politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The positive thing for Starmer about LAB’s polling position is

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Mark, blimey. That sounds horrendous.

He's a great guy. He'll bounce back. But yeah, that is one rough old week he's had.

Stocky said:

SandyRentool said:

Only on PB:

My news on the engineering contracting sector passes uncommented, but a mention of carrot cake spawns a punathon!

Your dissing of carrot cake was uncalled for, man. The king of cakes, unless you count a bakewell tart as a cake, in which case it`s a score-draw.

Sorry. A loganberry bakewell tart is top trumps.

SouthamObserver said:

MarqueeMark said:

Just heard a friend has been to four funerals this week, including his 34 year old best mate who got the virus - but had an undiagnosed underlying kidney problem and was dead in 48 hours. He can't get spiritual help either - his rabbi was one of the four. As was his employer.

Horrible for your friend, but I'm very surprised he was allowed to attend them. It was immediate family only for my Mother-in-Law.

He was the sole attendee. He was in charge of Zooming the proceedings for the family. Spouses/parents were deemed too old and at too much risk to attend.

Hancock is so much better at the briefing than Gove, Raab, and others

bigjohnowls said:

Hancock is so much better at the briefing than Gove, Raab, and others

Yes, he seems to be doing well here. Raab was a joke.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Does Hancock ever smile? Always comes across as a grumpy so-and-so

because the current situation is a laugh a minute?

Imagine the shit storm he would face if it was felt he was too light hearted

MaxPB said:

matthiasfromhamburg said:

MaxPB said:

MarqueeMark said:

matthiasfromhamburg said:

MarqueeMark said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Glenn, didn't the French do this with similar gear ordered by the NHS (goods made in France)?

Does anyone have any confidence that those "joint EU made ventilators" manufactured in Europe would have actually got across the Channel?

Do you have any confidence that buying ventilators from Dräger on world market terms will be quicker or cheaper or more reliable than doing so in the context of a pan European scheme?

I have more confidence of doing a "world market terms" deal than I do with working in a trading bloc we have already left. When France, Germany, Italy, Spain still need ventilators - that shipment for London at the docks in Rotterdam is going to happen you reckon?

Tbf, it's more likely to be delivered if we were in the co-purchasing arrangement than not. However, it may turn out that our own manufacturing efforts are faster and deliver more than buying as part of the collective scheme. They are still waiting for deliveries, the government scheme is beginning to deliver this weekend and expected to deliver significant quantities next week.

I actually think this is a better way of doing it as we're not reliant on a foreign source if we need more and given that we are going to get units delivered by UK manufacturing, it wouldn't make sense to deny countries that don't have that capability stock from the international market.

We'll see. Yesterday they announced that the McLaren-Merc etc. cooperation will deliver 30 vents at the weekend. 30.

Yes, you're German. You understand how manufacturing works, right? It's not as if those 30 are all that will ever be made from the production line.

I thought we Brexiteers were the ones who viewed everything as a competition with the Germans? You don't have to have much of an argument with our Matthias for the mask (ahem) to slip do you?

MarqueeMark said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Glenn, didn't the French do this with similar gear ordered by the NHS (goods made in France)?

Does anyone have any confidence that those "joint EU made ventilators" manufactured in Europe would have actually got across the Channel?

Have they actually got any responses to the new tender? They didn't get any responses to the first.

bigjohnowls said:

Hancock is so much better at the briefing than Gove, Raab, and others

Amazing how he is able to do so much post contacting covid

He does look tired but such is the responsibilty of his office at this time

And I do not rate Raab at all

I don’t like how this NHS person mentioned by name the 2 nurses who died, but not the HCAs that Hancock was talking about. They contribute just as much to the NHS.

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1245882131173257218

Sigh. It assumes we behave in exactly the same way next time around though. This paper from Christophe Fraser is interesting: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/30/science.abb6936

It presents a really elegant strategy where individuals with any symptom immediately go home and isolate and get rapidly tested. At the same time, those they have been in contact with are informed, via a phone app, that they have been in contact and should isolate too and automatically be signed up to get a test that can again be performed rapidly.

This scheme can prevent both a long-term lockdown and a pandemic. Moreover, we will gain a better understanding of what treatments work for this disease and new insight into how it functions. With all of these pieces of information we can reasonably hope that future waves can be kept under much better control.

rottenborough said:

Pulpstar said:

North Korea is still officially corona virus free

Everybody who contracts it, dies of gun shot wounds?

"Lead poisoning" on all the death certificates.

matthiasfromhamburg said:

MarqueeMark said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Glenn, didn't the French do this with similar gear ordered by the NHS (goods made in France)?

Does anyone have any confidence that those "joint EU made ventilators" manufactured in Europe would have actually got across the Channel?

Do you have any confidence that buying ventilators from Dräger on world market terms will be quicker or cheaper or more reliable than doing so in the context of a pan European scheme?

Buying them from Smiths would be.

Nigelb said:

That is a very good question.

What lockdown has done is give us time to learn about the virus, set up testing systems, and plan a strategy.
Governments had to react day by day at the start, and only those who were lucky enough to have pandemic plans in place based on the SARS experience reacted particularly well. (South Korea had the great luck to have run a full scale exercise only a month or so before it all kicked off.)
Now they have several weeks to decide what comes next.

I don't have an easy answer to that question.

It would be amazing if you did because it looks the very definition of hard. The more I think about this the more gloomy I get. We have to - as you say - try to manage admissions (and therefore deaths) below ramped-up NHS capacity. No UK government could not do that. So, OK, this is what we are doing right now. But what do we do if it becomes clear that only Lockdown satisfies this objective and any Lockdown greater than a few weeks is not tenable because of the economic and social damage it will cause?

Perhaps it will require something rather terrible to contemplate. A switch from trying to save every life via full NHS intervention to a managed exit for some with NHS focus on the others. On a large systematic scale, I mean, not ad hoc. The sort of thing you read about in fiction or thought experiments but never think you will ever see in a country like ours in 2020. So many troubling upshots from something like that. For just one example, those with sufficient financial resource going private and getting healed when somebody similar but poorer would not be. No-one could possibly blame anybody for doing this. Not even if it were Toby Young. Nevertheless it would be a ghastly place for us to end up in.

welshowl said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Does Hancock ever smile? Always comes across as a grumpy so-and-so

He’s been ill with a possible killer virus, he’s just been to inspect an army built field hospital in the middle of London ( imagine that sentence a couple of months ago), and he’s Health Sec at the time of the greatest health crisis in a century.
I can probably forgive him not doing jazz hands as he sashays to the podium.

No, I meant before the crisis.

Pulpstar said:

North Korea is still officially corona virus free

China, eat your heart out.

Sunak reaches North Korean levels of popularity on ConHome:

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2020/04/sunak-soars-to-our-highest-ever-standing-in-this-months-cabinet-league-table.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Friday 3rd April 2020&utm_content=Friday 3rd April 2020+CID_3098b5a3ff152019ee31d9fd729b94ee&utm_source=Daily Email&utm_term=Sunak soars to our highest-ever standing in this months Cabinet League Table

That York train station 'conviction' gets worse.

A woman who was wrongly convicted of loitering under new coronavirus laws was tried and punished in her absence after not speaking or making a sound for three days.

The Times revealed on Thursday how Marie Dinou, 41, had been prosecuted and fined under the wrong legislation after she was arrested by British Transport Police (BTP) at Newcastle Central station on Saturday morning......

...BTP, which has apologised for the error, had initially said that she was detained and charged because she “refused to speak” to officers after being seen “loitering between platforms”.

However, it has since emerged that Ms Dinou did not speak to officers who took her to the cells for two nights, failed to confirm her identity or enter a plea at court as she remained silent, and did not speak to or instruct a duty solicitor assigned to represent her for the hearing.

When concerns were raised in court as to whether she was mute, had mental health issues or faced a language barrier, these were dismissed by District Judge Sarah-Jane Griffiths, who concluded that she was being “obstructive” despite no apparent attempt to determine her health condition or her fitness to plead having been made.

As Ms Dinou remained silent in the dock, the judge ordered her to be taken back to the cells and she proceeded to prove the case, despite the fact that the charges had never been put to the defendant and she had not been served with papers.

The judge said that she had decided that there was no language barrier because Ms Dinou, from York, had written the word “Aberdeen” on a piece of paper — her only interaction in 72 hours.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/woman-wrongly-convicted-under-new-coronavirus-law-did-not-speak-a-single-word-to-police-or-in-court-0kjq9zrhj

MarqueeMark said:

Just heard a friend has been to four funerals this week, including his 34 year old best mate who got the virus - but had an undiagnosed underlying kidney problem and was dead in 48 hours. He can't get spiritual help either - his rabbi was one of the four. As was his employer.

Sorry to hear this, talk about bad luck.

Charles said:

matthiasfromhamburg said:

MarqueeMark said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Glenn, didn't the French do this with similar gear ordered by the NHS (goods made in France)?

Does anyone have any confidence that those "joint EU made ventilators" manufactured in Europe would have actually got across the Channel?

Do you have any confidence that buying ventilators from Dräger on world market terms will be quicker or cheaper or more reliable than doing so in the context of a pan European scheme?

Buying them from Smiths would be.

Only time will show us the aggregate bottom line.

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

That's weird - I read it exactly the same way as you

Floater said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

That's weird - I read it exactly the same way as you

True - dangerous to tell the King the truth...

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

There is no famine in the Ukraine. May I have a Pulitzer Prize please?

TheScreamingEagles said:

That York train station 'conviction' gets worse.

A woman who was wrongly convicted of loitering under new coronavirus laws was tried and punished in her absence after not speaking or making a sound for three days.

The Times revealed on Thursday how Marie Dinou, 41, had been prosecuted and fined under the wrong legislation after she was arrested by British Transport Police (BTP) at Newcastle Central station on Saturday morning......

...BTP, which has apologised for the error, had initially said that she was detained and charged because she “refused to speak” to officers after being seen “loitering between platforms”.

However, it has since emerged that Ms Dinou did not speak to officers who took her to the cells for two nights, failed to confirm her identity or enter a plea at court as she remained silent, and did not speak to or instruct a duty solicitor assigned to represent her for the hearing.

When concerns were raised in court as to whether she was mute, had mental health issues or faced a language barrier, these were dismissed by District Judge Sarah-Jane Griffiths, who concluded that she was being “obstructive” despite no apparent attempt to determine her health condition or her fitness to plead having been made.

As Ms Dinou remained silent in the dock, the judge ordered her to be taken back to the cells and she proceeded to prove the case, despite the fact that the charges had never been put to the defendant and she had not been served with papers.

The judge said that she had decided that there was no language barrier because Ms Dinou, from York, had written the word “Aberdeen” on a piece of paper — her only interaction in 72 hours.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/woman-wrongly-convicted-under-new-coronavirus-law-did-not-speak-a-single-word-to-police-or-in-court-0kjq9zrhj

Surely Ms Griffiths will have to do a Jackson?

rottenborough said:

Pulpstar said:

North Korea is still officially corona virus free

Everybody who contracts it, dies of gun shot wounds?

In unrelated news, they are trying to build a new mega hospital in five months...

Pesto does like trying to get scientists to speculate, doesn't he?

ydoethur said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

MarqueeMark said:

Just heard a friend has been to four funerals this week, including his 34 year old best mate who got the virus - but had an undiagnosed underlying kidney problem and was dead in 48 hours. He can't get spiritual help either - his rabbi was one of the four. As was his employer.

Sorry to hear this, talk about bad luck.

Just heard that the daughter of a friend of mine and her 3 day old baby have got it. Probably (doesn’t say but seems likely to me ) picked it up in the hospital.

Fingers crossed for them.

You can see now why all other operations are being cancelled.

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

That York train station 'conviction' gets worse.

A woman who was wrongly convicted of loitering under new coronavirus laws was tried and punished in her absence after not speaking or making a sound for three days.

The Times revealed on Thursday how Marie Dinou, 41, had been prosecuted and fined under the wrong legislation after she was arrested by British Transport Police (BTP) at Newcastle Central station on Saturday morning......

...BTP, which has apologised for the error, had initially said that she was detained and charged because she “refused to speak” to officers after being seen “loitering between platforms”.

However, it has since emerged that Ms Dinou did not speak to officers who took her to the cells for two nights, failed to confirm her identity or enter a plea at court as she remained silent, and did not speak to or instruct a duty solicitor assigned to represent her for the hearing.

When concerns were raised in court as to whether she was mute, had mental health issues or faced a language barrier, these were dismissed by District Judge Sarah-Jane Griffiths, who concluded that she was being “obstructive” despite no apparent attempt to determine her health condition or her fitness to plead having been made.

As Ms Dinou remained silent in the dock, the judge ordered her to be taken back to the cells and she proceeded to prove the case, despite the fact that the charges had never been put to the defendant and she had not been served with papers.

The judge said that she had decided that there was no language barrier because Ms Dinou, from York, had written the word “Aberdeen” on a piece of paper — her only interaction in 72 hours.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/woman-wrongly-convicted-under-new-coronavirus-law-did-not-speak-a-single-word-to-police-or-in-court-0kjq9zrhj

Surely Ms Griffiths will have to do a Jackson?

Probably try the "lessons have been learnt" crap

ydoethur said:

Surely Ms Griffiths will have to do a Jackson?

If she has any sense of shame or decency.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

Everyone in China who knows what is good for them? And everyone outside of China who would like to do business?

rcs1000 said:

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1245882131173257218

Ummm, I'm a little sceptical of that chart. Let's assume someone has the virus for two weeks. And let's assume that you get to 66% infected irrespective of social distancing.

This means that the total "time infected" is approximately 200m people x 2 weeks = 400m weeks of infection.

Essentially, the area under curve is the same for all scenarios where everyone gets it. The only question is the height of the peak.

But this chart has a five month period, during which an everage of 25 million people are infected. So, just in the peak they have more weeks of infection than other models.

And assumes no effective treatments/vaccines are developed and deployed.

And is also based on insufficient data.

Other than than, projecting out to 2021 is just fine.

egg said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

And what’s current death total in U.K. you haven’t a clue. You have to die in a hospital to be counted.

And a week later if you've died outside a hospital the ONS will include you in the stats.

TheScreamingEagles said:

That York train station 'conviction' gets worse.

[snip]

Was it York or Newcastle? Both are nice stations BTW

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

Surely Ms Griffiths will have to do a Jackson?

If she has any sense of shame or decency.

So just to be clear - you don’t expect her to?

So the hospital admissions chart is now showing decline in numbers for London and several other regions - hopefully that continues!

just paid 96.7 a litre for petrol

it seemed weird watching the litres rise faster than the pounds

egg said:

CarlottaVance said:

egg said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

And what’s current death total in U.K. you haven’t a clue. You have to die in a hospital to be counted.

And a week later if you've died outside a hospital the ONS will include you in the stats.

Anyway, the sad and very worrying news coming through is Derek Draper is very ill on a ventilator 😦

Forgive my question but who is Derek Draper

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

Surely Ms Griffiths will have to do a Jackson?

If she has any sense of shame or decency.

So just to be clear - you don’t expect her to?

I do not expect her to resign.

Incidentally I also have no sense of shame and decency, that way my other senses are enhanced.

Alanbrooke said:

just paid 96.7 a litre for petrol

it seemed weird watching the litres rise faster than the pounds

When was it last that low? 2007? A long time ago, anyway!

egg said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

And what’s current death total in U.K. you haven’t a clue. You have to die in a hospital to be counted.

There are clearly differences in the way countries are doing counting (as seen when France added a whole bunch of deaths at once) and that needs taking into account, but it does not follow that everywhere is equally unreliable, especially depending the reasons for any doubt around figures. Doubts about figures in this country as a result of not including figures outside hispitals would not, for instance, be of the same level of China deliberately concealing mass numbers of cases and deaths. I don't know if the wilder accusations about China will be bourne out, but if there is any truth to it it would clearly be more serious than what you are putting up as equatable.

Or more pithily, not all sins are the same.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

maaarsh said:

So the hospital admissions chart is now showing decline in numbers for London and several other regions - hopefully that continues!

Do you have a link? Ta.

It was in the press conference - he flicked over it very quickly as they're obviously trying to avoid people relaxing in the sun on Sunday, but I rewound and paused - London down and Midlands down very markedly, with only 1 of the other regions looking up

Stocky said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

CarlottaVance said:

egg said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

And what’s current death total in U.K. you haven’t a clue. You have to die in a hospital to be counted.

And a week later if you've died outside a hospital the ONS will include you in the stats.

Anyway, the sad and very worrying news coming through is Derek Draper is very ill on a ventilator 😦

Forgive my question but who is Derek Draper

Big G! He was New Labour SPAD hard man

I thought that was Campbell but Derek Draper has not appeared on my radar

Stocky said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

CarlottaVance said:

egg said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

And what’s current death total in U.K. you haven’t a clue. You have to die in a hospital to be counted.

And a week later if you've died outside a hospital the ONS will include you in the stats.

Anyway, the sad and very worrying news coming through is Derek Draper is very ill on a ventilator 😦

Forgive my question but who is Derek Draper

Big G! He was New Labour SPAD hard man

He was the ultimate metrosexual Blairite:

https://www.gregpalast.com/lobbygate-there-are-17-people-that-count-to-say-that-i-am-intimate-with-every-one-of-them-is-the-understatement-of-the-century/

Just has a bit on Anneliese Dodds for Shadow Chancellor at 5/2. She`s been taking money today. Now 7/4 with most bookies.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

CarlottaVance said:

egg said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

And what’s current death total in U.K. you haven’t a clue. You have to die in a hospital to be counted.

And a week later if you've died outside a hospital the ONS will include you in the stats.

Anyway, the sad and very worrying news coming through is Derek Draper is very ill on a ventilator 😦

Forgive my question but who is Derek Draper

Former New Labour spin doctor. Married to TV host Kate Garraway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Draper

Main claim to fame - the man who nearly destroyed the Labour party.

ydoethur said:

Alanbrooke said:

just paid 96.7 a litre for petrol

it seemed weird watching the litres rise faster than the pounds

When was it last that low? 2007? A long time ago, anyway!

Enjoy while it lasts, soon be on the way up if the crude price is any judge

For those taking a long view on shares, Royal Dutch Shell is worth a look.

ydoethur said:

Stocky said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

CarlottaVance said:

egg said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

egg said:

OldKingCole said:

rottenborough said:

RobD said:

From Guido's piece on this...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

It is just a fire on the roof comrade.

I read that as medieval bureaucrats at first.....

Black Death strikes again.

Only 3,322 deaths in caught by surprise China as opposed to plenty of notice U.K. Guido.

Does anyone believe the China death figures

And what’s current death total in U.K. you haven’t a clue. You have to die in a hospital to be counted.

And a week later if you've died outside a hospital the ONS will include you in the stats.

Anyway, the sad and very worrying news coming through is Derek Draper is very ill on a ventilator 😦

Forgive my question but who is Derek Draper

Big G! He was New Labour SPAD hard man

He was the ultimate metrosexual Blairite:

https://www.gregpalast.com/lobbygate-there-are-17-people-that-count-to-say-that-i-am-intimate-with-every-one-of-them-is-the-understatement-of-the-century/

Shows I did not pay too much attention to politics in those days, as I had a business to run