The big win for Johnson was getting his 90 minutes in the Oval Office – politicalbetting.com

System

The big win for Johnson was getting his 90 minutes in the Oval Office – politicalbetting.com

The important thing for Johnson on his US trip was that unlike many other foreign leaders he had his 90 minutes in the Oval Office with Biden. Even though the US is not quite a powerful as it was pictures like the one above are much treasured by foreign leaders.

Read the full story here

MikeSmithson

test

IshmaelZ

I am surprised at this. I didn't expect Kamala to sink so entirely without trace, and I expected her dislike of Johnson to scupper White House relations.

rcs1000

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

IshmaelZ

For your off topic delectation

Lab grown meat will never scale enough to be profitable and would be incredibly vulnerable to contaminants if it did

https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a Tunguska type meteoric airburst, not for the reason we thought

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3

rcs1000

IshmaelZ said:

For your off topic delectation

Lab grown meat will never scale enough to be profitable and would be incredibly vulnerable to contaminants if it did

https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a Tunguska type meteoric airburst, not for the reason we thought

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3

Not sodomy and gonnoreah, then?

IshmaelZ

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

IshmaelZ

rcs1000 said:

IshmaelZ said:

For your off topic delectation

Lab grown meat will never scale enough to be profitable and would be incredibly vulnerable to contaminants if it did

https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a Tunguska type meteoric airburst, not for the reason we thought

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3

Not sodomy and gonnoreah, then?

Apparently not. Phew!

TimT

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

IshmaelZ

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

Alanbrooke

Yes but did the burger eating surrender monkey even realise who BoJo was ?

moonshine

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

Philip_Thompson

It's worth noting that Biden spoke strongly about the Good Friday Agreement and not wanting a hard border in Ireland but didn't mention the NI Protocol or Sausages or any other crap the EU have been banging on about.

The UK should absolutely be prepared to invoke A16 of the NI Protocol if necessary but make absolutely clear we will not build or implement a hard border either between NI and Eire, or NI and GB.

ydoethur

Alanbrooke said:

Yes but did the burger eating surrender monkey even realise who BoJo was ?

Really, Field Marshall, that’s an outrageous comment.

Everyone knows he’s an *ice cream* eating surrender monkey.

Gallowgate

Morning all

edmundintokyo

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

Philip_Thompson

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

It is worth noting that one of the biggest international news outrages of 2019 was the crackdown in Hong Kong until that got overtaken by "events" and the entire planet started cracking down on liberties.

Coincidence? Or ...

ydoethur

Wind generation back up to 11.63GW this morning, or 48% of the current (low) demand.

Hopefully that will be sustained or increase over the next couple of weeks and calm the energy market down. Plus, let us build up our gas reserves.

ydoethur

Philip_Thompson said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

It is worth noting that one of the biggest international news outrages of 2019 was the crackdown in Hong Kong until that got overtaken by "events" and the entire planet started cracking down on liberties.

Coincidence? Or ...

Yes.

DavidL

Yay, the wind is finally back and providing over nearly half of our current electricity demand: http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Hopefully this will continue for a while to allow some stability to re-establish itself in the market.

DecrepiterJohnL

Afghanistan: Second email data breach by MoD uncovered
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58654630

One hopes this is not deliberate but even two accidental breaches of the same type might lead an honourable minister to resign. No chance of that then but "steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future," according to the MoD. Let us also hope steps have been taken to protect and extract those whose safety has been compromised.

Philip_Thompson

Left the windows open overnight and got woken up this morning by it being cold and windy. Autumn has definitely arrived but won't complain about the wind under the circumstances.

swing_voter

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Afghanistan: Second email data breach by MoD uncovered
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58654630

One hopes this is not deliberate but even two accidental breaches of the same type might lead an honourable minister to resign. No chance of that then but "steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future," according to the MoD. Let us also hope steps have been taken to protect and extract those whose safety has been compromised.

And this is just what the MoD has admitted to... to be honest espionage against the UK must be so easy- really poor internet discipline, Ministers using insecure emails and messaging, Black Sea RN plans left at bus stops it never ceases to amaze me...

moonshine

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

You miss my point utterly. I am saying that they very evidently did spread the virus on purpose. Long after they knew they had a problem, in Jan 2020 the informed parts of the world were saying “errr should we shut flights from China?”. And the Chinese bullied away those voices, guaranteeing that the millions of golden week international tourists would spread it around the globe. Before announcing a couple of days before Chinese New Year itself that they were having a national lockdown.

Once they knew they had a problem, they needed to ensure it became everyone’s problem. Surprised someone who’s spent so long in Asia doesn’t realise this.

moonshine

Philip_Thompson said:

Left the windows open overnight and got woken up this morning by it being cold and windy. Autumn has definitely arrived but won't complain about the wind under the circumstances.

First fire of the season lit this morning at 6.30am

DavidL

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

IshmaelZ said:

For your off topic delectation

Lab grown meat will never scale enough to be profitable and would be incredibly vulnerable to contaminants if it did

https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a Tunguska type meteoric airburst, not for the reason we thought

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3

Not sodomy and gonnoreah, then?

Apparently not. Phew!

I remember in Iain Banks there was a long lived species whose retaliation was to get a moon sized object up to a fair proportion of the speed of light and then take out the entire planet of the other species that was annoying them. The speed of arrival meant there was about enough time to say "what the f..." before total oblivion. It seems as if God may have had similar ideas. Interesting that the effects included hyper salination. I wonder if that was where Lot's wife was fitted in.

Philip_Thompson

moonshine said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

You miss my point utterly. I am saying that they very evidently did spread the virus on purpose. Long after they knew they had a problem, in Jan 2020 the informed parts of the world were saying “errr should we shut flights from China?”. And the Chinese bullied away those voices, guaranteeing that the millions of golden week international tourists would spread it around the globe. Before announcing a couple of days before Chinese New Year itself that they were having a national lockdown.

Once they knew they had a problem, they needed to ensure it became everyone’s problem. Surprised someone who’s spent so long in Asia doesn’t realise this.

And as I said it crowded Hong Kong etc off the news.

I don't think they leaked it from the lab on purpose, they did let it leak from China on purpose though.

DavidL

ydoethur said:

Wind generation back up to 11.63GW this morning, or 48% of the current (low) demand.

Hopefully that will be sustained or increase over the next couple of weeks and calm the energy market down. Plus, let us build up our gas reserves.

Sorry, @ydoethur I didn't see your post until I refreshed.

ydoethur

DavidL said:

ydoethur said:

Wind generation back up to 11.63GW this morning, or 48% of the current (low) demand.

Hopefully that will be sustained or increase over the next couple of weeks and calm the energy market down. Plus, let us build up our gas reserves.

Sorry, @ydoethur I didn't see your post until I refreshed.

Good news bears repeating 🙂

DavidL

swing_voter said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Afghanistan: Second email data breach by MoD uncovered
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58654630

One hopes this is not deliberate but even two accidental breaches of the same type might lead an honourable minister to resign. No chance of that then but "steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future," according to the MoD. Let us also hope steps have been taken to protect and extract those whose safety has been compromised.

And this is just what the MoD has admitted to... to be honest espionage against the UK must be so easy- really poor internet discipline, Ministers using insecure emails and messaging, Black Sea RN plans left at bus stops it never ceases to amaze me...

With security like this who needs espionage? Surely no one sane risks their lives on the ability of the British to keep secrets?

Alistair

I'm still so cross he didn't run for the Dem nomination (and not just the effect on my betting balance)

https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/status/1440787211700490241?s=19

DavidL

moonshine said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Left the windows open overnight and got woken up this morning by it being cold and windy. Autumn has definitely arrived but won't complain about the wind under the circumstances.

First fire of the season lit this morning at 6.30am

And another polar bear falls through the thinning ice.....😉

Sandpit

Philip_Thompson said:

moonshine said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

You miss my point utterly. I am saying that they very evidently did spread the virus on purpose. Long after they knew they had a problem, in Jan 2020 the informed parts of the world were saying “errr should we shut flights from China?”. And the Chinese bullied away those voices, guaranteeing that the millions of golden week international tourists would spread it around the globe. Before announcing a couple of days before Chinese New Year itself that they were having a national lockdown.

Once they knew they had a problem, they needed to ensure it became everyone’s problem. Surprised someone who’s spent so long in Asia doesn’t realise this.

And as I said it crowded Hong Kong etc off the news.

I don't think they leaked it from the lab on purpose, they did let it leak from China on purpose though.

They were certainly not stopping it leaving China, and the CCP were likely joining the Russians in the disinformation campaign that was calling Western leaders racist, for suggesting that flights from China might be curtailed.

Sandpit

For anyone expecting to see an F1 race in Russia this weekend, well the paddock is currently under half a metre of water.

https://twitter.com/enzofitti/status/1440750109763858435?s=20

I imagine Putin has ordered every pump truck within 500km of Sochi, to head to the circuit immediately!

ydoethur

Sandpit said:

For anyone expecting to see an F1 race in Russia this weekend, well the paddock is currently under half a metre of water.

https://twitter.com/enzofitti/status/1440750109763858435?s=20

I imagine Putin has ordered every pump truck within 500km of Sochi, to head to the circuit immediately!

Will that make it easier or more difficult for Verstappen and Hamilton to find a pretext to crash into each other?

Dura_Ace

swing_voter said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Afghanistan: Second email data breach by MoD uncovered
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58654630

One hopes this is not deliberate but even two accidental breaches of the same type might lead an honourable minister to resign. No chance of that then but "steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future," according to the MoD. Let us also hope steps have been taken to protect and extract those whose safety has been compromised.

And this is just what the MoD has admitted to... to be honest espionage against the UK must be so easy- really poor internet discipline, Ministers using insecure emails and messaging, Black Sea RN plans left at bus stops it never ceases to amaze me...

It's proud tradition. There was the case of the senior RN officer who left a shitload of classified documents on a deserted canal towpath (where he was doing fuck knows what). His punishment was promotion to flag rank and eventually to 1SL!

moonshine

DavidL said:

moonshine said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Left the windows open overnight and got woken up this morning by it being cold and windy. Autumn has definitely arrived but won't complain about the wind under the circumstances.

First fire of the season lit this morning at 6.30am

And another polar bear falls through the thinning ice.....😉

Get your gas fired kiln dried logs in quick before they all go!

ydoethur

Dura_Ace said:

swing_voter said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Afghanistan: Second email data breach by MoD uncovered
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58654630

One hopes this is not deliberate but even two accidental breaches of the same type might lead an honourable minister to resign. No chance of that then but "steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future," according to the MoD. Let us also hope steps have been taken to protect and extract those whose safety has been compromised.

And this is just what the MoD has admitted to... to be honest espionage against the UK must be so easy- really poor internet discipline, Ministers using insecure emails and messaging, Black Sea RN plans left at bus stops it never ceases to amaze me...

It's proud tradition. There was the case of the senior RN officer who left a shitload of classified documents on a deserted canal towpath (where he was doing fuck knows what). His punishment was promotion to flag rank and eventually to 1SL!

‘Fuck knows who’ surely?

Have a good morning.

Theuniondivvie

Oh dear, more patriot not nationalist wankery. It's worked so well for Labour up to now.

https://twitter.com/TanjaBueltmann/status/1440796159920861190?s=20

edmundintokyo

Sandpit said:

Philip_Thompson said:

moonshine said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

You miss my point utterly. I am saying that they very evidently did spread the virus on purpose. Long after they knew they had a problem, in Jan 2020 the informed parts of the world were saying “errr should we shut flights from China?”. And the Chinese bullied away those voices, guaranteeing that the millions of golden week international tourists would spread it around the globe. Before announcing a couple of days before Chinese New Year itself that they were having a national lockdown.

Once they knew they had a problem, they needed to ensure it became everyone’s problem. Surprised someone who’s spent so long in Asia doesn’t realise this.

And as I said it crowded Hong Kong etc off the news.

I don't think they leaked it from the lab on purpose, they did let it leak from China on purpose though.

They were certainly not stopping it leaving China, and the CCP were likely joining the Russians in the disinformation campaign that was calling Western leaders racist, for suggesting that flights from China might be curtailed.

What's your theory for why the *Russians* wanted it to get out of China?

DavidL

ydoethur said:

Sandpit said:

For anyone expecting to see an F1 race in Russia this weekend, well the paddock is currently under half a metre of water.

https://twitter.com/enzofitti/status/1440750109763858435?s=20

I imagine Putin has ordered every pump truck within 500km of Sochi, to head to the circuit immediately!

Will that make it easier or more difficult for Verstappen and Hamilton to find a pretext to crash into each other?

I thought it was Bottas's turn to collide with Verstappen but I haven't been keeping fully up to speed despite @Morris_Dancer's efforts.

moonshine

edmundintokyo said:

Sandpit said:

Philip_Thompson said:

moonshine said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

You miss my point utterly. I am saying that they very evidently did spread the virus on purpose. Long after they knew they had a problem, in Jan 2020 the informed parts of the world were saying “errr should we shut flights from China?”. And the Chinese bullied away those voices, guaranteeing that the millions of golden week international tourists would spread it around the globe. Before announcing a couple of days before Chinese New Year itself that they were having a national lockdown.

Once they knew they had a problem, they needed to ensure it became everyone’s problem. Surprised someone who’s spent so long in Asia doesn’t realise this.

And as I said it crowded Hong Kong etc off the news.

I don't think they leaked it from the lab on purpose, they did let it leak from China on purpose though.

They were certainly not stopping it leaving China, and the CCP were likely joining the Russians in the disinformation campaign that was calling Western leaders racist, for suggesting that flights from China might be curtailed.

What's your theory for why the *Russians* wanted it to get out of China?

Putin is Michael Caine’s “some men just want to burn the world”.

Philip_Thompson

edmundintokyo said:

Sandpit said:

Philip_Thompson said:

moonshine said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

You miss my point utterly. I am saying that they very evidently did spread the virus on purpose. Long after they knew they had a problem, in Jan 2020 the informed parts of the world were saying “errr should we shut flights from China?”. And the Chinese bullied away those voices, guaranteeing that the millions of golden week international tourists would spread it around the globe. Before announcing a couple of days before Chinese New Year itself that they were having a national lockdown.

Once they knew they had a problem, they needed to ensure it became everyone’s problem. Surprised someone who’s spent so long in Asia doesn’t realise this.

And as I said it crowded Hong Kong etc off the news.

I don't think they leaked it from the lab on purpose, they did let it leak from China on purpose though.

They were certainly not stopping it leaving China, and the CCP were likely joining the Russians in the disinformation campaign that was calling Western leaders racist, for suggesting that flights from China might be curtailed.

What's your theory for why the *Russians* wanted it to get out of China?

Same reason they've been undermining vaccinations.

RochdalePioneers

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can blame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Philip_Thompson

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

Sandpit

edmundintokyo said:

Sandpit said:

Philip_Thompson said:

moonshine said:

edmundintokyo said:

moonshine said:

IshmaelZ said:

TimT said:

IshmaelZ said:

rcs1000 said:

Curse of the new thread.

Bournville said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Bournville said:

I guess I must be missing something. If we know a viral research lab was actively researching novel coronaviruses, and was looking for more funding to create genetically enhanced novel coronaviruses so they can release it in a bat cave, and they were promoting their request for funding on the basis that they'd already made significant progress on genetic enhancement, and then 18 months later, in the same city the lab was located in, a mysterious novel coronavirus breaks out, and the lab says it has nothing to do with them and the virus probably came from a bat cave - perhaps the balance of probability is that it has something to do with the lab?

I mean, I'm sure they didn't do it deliberately, but surely it can't be scientific to ignore these facts and insist it has nothing to do with the novel coronavirus lab?

You are missing that the bat cave is real and was the original source of the virus for the lab work. There are two possible sources, or more if you sub-divide them so let's not do that. The pandemic could have started with a human getting it from the bats, or it could have come from the lab.

I'm not saying the bat cave isn't real, what I don't get is how anyone can look at the facts as reported and conclude that it's more probable for the virus to have come from a cave and the pandemic emerge several hundred miles away in Wuhan, instead of the lab in Wuhan that we know was actively researching novel coronaviruses and seeking funding to genetically engineer the virus releasing it accidentally via human error.

The dual facts that the lab where bat viruses were researched was in Wuhan, and the initial outbreak was in Wuhan, are together extremely strong circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. (Or indeed, some variation on lab leak, because even the words 'lab leak' describe about a dozen different scenarios.)

It is the two leaps that come from there that I have greater issues with.

Firstly, yes, the Wuhan lab either had - or was - engaged in Gain of Function research. Here's the thing. CV19 is an odd virus to come of GoF research. Normally, you see, you're trying to discover what it is that causes a virus to be virulent. But CV19 isn't particularly virulent. It's feature that's unique (and somewhat similar to HIV/AIDS) is a long incubation period during which the virus is undetectable. It is unclear to me how such a characteristic could have been bred in Gain of Function research, and a lot of scientists who are generally lab leak believers think similarly.

Secondly, the evidence that CV19 can infect over 200 mammalian species doesn't speak to whether it is lab leaked or not. But it does suggest that it is highly unlikely that it was developed as some kind of weapon. Pretty much every biological weapon* ever even considered for use has been single species, for fairly obvious reasons.

Of course, these considerations don't mean CV19 wasn't a GoF creation (or even a biological weapon). Or, indeed, that it wasn't the consequence of something natural (like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and MERS).

The reality is that without a confession (or probably multiple confessions), we won't know for sure. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We therefore have to rely on the balance of probabilities.

But this somewhat misses the point. Whether it was entirely zoonotic in origin, whether it was caused by a bat collector getting bitten, by a vial being broken, or even GoF research, the Chinese government had the opportunity to tell the world of the dangers of CV19, and chose not to.

They could have followed the Gorbachev Chernobyl response and opened the kimono. They chose not to. They chose to "save face" and in doing so, international travel stayed open both from China, and more generally, for weeks longer than should have been the case. If two doublings had been avoided, the world's death toll from CV19 would have been reduced by 75%. And Delta may not have happened.

That explicit decision not to open up to the world about what China was seeing with CV19 was a crime, and one that is vastly more serious than whether or not CV19 was a product of GoF research.

* With the exception of anthrax, which is a bacterial infection.

All fair, but answering points nobody is making. The guys weren't making bioweapons, they were being twats because scientists will be twats as soon as someone sponsors them to be. There doesn't seem to be much effort put into justifying GoF research, it's just jolly inneressing if that's the sort of thing that interests you.

That is simply bollocks. There are plenty of valid justifications for doing Gain of Function research - understanding disease being the principle one. Predicting emerging diseases and forward planning of vaccines are others. And through the former, developing in silico models of pathogens' interactions with the body to help design prophylaxes and treatments.

Personally, I have my doubts about the cost/benefit of virus hunting; not so for gain of function research as a whole. Unless we can understand transmissibility and pathogenicity at a molecular and biophysical level, we will not be able to develop the best ways to protect ourselves against and treat infectious diseases.

No it isn't. I didn't say no effort, I said low effort - precisely the sort of going throgh the motions arguments in your first para. And I think we can all agree that it is now clear - even if this wasn't a GoF escape - that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits a billionfold anyway.

When did China know they had an outbreak of a serious human-human airborne virus? Was this a) before, or b) after they exerted diplomatic pressure to keep international air routes open not just from China but Wuhan(!) during 2020 Golden Week?

We know the answer is b).

Further, did they continue telling the world that the outbreak was an animal to human one long after they knew otherwise? Several months even? Looks likely.

As far as I’m concerned, China committed an act of biological warfare on the world. These actions indicate the purposeful spread internationally of a pathogen. Doesn’t matter if it originated from a bat or a lab or some combination thereof.

Imagine if this chain of events had happened not in Wuhan but Pyongyang? The only reason people deny this is an act of biological warfare is because they are scared of China and what it might mean for them personally if the global economic order is upturned.

I think "biological warfare" would imply that they spread the virus on purpose, which they obviously didn't since all the lying and covering-up screwed them before it screwed the rest of the world. People might be saying that about NK if it had happened in NK but they'd still be wrong. China is an authoritarian state. Even non-authoritarian states lie a lot, and authoritarian states lie all the time.

If it turned out they created the virus on purpose to use as a weapon then that would be biological warfare, but that seems to be less credible than the competing lab leak theories.

You miss my point utterly. I am saying that they very evidently did spread the virus on purpose. Long after they knew they had a problem, in Jan 2020 the informed parts of the world were saying “errr should we shut flights from China?”. And the Chinese bullied away those voices, guaranteeing that the millions of golden week international tourists would spread it around the globe. Before announcing a couple of days before Chinese New Year itself that they were having a national lockdown.

Once they knew they had a problem, they needed to ensure it became everyone’s problem. Surprised someone who’s spent so long in Asia doesn’t realise this.

And as I said it crowded Hong Kong etc off the news.

I don't think they leaked it from the lab on purpose, they did let it leak from China on purpose though.

They were certainly not stopping it leaving China, and the CCP were likely joining the Russians in the disinformation campaign that was calling Western leaders racist, for suggesting that flights from China might be curtailed.

What's your theory for why the *Russians* wanted it to get out of China?

I meant that the Chinese were likely emulating Russia, in creating misinformation campaigns in the West.

Sandpit

DavidL said:

ydoethur said:

Sandpit said:

For anyone expecting to see an F1 race in Russia this weekend, well the paddock is currently under half a metre of water.

https://twitter.com/enzofitti/status/1440750109763858435?s=20

I imagine Putin has ordered every pump truck within 500km of Sochi, to head to the circuit immediately!

Will that make it easier or more difficult for Verstappen and Hamilton to find a pretext to crash into each other?

I thought it was Bottas's turn to collide with Verstappen but I haven't been keeping fully up to speed despite @Morris_Dancer's efforts.

The crash between Bottas and Verstappen is the one we’re really waiting for! Helmut Marko and Christian Horner will go absolutely bonkers when it happens!

To add, Ferrari have updated engines this weekend, so might be a bit further up the grid than usual.

DavidL

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

With respect they have acted promptly and decisively in relation to the CO2 crisis.

On energy the danger of being overly reliant on wind without adequate storage has been vividly shown by the last month and this has exacerbated an international problem. We clearly need to store at least 10x the amount of gas we currently do in this country, arguably 20x. That is going to cost someone money but it is in the government's interest to ensure such vulnerability does not happen again. This morning we have got up to 14gw of wind power which will reduce the pressure enormously. Yesterday we were getting 15% from solar. If we get anything like that today we will have 45% wind, 15% solar, 17% nuclear, 3% odds and sods and only about 20% gas.
But more storage is not a short term fix. It will take years.

moonshine

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic

Hopefully the badger doesn’t eat all the sprouts growing in the garden!

Perhaps it’s time to order the Christmas Eve bottle of port now.

Scott_xP

Is... is anyone with the prime minister at the moment? Maybe worth sticking your head round the door, see if he's ok? https://twitter.com/RobDotHutton/status/1440927501870682112/photo/1

Scott_xP

Food prices set to soar by around five per cent, warns supermarket boss - @RachaelBurford reports
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/food-prices-inflation-rise-tesco-energy-bills-lorry-driver-shortage-b956835.html https://twitter.com/nicholascecil/status/1440931521188225028/photo/1

moonshine

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

With respect they have acted promptly and decisively in relation to the CO2 crisis.

On energy the danger of being overly reliant on wind without adequate storage has been vividly shown by the last month and this has exacerbated an international problem. We clearly need to store at least 10x the amount of gas we currently do in this country, arguably 20x. That is going to cost someone money but it is in the government's interest to ensure such vulnerability does not happen again. This morning we have got up to 14gw of wind power which will reduce the pressure enormously. Yesterday we were getting 15% from solar. If we get anything like that today we will have 45% wind, 15% solar, 17% nuclear, 3% odds and sods and only about 20% gas.
But more storage is not a short term fix. It will take years.

Just in time supermarket logistics. Just in time semi conductor logistics. Just in time energy logistics. Just in time PPE logistics etc... All in the name of working capital efficiency. To the detriment of the stability and security of the nation and our health, wealth and happiness.

When we will get a truly bold Chancellor prepared to step up with a state owned provider of cheap as chips last resort working capital finance? And to abolish VAT, which serves as a cashflow drain all along the supply chain, and replace with a retail sales tax?

Instead we seem to be stuck with yet another Tory sixth former who just wants to sit there and think about nothing else but fiscal rules set by Treasury mandarins.

TimS

DavidL said:

Yay, the wind is finally back and providing over nearly half of our current electricity demand: http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Hopefully this will continue for a while to allow some stability to re-establish itself in the market.

Now over 15gb of wind, with solar to add during the day. Should have a few days in a row of high wind power now, which will help in the short term.

https://grid.energynumbers.info/

Sandpit

Scott_xP said:

Food prices set to soar by around five per cent, warns supermarket boss - @RachaelBurford reports
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/food-prices-inflation-rise-tesco-energy-bills-lorry-driver-shortage-b956835.html https://twitter.com/nicholascecil/status/1440931521188225028/photo/1

How does the price of anything “soar” by 5%?

Scott_xP

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

Philip_Thompson

Sandpit said:

Scott_xP said:

Food prices set to soar by around five per cent, warns supermarket boss - @RachaelBurford reports
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/food-prices-inflation-rise-tesco-energy-bills-lorry-driver-shortage-b956835.html https://twitter.com/nicholascecil/status/1440931521188225028/photo/1

How does the price of anything “soar” by 5%?

The same way we can have "a record rise in prices" of 3.2% 🤦‍♂️

eek

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The idea that a company would accept customers on unprofitable tariffs was as likely as Tottenham releasing Harry Kane.

tlg86

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

Oh dear, not good from Kwasi Kwarteng.

Philip_Thompson

tlg86 said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

Oh dear, not good from Kwasi Kwarteng.

Anyone who went for a dodgy companies too good to be true energy deal can surely be no higher than the price cap now. 🤷‍♂️

RochdalePioneers

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

Big_G_NorthWales

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

logical_song

Philip_Thompson said:

It's worth noting that Biden spoke strongly about the Good Friday Agreement and not wanting a hard border in Ireland but didn't mention the NI Protocol or Sausages or any other crap the EU have been banging on about.

The UK should absolutely be prepared to invoke A16 of the NI Protocol if necessary but make absolutely clear we will not build or implement a hard border either between NI and Eire, or NI and GB.

If the UK diverges from the EU (as it surely will otherwise what was the point of Brexit) won't there inevitably be huge profit in smuggling? Could there be any gangs around willing to take part in that? Would violence be involved?

RochdalePioneers

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

With respect they have acted promptly and decisively in relation to the CO2 crisis.

On energy the danger of being overly reliant on wind without adequate storage has been vividly shown by the last month and this has exacerbated an international problem. We clearly need to store at least 10x the amount of gas we currently do in this country, arguably 20x. That is going to cost someone money but it is in the government's interest to ensure such vulnerability does not happen again. This morning we have got up to 14gw of wind power which will reduce the pressure enormously. Yesterday we were getting 15% from solar. If we get anything like that today we will have 45% wind, 15% solar, 17% nuclear, 3% odds and sods and only about 20% gas.
But more storage is not a short term fix. It will take years.

They did act on CO2 - which is my point about the absolute lack of action on the other things. As for gas storage I agree that £ needs to be spent on storage. As this government allowed storage to be scrapped it would be something of a u-turn.

Why did they give Centrica etc permission to remove storage for profit? Having been warned that the impacts of leaving the European energy market would be a significant risk to gas prices mitigated against only by that storage?

Philip_Thompson

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

Philip_Thompson

logical_song said:

Philip_Thompson said:

It's worth noting that Biden spoke strongly about the Good Friday Agreement and not wanting a hard border in Ireland but didn't mention the NI Protocol or Sausages or any other crap the EU have been banging on about.

The UK should absolutely be prepared to invoke A16 of the NI Protocol if necessary but make absolutely clear we will not build or implement a hard border either between NI and Eire, or NI and GB.

If the UK diverges from the EU (as it surely will otherwise what was the point of Brexit) won't there inevitably be huge profit in smuggling? Could there be any gangs around willing to take part in that? Would violence be involved?

Not really.

Smuggling is already possible and profitable because taxes are very different on different sides of borders and that was the case within the EU. Taxes on tobacco, alcohol etc can be wildly different in different sides of border - that fuels smuggling more than some difference in product standards.

Sandpit

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

Of course not. They’re just trying to bash the government, and think that sarcastic retweeting is a substitute for investigative journalism.

eek

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

The problem is that you can't just pay more.

Say we need 400,000 drivers and only have 300,000. You can pay £1m a driver but it won't solve the shortfall as it requires training and time to fix that.

Currently all we are discovering is how much the most desperate firm is willing to pay to steal workers from elsewhere.

RochdalePioneers

Philip_Thompson said:

tlg86 said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

Oh dear, not good from Kwasi Kwarteng.

Anyone who went for a dodgy companies too good to be true energy deal can surely be no higher than the price cap now. 🤷‍♂️

I'm not the only poster whose energy company has gone pop. I wouldn't describe them as "too good to be true" but their model failed and they folded. Good. We'll get switched, and as soon as the account is set up we're straight on to change the tariff.

There is no reason for the government to save these companies. None of them actually supply anything, they are just billing companies. So have one of the bigger ones send the bills.

Punters will complain when the price of energy skyrockets and then the ministers will care. We aren't there yet. Allowing the likes of Centrica to scrap gas storage at the same time as exiting the regulated market so that we can only buy at the spot price was fucking stupid though. Its almost like they hadn't thought it through...

eek

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

They are contradictory -
Will keep current tariff
Will NOT keep tariff

one or other statement cannot be true.

LostPassword

On China it seems a bit unlikely that they allowed Covid to spread due to a malevolent desire to use a pandemic as cover for imposing authoritarian rule on Hong Kong.

It seems much more likely that there were several decision makers at different levels of the hierarchy who were unable to admit to the seriousness of the situation, preferring to hope for the best and save face in the short term.

That's pretty much what happened repeatedly in the UK, and most everyone on here is quick to criticise any accusation that a more competent response could have saved tens of thousands of lives, let alone an accusation that those deaths resulted from malevolence.

That's not to excuse the delay in taking action in either case, but I think an accusation of malevolent intent is hyperbole at best and more likely an example of a conspiracy theory.

Nigelb

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

With respect they have acted promptly and decisively in relation to the CO2 crisis.

On energy the danger of being overly reliant on wind without adequate storage has been vividly shown by the last month and this has exacerbated an international problem. We clearly need to store at least 10x the amount of gas we currently do in this country, arguably 20x. That is going to cost someone money but it is in the government's interest to ensure such vulnerability does not happen again. This morning we have got up to 14gw of wind power which will reduce the pressure enormously. Yesterday we were getting 15% from solar. If we get anything like that today we will have 45% wind, 15% solar, 17% nuclear, 3% odds and sods and only about 20% gas.
But more storage is not a short term fix. It will take years.

They did act on CO2 - which is my point about the absolute lack of action on the other things. As for gas storage I agree that £ needs to be spent on storage. As this government allowed storage to be scrapped it would be something of a u-turn.

Why did they give Centrica etc permission to remove storage for profit? Having been warned that the impacts of leaving the European energy market would be a significant risk to gas prices mitigated against only by that storage?

Because it wasn't for profit.
Gas storage was losing a very large amount of money at the time:
https://watt-logic.com/2017/06/22/closure-of-rough/

When the closure was announced, the government was confident that the UK had a "robust and resilient energy market" - iow, they didn't want to pay for it, either.

Big money to reopen it, and the planning would have to be on a decades, not year by year basis.

Philip_Thompson

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

The problem is that you can't pay more.

Say we need 400,000 drivers and only have 300,000. You can pay £1m a driver but it won't solve the shortfall as it requires training and time to fix that.

That's not how supply and demand works.

If you paid every driver £1m then you'd have record amounts of drivers joining the market (or rejoining it) so supply of drivers would go up.

Plus if every driver cost £1m then many companies would find its no longer profitable to pay for a driver afterall since they weren't going to make £1m of marginal profit on the journey, so demand would drop.

I'm not sure where the equilibrium point is but pretty sure it'd be well below £1m.

RochdalePioneers

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

Talking to you on this subject is like the Blackadder sketch teaching Baldrick to add. Paying more does does not produce new drivers. You need to recruit people who want to drive trucks. The pay rise isn't doing that. So we have the same shortage of drivers and a vastly inflated wage bill.

What will this mean? Logistics companies folding. What used to be NFT is about to topple (again) and its unlikely that PE will step in to save it this time. Which rather fucks Asda and Sainsburys chilled supplies. Yes the vehicles can be bought (as we also have a shortage of those due to Brexit) and the drivers hired by a new company. That takes time though.

RochdalePioneers

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

He isn't talking long term. The minister said that people would keep their tariff from the bankrupt company with the new company the consumer is allocated to. Thats just plain wrong - he doesn't know how the process he is responsible for works.

Its not a major crime, just a little embarrassing.

eek

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

The problem is that you can't pay more.

Say we need 400,000 drivers and only have 300,000. You can pay £1m a driver but it won't solve the shortfall as it requires training and time to fix that.

That's not how supply and demand works.

If you paid every driver £1m then you'd have record amounts of drivers joining the market (or rejoining it) so supply of drivers would go up.

Plus if every driver cost £1m then many companies would find its no longer profitable to pay for a driver afterall since they weren't going to make £1m of marginal profit on the journey, so demand would drop.

I'm not sure where the equilibrium point is but pretty sure it'd be well below £1m.

No money fixes the problem today.

It may fix it a year down the line but qualified lorry drivers with 6 months experience (the point at which insurance isn't utterly insane) don't appear from thin air.

Yes you can start recruiting them today but it will still be 9-12 months before they meet the criteria above.

Malmesbury

ydoethur said:

Dura_Ace said:

swing_voter said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Afghanistan: Second email data breach by MoD uncovered
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58654630

One hopes this is not deliberate but even two accidental breaches of the same type might lead an honourable minister to resign. No chance of that then but "steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future," according to the MoD. Let us also hope steps have been taken to protect and extract those whose safety has been compromised.

And this is just what the MoD has admitted to... to be honest espionage against the UK must be so easy- really poor internet discipline, Ministers using insecure emails and messaging, Black Sea RN plans left at bus stops it never ceases to amaze me...

It's proud tradition. There was the case of the senior RN officer who left a shitload of classified documents on a deserted canal towpath (where he was doing fuck knows what). His punishment was promotion to flag rank and eventually to 1SL!

‘Fuck knows who’ surely?

Have a good morning.

Wasn't the case of the "documents on the towpath" one where the leak was strangely in the corporate interests of the RN?

tlg86

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

Lucky you. EDF email to me:

On 14 September 2021, Utility Point stopped trading so Ofgem (the industry regulator) chose EDF as your new energy supplier. EDF started supplying your energy on 18 September. Your prices will be matched to Standard (Variable) to give you a guaranteed rate through winter, as well as protection from changing wholesale energy prices. These are our cheapest prices^. We're delighted to welcome you on board.

^ Standard (Variable) is EDF's cheapest tariff (excluding our GoElectric range of tariffs, designed for EV drivers) based on national average prices at Ofgem typical consumption (standard electricity meter 2,900 kWh, Economy 7 electricity meter 4,200 kWh (58% on day rate and 42% on night rate), and Gas 12,000 kWh), when purchased directly from EDF (correct as of 20 September 2021).

Scott_xP

RochdalePioneers said:

he doesn't know how the process he is responsible for works.

The motto of BoZo's clown circus

RochdalePioneers

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

The problem is that you can't just pay more.

Say we need 400,000 drivers and only have 300,000. You can pay £1m a driver but it won't solve the shortfall as it requires training and time to fix that.

Currently all we are discovering is how much the most desperate firm is willing to pay to steal workers from elsewhere.

We've hit the top already according to my contacts. My client's business has contracts with two providers. Both said "we'll hire new drivers", both have the same shortage they started with and a huge wage increase that we're paying for. The question has already been asked of them "why bother". Especially for DHL, whose bought in agency drivers at emergency pay rates have fuck all clue what they are doing.

"Just use another firm" I hear Philip say. Yes, one of our customers uses DPD. The same. Another Hermes. The same. They are all fucked. Because you can't attract people to do the work at any money with no training at the drop of a hat.

MaxPB

Chatting to a city random at the pub who does commodities last night. He said at these prices breweries will invest in CO2 capture. The issue has always been very long payback times on investment. Now that's gone down a lot and it eventually becomes money for nothing.

One of the advantages according to him is that brewery CO2 is extremely pure and already at food grade and will be produced very cheaply after the initial investment.

He was surprised (but not shocked) that the government hasn't pursued this as lots of European countries do it already which is why their CO2 prices are up just 1-2x vs 5x over here with no issues for food preparation in the countries that do it.

Big_G_NorthWales

RochdalePioneers said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

He isn't talking long term. The minister said that people would keep their tariff from the bankrupt company with the new company the consumer is allocated to. Thats just plain wrong - he doesn't know how the process he is responsible for works.

Its not a major crime, just a little embarrassing.

You are wrong

That is exactly what happened to my contract

EDF took it over in May, extended the same terms for 3 months beyond its previous expiry date and only sought a new contract then

So same tariff and an extra 3 months was very fair

rottenborough

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

tlg86 said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

Oh dear, not good from Kwasi Kwarteng.

Anyone who went for a dodgy companies too good to be true energy deal can surely be no higher than the price cap now. 🤷‍♂️

I'm not the only poster whose energy company has gone pop. I wouldn't describe them as "too good to be true" but their model failed and they folded. Good. We'll get switched, and as soon as the account is set up we're straight on to change the tariff.

There is no reason for the government to save these companies. None of them actually supply anything, they are just billing companies. So have one of the bigger ones send the bills.

Punters will complain when the price of energy skyrockets and then the ministers will care. We aren't there yet. Allowing the likes of Centrica to scrap gas storage at the same time as exiting the regulated market so that we can only buy at the spot price was fucking stupid though. Its almost like they hadn't thought it through...

Maybe this whole sorry mess will wake the political class to energy issues.

RochdalePioneers

Nigelb said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

With respect they have acted promptly and decisively in relation to the CO2 crisis.

On energy the danger of being overly reliant on wind without adequate storage has been vividly shown by the last month and this has exacerbated an international problem. We clearly need to store at least 10x the amount of gas we currently do in this country, arguably 20x. That is going to cost someone money but it is in the government's interest to ensure such vulnerability does not happen again. This morning we have got up to 14gw of wind power which will reduce the pressure enormously. Yesterday we were getting 15% from solar. If we get anything like that today we will have 45% wind, 15% solar, 17% nuclear, 3% odds and sods and only about 20% gas.
But more storage is not a short term fix. It will take years.

They did act on CO2 - which is my point about the absolute lack of action on the other things. As for gas storage I agree that £ needs to be spent on storage. As this government allowed storage to be scrapped it would be something of a u-turn.

Why did they give Centrica etc permission to remove storage for profit? Having been warned that the impacts of leaving the European energy market would be a significant risk to gas prices mitigated against only by that storage?

Because it wasn't for profit.
Gas storage was losing a very large amount of money at the time:
https://watt-logic.com/2017/06/22/closure-of-rough/

When the closure was announced, the government was confident that the UK had a "robust and resilient energy market" - iow, they didn't want to pay for it, either.

Big money to reopen it, and the planning would have to be on a decades, not year by year basis.

Removing a loss-making component is for profit - its a drain on them. The problem is that we needed that and it is a regulated market. Simply make gas storage a part of their licence agreement.

Nigelb

The temporary spike in gas prices could last well into next year.
https://watt-logic.com/2021/09/21/gas-market-tightness/

Big_G_NorthWales

tlg86 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

Lucky you. EDF email to me:

On 14 September 2021, Utility Point stopped trading so Ofgem (the industry regulator) chose EDF as your new energy supplier. EDF started supplying your energy on 18 September. Your prices will be matched to Standard (Variable) to give you a guaranteed rate through winter, as well as protection from changing wholesale energy prices. These are our cheapest prices^. We're delighted to welcome you on board.

^ Standard (Variable) is EDF's cheapest tariff (excluding our GoElectric range of tariffs, designed for EV drivers) based on national average prices at Ofgem typical consumption (standard electricity meter 2,900 kWh, Economy 7 electricity meter 4,200 kWh (58% on day rate and 42% on night rate), and Gas 12,000 kWh), when purchased directly from EDF (correct as of 20 September 2021).

When was your previous fixed price contract due to terminate

Sandpit

If we think there’s a shortage of truck drivers, wait until we see the problem the airlines are going to have finding pilots as we recover from the pandemic.

Thousands of redundant pilots have taken early retirement, started businesses or moved to cargo operations. Most of them will need extensive revalidation of their licences, having not flown for a couple of years. Training a new Captain takes six or seven years, and 5,000 hours of flying.

eek

RochdalePioneers said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

The problem is that you can't just pay more.

Say we need 400,000 drivers and only have 300,000. You can pay £1m a driver but it won't solve the shortfall as it requires training and time to fix that.

Currently all we are discovering is how much the most desperate firm is willing to pay to steal workers from elsewhere.

We've hit the top already according to my contacts. My client's business has contracts with two providers. Both said "we'll hire new drivers", both have the same shortage they started with and a huge wage increase that we're paying for. The question has already been asked of them "why bother". Especially for DHL, whose bought in agency drivers at emergency pay rates have fuck all clue what they are doing.

"Just use another firm" I hear Philip say. Yes, one of our customers uses DPD. The same. Another Hermes. The same. They are all fucked. Because you can't attract people to do the work at any money with no training at the drop of a hat.

It's slightly different but it's worth emphasising as an example.

Years ago payroll and tax was a manual task, so the Budget could be held in March for changes in April.

Now everything is done with software so the budget was moved back to October / November so software developers had time to develop and incorporate any changes required.

Hammond then moved it back to March only to discover that means everything needs to be announced a year in advance, which is why Rishi is moving it back to October / November.

RochdalePioneers

Big_G_NorthWales said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

He isn't talking long term. The minister said that people would keep their tariff from the bankrupt company with the new company the consumer is allocated to. Thats just plain wrong - he doesn't know how the process he is responsible for works.

Its not a major crime, just a little embarrassing.

You are wrong

That is exactly what happened to my contract

EDF took it over in May, extended the same terms for 3 months beyond its previous expiry date and only sought a new contract then

So same tariff and an extra 3 months was very fair

Lol. I am not wrong. It has literally happened to us last week. You go onto their standard tariff. Your old tariff goes in the bin. What happened to you in May is not ehat is happening now. As so many others are reporting.

eek

Big_G_NorthWales said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

He isn't talking long term. The minister said that people would keep their tariff from the bankrupt company with the new company the consumer is allocated to. Thats just plain wrong - he doesn't know how the process he is responsible for works.

Its not a major crime, just a little embarrassing.

You are wrong

That is exactly what happened to my contract

EDF took it over in May, extended the same terms for 3 months beyond its previous expiry date and only sought a new contract then

So same tariff and an extra 3 months was very fair

That was then and this is now. The world (and gas market) has changed since then

And the thing that you miss is that EDF was happy for you to be on your existing contract (so happy they extended it for 3 months). I can't imagine any company is willing to do that at the moment..

Dura_Ace

RochdalePioneers said:

What will this mean? Logistics companies folding. What used to be NFT is about to topple (again) and its unlikely that PE will step in to save it this time. Which rather fucks Asda and Sainsburys chilled supplies. Yes the vehicles can be bought (as we also have a shortage of those due to Brexit) and the drivers hired by a new company. That takes time though.

This can all be solved with some heady cocktail of market forces, hand waving, lying and union jacks.

Philip_Thompson

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

Talking to you on this subject is like the Blackadder sketch teaching Baldrick to add. Paying more does does not produce new drivers. You need to recruit people who want to drive trucks. The pay rise isn't doing that. So we have the same shortage of drivers and a vastly inflated wage bill.

What will this mean? Logistics companies folding. What used to be NFT is about to topple (again) and its unlikely that PE will step in to save it this time. Which rather fucks Asda and Sainsburys chilled supplies. Yes the vehicles can be bought (as we also have a shortage of those due to Brexit) and the drivers hired by a new company. That takes time though.

Paying more does produce new drivers.

It also lowers demand for drivers.

Selebian

tlg86 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

Lucky you. EDF email to me:

On 14 September 2021, Utility Point stopped trading so Ofgem (the industry regulator) chose EDF as your new energy supplier. EDF started supplying your energy on 18 September. Your prices will be matched to Standard (Variable) to give you a guaranteed rate through winter, as well as protection from changing wholesale energy prices. These are our cheapest prices^. We're delighted to welcome you on board.

^ Standard (Variable) is EDF's cheapest tariff (excluding our GoElectric range of tariffs, designed for EV drivers) based on national average prices at Ofgem typical consumption (standard electricity meter 2,900 kWh, Economy 7 electricity meter 4,200 kWh (58% on day rate and 42% on night rate), and Gas 12,000 kWh), when purchased directly from EDF (correct as of 20 September 2021).

I like the juxtaposition of 'guaranteed rate' and 'variable' in the same sentence!

Still waiting news on my new supplier, guess it will take a few days

On the original quotes, Kwarteng is wrong, per Ofgem guidance (unless the government is paying new suppliers to honour the bust suppliers' deals - as others have noted, I think that would be wrong, altough it would benefit me)

Big_G_NorthWales

RochdalePioneers said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

He isn't talking long term. The minister said that people would keep their tariff from the bankrupt company with the new company the consumer is allocated to. Thats just plain wrong - he doesn't know how the process he is responsible for works.

Its not a major crime, just a little embarrassing.

You are wrong

That is exactly what happened to my contract

EDF took it over in May, extended the same terms for 3 months beyond its previous expiry date and only sought a new contract then

So same tariff and an extra 3 months was very fair

Lol. I am not wrong. It has literally happened to us last week. You go onto their standard tariff. Your old tariff goes in the bin. What happened to you in May is not ehat is happening now. As so many others are reporting.

The question really is were you on a previous fixed price contract

Scott_xP

"We need to fish from a bigger pond", says Iceland boss Richard Walker, as he implores the Government to add HGV drivers to the skilled workers list to help elevated the crisis.

https://trib.al/Q11CKrm https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1440943260281810945/video/1

Big_G_NorthWales

eek said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

He isn't talking long term. The minister said that people would keep their tariff from the bankrupt company with the new company the consumer is allocated to. Thats just plain wrong - he doesn't know how the process he is responsible for works.

Its not a major crime, just a little embarrassing.

You are wrong

That is exactly what happened to my contract

EDF took it over in May, extended the same terms for 3 months beyond its previous expiry date and only sought a new contract then

So same tariff and an extra 3 months was very fair

That was then and this is now. The world (and gas market) has changed since then

It would be interesting to know when it changed and whether the consumer had a fixed price contract

tlg86

Big_G_NorthWales said:

tlg86 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Kwasi Kwarteng on Tuesday on @TimesRadio: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will be able to keep the same tariff.

Paul Scully on @TimesRadio this morning: people who have to shift from bust energy providers will not be able to keep the same tariff.

https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1440935126771306497

The two are not contradictory

My supplier went out of business in May and Ofgem appointed EDF who extended my contract terms with the previous supplier by 3 months to the end of August then I agreed a new 2 year contract with EDF at a higher tariff as you would when any contract concludes

The lack of knowledge by those who tweet and post these comments show they simply do not have knowledge of the subject

Lucky you. EDF email to me:

On 14 September 2021, Utility Point stopped trading so Ofgem (the industry regulator) chose EDF as your new energy supplier. EDF started supplying your energy on 18 September. Your prices will be matched to Standard (Variable) to give you a guaranteed rate through winter, as well as protection from changing wholesale energy prices. These are our cheapest prices^. We're delighted to welcome you on board.

^ Standard (Variable) is EDF's cheapest tariff (excluding our GoElectric range of tariffs, designed for EV drivers) based on national average prices at Ofgem typical consumption (standard electricity meter 2,900 kWh, Economy 7 electricity meter 4,200 kWh (58% on day rate and 42% on night rate), and Gas 12,000 kWh), when purchased directly from EDF (correct as of 20 September 2021).

When was your previous fixed price contract due to terminate

17 July 2022.

algarkirk

I have no idea what is in SKS's 14,000 word Fabian essay (perhaps some kind person will let us know so that we don't have to plough through it) but if SKS's Guardian article is a forerunner, it contains not a single word about the alternatives he proposes in terms of actual hard, or indeed easy, choices. There is nothing in it to disagree with, for 90% of the population anyway (fascists and leftists get little comfort), and nothing which would disagree with the aspirations of Tory or LD.

There are brief straw man arguments about other parties, but nothing meaning anything.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/labour-will-build-a-better-britain-for-working-people

The sub-heading captures the tedium in a single dull phrase:


"The role of government is to give every person, every community, and every business the tools they need to contribute to our success"

Big_G_NorthWales

Scott_xP said:

"We need to fish from a bigger pond", says Iceland boss Richard Walker, as he implores the Government to add HGV drivers to the skilled workers list to help elevated the crisis.

https://trib.al/Q11CKrm https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1440943260281810945/video/1

As was explained this morning the shortage of HGV drivers is across Europe so there is no pool of drivers readily available

eek

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

"We need to fish from a bigger pond", says Iceland boss Richard Walker, as he implores the Government to add HGV drivers to the skilled workers list to help elevated the crisis.

https://trib.al/Q11CKrm https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1440943260281810945/video/1

As was explained this morning the shortage of HGV drivers is across Europe so there is no pool of drivers readily available

It depends what we are willing to pay compared to other EU countries.

RochdalePioneers

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Meanwhile at the first meeting of the new government Food and Drink taskforce:

Tesco warns that Christmas panic-buying will out-strip the start of the pandemic
"Just pay more" has not fixed the logistics crisis
Let us recruit externally to make it through the winter

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/panic-buying-this-christmas-could-be-far-worse-than-in-lockdown-warns-tesco/660042.article

This is the point where the ministers say "our supply chain is fine" despite having been told by the supply chain it is not.

Nobody actively wants an energy crisis and a food crisis. I'm not posting this for kicks. We have a government who just brushes away problems with platitudes and refuses to act until the absolute last second. If we repeat this pattern of behaviour the threat is a cold hungry Christmas.

What I don't understand is the "what crisis" messaging. On energy they can bloame decades of inaction and spin direct intervention as something for COP26, "cutting our reliance on foreign dirty energy" or something. On food they can blame the EU and have a "patriotic call for British drivers and British workers" with an incentive payment to bring people in.

Instead, nothing. With boulder sized lumps of shit to rain down on them if they let this happen.

Vested interests still pushing the line that paying people more isn't the solution.

I've got an idea. How about ... Pay people more?

If employers want an incentive payment to bring people in, they can do that. The state doesn't need to get involved.

They are paying more. It isn't fixing the problem. For drivers it can't fix the problem because there is a shortage of drivers. A few months into this wages have gone up as much as 40% in some cases and firms still have a shortage of drivers because there is a shortage of drivers.

The state intervenes when the market fails. Energy companies have folded, the state has a provider of last resort mechanism. It wasn't economical to make fertiliser and thus CO2, the state gave the company a large wodge of cash.

So the state can intervene and has for other things. They won't here because Brexit can't be seen as having any downsides.

If they've increased pay and still have vacancies then its time to increase pay higher. Stop whinging and get on with it you have no divine right for cheap serfs.

Talking to you on this subject is like the Blackadder sketch teaching Baldrick to add. Paying more does does not produce new drivers. You need to recruit people who want to drive trucks. The pay rise isn't doing that. So we have the same shortage of drivers and a vastly inflated wage bill.

What will this mean? Logistics companies folding. What used to be NFT is about to topple (again) and its unlikely that PE will step in to save it this time. Which rather fucks Asda and Sainsburys chilled supplies. Yes the vehicles can be bought (as we also have a shortage of those due to Brexit) and the drivers hired by a new company. That takes time though.

Paying more does produce new drivers.

It also lowers demand for drivers.

More? Yes. Anywhere near enough? No. Which is why so many of these companies have now stopped with cash incentives and pay rises. They have paid out lots and made no material change to the problem.

Scott_xP

Big_G_NorthWales said:

As was explained this morning the shortage of HGV drivers is across Europe so there is no pool of drivers readily available

Once again the PB brain trust "knows better" than the boss of a major food retailer...

Get a grip lads.