cross border trade in Ireland is ‘in many ways a problem’ & he doesn’t want to encourage more of it.
Pressed by the Ctte chair he says it’s a problem because it reflects the fact NI businesses are finding it more difficult to source goods from preferred GB suppliers.
It's almost like Boris didn't understand the consequences of
1) moving a border from the Northern Ireland / Ireland border to the Irish Sea... 2) that extra paperwork is a disincentive of selling to NI
TBF Boris understood the two big things: Brexit had to happen. There had to be a deal. The first was public, the second was obvious but could not be admitted.
Critics need to say how he could have solved the NI puzzle better. What I think he did was accept a deal - the only deal - available and privately plan to refix it once it obviously couldn't work. For an NI deal to work requires the EU to shift its own red lines, and not just us.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Starmer may be right that taking the knee is fully supported on his side of the political divide, 78% of Labour voters back it. Personally I believe it is a matter of personal choice.
Do those Conservatives who do not support taking the knee also support BOOING those taking the knee? I very much doubt most do.
That's the big danger for Johnson. In pandering to the base (an activity of which I know you are a huge fan) he's allowed himself to be cast in a bad light even for those in his base. This issue could have been closed down pre-tournament, but Patel's comments weren't corrected, and headbanger Tory MPs weren't disciplined.
I'd also note that 38% is a heck of a lot of Tories. Not saying at all that this issue will do it on its own, but Major only needed to lose around a quarter of voters in his 1992 triumph to go down in flames in 1997. Indeed, it's that 38% that Conservatives need to pander to most of all as they are the ones most likely to shop elsewhere for their political leaders.
This is what Cameron understood with his "hug a hoody" and "hug a huskie" messaging, the 0.7% of GDP stuff etc. None of that was about the base - the Tory base varies from agnostic to hostile on such things. It's about the Blair voters and soggy centre.
Good post. The base aren't going anywhere else, now post-Brexit.
They need to worry about me. An ex-Cons voter now thoroughly disaffected by the make up of the Party and is looking around to see what's on offer. So far SKS ain't it but I thought he had a good PMQs today and there will be some for whom a sustained good run by him will do much to sway their vote.
Did you vote Tory in 2019? If not then no, we don't need to worry about you
Yes me old mucker, I voted Tory in 2019.
Now, how can you help me...
Well even if we lose a few like you to the LDs or Starmer it will not make much difference as long as we stay at 40%+ in the polls
But two jab protection is better now. We can worry about *possible* waning immunity in the future and give under 40s a third dose along with everyone else. We're solving tomorrow's problem, which is great but it's coming at the expense of solving today's very real issue of not enough immunity among younger cohorts.
I have to say in the end I've not been that impressed by the vaccination programme, it really started to wane once the second jabs began. It's depressing to turn up at a vaccination centre with ten booths for vaccination and see maybe 3-4 other people waiting for a jab.
The Courier is reporting that 46% of men 18-30 in Dundee and Tayside are not vaccinated at all. I don't know if this is this a reflection of the sort of idiocy we see amongst Republicans in the US (a vaccine provided by the UK government can't be good or something) or just chronic stupidity ( a local Sheriff once got into quite a lot of trouble for referring to "Dundee man" as something pre sapiens). It is going to make the tail of this pandemic painful.
The actual experience of getting the vaccine is excellent, I was in and out getting my second jab in around 4 minutes, and I'm thankful for it. But seeing so many empty seats and booths, with staff far outnumbering people getting jabbed, was dispiriting. I don't know why we've ended up with it tailing off like this, you would think that even if people don't care about the health benefits they might want to get it done simply to let us get back to normal.
Government communication during the pandemic has been a persistent problem, maybe 75% of the population pays attention and has no trouble understanding the message, but at times that last 25% seems almost oblivious to what is going on and what they need to do. Maybe there is no easy answer, but I can't help but feel we dropped the ball.
At my older daughters' school, there is a year 4 class currently out for which 12 out of 30 have had a positive PCR test in the past week. Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
I really think this needs more investigation though. Pre Delta kids either didn't get Covid much or were asymptomatic so they were less likely to be picked up. It seems to me that Delta is not just more infectious but more infectious to the young. We should really be looking at that when deciding if vaccinating school kids is a good idea or not.
Are lots of cases being picked up now because kids are more infected, or because there is a mass testing regime that didn’t exist pre-Delta? (I know the mass testing pre dates Delta since March - but generally then cases of alpha were low/declining.
Even I’m bored of the relentless discussion on “taking the knee”. Boring.
Ps the Government’s investment in industry in the North East is very impressive. I’m getting involved in quite a bit of it in my new job and there’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. It doesn’t undo decades of neglect but it’s a start. Credit where it’s due.
Is it all Teesside based or is any of it, apart from the two battery factories finding its was up to Tyne and Wear and the surrounding areas ?
Not just Teesside but not everything is as sexy as "battery gigafactory" so will get less headlines
Who cares as long as these are sustainable long term businesses with good levels of pay.
Lord Frost tells Lords Ctte that increased cross border trade in Ireland is ‘in many ways a problem’ & he doesn’t want to encourage more of it.
Pressed by the Ctte chair he says it’s a problem because it reflects the fact NI businesses are finding it more difficult to source goods from preferred GB suppliers.
He - and the rest of the cabinet - really are off their tits on this one. Significant volumes of GB to NI goods was via consolidated loads. As such loads now require fucktons of paperwork they aren't viable except for the very biggest organisations. Even they - someone like Tesco - has largely given up all bar the simplest loads and spun the challenge and cost back to suppliers.
This is quite literally what Lord Frost demanded from the EU.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
Of course they're scared with the type of reporting the mainstream news channels are engaging in. If they reported each year's flu epidemic in the same way everyone would be scared stiff of flu.
Nope.
The government says it's all ok if you're double jabbed.
Yet 1/3 of the public aren't double jabbed.
The public can do the maths about reopening on July 19th.
But is it the vaccinated who are scared or the unvaccinated?
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
Yes, Max, anything you say. The virus will magically disappear on July 19th!
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
You're massively less likely to die in a plane crash compared to other modes of transport.
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
Of course they're scared with the type of reporting the mainstream news channels are engaging in. If they reported each year's flu epidemic in the same way everyone would be scared stiff of flu.
Nope.
The government says it's all ok if you're double jabbed.
Yet 1/3 of the public aren't double jabbed.
The public can do the maths about reopening on July 19th.
But is it the vaccinated who are scared or the unvaccinated?
FWIW I did speak to someone conducting polls and focus groups, they said the public have started getting scared again.
They haven't been this scared since February, when the vaccine rollout was going full pelt.
Over the last year or so you could match Boris Johnson's and government popularity to how scared the public felt.
It's time to get rid of daily reporting of statistics. Roll it up into a weekly ONS release. It no longer serves any purpose other than to make people fearful for no reason. At the same point in the last wave we had 20k already in hospital and an average of around 550 deaths per day compared to about 25.
The fear is now irrational for anyone who's had both jabs which is 35m people and rising.
I don't think the fear is irrational. Its probably innumerate but we are used to that. The number of people in hospital shows that if you have a very small percentage that are not fully protected by the vaccines and then multiply by it very large number like 35m you get a significant number of hospital patients. The risk in the individual case is small but not non existent.
It's closest to a fear of flying which is actually a fear of not being in control. Virtually no one dies in plane crashes and virtually no one dies of COVID after being double jabbed. The fear is that we're not in control of the plane just as we're not in control of the virus. Travelling by road is significantly riskier than flying, but very few people are scared of driving because there's some level of control over the car.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
No one dies in plane crashes?
You're massively less likely to die in a plane crash compared to other modes of transport.
Comments
For Johnson in 2019, he faced a Labour Party that had vacated the centre ground (and Lib Dems who had too, frankly - "Bollocks to Brexit" was not one to appeal to the pragmatist). He did face a threat from the right.
But times change. Brexit is done and Farage is (for now) retired. Corbyn is no longer a Labour MP, and Swinson is not an MP at all. That doesn't mean disaster for Johnson - Starmer and Davey have plenty of problems of their own, while he has a big majority and a decent poll rating. But you're talking about fighting the last war, not the next.
For too many people 1 COVID death is 1 too many but we're never going back to a world where we have zero COVID deaths. There has been a complete lack of explanation of this new reality to the public. The politicians and scientists are trying to maintain a false pretence that we have the capability to control this and bring it back to something like zero. That's just not going to happen. Treating it like every other disease that ails us is the first step among many that need to be taken.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57832053
...It is illegal in the US to produce a children's toy that precisely resembles a real gun, but the laws do not explicitly prevent manufacturers from making a gun that resembles a toy...
Frost smirks when asked about border issues and comes across as a mixture of complacent and disingenuous.
*gracious because Menon is not exactly a supporter of the existing government, but the interview was technocratic and non-partisan in style.
Indeed even in 2019 Corbyn got a higher voteshare than Brown got in 2010 and Miliband got in 2015 and in 2017 he got the highest Labour voteshare since Blair in 2001
Pretty soon, the virus is going to have nowhere to go.
Several pubs where I used to live have had outbreaks confirmed last few days
The point is that opting out of debates which are in fact raging in society is unrealistic in top level politics.
That's where we're currently at and by marking COVID out as something special despite it now being just like any other virtual disease for the double jabbed is a driver of the fear.
And, lo and behold, my area put in a huge surge in the following few days to hit the front.
We are paying the price of slow vaccination rates in May, June and now July as well. Not enough of us are double vaxxed.
Working-class people are racist beasts in the minds of the new elites.
Tom Slater"
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/14/what-they-really-mean-when-they-say-dog-whistle/
You need to understand which voter groups are most up for grabs - who are your main opponents targeting, which parts of your coalition are most fragile, and who in your opponent's camp is unhappy?
That calculation is different now than it was in 2019. Doesn't mean the game is harder... but it is not the same. That 38% of Tory pro-kneers is an at risk group for Johnson in a way that wasn't really the case when the Equality and Human Rights Commission were all over Corbyn.
Clearly, up to now, covid has been building up, peaking at and subsiding at levels way beyond this background.
With a significant percentage of double-jabbage, this wave is also going to be at levels significant against this background.
You are, right, though, that eventually waves will be peaking well below these "all other reasons" levels, and that's when we will be living with it
In a universe of infinite timelines, there is a timeline where Everything I Do (I Do it For You) is still number one.
Think about that for a while.
https://twitter.com/garius/status/1415342823356907527
The government says it's all ok if you're double jabbed.
Yet 1/3 of the public aren't double jabbed.
The public can do the maths about reopening on July 19th.
Ps the Government’s investment in industry in the North East is very impressive. I’m getting involved in quite a bit of it in my new job and there’s some very exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. It doesn’t undo decades of neglect but it’s a start. Credit where it’s due.
Well it's be expected as I guess the publicity made millions of people suddenly realize the Lib-Dems are actually a "thing" for the first time in 6 years!
That can only be a good thing for the progressives whichever opposition party takes the lead
Suppot was withdrawn in 2008...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td40pkQkrRM
"@TheEconomist
The most striking aspect of Italy’s 26-man squad before it took to the pitch was that, alone among the main contenders, it did not include a single player considered as being of colour"
https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1415071064636469255
However I suspect we are doing 18-30 until the end of August so that people are available to do the boosters in September
To me the current polling situation looks exactly in line with what I'm expecting at the next election.
Conservative majority but reduced (maybe halved) with Con losing quite a few seats in the south to the Lib-Dems and Labour retaking a few in the north (Con may still take a handful off Labour in the Red Wall too)
It will be 1992 and 2005 all over again!
Con majority around 20-40 seats. Boris goes a couple of years later and Labour, under Burnham, win a small majority around 2029 bringing an end to 19 years of Tory rule (either under coalition or on their own)
2030's *might* be a Labour decade!
We are in the exact same position as Europe was when they were being sniffy about the effectiveness of AZ, or of extending the gap between doses to 12 weeks - there is masses of real-world evidence that vaccinating teenagers is very safe. I didn't understand why Europe was so sceptical then, and I don't understand why we're finding this such a hard decision to take now.
So fear of covid isn't quite like a fear of a plane crash (which is indeed irrational, and also rather binary - you die or you don't. There are vanishingly few people who suffer long term conditions as a result of a plane crash).
If it's nearer 20, I reckon Boris will be off sharpish.
The world faces an onslaught of coastal flooding starting in the mid-2030s due to a "wobble" in the moon's orbit, Nasa has warned.
Numbers of floods could quadruple as the gravitational effects of the lunar cycle combine with climate change to produce "a decade of dramatic increases" in water disasters.
The space agency said coastal cities would experience "rapidly increasing high-tide floods" and they would occur in "clusters" lasting a month or longer.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/14/wobbling-moon-will-cause-devastating-worldwide-flooding-2030s/ (£££)
Priti Patel was right to say that people had the right to boo the gesture. She was wrong not to condemn that booing as both oafish and potentially racist in effect. I have increasing reservations about supporting a government that thinks she is a suitable person to be Home Secretary. This and the points made by @Cyclefree in her header this morning, even although I thought they were overstated, drive me to the conclusion that she does not engender British attitudes of tolerance, mutual respect and kindness. We need a better Home Secretary.
My views on the gesture itself have developed from some degree of skepticism and incredulity that this gesture reflecting American racial tensions and then police murder was thought to be relevant to our experience in the UK to an increasing degree of acceptance that a significant number of our ethnic minorities feel oppressed in this way and that their concerns are worthy of respect and proper consideration.
To be clear I would never have been so obnoxious as to boo this but I am now a lot more supportive of the gesture than I was 6 months ago.
Well I've voted Labour before and could see myself doing so again under someone sensible like Burnham... We shall see...
Per mile travelled, your safest going by plane.
If you're in a crash, however, a plane is a bad place to be. You'd be better off in a car crash than a plane crash.
Even the former stat is maybe a bit misleading - planes do misleadingly well because they go very fast and therefore a long distance. When you compare by time spent travelling rather than distance travelled the slower modes do a lot better,
I understand your broad point, but that stat MUST be wrong.
Even if you were for some reason citing a modal or median average, I can't believe that's right either. Even ignoring small private aircraft incidents etc, there are a small number of scheduled passenger aircraft crashes every year somewhere in the world, and they often have a handful of UK citizens involved.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sian-berry-quits-as-green-co-leader-over-trans-rights-vjjmhjks7
Wholesale Americanisation of our race relations seems a mistake but in many ways I do think the players have taken ownership of the knee gesture for themselves and if it reflects the abuse directed on social media then I can understand it. I wouldn't assume booing equals racism but a healthly scepticism towards the protagonists seems wise.
Just to recap: Hartlepool = peak Johnson
Critics need to say how he could have solved the NI puzzle better. What I think he did was accept a deal - the only deal - available and privately plan to refix it once it obviously couldn't work. For an NI deal to work requires the EU to shift its own red lines, and not just us.
Taking the knee is the populist thing to do.
Government communication during the pandemic has been a persistent problem, maybe 75% of the population pays attention and has no trouble understanding the message, but at times that last 25% seems almost oblivious to what is going on and what they need to do. Maybe there is no easy answer, but I can't help but feel we dropped the ball.
This is quite literally what Lord Frost demanded from the EU.