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  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708

    I see Novak Djokovic is in the running for idiot of the day...I don't do vaccines.

    Story here

    https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1252194068035182594?s=20
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    eadric said:

    Another Oxford academic weighs in....

    Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, claims data shows infection rates halved after the Government launched a hand-washing drive and recommend people keep two metres apart on March 16.

    He said ministers 'lost sight' of the evidence and rushed into a nationwide quarantine six days later after being instructed by scientific advisers who have been 'consistently wrong' during the crisis.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235979/UKs-coronavirus-crisis-peaked-lockdown-Expert-argues-draconian-measures-unnecessary.html

    Intriguing. Tho this sentence makes me wonder how accurate the reporting is

    "Less than 6 per cent of Sweden's workforce had filed claims for unemployment benefits - wheres a quarter of Britons (1.4 million people) have applied for universal credit. "
    Doesn’t the fact that 1.4 million people clearly isn’t “a quarter of Britons” make you question this piece of fake news?
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Chris said:

    eristdoof said:

    Chris said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    eadric said:

    isam said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.

    If Johnson messes up the response Covid-19 we could see PM Burgon.

    https://twitter.com/richardburgon/status/1252168331618123776?s=21
    "China - 3"

    Rrrright
    Missing a couple of zeros there at least.
    So you reckon the case fatality rate in China was 300%?

    The odd thing is that people come out with this kind of thing and then whine when they are described as morons!
    I was partly joking, but what are you talking about? not 300%, 300 per million i.e. just a bit higher than the UK.
    My apologies. The official fatality rate in China is now 5.5%.

    You think it should be 550%, apparently.
    You've doubled down on this, that's hilarious! He said nothing of the kind, and missing that once was funny, but twice?
    Someone else with a reading difficulty. You didn't understand that "Missing a couple of zeros" meant it should be multiplied by 100?

    Were you away the week you should have done arithmetic at school?
    Please don't go insulting people who are trying to point out your mistake.
    The twitter figure was for deaths per million, not the case fatality rate as you claimed. On top of that you say that 3 missing a couple of zeros is 300%.
    3 missing no zeros is 300%. And then you have the temerity to suggest that kle4 was absent for the "one week" that he should have been learning arithmetic.
    No, you're hopelessly confused. The suggestion was that the Chinese death numbers needed to be larger by a factor of 100. What I pointed out what that that would mean a fatality rate of 300%. I was wrong - the current fatality rate in China is 5.5%, not 3% - it would be 550%.

    I don't know whether you understand, but it's not possible for the fatality rate to be larger than 100%, because that would mean the disease had killed more people than it had infected!

    If you can't follow these basic calculations, you should considering just shutting up.
    You are embarrassing yourself. If he proposed a x100 uplift in the number of deaths, you can probably conclude that he would posit an uplift in the number of cases.
    No - I can't conclude anything.

    It's anyone's guess what may or may not be in his head. There's no evidence for any of it. If you think his vapourings are of any value, take it up with him. It's certainly not up to me to make sense of his nonsense.

    This used to be a site where critical thinking was encouraged, I think. These days, people seem eager to swallow any drivel that's posted here, and to attack anyone questioning it. Bizarre.
    Yes, you can. I doubt anyone would suggest that the death rate is underestimated by a factor of 10 or 100 yet argue the case rate is not the same. You yourself have pointed out how illogical that would be. Therefore the most reasonable explanation is that they thought both the death rate and the case rate were overestimated. I really don't see why you are having such a hard time accepting that?
    Who knows what they were assuming? I repeat - if you want to know that, ask them, not me! I don't know why you are finding that so difficult to understand.

    But I did ask you - if you disregard the Chinese figures - what on earth you are assuming about the fatality rate of this disease? 10%? 20%? Not a clue?

    Please do explain.
    I'm just applying some critical thinking. If someone is assuming that the death rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported, it is likely that they also assume the case rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported.
    You didn't answer my question.

    What do you think the fatality rate is, and on what basis?
    What's that got to do with anything?.
    You really don't understand?

    You don't understand that our estimates of the fatality rate are primarily based on data from China? And - as you've just demonstrated - if the data from China are disgregarded, you don't have the slightest clue what the fatality rate of this disease is?

    And not only that, but you don't have the slightest clue how fast it spreads - because our estimates of the R number are also primarily based on Chinese data? So if you disregard the Chinese data, you don't have a clue about that either?

    You seem to be one of those people who pontificate endlessly, without having the slighest clue about what any of your assumptions are based on.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    edited April 2020
    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Chris said:

    eristdoof said:

    Chris said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    eadric said:

    isam said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.

    If Johnson messes up the response Covid-19 we could see PM Burgon.

    https://twitter.com/richardburgon/status/1252168331618123776?s=21
    "China - 3"

    Rrrright
    Missing a couple of zeros there at least.
    So you reckon the case fatality rate in China was 300%?

    The odd thing is that people come out with this kind of thing and then whine when they are described as morons!
    I was partly joking, but what are you talking about? not 300%, 300 per million i.e. just a bit higher than the UK.
    My apologies. The official fatality rate in China is now 5.5%.

    You think it should be 550%, apparently.
    You've doubled down on this, that's hilarious! He said nothing of the kind, and missing that once was funny, but twice?
    Someone else with a reading difficulty. You didn't understand that "Missing a couple of zeros" meant it should be multiplied by 100?

    Were you away the week you should have done arithmetic at school?
    Please don't go insulting people who are trying to point out your mistake.
    The twitter figure was for deaths per million, not the case fatality rate as you claimed. On top of that you say that 3 missing a couple of zeros is 300%.
    3 missing no zeros is 300%. And then you have the temerity to suggest that kle4 was absent for the "one week" that he should have been learning arithmetic.
    No, you're hopelessly confused. The suggestion was that the Chinese death numbers needed to be larger by a factor of 100. What I pointed out what that that would mean a fatality rate of 300%. I was wrong - the current fatality rate in China is 5.5%, not 3% - it would be 550%.

    I don't know whether you understand, but it's not possible for the fatality rate to be larger than 100%, because that would mean the disease had killed more people than it had infected!

    If you can't follow these basic calculations, you should considering just shutting up.
    You are embarrassing yourself. If he proposed a x100 uplift in the number of deaths, you can probably conclude that he would posit an uplift in the number of cases.
    No - I can't conclude anything.

    It's anyone's guess what may or may not be in his head. There's no evidence for any of it. If you think his vapourings are of any value, take it up with him. It's certainly not up to me to make sense of his nonsense.

    This used to be a site where critical thinking was encouraged, I think. These days, people seem eager to swallow any drivel that's posted here, and to attack anyone questioning it. Bizarre.
    Yes, you can. I doubt anyone would suggest that the death rate is underestimated by a factor of 10 or 100 yet argue the case rate is not the same. You yourself have pointed out how illogical that would be. Therefore the most reasonable explanation is that they thought both the death rate and the case rate were overestimated. I really don't see why you are having such a hard time accepting that?
    Who knows what they were assuming? I repeat - if you want to know that, ask them, not me! I don't know why you are finding that so difficult to understand.

    But I did ask you - if you disregard the Chinese figures - what on earth you are assuming about the fatality rate of this disease? 10%? 20%? Not a clue?

    Please do explain.
    I'm just applying some critical thinking. If someone is assuming that the death rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported, it is likely that they also assume the case rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported.
    You didn't answer my question.

    What do you think the fatality rate is, and on what basis?
    What's that got to do with anything?.
    You really don't understand?

    You don't understand that our estimates of the fatality rate are primarily based on data from China? And - as you've just demonstrated - if the data from China are disgregarded, you don't have the slightest clue what the fatality rate of this disease is?

    And not only that, but you don't have the slightest clue how fast it spreads - because our estimates of the R number are also primarily based on Chinese data? So if you disregard the Chinese data, you don't have a clue about that either?

    You seem to be one of those people who pontificate endlessly, without having the slighest clue about what any of your assumptions are based on.
    Ah, so now we are onto deflection.

    Nice trimming of my post to remove the context.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    "74% think Chinese gvt to blame for disease spread"

    Clearly we are massive racist country...
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.
    ANd how many votes did Burgon get? Too many obviously but he is hardly a threat. And Momentum did poorly in the National Executive elections as well didn't they? I think that they are a spent force.
    I agree. We might try and win from the Left again - I personally hope so - but it will not be anything resembling the Corbyn offering.
    The problem is that you will probably be to the left of the most left wing Tory party in history. So possibly resembling Corbyn
    Left wing Tory Party? We will see. If they choose the robust taxation of wealth & affluence as one of their biggest weapons in the fight to restore the public finances, post virus, then I will start to consider the Labour Party to be redundant. But I bet they don't. Bet they either hit the poor again or let borrowing rip or print money. Probably all 3.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    429 new deaths in England.

    Looking at the by date of death, definitely looks like could be weekend effect.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Well if the lockdown lasts more than a year half the entire economy will have to be nationalised effectively anyway.

    In terms of Heathrow to US routes the vast majority of flights are BA or Virgin
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092
    TOPPING said:

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
    4/20 celebrations are not traditionally about exercise.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Branson is asking for a loan:

    Together with the team at Virgin Atlantic, we will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for. This would be in the form of a commercial loan – it wouldn’t be free money and the airline would pay it back (as easyJet will do for the £600m loan the government recently gave them).

    https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

    While Branson lives abroad Virgin Atlantic is UK tax domiciled.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    I doubt the name would disappear even if the company did go bankrupt. To the ordinary punter it would be as if nothing had changed.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Chris said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Chris said:

    eristdoof said:

    Chris said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    eadric said:

    isam said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.

    If Johnson messes up the response Covid-19 we could see PM Burgon.

    https://twitter.com/richardburgon/status/1252168331618123776?s=21
    "China - 3"

    Rrrright
    Missing a couple of zeros there at least.
    So you reckon the case fatality rate in China was 300%?

    The odd thing is that people come out with this kind of thing and then whine when they are described as morons!
    I was partly joking, but what are you talking about? not 300%, 300 per million i.e. just a bit higher than the UK.
    My apologies. The official fatality rate in China is now 5.5%.

    You think it should be 550%, apparently.
    You've doubled down on this, that's hilarious! He said nothing of the kind, and missing that once was funny, but twice?
    Someone else with a reading difficulty. You didn't understand that "Missing a couple of zeros" meant it should be multiplied by 100?

    Were you away the week you should have done arithmetic at school?
    Please don't go insulting people who are trying to point out your mistake.
    The twitter figure was for deaths per million, not the case fatality rate as you claimed. On top of that you say that 3 missing a couple of zeros is 300%.
    3 missing no zeros is 300%. And then you have the temerity to suggest that kle4 was absent for the "one week" that he should have been learning arithmetic.
    No, you're hopelessly confused. The suggestion was that the Chinese death numbers needed to be larger by a factor of 100. What I pointed out what that that would mean a fatality rate of 300%. I was wrong - the current fatality rate in China is 5.5%, not 3% - it would be 550%.

    I don't know whether you understand, but it's not possible for the fatality rate to be larger than 100%, because that would mean the disease had killed more people than it had infected!

    If you can't follow these basic calculations, you should considering just shutting up.
    You are embarrassing yourself. If he proposed a x100 uplift in the number of deaths, you can probably conclude that he would posit an uplift in the number of cases.
    No - I can't conclude anything.

    It's anyone's guess what may or may not be in his head. There's no evidence for any of it. If you think his vapourings are of any value, take it up with him. It's certainly not up to me to make sense of his nonsense.

    This used to be a site where critical thinking was encouraged, I think. These days, people seem eager to swallow any drivel that's posted here, and to attack anyone questioning it. Bizarre.
    But you are concluding something, you're making the inference that they're an innumerate dumbass proposing a 550% death rate. Why is that conclusion preferable to the assumption that they also think the case numbers are an underestimate?
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    On the face of it this seems like good news doesn't it?

    he COVID-19 death toll in English hospitals rose 429
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Quite. Branson has played the game of being Mr Friend-The-British-People for years, while running the most offshore setup short of the beloved Phil Greene.

    His bid for the lottery was entertaining and very illustrative.
    Personally I have no problem with jurisdiction-shopping of businesses, but you definitely can’t claim to be in one country when it comes to paying taxes and another when it comes to asking for support from government.

    Same with the company directors who pay themselves mostly in dividends - the only reason for doing so is to avoid NI contributions.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Any bailout of IAG would have to be done on a 50/50 basis with Spain. I don't think it would be fair on the British or Spanish taxpayer if only one was involved.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Chris said:

    You really don't understand?

    You don't understand that our estimates of the fatality rate are primarily based on data from China? And - as you've just demonstrated - if the data from China are disgregarded, you don't have the slightest clue what the fatality rate of this disease is?

    And not only that, but you don't have the slightest clue how fast it spreads - because our estimates of the R number are also primarily based on Chinese data? So if you disregard the Chinese data, you don't have a clue about that either?

    You seem to be one of those people who pontificate endlessly, without having the slighest clue about what any of your assumptions are based on.

    On official figures, China represents less than 4% of confirmed cases worldwide, so the idea we'd be clueless without their data is somewhat eccentric.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    We do need some strategic national capability though even if voluntary flights were to drop to zero (To ferry PPE in etc)
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    The deaths per million measure that is being much-analysed is useless for two reasons:

    1) it isn't deaths per million in the UK. Deaths outside hospitals or not confirmed as involving Covid-19 in hospital are excluded. The actual rate may be understated by as much as 50%.

    2) different countries are also measuring different things.

    So you're comparing apples with oranges and the apple count is not a particularly meaningful number.

    Patrick Vallance said that deaths are being counted as covid-19 in U.K. hospitals when no testing has been done to see if any covid-19 is present at all
    If someone has all the symptons that's probably more accurate than a test.
    Not when those symptoms are common with many other viruses.
    Dry cough and a fever are very distinct.
    Not especially. My wife had them together on Mother's Day 2019. Was that COVID19?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Floater said:

    On the face of it this seems like good news doesn't it?

    he COVID-19 death toll in English hospitals rose 429

    Wednesday is really the day when you get a good idea of direction of travel, as weekend "effect" on reporting is basically nothing.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    TOPPING said:

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
    They won't be going to there to exercise lol.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.
    ANd how many votes did Burgon get? Too many obviously but he is hardly a threat. And Momentum did poorly in the National Executive elections as well didn't they? I think that they are a spent force.
    I agree. We might try and win from the Left again - I personally hope so - but it will not be anything resembling the Corbyn offering.
    The problem is that you will probably be to the left of the most left wing Tory party in history. So possibly resembling Corbyn
    Left wing Tory Party? We will see. If they choose the robust taxation of wealth & affluence as one of their biggest weapons in the fight to restore the public finances, post virus, then I will start to consider the Labour Party to be redundant. But I bet they don't. Bet they either hit the poor again or let borrowing rip or print money. Probably all 3.
    Some increases in taxation are surely inevitable.

    But the most attractive route out of the crisis for governments will be inflation. Which is why I doubt we’ll be entering the predicted deflationary slump for a while, and why investing your money now in indexed linked bonds is probably a very wise move.
  • AndrewAndrew Posts: 2,900

    429 new deaths in England.

    Looking at the by date of death, definitely looks like could be weekend effect.

    Peak infections 26th/27th, + 21-23 days to peak deaths = 16th to 19th. Fingers crossed.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
    4/20 celebrations are not traditionally about exercise.
    Whoosh for me!! Sorry didn't realise what it actually meant...
  • HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    It's all a bit of a ludicrous counterfactual. But an additional point is that, if Corbyn was correct that Labour's standing just before the 2017 election was called would have been higher but for the coup (and David is pretty convincing on why that's a dubious claim) this would in itself have made an election less likely.

    May's ill-starred decision to call an election was predicated on Labour's division and weakness - had it been fairly even in early 2017, May wouldn't have called it (she nearly didn't as it was).

    Good point. May was a risk averse politician. She had to think she had a guaranteed landslide to go to the polls in 2017. Remove that belief - no election.
    In March/April 2017 the Tory private polling and seat modelling showed Mrs May was on course for a 290 (two hundred and ninety) seat majority.

    Nick Timothy and his boss thought even if they ran the shittest campaign on record they’d still get a decent majority.

    Looking back, it was a mercy TMay did NOT win that stonking majority, because we'd have ended up with her terrible Brexit deal.

    You could, I suppose, argue that she would have handled corona better, but I am very doubtful. She's a cautious vacillator, she would have been as slow to respond as Boris, but in a different way.

    I am surprised that you see that much of a difference between May’s deal and Boris’s. The latter simply screwed Northern Ireland that little bit more.
    The Boris Deal took GB out of the customs union unlike the May Deal while still avoiding a hard border with the Republic of Ireland in Northern Ireland
    Absolutely. The will be no border down the Irish Sea. There will be no Border down the Irish Sea. No border. You need to keep chanting this over and over and over and over.

    It won't make what you said any less incorrect. But would be funny. If we diverge from EU regulations and leave the CU there will either be a border on Ireland or in the UK. Saying "no there won't be" doesn't somehow magically wipe away all those international treaties...
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    eadric said:

    Floater said:

    On the face of it this seems like good news doesn't it?

    he COVID-19 death toll in English hospitals rose 429

    It is. It is properly good news. The bug has peaked, in Britain, for now.

    The question is how long will it plateau for. We aren't seeing any real reduction in the number of positive cases from the hospital dominated testing over the past 1-2 weeks.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Branson is asking for a loan:

    Together with the team at Virgin Atlantic, we will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for. This would be in the form of a commercial loan – it wouldn’t be free money and the airline would pay it back (as easyJet will do for the £600m loan the government recently gave them).

    https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

    While Branson lives abroad Virgin Atlantic is UK tax domiciled.
    It's not immediately obvious to me why, at a time when the British government has huge calls on its resources, it should branch out into commercial lending, a market that is very well-established and with many experienced players. If Richard Branson is arguing that Virgin Atlantic performs socially useful functions, which is an argument that I'd want to see properly explored, I'd prefer to see those taken over by the government as part of a distress purchase rather than simply bail shareholders out of a hole.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Chris said:

    eristdoof said:

    Chris said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    eadric said:

    isam said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.

    If Johnson messes up the response Covid-19 we could see PM Burgon.

    https://twitter.com/richardburgon/status/1252168331618123776?s=21
    "China - 3"

    Rrrright
    Missing a couple of zeros there at least.
    So you reckon the case fatality rate in China was 300%?

    The odd thing is that people come out with this kind of thing and then whine when they are described as morons!
    I was partly joking, but what are you talking about? not 300%, 300 per million i.e. just a bit higher than the UK.
    My apologies. The official fatality rate in China is now 5.5%.

    You think it should be 550%, apparently.
    You've doubled down on this, that's hilarious! He said nothing of the kind, and missing that once was funny, but twice?
    Someone else with a reading difficulty. You didn't understand that "Missing a couple of zeros" meant it should be multiplied by 100?

    Were you away the week you should have done arithmetic at school?
    Please don't go insulting people who are trying to point out your mistake.
    The twitter figure was for deaths per million, not the case fatality rate as you claimed. On top of that you say that 3 missing a couple of zeros is 300%.
    3 missing no zeros is 300%. And then you have the temerity to suggest that kle4 was absent for the "one week" that he should have been learning arithmetic.
    No, you're hopelessly confused. The suggestion was that the Chinese death numbers needed to be larger by a factor of 100. What I pointed out what that that would mean a fatality rate of 300%. I was wrong - the current fatality rate in China is 5.5%, not 3% - it would be 550%.

    I don't know whether you understand, but it's not possible for the fatality rate to be larger than 100%, because that would mean the disease had killed more people than it had infected!

    If you can't follow these basic calculations, you should considering just shutting up.
    You are embarrassing yourself. If he proposed a x100 uplift in the number of deaths, you can probably conclude that he would posit an uplift in the number of cases.
    No - I can't conclude anything.

    It's anyone's guess what may or may not be in his head. There's no evidence for any of it. If you think his vapourings are of any value, take it up with him. It's certainly not up to me to make sense of his nonsense.

    This used to be a site where critical thinking was encouraged, I think. These days, people seem eager to swallow any drivel that's posted here, and to attack anyone questioning it. Bizarre.
    Yes, you can. I doubt anyone would suggest that the death rate is underestimated by a factor of 10 or 100 yet argue the case rate is not the same. You yourself have pointed out how illogical that would be. Therefore the most reasonable explanation is that they thought both the death rate and the case rate were overestimated. I really don't see why you are having such a hard time accepting that?
    Who knows what they were assuming? I repeat - if you want to know that, ask them, not me! I don't know why you are finding that so difficult to understand.

    But I did ask you - if you disregard the Chinese figures - what on earth you are assuming about the fatality rate of this disease? 10%? 20%? Not a clue?

    Please do explain.
    I'm just applying some critical thinking. If someone is assuming that the death rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported, it is likely that they also assume the case rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported.
    You didn't answer my question.

    What do you think the fatality rate is, and on what basis?
    What's that got to do with anything?.
    You really don't understand?

    You don't understand that our estimates of the fatality rate are primarily based on data from China? And - as you've just demonstrated - if the data from China are disgregarded, you don't have the slightest clue what the fatality rate of this disease is?

    And not only that, but you don't have the slightest clue how fast it spreads - because our estimates of the R number are also primarily based on Chinese data? So if you disregard the Chinese data, you don't have a clue about that either?

    You seem to be one of those people who pontificate endlessly, without having the slighest clue about what any of your assumptions are based on.
    Ah, so now we are onto deflection.

    Nice trimming of my post to remove the context.
    You are completely unable to answer. No surprise.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
    4/20 celebrations are not traditionally about exercise.
    Whoosh for me!! Sorry didn't realise what it actually meant...
    Are you no longer down with the kids, TOPPING? :)
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    eadric said:

    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    Another Oxford academic weighs in....

    Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, claims data shows infection rates halved after the Government launched a hand-washing drive and recommend people keep two metres apart on March 16.

    He said ministers 'lost sight' of the evidence and rushed into a nationwide quarantine six days later after being instructed by scientific advisers who have been 'consistently wrong' during the crisis.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235979/UKs-coronavirus-crisis-peaked-lockdown-Expert-argues-draconian-measures-unnecessary.html

    Intriguing. Tho this sentence makes me wonder how accurate the reporting is

    "Less than 6 per cent of Sweden's workforce had filed claims for unemployment benefits - wheres a quarter of Britons (1.4 million people) have applied for universal credit. "
    Doesn’t the fact that 1.4 million people clearly isn’t “a quarter of Britons” make you question this piece of fake news?
    Er, that's what I was saying. The reporter appears to believe the UK has a population of 6 million, which rather throws his other assertions into doubt.
    Yes indeed.

    You, however, need to sort out what it is that you are recommending. Having spent a long time advocating an earlier, harsher, lockdown, in last night’s thread you appear to be advocating a looser, Swedish style approach.

    You also banged on about the importance of following government advice, to all of us who are staying at home whilst you continue your - probably illegal - holiday away from home in South Wales.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    DavidL said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.
    ANd how many votes did Burgon get? Too many obviously but he is hardly a threat. And Momentum did poorly in the National Executive elections as well didn't they? I think that they are a spent force.
    I agree. We might try and win from the Left again - I personally hope so - but it will not be anything resembling the Corbyn offering.
    I would tentatively suggest less anti-Semitic, less obsessed with Palestine, less inclination to attend the funerals of terrorists or inviting them to the House of Commons, less hatred and contempt for their country of their birth, maybe just a bit more focus on those in need in this country, god knows there is going to be enough of them.
    You don't need to be too tentative on any of that. The interesting thing is just what "the Left" will mean after this. We will be bust. For me, it should be about ensuring that the inevitable fall in our personal wealth and living standards of the next decade or so does not impact those who would be pushed into poverty. The goal should be no higher than that. It is plenty ambitious enough. Of course it will need to be dressed up in some "rah rah" language.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    As predicted...here comes the backlash against contract tracing apps...

    Digital contact tracing will fail unless governments build the technology in a way that respects user privacy, a group of nearly 300 experts have warned.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/20/coronavirus-digital-contact-tracing-will-fail-unless-privacy-is-respected-experts-warn

    Damn right, there’s no way any Western government is going to be able to do what they want to do with mobile apps.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Quite. Branson has played the game of being Mr Friend-The-British-People for years, while running the most offshore setup short of the beloved Phil Greene.

    His bid for the lottery was entertaining and very illustrative.
    Personally I have no problem with jurisdiction-shopping of businesses, but you definitely can’t claim to be in one country when it comes to paying taxes and another when it comes to asking for support from government.

    Same with the company directors who pay themselves mostly in dividends - the only reason for doing so is to avoid NI contributions.
    It's not the only reason to do so. Dividends represent profit means there's money to pay. I know business directors who have paid themselves a pittance salary because they want to support their business and only take money when it can be afforded.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    RobD said:

    Chris said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Chris said:

    eristdoof said:

    Chris said:

    kle4 said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    eadric said:

    isam said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.

    If Johnson messes up the response Covid-19 we could see PM Burgon.

    https://twitter.com/richardburgon/status/1252168331618123776?s=21
    "China - 3"

    Rrrright
    Missing a couple of zeros there at least.
    So you reckon the case fatality rate in China was 300%?

    The odd thing is that people come out with this kind of thing and then whine when they are described as morons!
    I was partly joking, but what are you talking about? not 300%, 300 per million i.e. just a bit higher than the UK.
    My apologies. The official fatality rate in China is now 5.5%.

    You think it should be 550%, apparently.
    You've doubled down on this, that's hilarious! He said nothing of the kind, and missing that once was funny, but twice?
    Someone else with a reading difficulty. You didn't understand that "Missing a couple of zeros" meant it should be multiplied by 100?

    Were you away the week you should have done arithmetic at school?
    Please don't go insulting people who are trying to point out your mistake.
    The twitter figure was for deaths per million, not the case fatality rate as you claimed. On top of that you say that 3 missing a couple of zeros is 300%.
    3 missing no zeros is 300%. And then you have the temerity to suggest that kle4 was absent for the "one week" that he should have been learning arithmetic.
    No, you're hopelessly confused. The suggestion was that the Chinese death numbers needed to be larger by a factor of 100. What I pointed out what that that would mean a fatality rate of 300%. I was wrong - the current fatality rate in China is 5.5%, not 3% - it would be 550%.

    I don't know whether you understand, but it's not possible for the fatality rate to be larger than 100%, because that would mean the disease had killed more people than it had infected!

    If you can't follow these basic calculations, you should considering just shutting up.
    You are embarrassing yourself. If he proposed a x100 uplift in the number of deaths, you can probably conclude that he would posit an uplift in the number of cases.
    No - I can't conclude anything.

    It's anyone's guess what may or may not be in his head. There's no evidence for any of it. If you think his vapourings are of any value, take it up with him. It's certainly not up to me to make sense of his nonsense.

    This used to be a site where critical thinking was encouraged, I think. These days, people seem eager to swallow any drivel that's posted here, and to attack anyone questioning it. Bizarre.
    Yes, you can. I doubt anyone would suggest that the death rate is underestimated by a factor of 10 or 100 yet argue the case rate is not the same. You yourself have pointed out how illogical that would be. Therefore the most reasonable explanation is that they thought both the death rate and the case rate were overestimated. I really don't see why you are having such a hard time accepting that?
    Who knows what they were assuming? I repeat - if you want to know that, ask them, not me! I don't know why you are finding that so difficult to understand.

    But I did ask you - if you disregard the Chinese figures - what on earth you are assuming about the fatality rate of this disease? 10%? 20%? Not a clue?

    Please do explain.
    I'm just applying some critical thinking. If someone is assuming that the death rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported, it is likely that they also assume the case rate is an order of magnitude higher than reported.
    You didn't answer my question.

    What do you think the fatality rate is, and on what basis?
    What's that got to do with anything?.
    You really don't understand?

    You don't understand that our estimates of the fatality rate are primarily based on data from China? And - as you've just demonstrated - if the data from China are disgregarded, you don't have the slightest clue what the fatality rate of this disease is?

    And not only that, but you don't have the slightest clue how fast it spreads - because our estimates of the R number are also primarily based on Chinese data? So if you disregard the Chinese data, you don't have a clue about that either?

    You seem to be one of those people who pontificate endlessly, without having the slighest clue about what any of your assumptions are based on.
    Ah, so now we are onto deflection.

    Nice trimming of my post to remove the context.
    You are completely unable to answer. No surprise.
    I'm sorry, but we were discussing your claim that someone was stating a 550% mortality rate for the Chinese figures. Your questions have nothing to do with that, so I can only assume it is deflection.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Quite. Branson has played the game of being Mr Friend-The-British-People for years, while running the most offshore setup short of the beloved Phil Greene.

    His bid for the lottery was entertaining and very illustrative.
    You're being unfair.

    As a good Atlanticist, I think we should follow the US precedent. But for Carnival, not for Delta.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Ooh, NHS England has started graphing their daily deaths reporting by day of death. First change to the format in a while.

    429 reported today in England. Lowest for ages, but looks to be significant weekend reporting delay. I suspect that tomorrow is going to see reports well over a thousand due to the backlog being released. If not, then we'll finally have some evidence that we're over the peak.

    Current position for the last three days is 85, 328, 446 (going backwards, so Apr 19/18/17). Two weeks ago, the equivalent positions were 69, 285, 350. Extrapolating, I'd guess we're still running at 700 per day in England, which is where we've been pretty much since the start of April.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Sandpit said:

    As predicted...here comes the backlash against contract tracing apps...

    Digital contact tracing will fail unless governments build the technology in a way that respects user privacy, a group of nearly 300 experts have warned.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/20/coronavirus-digital-contact-tracing-will-fail-unless-privacy-is-respected-experts-warn

    Damn right, there’s no way any Western government is going to be able to do what they want to do with mobile apps.
    But its so easy everybody said, just copy South Korea....wait what, the government can track every move I make, see every person I met and every transaction I make.
  • ABZABZ Posts: 441

    eadric said:

    Floater said:

    On the face of it this seems like good news doesn't it?

    he COVID-19 death toll in English hospitals rose 429

    It is. It is properly good news. The bug has peaked, in Britain, for now.

    The question is how long will it plateau for. We aren't seeing any real reduction in the number of positive cases from the hospital dominated testing over the past 1-2 weeks.
    To be fair, I think we might be: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ The positives by specimen date is the Pillar I tests (i.e., those tested after admission to hospital) and that does seem to be gently declining... (you can't trust the last 4 days or so as they will fill in, but the trend is reasonably clear). But more data would be nice to confirm this is indeed the case...
  • NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    I might be feeling a little sentimental about my pension investments. Apply this proposal too widely and all private sector pensions and many public sector pensions would either vanish or be reduced to a small fraction of current value. There is also the problem of the domino effect hitting the sectors and companies that you wish to protect who are owed money by bankrupted outfits. I do agree that if companies are bailed out then selectivity is inevitable. I think a better principle is general government replacement of a portion of corporate income lost during the shutdown combined with enforced suspension of rents, loan interest, interest payments and mortgage payments for a period of time. That puts some of the pain onto landlords and helps companies and citizens survive without adding to public debt.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    edited April 2020

    kinabalu said:

    It's all a bit of a ludicrous counterfactual. But an additional point is that, if Corbyn was correct that Labour's standing just before the 2017 election was called would have been higher but for the coup (and David is pretty convincing on why that's a dubious claim) this would in itself have made an election less likely.

    May's ill-starred decision to call an election was predicated on Labour's division and weakness - had it been fairly even in early 2017, May wouldn't have called it (she nearly didn't as it was).

    Good point. May was a risk averse politician. She had to think she had a guaranteed landslide to go to the polls in 2017. Remove that belief - no election.
    In March/April 2017 the Tory private polling and seat modelling showed Mrs May was on course for a 290 (two hundred and ninety) seat majority.

    Nick Timothy and his boss thought even if they ran the shittest campaign on record they’d still get a decent majority.
    That's why they thought they could get some tricky policies through, isn't it. Like the stuff on social care. Nice idea. Made sense.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708

    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    It's all a bit of a ludicrous counterfactual. But an additional point is that, if Corbyn was correct that Labour's standing just before the 2017 election was called would have been higher but for the coup (and David is pretty convincing on why that's a dubious claim) this would in itself have made an election less likely.

    May's ill-starred decision to call an election was predicated on Labour's division and weakness - had it been fairly even in early 2017, May wouldn't have called it (she nearly didn't as it was).

    Good point. May was a risk averse politician. She had to think she had a guaranteed landslide to go to the polls in 2017. Remove that belief - no election.
    In March/April 2017 the Tory private polling and seat modelling showed Mrs May was on course for a 290 (two hundred and ninety) seat majority.

    Nick Timothy and his boss thought even if they ran the shittest campaign on record they’d still get a decent majority.

    Looking back, it was a mercy TMay did NOT win that stonking majority, because we'd have ended up with her terrible Brexit deal.

    You could, I suppose, argue that she would have handled corona better, but I am very doubtful. She's a cautious vacillator, she would have been as slow to respond as Boris, but in a different way.

    I am surprised that you see that much of a difference between May’s deal and Boris’s. The latter simply screwed Northern Ireland that little bit more.
    The Boris Deal took GB out of the customs union unlike the May Deal while still avoiding a hard border with the Republic of Ireland in Northern Ireland
    Absolutely. The will be no border down the Irish Sea. There will be no Border down the Irish Sea. No border. You need to keep chanting this over and over and over and over.

    It won't make what you said any less incorrect. But would be funny. If we diverge from EU regulations and leave the CU there will either be a border on Ireland or in the UK. Saying "no there won't be" doesn't somehow magically wipe away all those international treaties...
    Most Leavers and most Northern Irish voters do not care about a border in the Irish Sea, the former oppose staying in the customs union and the latter oppose a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

    The only people who care about a border in the Irish Sea are the DUP and it is their fault for not backing the May Deal that meant they would have avoided it
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited April 2020
    edited because it was bollox
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    "74% think Chinese gvt to blame for disease spread"

    Clearly we are massive racist country...

    There are still plenty of Labour MPs itching to get on that bandwagon.
  • SockySocky Posts: 404

    If we diverge from EU regulations and leave the CU there will either be a border on Ireland or in the UK. Saying "no there won't be" doesn't somehow magically wipe away all those international treaties...

    The EU has shown time and again that rules can be fudged when they want to.

    Why not fudge this? After all, who actually wants a border?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    The U.K. company is loss-making, while transferring various fees to the BVI holding company.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    ABZ said:

    eadric said:

    Floater said:

    On the face of it this seems like good news doesn't it?

    he COVID-19 death toll in English hospitals rose 429

    It is. It is properly good news. The bug has peaked, in Britain, for now.

    The question is how long will it plateau for. We aren't seeing any real reduction in the number of positive cases from the hospital dominated testing over the past 1-2 weeks.
    To be fair, I think we might be: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ The positives by specimen date is the Pillar I tests (i.e., those tested after admission to hospital) and that does seem to be gently declining... (you can't trust the last 4 days or so as they will fill in, but the trend is reasonably clear). But more data would be nice to confirm this is indeed the case...
    Ohhh more data...


  • TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,678
    IshmaelZ said:
    Its probably the proper way to record these deaths.

    If last April had X deaths, or taking a three year average (or five... why not) but April 2020 turns out to have X + Y + Z deaths, and they say Z is deaths due to coronavirus, then you really need to explain Y as well.

    There will be loads of people who die of 'natural causes' or 'heart attack' or 'flu' when it might be, but it was brought about because of coronavirus.

    It's also why most other countries numbers are probably as much junk as ours (especially China).
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    RobD said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
    4/20 celebrations are not traditionally about exercise.
    Whoosh for me!! Sorry didn't realise what it actually meant...
    Are you no longer down with the kids, TOPPING? :)
    Innit though. Fam.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    IanB2 said:

    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    He's a party grandee now, still popular to boot.
    LibDems still like Clegg and Tories still like IDS. Failure is no barrier to popularity within your party.
    For some it seems a prerequisite!
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    Disagree. If there is a risk of BA going bankrupt then we should nationalise.

    Otherwise there will be a massive wealth transfer to the owners of Heathrow (slots)
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Charles said:

    edited because it was bollox

    But those are the best type of comments!
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    The U.K. company is loss-making, while transferring various fees to the BVI holding company.
    In which those fees are going to have to be refunded going back a number of years before any money is likely to be lent.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    Another Oxford academic weighs in....

    Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, claims data shows infection rates halved after the Government launched a hand-washing drive and recommend people keep two metres apart on March 16.

    He said ministers 'lost sight' of the evidence and rushed into a nationwide quarantine six days later after being instructed by scientific advisers who have been 'consistently wrong' during the crisis.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235979/UKs-coronavirus-crisis-peaked-lockdown-Expert-argues-draconian-measures-unnecessary.html

    Intriguing. Tho this sentence makes me wonder how accurate the reporting is

    "Less than 6 per cent of Sweden's workforce had filed claims for unemployment benefits - wheres a quarter of Britons (1.4 million people) have applied for universal credit. "
    Doesn’t the fact that 1.4 million people clearly isn’t “a quarter of Britons” make you question this piece of fake news?
    Er, that's what I was saying. The reporter appears to believe the UK has a population of 6 million, which rather throws his other assertions into doubt.
    Yes indeed.

    You, however, need to sort out what it is that you are recommending. Having spent a long time advocating an earlier, harsher, lockdown, in last night’s thread you appear to be advocating a looser, Swedish style approach.

    You also banged on about the importance of following government advice, to all of us who are staying at home whilst you continue your - probably illegal - holiday away from home in South Wales.
    I think you should assume a Markov process for @eadric.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Branson is asking for a loan:

    Together with the team at Virgin Atlantic, we will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for. This would be in the form of a commercial loan – it wouldn’t be free money and the airline would pay it back (as easyJet will do for the £600m loan the government recently gave them).

    https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

    While Branson lives abroad Virgin Atlantic is UK tax domiciled.
    He says that the loan would be on "commercial terms".

    May be we should get a bank to quote on the loan before we consider offering pricing?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,051
    kamski said:


    Terrible air quality seemed a decent reason - the virus finding a happy hunting ground in buggered up lungs. But then finding that smokers were far less likely to get it.

    It's a weird one and no mistake, Holmes.

    I thought the explanation for that was that people who are worried about getting put at the back of the queue for the ventilator tell the hospital they don't smoke?
    Maybe. Also smokers aren't going to get themselves tested because they have a persistent cough. They always have persistent coughs.
    I think it more likely to be survival bias. There simply are not that many smokers over 65, they have usually died or given up by that point. We need age corrected smoking rates to be sure.

    It is not impossible for smoking to be protective, but when smokers do get it they are more severely affected.

    https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/doi/10.1093/ntr/ntaa059/5815378
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Fitness coach Joe Wicks has announced he has raised more than £90,000 for NHS charities from his 20 online workouts.

    Some of these YouTubers must be making a right old packet.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    Disagree. If there is a risk of BA going bankrupt then we should nationalise.

    Otherwise there will be a massive wealth transfer to the owners of Heathrow (slots)
    In the mid-eighties Hong Kong Bank was the biggest shipowner on the planet. The shipping companies re-emerged.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    eadric said:

    Endillion said:

    Ooh, NHS England has started graphing their daily deaths reporting by day of death. First change to the format in a while.

    429 reported today in England. Lowest for ages, but looks to be significant weekend reporting delay. I suspect that tomorrow is going to see reports well over a thousand due to the backlog being released. If not, then we'll finally have some evidence that we're over the peak.

    Current position for the last three days is 85, 328, 446 (going backwards, so Apr 19/18/17). Two weeks ago, the equivalent positions were 69, 285, 350. Extrapolating, I'd guess we're still running at 700 per day in England, which is where we've been pretty much since the start of April.

    Christ, that's depressing. Just when I was cheering up.

    So on your maths, we have gone nowhere since early April?

    A death rate in excess of 1000, tomorrow, will be very grim.
    https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1252229207658291200?s=20
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    Disagree. If there is a risk of BA going bankrupt then we should nationalise.

    Otherwise there will be a massive wealth transfer to the owners of Heathrow (slots)
    I was arguing against HYUFD saying they wouldn't need to be nationalised. I do agree that the government should take a strategic view, but that doesn't mean getting misty-eyed about protecting existing corporate structures.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    But why should we invest UK taxpayer wealth to bail out two foreign shareholders?

    They should be diluted.

    Let's give them a 5 year super senior loan, mid-teen coupon (1/2 cash payable, 1/2 PIK), plus a 20% equity stake in warrants as a kicker. Escalating coupon from year 3 onwards to encourage refinancing.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    TOPPING said:

    RobD said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
    4/20 celebrations are not traditionally about exercise.
    Whoosh for me!! Sorry didn't realise what it actually meant...
    Are you no longer down with the kids, TOPPING? :)
    Innit though. Fam.
    I can dig that.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Scott_xP said:
    The price will start going up again once Putin kisses MBS’s feet.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Foxy said:

    kamski said:


    Terrible air quality seemed a decent reason - the virus finding a happy hunting ground in buggered up lungs. But then finding that smokers were far less likely to get it.

    It's a weird one and no mistake, Holmes.

    I thought the explanation for that was that people who are worried about getting put at the back of the queue for the ventilator tell the hospital they don't smoke?
    Maybe. Also smokers aren't going to get themselves tested because they have a persistent cough. They always have persistent coughs.
    I think it more likely to be survival bias. There simply are not that many smokers over 65, they have usually died or given up by that point. We need age corrected smoking rates to be sure.

    It is not impossible for smoking to be protective, but when smokers do get it they are more severely affected.

    https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/doi/10.1093/ntr/ntaa059/5815378
    My granny was a heavy smoker all her life. She lasted until well into her a 90s without ever contracting any sort of serious illness or really appearing to suffer in the way most long term smokers do.

    Never been a smoker, but hope I might have been passed on some of those hardcore genetics!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,596
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    The U.K. company is loss-making, while transferring various fees to the BVI holding company.
    In which those fees are going to have to be refunded going back a number of years before any money is likely to be lent.
    This is the classic Branson structure for Virgin companies.

    The lottery bid was interesting - publicly declaring no profits etc. But much less money for the good causes and the treasury. Why? The running of the lottery would be contracted to offshore companies that would charge double Camelot's cost to provide the same service....
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Its 4/20 day..I wonder how many total knobheads will be out in London parks this afternoon doing their thing?

    Why shouldn't people go to parks to exercise?

    Where do you suggest the people who live here should go?
    4/20 celebrations are not traditionally about exercise.
    Whoosh for me!! Sorry didn't realise what it actually meant...
    And there was me thinking it was celebrating Peter and Andrew's decision to become fisher of men
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Charles said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Branson is asking for a loan:

    Together with the team at Virgin Atlantic, we will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for. This would be in the form of a commercial loan – it wouldn’t be free money and the airline would pay it back (as easyJet will do for the £600m loan the government recently gave them).

    https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

    While Branson lives abroad Virgin Atlantic is UK tax domiciled.
    He says that the loan would be on "commercial terms".

    May be we should get a bank to quote on the loan before we consider offering pricing?
    Won’t Virgin Money give him a loan? ;)
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    It's all a bit of a ludicrous counterfactual. But an additional point is that, if Corbyn was correct that Labour's standing just before the 2017 election was called would have been higher but for the coup (and David is pretty convincing on why that's a dubious claim) this would in itself have made an election less likely.

    May's ill-starred decision to call an election was predicated on Labour's division and weakness - had it been fairly even in early 2017, May wouldn't have called it (she nearly didn't as it was).

    Good point. May was a risk averse politician. She had to think she had a guaranteed landslide to go to the polls in 2017. Remove that belief - no election.
    In March/April 2017 the Tory private polling and seat modelling showed Mrs May was on course for a 290 (two hundred and ninety) seat majority.

    Nick Timothy and his boss thought even if they ran the shittest campaign on record they’d still get a decent majority.

    Looking back, it was a mercy TMay did NOT win that stonking majority, because we'd have ended up with her terrible Brexit deal.

    You could, I suppose, argue that she would have handled corona better, but I am very doubtful. She's a cautious vacillator, she would have been as slow to respond as Boris, but in a different way.

    I am surprised that you see that much of a difference between May’s deal and Boris’s. The latter simply screwed Northern Ireland that little bit more.
    The Boris Deal took GB out of the customs union unlike the May Deal while still avoiding a hard border with the Republic of Ireland in Northern Ireland
    Absolutely. The will be no border down the Irish Sea. There will be no Border down the Irish Sea. No border. You need to keep chanting this over and over and over and over.

    It won't make what you said any less incorrect. But would be funny. If we diverge from EU regulations and leave the CU there will either be a border on Ireland or in the UK. Saying "no there won't be" doesn't somehow magically wipe away all those international treaties...
    The other option, of course, is that creative minds think of a way to come up with a free trade zone between RoI and the UK that can exist without unduly impacting the was that RoI interacts with the EU free trade zone.

    Your attitude is that the EU is inviolable.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,596
    Charles said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Branson is asking for a loan:

    Together with the team at Virgin Atlantic, we will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for. This would be in the form of a commercial loan – it wouldn’t be free money and the airline would pay it back (as easyJet will do for the £600m loan the government recently gave them).

    https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

    While Branson lives abroad Virgin Atlantic is UK tax domiciled.
    He says that the loan would be on "commercial terms".

    May be we should get a bank to quote on the loan before we consider offering pricing?

    Given that Virgin Atlantic (UK) loses money consistently - doesn't this make them ineligible for the current government loan program?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Urquhart, not my area but my understanding is that Youtubers tend to not actually make that much from Youtube directly. Hence sponsored ads and Patreon's popularity.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited April 2020
    eadric said:

    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    IanB2 said:

    eadric said:

    Another Oxford academic weighs in....

    Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, claims data shows infection rates halved after the Government launched a hand-washing drive and recommend people keep two metres apart on March 16.

    He said ministers 'lost sight' of the evidence and rushed into a nationwide quarantine six days later after being instructed by scientific advisers who have been 'consistently wrong' during the crisis.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235979/UKs-coronavirus-crisis-peaked-lockdown-Expert-argues-draconian-measures-unnecessary.html

    Intriguing. Tho this sentence makes me wonder how accurate the reporting is

    "Less than 6 per cent of Sweden's workforce had filed claims for unemployment benefits - wheres a quarter of Britons (1.4 million people) have applied for universal credit. "
    Doesn’t the fact that 1.4 million people clearly isn’t “a quarter of Britons” make you question this piece of fake news?
    Er, that's what I was saying. The reporter appears to believe the UK has a population of 6 million, which rather throws his other assertions into doubt.
    Yes indeed.

    You, however, need to sort out what it is that you are recommending. Having spent a long time advocating an earlier, harsher, lockdown, in last night’s thread you appear to be advocating a looser, Swedish style approach.

    You also banged on about the importance of following government advice, to all of us who are staying at home whilst you continue your - probably illegal - holiday away from home in South Wales.
    Not true.

    I have been consistently panicky and alarmed about coronavirus as a threat to life and business, since early Feb, as you well know. You can call me a nutter or a maniac, it doesn't really matter (surely we are a bit beyond this name calling now?)

    But in terms of our best reaction, I have always been much more divided.

    By about mid Feb I was speculating, on here (I can find the comment if you insist) that one arguable approach would be just to let it rip. That it was a bastard of a virus that would strike us anyway, and the economic damage of total lockdown (that we saw in Wuhan) was worse than any probable death toll.

    I was not sure then, and I am still not sure now. Maybe Sweden is right, maybe they aren't.

    You can accuse me of not making my mind up, but then many in government keep changing their minds, as does the best scientific advice, indeed the absolute boffins - the epidemiologists, are entirely split, some say Do a Sweden, some say Do a Wuhan.

    So it is forgivable for the layman to be unsure

    Actually, no.

    In early Feb - contrary to what you have since repeatedly tried to claim (cf last night’s thread), you were predicting that the virus would be relatively “benign”. (your quote)

    Yes, back at that time you were certainly advocating that we just endure the pain. Your advice to the elderly and vulnerable, as I recall, was that they should be give some heroin and be told to fuck off and die.

    In late Feb, you certainly changed your tune, flipping to apocalyptic predictions that, so far at least, look completely ludicrous. We aren’t ever going to see your two million dead Brits even if we have to endure multiple waves of this virus.

    The one thing you haven’t predicted is the mid path of dangerous but not massively deadly path that we seem to be following.

    The one point on which we can agree is that people who have never managed or run anything during their career are the very last people on whom we should rely for any sort of sensible advice.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    IanB2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Thanks for the thread but who cares what the delusional old bat thinks anymore? Even Labour are going to airbrush the embarrassment of his leadership from their collective memory as fast as possible.

    The Corbynites haven’t gone away you know.

    If Starmer screws up Richard Burgon is waiting in the wings.

    Remember oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them.
    ANd how many votes did Burgon get? Too many obviously but he is hardly a threat. And Momentum did poorly in the National Executive elections as well didn't they? I think that they are a spent force.
    I agree. We might try and win from the Left again - I personally hope so - but it will not be anything resembling the Corbyn offering.
    The problem is that you will probably be to the left of the most left wing Tory party in history. So possibly resembling Corbyn
    Left wing Tory Party? We will see. If they choose the robust taxation of wealth & affluence as one of their biggest weapons in the fight to restore the public finances, post virus, then I will start to consider the Labour Party to be redundant. But I bet they don't. Bet they either hit the poor again or let borrowing rip or print money. Probably all 3.
    Some increases in taxation are surely inevitable.

    But the most attractive route out of the crisis for governments will be inflation. Which is why I doubt we’ll be entering the predicted deflationary slump for a while, and why investing your money now in indexed linked bonds is probably a very wise move.
    Better ditch that Triple Lock then!
  • A friend messages this observation.

    Being a parent means enthusiastically clapping a lot of mediocre stuff!

    It's a bit like being a Radiohead fan.
  • ukpaulukpaul Posts: 649

    Sandpit said:

    As predicted...here comes the backlash against contract tracing apps...

    Digital contact tracing will fail unless governments build the technology in a way that respects user privacy, a group of nearly 300 experts have warned.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/20/coronavirus-digital-contact-tracing-will-fail-unless-privacy-is-respected-experts-warn

    Damn right, there’s no way any Western government is going to be able to do what they want to do with mobile apps.
    But its so easy everybody said, just copy South Korea....wait what, the government can track every move I make, see every person I met and every transaction I make.
    More than anything, the constraints of some people’s ideology is frustrating things. I’m a sort of liberal minded centrist (some would paint me as having no fixed politics, but that’s a strength, as far as I’m concerned).

    You can see those now, however, for whom everything is just a confirmation that what they always desire is correct. On the one hand the mad American protesters demanding ‘freeeedom’, for whom no state intervention is thinkable. On the other, those who see this is as confirmation that each and every business should be state controlled. Just what is the problem with being flexible and reacting to circumstance?

    I would usually baulk at the privacy invasion required but, looked at objectively, it is needed. I would usually baulk at letting businesses fail but feel that, there is little to be gained in propping up what was when something will replace it if the market is there. Play the ball that you get, not the one that you expected.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742

    A friend messages this observation.

    Being a parent means enthusiastically clapping a lot of mediocre stuff!

    It's a bit like being a Radiohead fan.

    Sounds like a Eurovision evening tbh..
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    TOPPING said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    Disagree. If there is a risk of BA going bankrupt then we should nationalise.

    Otherwise there will be a massive wealth transfer to the owners of Heathrow (slots)
    In the mid-eighties Hong Kong Bank was the biggest shipowner on the planet. The shipping companies re-emerged.
    Question is whether Heathrow includes a bankruptcy clause in its slot contracts (I would if I were them). But there again BAs slots were grandfathered.

    It's the difference between intangible and tangible assets
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    eadric said:

    Endillion said:

    Ooh, NHS England has started graphing their daily deaths reporting by day of death. First change to the format in a while.

    429 reported today in England. Lowest for ages, but looks to be significant weekend reporting delay. I suspect that tomorrow is going to see reports well over a thousand due to the backlog being released. If not, then we'll finally have some evidence that we're over the peak.

    Current position for the last three days is 85, 328, 446 (going backwards, so Apr 19/18/17). Two weeks ago, the equivalent positions were 69, 285, 350. Extrapolating, I'd guess we're still running at 700 per day in England, which is where we've been pretty much since the start of April.

    Christ, that's depressing. Just when I was cheering up.

    So on your maths, we have gone nowhere since early April?

    A death rate in excess of 1000, tomorrow, will be very grim.
    Pretty much. Excluding April 8 (which everyone gets excited about but looks much more like an outlier than a genuine peak), every day from Apr 3 onwards currently looks likely to end up at somewhere between 600 and 800.

    The main good bits of news are a) it definitely has stopped getting worse, and b) it looks like reporting has sped up, so I'm potentially overestimating the ultimate position of the more recent days. There are some potential interpretations of the data that show a clear, albeit gentle, downward trend from Apr 11 onwards (top give you an idea, 730 on Apr 11 vs 660 on Apr 16). Still too early to have much confidence in this, though.

    The other thing is there is a slight trend in the regional pattern away from London - but probably insufficient data to tell if that's due to London moving beyond a peak, or the rest of the country approaching one.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    Let's give them a 5 year super senior loan, mid-teen coupon (1/2 cash payable, 1/2 PIK), plus a 20% equity stake in warrants as a kicker. Escalating coupon from year 3 onwards to encourage refinancing.
    In plain English please?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Mr. Urquhart, not my area but my understanding is that Youtubers tend to not actually make that much from Youtube directly. Hence sponsored ads and Patreon's popularity.

    It works if you’re Joe Rogan, getting 10m views a week, but not at the lower level. Ad buy prices have also been cut in half in recent weeks, businesses aren’t advertising.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Quite. Branson has played the game of being Mr Friend-The-British-People for years, while running the most offshore setup short of the beloved Phil Greene.

    His bid for the lottery was entertaining and very illustrative.
    Personally I have no problem with jurisdiction-shopping of businesses, but you definitely can’t claim to be in one country when it comes to paying taxes and another when it comes to asking for support from government.

    Same with the company directors who pay themselves mostly in dividends - the only reason for doing so is to avoid NI contributions.
    It's not the only reason to do so. Dividends represent profit means there's money to pay. I know business directors who have paid themselves a pittance salary because they want to support their business and only take money when it can be afforded.
    For some, the biggest issue with the "Off Payroll" rules that the Government instituted to sweep up as many contractors as possible is that you cannot retain any money in your company for the inevitable periods between contracts. You legally have to pay yourself every penny that the company earns.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    I've heard it recommended that parents praise their children a lot.

    Must admit, as a child it led to me starting to ignore my parents' opinions because I quickly realised they weren't remotely discriminating.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    Let's give them a 5 year super senior loan, mid-teen coupon (1/2 cash payable, 1/2 PIK), plus a 20% equity stake in warrants as a kicker. Escalating coupon from year 3 onwards to encourage refinancing.
    In plain English please?
    Translation - make the terms untenable.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Branson is asking for a loan:

    Together with the team at Virgin Atlantic, we will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for. This would be in the form of a commercial loan – it wouldn’t be free money and the airline would pay it back (as easyJet will do for the £600m loan the government recently gave them).

    https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

    While Branson lives abroad Virgin Atlantic is UK tax domiciled.
    He says that the loan would be on "commercial terms".

    May be we should get a bank to quote on the loan before we consider offering pricing?
    Won’t Virgin Money give him a loan? ;)
    There are rules about bankers self-dealing

    (although, "Virgin Money" is really a rebranded Clydesdale - Branson doesn't have much influence there any more)

  • I appreciate everyone likes daily figures because they give a lot more to talk about, but aside from giving some idea of the trajectory, the numbers themselves seem close to useless to me.

    Yes, well put.

    The lack of news is a genuine problem, I think. Fluff is having to be used by broadcasters and print media to fill time and space.

    I do think the trajectory will be somewhat useful in estimating Rt. If each generation takes about a week, as seems to be the assumption in the models, then a 20% week-on-week decrease in London hospital deaths, which I vaguely remember seeing yesterday somewhere, would suggest Rt=0.8 now (well, a couple of weeks ago, and this probably excludes that part of the population which are not hospitalized for it). The boffins will be doing a more sophisticated version of this calculation.

    --AS
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020

    Mr. Urquhart, not my area but my understanding is that Youtubers tend to not actually make that much from Youtube directly. Hence sponsored ads and Patreon's popularity.

    I believe there are massive disparities in the ad rates for different types of content and at different times of year. Some channels that might only get a few 100k views per video actually make a significant amount of money and sometimes it can be just one video going viral at the right time that makes a substantial proportion of a year money.

    Hence the sponsorship / patreon to try and provide consistent base level of income every month.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Case by case basis - for airlines, is the business strategically needed ? I'd say some airline capability is for sure.
    If so nationalise it. I'd look to British Airways rather than Virgin though for that.
    If Virgin goes under BA with £10 billion in the bank will again have a monopoly of Atlantic crossings, it will not need to be nationalised
    Their revenue for 2019 was £13.3bn, so even £10bn in the bank won’t last much more than a year if things continue as they are.

    They definitely don’t have a monopoly on transactlantic routes either, several US airlines and Norwegian also compete.
    Even if every airline went bankrupt tomorrow, the planes and airports would still exist, so there'd be nothing stopping new operations getting off the ground when this is over. We should be less sentimental about corporations and focus more on people and the underlying economy.
    I might be feeling a little sentimental about my pension investments. Apply this proposal too widely and all private sector pensions and many public sector pensions would either vanish or be reduced to a small fraction of current value. There is also the problem of the domino effect hitting the sectors and companies that you wish to protect who are owed money by bankrupted outfits. I do agree that if companies are bailed out then selectivity is inevitable. I think a better principle is general government replacement of a portion of corporate income lost during the shutdown combined with enforced suspension of rents, loan interest, interest payments and mortgage payments for a period of time. That puts some of the pain onto landlords and helps companies and citizens survive without adding to public debt.
    I was the PB’er who specifically advised that investors should turn their holdings to cash during the weekend in advance of the start of the global stock market collapse.

    If I were asked now, I would suggest that the recent strong market rallies led by the US are offering investors a second chance to act, before it is too late.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    I've heard it recommended that parents praise their children a lot.

    Must admit, as a child it led to me starting to ignore my parents' opinions because I quickly realised they weren't remotely discriminating.

    I think kids learn earlier than many realise when people are condescendingly praising them or humouring them.

    My youngest nephew this year got annoyed when we were playing football as he was old enough to finally spot I had let him nutmeg me rather than him earning it.

    No doubt theres a balance for parents to strike
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    Let's give them a 5 year super senior loan, mid-teen coupon (1/2 cash payable, 1/2 PIK), plus a 20% equity stake in warrants as a kicker. Escalating coupon from year 3 onwards to encourage refinancing.
    In plain English please?
    * Super senior = security above everything else. If they don't repay we get the plans, the brand, everything down to the cabin crews uniform

    * mid-teen coupon = 15% interest rate

    * 1/2 cash, 1/2 PIK = only 7.5% p.a. in cash, with the balance of the interest rolled up with the loan

    * 20% equity stake as warrants = we get to take a 20% equity stake for a nominal value when we decide to do

    * Escalating coupon = 15% p.a. up to year 3, 17.5% in year 4, 20% in year 5... incentivise them to refinance the loan with someone else by making it very expensive
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    MaxPB said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I’d say there’s precisely zero chance of the UK government bailing out Virgin Atlantic.
    They’re not a strategic UK asset, they’re 49% owned by Delta in the USA and 51% owned by Virgin Group based in the British Virgin Islands.
    As you say Delta owns 49% of Virgin, so maybe we should offer to match whatever the US offers Delta to prop up this joint venture?
    The Virgin Islands government should, not the British government. Why should the British government be bailing out companies based offshore?
    Virgin Atlantic is UK based.
    Let's give them a 5 year super senior loan, mid-teen coupon (1/2 cash payable, 1/2 PIK), plus a 20% equity stake in warrants as a kicker. Escalating coupon from year 3 onwards to encourage refinancing.
    In plain English please?
    Translation - make the terms untenable.
    They are egregious, I'll give you that. But if the alternative is bankruptcy they are bearable...

    But it's designed to be attractive to some hedge fund to make the investment instead
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    eadric said:

    Floater said:

    On the face of it this seems like good news doesn't it?

    he COVID-19 death toll in English hospitals rose 429

    It is. It is properly good news. The bug has peaked, in Britain, for now.

    "Maybe we got 'em demoralised!"
  • Has that shipment of PPE from Turkey arrived?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    kle4 said:

    I've heard it recommended that parents praise their children a lot.

    Must admit, as a child it led to me starting to ignore my parents' opinions because I quickly realised they weren't remotely discriminating.

    I think kids learn earlier than many realise when people are condescendingly praising them or humouring them.

    My youngest nephew this year got annoyed when we were playing football as he was old enough to finally spot I had let him nutmeg me rather than him earning it.

    No doubt theres a balance for parents to strike
    One strike round the ear hole for good, 2 for crap......
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    isam said:

    Sandpit said:

    South African Airways and Virgin Australia are also in serious trouble, talk of administration today for both of these. Airline industry not surprisingly on its knees.
    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1252187021990334464?s=21
    I'll put away the world's smallest violin for now to note this raises the interesting question: how should the government decide which businesses to prop up and which to let go, or how to set criteria for access to government support? I expect a lot of thought is being given to this just now.
    Branson is asking for a loan:

    Together with the team at Virgin Atlantic, we will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for. This would be in the form of a commercial loan – it wouldn’t be free money and the airline would pay it back (as easyJet will do for the £600m loan the government recently gave them).

    https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

    While Branson lives abroad Virgin Atlantic is UK tax domiciled.
    He says that the loan would be on "commercial terms".

    May be we should get a bank to quote on the loan before we consider offering pricing?
    Won’t Virgin Money give him a loan? ;)
    There are rules about bankers self-dealing

    (although, "Virgin Money" is really a rebranded Clydesdale - Branson doesn't have much influence there any more)
    I thought it was Northern Rock ...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955
    Endillion said:

    Ooh, NHS England has started graphing their daily deaths reporting by day of death. First change to the format in a while.

    429 reported today in England. Lowest for ages, but looks to be significant weekend reporting delay. I suspect that tomorrow is going to see reports well over a thousand due to the backlog being released. If not, then we'll finally have some evidence that we're over the peak.

    Current position for the last three days is 85, 328, 446 (going backwards, so Apr 19/18/17). Two weeks ago, the equivalent positions were 69, 285, 350. Extrapolating, I'd guess we're still running at 700 per day in England, which is where we've been pretty much since the start of April.

    If we do go over the 1,000, then that is shit politics. Why implement the change to make to appear things are getting no better/maybe worse?

    Which makes me think, maybe they know we won't top the 1,000. And the new reporting metric will then show a significant daily lowering of deaths. Maybe?
This discussion has been closed.