politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Looking on the bright side: another decade of austerity. At be

DavidL said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I would mark the government 7/10. This is very hard to respond to and the government needs to be given a lot of leeway. It initially took a bold but ultimately incorrect decision to let the outbreak run. It was running to catch up with events all last week with its financial package and it still hasn’t got there yet. Boris Johnson is fundamentally too unserious and too incoherent to communicate clear public health announcements: he has got in the way of the experts with his muddled messaging (eg his comments about Mother’s Day).

But taken as a whole, it has tried hard to rectify its mistakes and overall it is doing ok.

I wouldn't quibble between a 7 and a 8. I think Boris has done pretty well in his daily press conferences despite some really stupid questions, not just from Peston either. Every now and again his inner Boris breaks out but he has controlled himself on the whole.

What the government is seeking to do financially is like nothing any British government has ever done before. Subsiding and providing liquidity to the banks in 2008 was an absolute dawdle by comparison. Instead of dealing with a couple of dozen serious players they are dealing with tens of thousands with all their own complications. It will be incredible if numerous mistakes are not made. In fact I would go so far as to say that if hundreds of mistakes are not made they are simply not moving fast enough.

Yes, fair summaries, I'm obviously not a big fan of the Government but I think 7/10 is right, and 10/10 for good intentions. I hope someone in a back room is looking ahead to future stages as David is trying to do in his article.

Do we think, incidentally, that house prices will soar because of inflation and the underlying supply problem, or slump because everyone will be clinging to their savings and fearful of recurrence?

Best wishes @MaxPB - I hope you have plenty of broth?

Charles said:

MattW said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

RobD said:

Beibheirli_C said:

RobD said:

Beibheirli_C said:

HYUFD said:

Beibheirli_C said:

Pulpstar said:

rcs1000 said:

another_richard said:

rcs1000 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Jonathan said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Jonathan said:

What is Germany getting apparently so right? Lots of testing, lots of cases. Very few deaths. Is there something to learn from it?

They have been incredibly lucky that 70% of their cases are under 50 year olds.

How do you get that lucky? You make your own luck. How did they make that?

Well their initial outbreaks were youth carnival events at a time when this virus was known to be in Europe. That was lucky. And then they tested basically everybody who went to those events.

That isn't to say the German's aren't doing really well, just pointing out their initial big outbreak was quite different to Italy.

Italy have the opposite, they were incredibly unlucky that it hit an area where lots of old people live and in multi-generational households. And it is thought it circulating among commuting younger people who brought it back to those outlying towns.

Catholic Mass may turn out to be an absolute killer.

How many Italians, and Spanish for that matter, still go to Mass ?

I suspect that Mass goers are predominantly older.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aURU-mD8HxE

5:55 the reason for the outbreak being so dire in Italy ?

Bl**dy hell - that is creepy! If anyone else made a video about how good it was to eat someone else, they could expect a visit from PC Plod and their social media accounts cleaned out.

In Catholic doctrine not only is the body of Christ present in the bread of the Eucharist but Christ as a whole

"... you touch him, you eat him... he gives himself to you to be your food and nourishment ..."

If it was said in any video other than a church video, there would be arrests.

I doubt it, unless they were actually eating someone.

The church maintains that is exactly what you are doing. Now as an atheist, I personally believe that they are just much munching sub-standard bread and probably 2nd rate wine, but the message, to me, is one step from promoting cannibalism.

Yes, but you aren't actually doing it, are you?

The Church of England position on the eucharist, insofar as it has one, is that the wafer and wine represent the body and blood of Christ. It is a metaphor, if you like. The Roman Catholic doctrine, known as transubstantiation, is that the wafer and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ. That is the crucial point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation

The phrase for Protestants (and Anglicans get to be both Protestants and Catholics, naturally :-) ) is 'in remembrance'. So I would go with memorial not metaphor, that is still a means of grace.

Nah, Anglicans are definitely members of the "universal Catholic church". Not protesting at all.

The CofE is a classic fudge.

I wonder if Theresa May would have got on with Elizabeth 1st.

isam said:

Someone trying to answer the question I keep asking. How many would have died anyway? Apparently the reason Germany’s death rate is so low is they only treat it as death by Coronavirus if they didn’t already have flu or pneumonia etc, and almost all of Italian deaths were pretty gravely ill

https://twitter.com/bipolarrunner/status/1241300450768572417?s=21

https://twitter.com/declamare/status/1241277424500957184?s=21

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says

Ah. That might explain it.

If that's true then that does raise some interesting questions about strategy.

isam said:

Someone trying to answer the question I keep asking. How many would have died anyway? Apparently the reason Germany’s death rate is so low is they only treat it as death by Coronavirus if they didn’t already have flu or pneumonia etc, and almost all of Italian deaths were pretty gravely ill

In Italy just 0.8% ONLY have Covid-19 - while 45% have 3 or more other illnesses. I think we need greater transparency internationally on how deaths are being classified. "Died from" and "Died with" could be very different numbers.

CarlottaVance said:

isam said:

Someone trying to answer the question I keep asking. How many would have died anyway? Apparently the reason Germany’s death rate is so low is they only treat it as death by Coronavirus if they didn’t already have flu or pneumonia etc, and almost all of Italian deaths were pretty gravely ill

In Italy just 0.8% ONLY have Covid-19 - while 45% have 3 or more other illnesses.

That is a remarkable stat.

I’m worried we’ll never see Dr. Fauci again. pic.twitter.com/uaBmIYSNDo

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 20, 2020

Gardening Question for @Cyclefree

How do I prune Forsythia without a) Stopping next year's flowers, b) Prevent it going too leggy? How do I deal with those huge shoots? Am I going to have to lose my flowers for a year?

I have one outside my conservatory to light up the corner, and provide a block next to next door. I want it to be slightly higher than the 1.8m fence.

(Forsythia - early 'splash of colour' bush that gets yellow flowers directly on new wood in Feb / Mar. )

Cheers

Pics via twitter
https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1241306024381997056
https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1241306241676312577

IanB2 said:

SouthamObserver said:

CarlottaVance said:

The US trend looks very worrying:

https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

The US is in a whole heap of trouble. Trump’s worries will really begin if the red states start getting battered.

The question for the US curve is how much of its sharp rise is actual spread because they were so slow in clamping down, and how much of it is statistical catch-up (finding people now who were infected way back) because they were so slow in testing.

On deaths the UK curve doesn't look at all encouraging (although the decision to start all the lines from the tenth death looks arbitrary and may be creating a false impression)

I don't really like that chart, because it doesn't take into account - for example - demographic differences. The second chart (infections from no 100) is better in my view

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

If anyone wants more information on a country that seems to be facing total implosion over this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51930856

I know I have been, and probably will continue to be, very critical of our government’s bumbling, but they are doing a whole lot better than this.

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

Do you think the root cause could be a form of British nationalism that denies English nationhood? Before the recent fetishisation of "the UK", we knew very well what England was.

CarlottaVance said:

isam said:

Someone trying to answer the question I keep asking. How many would have died anyway? Apparently the reason Germany’s death rate is so low is they only treat it as death by Coronavirus if they didn’t already have flu or pneumonia etc, and almost all of Italian deaths were pretty gravely ill

In Italy just 0.8% ONLY have Covid-19 - while 45% have 3 or more other illnesses. I think we need greater transparency internationally on how deaths are being classified. "Died from" and "Died with" could be very different numbers.

Does it matter though if every icu bed is taken and hospitals are diverting resource to meeting the demand, it might be interesting from statistical perspective but would it change decision making?

kinabalu said:

IanB2 said:

That line of argument would conclude that all manner of things don’t matter, when clearly they do. It’s no different to when someone becomes seriously ill; their work problems don’t matter any more.

Exactly that - on a grand scale.

When something terrible happens you realize that what you used to worry about was really not that important.

Of course you can't live your life like that in real time. But a touch of it is IMO healthy.

Maybe. But if someone seriously ill miraculously recovers, it might give them a different perspective on life, but you can bet that some of the things they had stopped worrying about will start to worry them again.

IanB2 said:

NickPalmer said:

DavidL said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I would mark the government 7/10. This is very hard to respond to and the government needs to be given a lot of leeway. It initially took a bold but ultimately incorrect decision to let the outbreak run. It was running to catch up with events all last week with its financial package and it still hasn’t got there yet. Boris Johnson is fundamentally too unserious and too incoherent to communicate clear public health announcements: he has got in the way of the experts with his muddled messaging (eg his comments about Mother’s Day).

But taken as a whole, it has tried hard to rectify its mistakes and overall it is doing ok.

I wouldn't quibble between a 7 and a 8. I think Boris has done pretty well in his daily press conferences despite some really stupid questions, not just from Peston either. Every now and again his inner Boris breaks out but he has controlled himself on the whole.

What the government is seeking to do financially is like nothing any British government has ever done before. Subsiding and providing liquidity to the banks in 2008 was an absolute dawdle by comparison. Instead of dealing with a couple of dozen serious players they are dealing with tens of thousands with all their own complications. It will be incredible if numerous mistakes are not made. In fact I would go so far as to say that if hundreds of mistakes are not made they are simply not moving fast enough.

Yes, fair summaries, I'm obviously not a big fan of the Government but I think 7/10 is right, and 10/10 for good intentions. I hope someone in a back room is looking ahead to future stages as David is trying to do in his article.

Do we think, incidentally, that house prices will soar because of inflation and the underlying supply problem, or slump because everyone will be clinging to their savings and fearful of recurrence?

We keep being told that house prices are a matter of supply and demand. Demand for moving house will surely slump, even after the pandemic, in a more risk averse world, and there will be an excess supply of houses coming onto the market for various reasons. I don’t see any scenario where (real) house prices go up. And judging from recent market movements, fear of deflation is as strong as of inflation.

I think that regularity of moving house is already about half of what it was a couple of decades ago.

Good business is you have a truck with a Hiab...

williamglenn said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

Do you think the root cause could be a form of British nationalism that denies English nationhood? Before the recent fetishisation of "the UK", we knew very well what England was.

England still incorporated Wales for 200 years before the Act of Union

HYUFD said:

williamglenn said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

Do you think the root cause could be a form of British nationalism that denies English nationhood? Before the recent fetishisation of "the UK", we knew very well what England was.

England still incorporated Wales for 200 years before the Act of Union

Completely irrelevant.

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

England is an ancient nation of well over 1,000 years in age. It's one of the oldest polities in Europe.

I think your views on Englishness are getting bound up in your hyperemotionally charged politics and combining with some kneejerk snobbery as well.

The first King of England was Aethelstan, 924-939. That would still put it behind France, which effectively goes back to the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and more definitively to Verdun in 840.

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

HYUFD has a secure public sector job so can be callous and thoughtless to those who aren’t so lucky

Anabobazina said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

HYUFD has a secure public sector job so can be callous and thoughtless to those who aren’t so lucky

Utter crap, everything I said was factual, all the left ever does is play the victim card

Morris_Dancer said:

Hope you get well soon, Mr. Max.

The idea there's no such thing as an English identity is bullshit. A Yorkshire regional assembly would be a pathetic and foolish idea as it could never have powers equal to Holyrood without tearing England into fiefdoms.

I think the compromise to this, as part of an Independent England, is to have the House of Lords as almost a senate of English regions/counties, and keeping the House of Commons as it is.

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

Duh, Tesco and Sainsburys both have graduate management schemes, indeed I know a Cambridge maths graduate who works at Tesco head office

We don’t know if their head office grad schemes will continue as normal. I’m guessing probably not. They almost certainly are not going to be vastly increasing their graduate intake are they?

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

Duh, Tesco and Sainsburys both have graduate management schemes, indeed I know a Cambridge maths graduate who works at Tesco head office

We don’t know if their head office grad schemes will continue as normal. I’m guessing probably not. They almost certainly are not going to be vastly increasing their graduate intake are they?

Given the increasing numbers of orders they are having to manage and the increasing revenues they are making and the challenge of ensuring they get their supply chain to get enough stock to fill the shelves and meet the huge demand they have at the moment they almost certainly will be increasing them actually

isam said:

Casino_Royale said:

isam said:

Someone trying to answer the question I keep asking. How many would have died anyway? Apparently the reason Germany’s death rate is so low is they only treat it as death by Coronavirus if they didn’t already have flu or pneumonia etc, and almost all of Italian deaths were pretty gravely ill

https://twitter.com/bipolarrunner/status/1241300450768572417?s=21

https://twitter.com/declamare/status/1241277424500957184?s=21

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says

Ah. That might explain it.

If that's true then that does raise some interesting questions about strategy.

Yes, I think there’s a big chance most of the people who have died would have died of something else anyway. I’d really like to see the number of deaths by flu and pneumonia this year compared with others. Does 2020 Flu+pneumonia+corona = flu+pneumonia in other years?

Ummm...at risk of being pedantic, *all* of those who died of coronavirus would have died of something else anyway.

Mr. Doethur, that was Francia. And if you're using that yardstick you might as well predate the Carolingians and go Merovingian.

Francia included Germany and northern Italy, so using that as 'France' is a bit like considering the Angevin Empire to be England (in geographical rather than temporal terms).

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

williamglenn said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

Do you think the root cause could be a form of British nationalism that denies English nationhood? Before the recent fetishisation of "the UK", we knew very well what England was.

England still incorporated Wales for 200 years before the Act of Union

Completely irrelevant.

No completely relevant

IanB2 said:

Maybe. But if someone seriously ill miraculously recovers, it might give them a different perspective on life, but you can bet that some of the things they had stopped worrying about will start to worry them again.

I can vouch for that personally. I am as a general rule full of neuroses and phobias. A few years ago the Doctor thought I had cancer and sent me for tests. Waiting for the results, I was a wreck. But I got the all clear. False alarm. Flood of relief and all of my cares disappeared, including my various "issues". Just happy to be healthy. Nothing else mattered. It was great and lasted all of, oh, a week. Then I returned to exactly how I was. No change at all.

King Cole, Burgundy, from memory, was a very complex shifting state, sometimes independent, sometimes under France. Norman Davies' Vanished Kingdoms includes it (arguably the single most interesting chapter).

The Duke of Burgundy during and after the Hundred Years' War was supposedly a vassal of the French king but often vied with rivals for control of or independence from the crown.

If you mean during the Carolingian Empire, then I don't think it existed then. The closest equivalent might be the short-lived state of Lotharingia.

OldKingCole said:

DougSeal said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

Every country on Earth beyond micro states, including Scotland, is an agglomeration of countries that no longer exist. And if you want regionalism, the way the Northern Italians talk about those in the South would make even the most jingoistic southerner here blush.

Have a look at Norman Davies' "The Forgotten Kingdoms of Europe". And a look at a map of Central Europe pre-1870.

That was one of the more interesting books I've read in the last few years

Charles said:

OldKingCole said:

DougSeal said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

Every country on Earth beyond micro states, including Scotland, is an agglomeration of countries that no longer exist. And if you want regionalism, the way the Northern Italians talk about those in the South would make even the most jingoistic southerner here blush.

Have a look at Norman Davies' "The Forgotten Kingdoms of Europe". And a look at a map of Central Europe pre-1870.

That was one of the more interesting books I've read in the last few years

Thanks Charles and @OldKingCole for the recommendation, I think I’ll check it out.

IanB2 said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Is anyone going to graduate this year, with exams deferred?

LSE among others are going for online exams apparently.

Interesting thought that if this is indeed a War comparable to WWII, Peter Hitchens could be arrested, locked up and even hanged for sedition.

I hope that thought brings some comfort.

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

Duh, Tesco and Sainsburys both have graduate management schemes, indeed I know a Cambridge maths graduate who works at Tesco head office

We don’t know if their head office grad schemes will continue as normal. I’m guessing probably not. They almost certainly are not going to be vastly increasing their graduate intake are they?

Given the increasing numbers of orders they are having to manage and the increasing revenues they are making they almost certainly will be increasing them actually

How’s that going to work if most of their head office is working from home? How are they going to hold assessment centres? Group interviews?

Are they anticipating a drop-off in revenue once the crisis is over and everyone has tons of food?

I think the answer is likely not. Despite increased revenues, how many extra “graduate managers” do you think they need?

You can hold interviews over the phone, Skype etc. This is the 21st century.

We are also not yet at full lockdown either so you can hold face to face meetings then get people working from home with conference calls etc after if needed.
Given supermarkets are making vast revenues and profits at the moment as people are staying in longer and need more food etc that will continue for some time to come and indeed even once the crisis is over peoppe will still need food.

So yes the answer is they likely will and graduate recruitment by Tesco etc will be strong and resiliant for a long time to come, even if they need even more graduate managers now to manage the complex supply chain challenges they are facing etc

What point are you trying to make here? That there might be maybe, an extra 5 graduate positions at Tesco or Sainsburys head office?

Pulpstar said:

Kissing shrines in Iran, taking of communion in Italy. Clear that practices of the Abrahamic religions are going to kill thousands.

South Korea had that weird religious sect that pioneered its outbreak too.

Orthodox churches are very different though.

There you come in, and listen to a priest singing for a bit and waving some incense around and then leave again.

Only a problem if you kiss an icon, which many do of course.

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

England is an ancient nation of well over 1,000 years in age. It's one of the oldest polities in Europe.

I think your views on Englishness are getting bound up in your hyperemotionally charged politics and combining with some kneejerk snobbery as well.

The first King of England was Aethelstan, 924-939. That would still put it behind France, which effectively goes back to the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and more definitively to Verdun in 840.

I said one of the oldest. Not the oldest. But you're quibbling about 80-90 years in the dark ages.

It doesn't refute England's claim to historic and longstanding nationhood.

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

England is an ancient nation of well over 1,000 years in age. It's one of the oldest polities in Europe.

I think your views on Englishness are getting bound up in your hyperemotionally charged politics and combining with some kneejerk snobbery as well.

The first King of England was Aethelstan, 924-939. That would still put it behind France, which effectively goes back to the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and more definitively to Verdun in 840.

I said one of the oldest. Not the oldest. But you're quibbling about 80-90 years in the dark ages.

It doesn't refute England's claim to historic and longstanding nationhood.

And, especially after it got a Viking-French ruling class, one of the most aggressive.

felix said:

Casino_Royale said:

OllyT said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

Come on, I live here but can still see that the UK (and English in particular) lead the way in Europe as far as loutish behaviour goes. We had a stunning example in Spain only this week - in the middle of all they are trying to cope with hordes of drunken louts refusing to abide by the law and chanting "we've all got the virus".

It's pointless shutting your eyes to it and pretending it's all Miss Marple and Glyndebourne. We have a problem and we would do better to try to address it rather than tell someone who points it out to leave the country.

We do have that but the Welsh, Scots and Irish are just as bad when they're on the drink.

I agree we can be antisocial.

Anti-social behaviour is not a British [ or English] only phenomenon - in my experience here in Spain most north Europeans are pretty similar when they come here for their summer breaks - sun and sangria produce much the same behaviour.

It's probably a function of living in a cold climate most of the year and starved of daylight for five months of it.

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

Duh, Tesco and Sainsburys both have graduate management schemes, indeed I know a Cambridge maths graduate who works at Tesco head office

We don’t know if their head office grad schemes will continue as normal. I’m guessing probably not. They almost certainly are not going to be vastly increasing their graduate intake are they?

Given the increasing numbers of orders they are having to manage and the increasing revenues they are making they almost certainly will be increasing them actually

How’s that going to work if most of their head office is working from home? How are they going to hold assessment centres? Group interviews?

Are they anticipating a drop-off in revenue once the crisis is over and everyone has tons of food?

I think the answer is likely not. Despite increased revenues, how many extra “graduate managers” do you think they need?

You can hold interviews over the phone, Skype etc. This is the 21st century.

We are also not yet at full lockdown either so you can hold face to face meetings then get people working from home with conference calls etc after if needed.
Given supermarkets are making vast revenues and profits at the moment as people are staying in longer and need more food etc that will continue for some time to come and indeed even once the crisis is over peoppe will still need food.

So yes the answer is they likely will and graduate recruitment by Tesco etc will be strong and resiliant for a long time to come, even if they need even more graduate managers now to manage the complex supply chain challenges they are facing etc

What point are you trying to make here? That there might be maybe, an extra 5 graduate positions at Tesco or Sainsburys head office?

There will be extra graduate positions at supermarkets yes and graduate recruitment at companies like Vodaphone and Apple or in the NHS will be unaffected either longer term, so your original statement that 'graduates are screwed' was misleading

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

England is an ancient nation of well over 1,000 years in age. It's one of the oldest polities in Europe.

I think your views on Englishness are getting bound up in your hyperemotionally charged politics and combining with some kneejerk snobbery as well.

The first King of England was Aethelstan, 924-939. That would still put it behind France, which effectively goes back to the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and more definitively to Verdun in 840.

I said one of the oldest. Not the oldest. But you're quibbling about 80-90 years in the dark ages.

It doesn't refute England's claim to historic and longstanding nationhood.

Oh dear goodness. The Dark Ages.

That’s a phrase looooong out of use.

Edward Gibbon‘s personal foibles masquerading as history were perhaps a more apt field for the phrase ‘the dark ages.’

rottenborough said:

Charles said:

MaxPB said:

Woken up with a pretty bad cough and a bit of a high temperature today. Also lines up that I went through an airport around a week ago.

Think I've got the plague.

Good luck and best wishes

Yes, best wishes.

Is it me are we seeing quite a few posters saying they probably have this now?

Well, if so hopefully we are sign that this herd immunity strategy we are pursuing by accident or design is working.

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

Duh, Tesco and Sainsburys both have graduate management schemes, indeed I know a Cambridge maths graduate who works at Tesco head office

We don’t know if their head office grad schemes will continue as normal. I’m guessing probably not. They almost certainly are not going to be vastly increasing their graduate intake are they?

Given the increasing numbers of orders they are having to manage and the increasing revenues they are making they almost certainly will be increasing them actually

How’s that going to work if most of their head office is working from home? How are they going to hold assessment centres? Group interviews?

Are they anticipating a drop-off in revenue once the crisis is over and everyone has tons of food?

I think the answer is likely not. Despite increased revenues, how many extra “graduate managers” do you think they need?

You can hold interviews over the phone, Skype etc. This is the 21st century.

We are also not yet at full lockdown either so you can hold face to face meetings then get people working from home with conference calls etc after if needed.
Given supermarkets are making vast revenues and profits at the moment as people are staying in longer and need more food etc that will continue for some time to come and indeed even once the crisis is over peoppe will still need food.

So yes the answer is they likely will and graduate recruitment by Tesco etc will be strong and resiliant for a long time to come, even if they need even more graduate managers now to manage the complex supply chain challenges they are facing etc

What point are you trying to make here? That there might be maybe, an extra 5 graduate positions at Tesco or Sainsburys head office?

There will be extra graduate positions at supermarkets yes and graduate recruitment at companies like Vodaphone and Apple or in the NHS will be unaffected either longer term, so your original statement that 'graduates are screwed' was misleading

Female ones often are, I believe, after graduation parties.

rottenborough said:

Charles said:

MaxPB said:

Woken up with a pretty bad cough and a bit of a high temperature today. Also lines up that I went through an airport around a week ago.

Think I've got the plague.

Good luck and best wishes

Yes, best wishes.

Is it me are we seeing quite a few posters saying they probably have this now?

We are indeed. Would it be appropriate to keep a little list: not for voyeuristic reasons but so we can keep one another in our thoughts, send good wishes and hear first hand about progress?

By my reckoning we've had messages concerning themselves or immediate family from Charles, GideonWise and now Max PB

kjh said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

Duh, Tesco and Sainsburys both have graduate management schemes, indeed I know a Cambridge maths graduate who works at Tesco head office

We don’t know if their head office grad schemes will continue as normal. I’m guessing probably not. They almost certainly are not going to be vastly increasing their graduate intake are they?

Given the increasing numbers of orders they are having to manage and the increasing revenues they are making and the challenge of ensuring they get their supply chain to get enough stock to fill the shelves and meet the huge demand they have at the moment they almost certainly will be increasing them actually

There isn't a linear relationship. If you double your stores you double your shelf stackers but you don't double your head office. You have to distinguish between capital and revenue type activities.

I know you don't like applying maths to real life activities but maths applies to real life as well as the abstract.

For example if you supply capital goods to a supplier of end user products ( eg a canning m/c for baked beans). If your customer has 10 machines and replaces one a year through wear and tear but in one year his sales go up by 10%, he will need a replacement m/c and 1 additional m/c.

So his sales increase by 10%, but yours by 100%.

Equally when his sales drop by 10% and so he no longer needs a replacement m/c this year, his sales drop by 10% and yours drop by 100%.

See the relationship is not linear.

You will also need more managers to ensure the supply chain is secure, to seek new production if required and changes to production for areas of increasing demand where needed

Police in Sydney close Bondi Beach after too many beachgoers still go there
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51984725

https://twitter.com/mitchprothero/status/1241321648575389696

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

I’m hearing that Deloitte have cancelled all graduate recruitment this year. If true, no doubt other firms will follow.

This year’s university graduates are screwed.

Not if they join Tesco or Sainsburys or M & S, the NHS, the police service, the armed forces, the civil service, Google, Apple, Vodaphone and other organisations little affected by this crisis or even seeing a growth in demand

Working as temporary shop floor staff at Tesco or Sainsburys is really going to pay off that student loan. Good grief...

Duh, Tesco and Sainsburys both have graduate management schemes, indeed I know a Cambridge maths graduate who works at Tesco head office

We don’t know if their head office grad schemes will continue as normal. I’m guessing probably not. They almost certainly are not going to be vastly increasing their graduate intake are they?

Given the increasing numbers of orders they are having to manage and the increasing revenues they are making they almost certainly will be increasing them actually

How’s that going to work if most of their head office is working from home? How are they going to hold assessment centres? Group interviews?

Are they anticipating a drop-off in revenue once the crisis is over and everyone has tons of food?

I think the answer is likely not. Despite increased revenues, how many extra “graduate managers” do you think they need?

You can hold interviews over the phone, Skype etc. This is the 21st century.

We are also not yet at full lockdown either so you can hold face to face meetings then get people working from home with conference calls etc after if needed.
Given supermarkets are making vast revenues and profits at the moment as people are staying in longer and need more food etc that will continue for some time to come and indeed even once the crisis is over peoppe will still need food.

So yes the answer is they likely will and graduate recruitment by Tesco etc will be strong and resiliant for a long time to come, even if they need even more graduate managers now to manage the complex supply chain challenges they are facing etc

What point are you trying to make here? That there might be maybe, an extra 5 graduate positions at Tesco or Sainsburys head office?

There will be extra graduate positions at supermarkets yes and graduate recruitment at companies like Vodaphone and Apple or in the NHS will be unaffected either longer term, so your original statement that 'graduates are screwed' was misleading

How many graduates do you think Apple takes in the UK?

Regarding supermarkets. Head office teams have been gutted at the big 4. Their need for stock market profit declarations from organisations that are large and bloated has driven them to have several rounds of significant chopping away of managerial positions. That has meant they are increasingly unable to deliver the kind of functions they were able to do before (such as full spectrum own label product development) with that largely outsourced to suppliers.

The notion that CV19 creates a huge new swathe of well paid managerial positions is for the birds - these businesses are not profitable enough to afford them, and shifting large volumes of low margin product in an all hands to the pumps operation will not fix their deep structural bloat issues.

Morrison's have decided to use the crisis as an opportunity to rapidly expand their relatively small home delivery capacity. Whilst that is a positive from a market share perspective all it means is a higher share of a loss-makimg activity. They're doing it because they have to, not because they will make money from it. The long term winners will be Aldi and Lidl as was already the case...

OldKingCole said:

Casino_Royale said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

nichomar said:

Casino_Royale said:

I just wonder if there are alternative strategies to locking down the whole country.

You are not really locked down though are you.? You can go to B&Q buy a new bed, go to Primart, take a car ride in the country, have a house party etc etc you have a long way to go to true lockdown

People are already losing their shit. And this clearly is just an interim stage before the actual lock-down kicks in. I'm not sure that a society as pig ignorant and self-centred as 2020 England will cope (the other less shit nations in the UK will be fine). Expect Peter Hitchens pieces in the Hate Mail telling people that Boris is a Fascist and that we should resist authoritarianism. Feral parents round here will still be drunk letting their feral kids out to create havoc, and that's before the Facebook rumors kick in that Other People have something You haven't got and the riots start.

You ain't seen nothing yet...

If you hate your own country so much why don't you go and live somewhere else?

I wouldn't describe it as hate. More like pity. England used to be something. Look what we've reduced ourselves to. As for moving, plans were in progress, now delayed thanks to Coronavirus.

Where were you moving to?

Nothing fixed, but was looking at houses up near my brother in Aberdeenshire. Again, its not hate. But you can't deny that the level of stupid in England really has dialled up to 11. I hear commentators talk about British exceptionalism - its *English* exceptionalism. We're arrogant / stupid enough to think the rules don't apply to us as we're Better than everyone else. Morons voted for Brexit to stop freedom of movement then moan when their freedom of movement is stopped. Apparently the rules are only for foreigners...

I'm not remotely saying Scotland is perfect or immune to our madness. But from what I can see its better. And I think a decent part of that is that they kind of have a mojo about what it is to be Scottish. That was the SNP project more than anything else. England could fix itself, but I think that it will need regionalism as a solution as "England" is at best an amorphous blob of different kingdoms glued together that don't entirely get on. The nice thing about Yorkshire as opposed to my native Lancashire is that there is a proper regional identity. Same in Cornwall. More of that.

So Scottish nationalism is great but English nationalism is a complete no no?

Right. Got it.

I don't think nationalism of any flavour is great. I wouldn't vote for the SNP or Scottish independence if I had the opportunity to - I am a federalist. But people feel better and secure when they know who they are, and my point was about identity. Scotland has worked hard to push an identity. The English identity is what? Gammony drunks? Metropolitan liberals? The two extremes largely hate each other.

England's basic problem is that it doesn't know what England or English is. We confuse England for Britain as if they are interchangeable. We don't even have a national anthem and our flag has become synonymous with racists and drunks. We propagandise people who aren't very bright with messages that the schools are against them and then wonder why educational attainment is so low.

None of these are "nationalism". Brexit was a vote of the lost recognising they were lost wanting to forge a new identity of their own. I think my epiphany - having voted for a different kind of Brexit to what we are/were heading for - was that the Britain/England they have been told to want looks repulsive.

England is an ancient nation of well over 1,000 years in age. It's one of the oldest polities in Europe.

I think your views on Englishness are getting bound up in your hyperemotionally charged politics and combining with some kneejerk snobbery as well.

The first King of England was Aethelstan, 924-939. That would still put it behind France, which effectively goes back to the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and more definitively to Verdun in 840.

I said one of the oldest. Not the oldest. But you're quibbling about 80-90 years in the dark ages.

It doesn't refute England's claim to historic and longstanding nationhood.

And, especially after it got a Viking-French ruling class, one of the most aggressive.

The Anglo-Saxons were no shrinking violets either.