politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Now partisan politics is getting back to normal and looks even

TGOHF666 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

I find complaining about the level of care in care homes crass in the extreme. The ultimate in first world entitled whining.

Use them, or don't.

MarqueeMark said:

HYUFD said:

MarqueeMark said:

And for political balance, Conor Burns, entitled pillock of a Conservative MP, was a complete twat too.

Saw himself as a close friend of Thatcher I believe

Mark, presumably...

malcolmg said:

kinabalu said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

FPT

RochdalePioneers said:

We were going to make cuts - don't forget that the Labour manifesto in 2010 would have spent slightly less than the coalition did.

As I have been pointing out the problem wasn't cutting spending but what was cut and how.

When the Tory PM writes to his Tory council leader saying look here, why are you cutting front line services when we have made all this money available to you, the council leader details no you haven't, and number 10 responds yes we have that's the austerity problem in a single example.

It's not enough to say "we spent more on the NHS". What did you spend it on in the NHS? More money spent but savage cuts to provision shows money being syphoned off to more traditional Tory causes like consultants and lawyers and pointless layers of management.

The fact was that the Government didn't notice they had both increased the demands on the council and yet decreased the money available. As a simplified example to show the actual issue:-

Previously:
Government Adult Social care £10m
Council expenditure £10m
Total available £20m

After reforms:
Council Expenditure £15m
Total available: £15m

Osbourne and Cameron's Government sat there and said we've given you £5m more a year but ignored the fact they are increased Council required Expenditure by £10m.

Are Councils required to pay themselves more than the Prime Minister gets paid?

Ever heard of market powers? Once one council starts paying over the odds to poach a leader from another council it becomes inevitable...

Guess what happened in the market for competent Council leaders.

If you consider that very few people switch from the public to the private sector, the Government should set national pay bands for councils and force top salaries down.

I thought Conservatives believed in free market capitalism? I’m confused.

Absolutely. We believe in capitalism.

There is no free market there. People taking taxes by force of the law and giving it in largesse to themselves while whining they haven't got enough money and cutting services is not free market capitalism.

If it was a free market company that was slashing its services while paying over the odds to its Chief Executives a competitor that was leaner would arise and people would take their consumption and expenditure to that one. That can't happen with taxes though. Appeals to some 'market' are absurd.

A good Council leader would be one who lives within the budget they have, getting their best results possible and being paid accordingly. Not slashing services and being paid well over the odds.

You assume there is an infinite supply of people able to put up with crap from Councillors and willing to lead councils. My view is that there is a finite supply of such people, and an even smaller supply of competent and the demand for such competent people is far greater than the actual supply.

And what evidence do you have for that proposition?

My view is that it is a pampered, unaffordable luxury to be paying county staff more than the Prime Minister of the country - and if you can afford to do that then there hasn't been enough austerity yet.

I would suggest thinking about what the job entails and then deciding that. A lot of the highest paid chief executives are actually running 2 or more councils.

Oh and remember the only reason why the PM's pay is what it is, is because Gordon Brown pulled a fast one in the days before the 2010 election and hadn't taken the full amount before then.

Blair was on the 2010 equivalent of £190,000 see https://fullfact.org/law/how-much-does-prime-minister-get-paid/

Yeah I personally think the Prime Minister is criminally underpaid. Should be at least hitting 500k. It is arguably the most important job in the country.

I would certainly raise the PM's pay to at least £162 000 which would put them in the top 1% of earners but at the same time the PM is still in a public service, public sector role not a private sector role creating wealth so I wouldn't go as far as paying them £500k which is even more than the US President gets paid

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-7357395/Who-1-Britain-one-them.html

PM is a Top Job - none topper - and IMO the occupant should receive a hefty financial reward for doing it. Not sure about this current one though. Anything north of £75k looks excessive for Boris Johnson. He seems to be forever either electioneering, on holiday, off sick, or otherwise incommunicado and trying to sort out his private life. True or not, this is the perception of many shrewd observers. Perhaps it's harsh, I sense it might be, but perception really matters in politics - especially the perception of shrewd observers.

The lazy slob will get gazillions for his book when he is booted out.

TGOHF666 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

I find complaining about the level of care in care homes crass in the extreme. The ultimate in first world entitled whining.

Use them, or don't.

TGOHF666 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

I find complaining about the level of care in care homes crass in the extreme. The ultimate in first world entitled whining.

Use them, or don't.

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

TGOHF666 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

I find complaining about the level of care in care homes crass in the extreme. The ultimate in first world entitled whining.

Use them, or don't.

MaxPB said:

Just think, in an alternate timeline the UK voted to remain and we'd be having an election this Thursday.

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

Sandpit said:

MaxPB said:

Just think, in an alternate timeline the UK voted to remain and we'd be having an election this Thursday.

On the positive side, the crisis might have seen the damn Fixed Term Parliaments Act repealed!

MaxPB said:

Just think, in an alternate timeline the UK voted to remain and we'd be having an election this Thursday.

Andy_Cooke said:

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

I think that without the lockdown, elements 3 and 4 would not really have stuck. To be honest, 4 is probably the most important one as it contains the furlough rules and the closure of schools (for most pupils). Without the lockdown, more people would be working (I guess) and more children would need to go to school.

And an Rt over 1 means that we never reach a peak; it keeps on climbing.

OldKingCole said:

TGOHF666 said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

I find complaining about the level of care in care homes crass in the extreme. The ultimate in first world entitled whining.

Use them, or don't.

Little bit of advice; stop digging. You won't get out of this hole.

OldKingCole said:

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

Thank you BGW. It is obviously a common experience now, but until you go through it I don't think you can appreciate it. I had absolutely no idea. I just thought it would be the case of looking after someone infirm.

Another area I found distressing is the anger experienced by the person in the early stages as they try and reconcile what they see and experience with the irrationality of it. My Mum was a very docile person. She became angry and even violent with her experiences. Fortunately she was too small to do any harm but she would hit my father.

Can we, maybe, have a 'sympathise' button. 'Like' isn't the right word.

kinabalu said:

malcolmg said:

kinabalu said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

FPT

RochdalePioneers said:

We were going to make cuts - don't forget that the Labour manifesto in 2010 would have spent slightly less than the coalition did.

As I have been pointing out the problem wasn't cutting spending but what was cut and how.

When the Tory PM writes to his Tory council leader saying look here, why are you cutting front line services when we have made all this money available to you, the council leader details no you haven't, and number 10 responds yes we have that's the austerity problem in a single example.

It's not enough to say "we spent more on the NHS". What did you spend it on in the NHS? More money spent but savage cuts to provision shows money being syphoned off to more traditional Tory causes like consultants and lawyers and pointless layers of management.

The fact was that the Government didn't notice they had both increased the demands on the council and yet decreased the money available. As a simplified example to show the actual issue:-

Previously:
Government Adult Social care £10m
Council expenditure £10m
Total available £20m

After reforms:
Council Expenditure £15m
Total available: £15m

Osbourne and Cameron's Government sat there and said we've given you £5m more a year but ignored the fact they are increased Council required Expenditure by £10m.

Are Councils required to pay themselves more than the Prime Minister gets paid?

Ever heard of market powers? Once one council starts paying over the odds to poach a leader from another council it becomes inevitable...

Guess what happened in the market for competent Council leaders.

If you consider that very few people switch from the public to the private sector, the Government should set national pay bands for councils and force top salaries down.

I thought Conservatives believed in free market capitalism? I’m confused.

Absolutely. We believe in capitalism.

There is no free market there. People taking taxes by force of the law and giving it in largesse to themselves while whining they haven't got enough money and cutting services is not free market capitalism.

If it was a free market company that was slashing its services while paying over the odds to its Chief Executives a competitor that was leaner would arise and people would take their consumption and expenditure to that one. That can't happen with taxes though. Appeals to some 'market' are absurd.

A good Council leader would be one who lives within the budget they have, getting their best results possible and being paid accordingly. Not slashing services and being paid well over the odds.

You assume there is an infinite supply of people able to put up with crap from Councillors and willing to lead councils. My view is that there is a finite supply of such people, and an even smaller supply of competent and the demand for such competent people is far greater than the actual supply.

And what evidence do you have for that proposition?

My view is that it is a pampered, unaffordable luxury to be paying county staff more than the Prime Minister of the country - and if you can afford to do that then there hasn't been enough austerity yet.

I would suggest thinking about what the job entails and then deciding that. A lot of the highest paid chief executives are actually running 2 or more councils.

Oh and remember the only reason why the PM's pay is what it is, is because Gordon Brown pulled a fast one in the days before the 2010 election and hadn't taken the full amount before then.

Blair was on the 2010 equivalent of £190,000 see https://fullfact.org/law/how-much-does-prime-minister-get-paid/

Yeah I personally think the Prime Minister is criminally underpaid. Should be at least hitting 500k. It is arguably the most important job in the country.

I would certainly raise the PM's pay to at least £162 000 which would put them in the top 1% of earners but at the same time the PM is still in a public service, public sector role not a private sector role creating wealth so I wouldn't go as far as paying them £500k which is even more than the US President gets paid

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-7357395/Who-1-Britain-one-them.html

PM is a Top Job - none topper - and IMO the occupant should receive a hefty financial reward for doing it. Not sure about this current one though. Anything north of £75k looks excessive for Boris Johnson. He seems to be forever either electioneering, on holiday, off sick, or otherwise incommunicado and trying to sort out his private life. True or not, this is the perception of many shrewd observers. Perhaps it's harsh, I sense it might be, but perception really matters in politics - especially the perception of shrewd observers.

The lazy slob will get gazillions for his book when he is booted out.

Book and a blockbuster film, I'd have thought. No doubt called simply "Boris" and with some ridiculously flattering and unsuitable choice such as Idris Elba playing the eponymous. One doesn't look forward to it.

contrarian said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

Very good point Nerys.

The thing is that the long lockdowners cannot be wrong, whatever the evidence against them.

If they are wrong, then that is tantamount to admitting they have, in effect, been amongst the biggest and most gullible dupes in history. They would be right up there with those who maintained that Stalin did not know about the purges and the gulags, and if he did would have stopped them immediately.

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

Thank you BGW. It is obviously a common experience now, but until you go through it I don't think you can appreciate it. I had absolutely no idea. I just thought it would be the case of looking after someone infirm.

Another area I found distressing is the anger experienced by the person in the early stages as they try and reconcile what they see and experience with the irrationality of it. My Mum was a very docile person. She became angry and even violent with her experiences. Fortunately she was too small to do any harm but she would hit my father.

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

kjh said:

OldKingCole said:

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:

TGOHF666 said:

kjh said:

FPT Last night I read a comment by TGOF666 re people putting their parents into care homes. I also saw some robust responses, but I did want to make my own response.

My mother got dementia not too long ago. She has since died. My father with our support decided she would definitely NOT go into care. We would look after her. I can only assume TGOF666 has not gone through this. Here are just a few examples of what can happen:

At 3 in the morning the washing up needs doing, while you are asleep, which includes the toaster.

Just wandering off any time of the day or night and not knowing where they are.

Start cooking on the hob and leaving it. Running taps and leaving them.

Attacking your husband (aged 90) with a walking stick because he is having an affair with the woman of the non existent other family living in the house.

Screaming at your son in front of his children 'why didn't you tell me my mother was a man' (she visualised my father as her mother). I was one of the few people who could sit down with my mother and explain what was going on, but this stumped me.

This requires 24 hour monitoring - when do you sleep?

Much to my surprise I was very impressed with the social care provided by social services and the Alzheimer society were magnificent. My mother ended up in a care home, which was also great and the staff magnificent - I don't know how they have the patience.

TGOF666 post was disgraceful.

Makes me wonder why you didn't put your kids up for adoption - they can be quite tiring too.

You are a complete bastard.

His comment is crass and uncaring in the extreme

I recognise your description of your experence of dementia and it closely follows those of our family with my father in law

The emotions and stress involved are beyond compare and in our case was acted out in our home with our three teenage children at the time

It was 2 years before we could even talk of the pain and to this day it hurts, and this was in the 90s

Shame on TGOHF666.

An apology would be good

Thank you BGW. It is obviously a common experience now, but until you go through it I don't think you can appreciate it. I had absolutely no idea. I just thought it would be the case of looking after someone infirm.

Another area I found distressing is the anger experienced by the person in the early stages as they try and reconcile what they see and experience with the irrationality of it. My Mum was a very docile person. She became angry and even violent with her experiences. Fortunately she was too small to do any harm but she would hit my father.

Can we, maybe, have a 'sympathise' button. 'Like' isn't the right word.

That is very sweet OKC, but not necessary. In the past now and no different to what very many have experienced.

I only raised it because I was incensed by what I read the other day. Wish I hadn't now as it is not about me.

'Like' is ok.

Andy_Cooke said:

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

I think that without the lockdown, elements 3 and 4 would not really have stuck. To be honest, 4 is probably the most important one as it contains the furlough rules and the closure of schools (for most pupils). Without the lockdown, more people would be working (I guess) and more children would need to go to school.

And an Rt over 1 means that we never reach a peak; it keeps on climbing.

Theuniondivvie said:

MarqueeMark said:

HYUFD said:

MarqueeMark said:

And for political balance, Conor Burns, entitled pillock of a Conservative MP, was a complete twat too.

Saw himself as a close friend of Thatcher I believe

Mark, presumably...

Some concepts are too unlikely to encompass. Close friends of Mark Thatcher is one of them.

kinabalu said:

malcolmg said:

kinabalu said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

FPT

RochdalePioneers said:

We were going to make cuts - don't forget that the Labour manifesto in 2010 would have spent slightly less than the coalition did.

As I have been pointing out the problem wasn't cutting spending but what was cut and how.

When the Tory PM writes to his Tory council leader saying look here, why are you cutting front line services when we have made all this money available to you, the council leader details no you haven't, and number 10 responds yes we have that's the austerity problem in a single example.

It's not enough to say "we spent more on the NHS". What did you spend it on in the NHS? More money spent but savage cuts to provision shows money being syphoned off to more traditional Tory causes like consultants and lawyers and pointless layers of management.

The fact was that the Government didn't notice they had both increased the demands on the council and yet decreased the money available. As a simplified example to show the actual issue:-

Previously:
Government Adult Social care £10m
Council expenditure £10m
Total available £20m

After reforms:
Council Expenditure £15m
Total available: £15m

Osbourne and Cameron's Government sat there and said we've given you £5m more a year but ignored the fact they are increased Council required Expenditure by £10m.

Are Councils required to pay themselves more than the Prime Minister gets paid?

Ever heard of market powers? Once one council starts paying over the odds to poach a leader from another council it becomes inevitable...

Guess what happened in the market for competent Council leaders.

If you consider that very few people switch from the public to the private sector, the Government should set national pay bands for councils and force top salaries down.

I thought Conservatives believed in free market capitalism? I’m confused.

Absolutely. We believe in capitalism.

There is no free market there. People taking taxes by force of the law and giving it in largesse to themselves while whining they haven't got enough money and cutting services is not free market capitalism.

If it was a free market company that was slashing its services while paying over the odds to its Chief Executives a competitor that was leaner would arise and people would take their consumption and expenditure to that one. That can't happen with taxes though. Appeals to some 'market' are absurd.

A good Council leader would be one who lives within the budget they have, getting their best results possible and being paid accordingly. Not slashing services and being paid well over the odds.

You assume there is an infinite supply of people able to put up with crap from Councillors and willing to lead councils. My view is that there is a finite supply of such people, and an even smaller supply of competent and the demand for such competent people is far greater than the actual supply.

And what evidence do you have for that proposition?

My view is that it is a pampered, unaffordable luxury to be paying county staff more than the Prime Minister of the country - and if you can afford to do that then there hasn't been enough austerity yet.

I would suggest thinking about what the job entails and then deciding that. A lot of the highest paid chief executives are actually running 2 or more councils.

Oh and remember the only reason why the PM's pay is what it is, is because Gordon Brown pulled a fast one in the days before the 2010 election and hadn't taken the full amount before then.

Blair was on the 2010 equivalent of £190,000 see https://fullfact.org/law/how-much-does-prime-minister-get-paid/

Yeah I personally think the Prime Minister is criminally underpaid. Should be at least hitting 500k. It is arguably the most important job in the country.

I would certainly raise the PM's pay to at least £162 000 which would put them in the top 1% of earners but at the same time the PM is still in a public service, public sector role not a private sector role creating wealth so I wouldn't go as far as paying them £500k which is even more than the US President gets paid

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-7357395/Who-1-Britain-one-them.html

PM is a Top Job - none topper - and IMO the occupant should receive a hefty financial reward for doing it. Not sure about this current one though. Anything north of £75k looks excessive for Boris Johnson. He seems to be forever either electioneering, on holiday, off sick, or otherwise incommunicado and trying to sort out his private life. True or not, this is the perception of many shrewd observers. Perhaps it's harsh, I sense it might be, but perception really matters in politics - especially the perception of shrewd observers.

The lazy slob will get gazillions for his book when he is booted out.

Book and a blockbuster film, I'd have thought. No doubt called simply "Boris" and with some ridiculously flattering and unsuitable choice such as Idris Elba playing the eponymous. One doesn't look forward to it.

edmundintokyo said:

LostPassword said:

Dura_Ace said:

Endillion said:

I've been thinking, and I can't identify a single negative outcome from the government knowing where I am at any one specific moment in time.

What about when some 10 quid/hour contractor presses the wrong button and your location data gets swapped for that of a regular at the Finsbury Park mosque who has a timeshare in Raqqa.

Yes. Had an email from Google about my monthly travel/location history that managed to place me in Tokyo for 15 minutes during a month when I hadn't left Britannia.

The time before, and immediately after had me correctly located, near enough, so one of the major problems is being able to prove that the data is shit when some official is treating it as gospel and making decisions on the basis of it.

Yes, on the one hand the data these providers hold is terrifying, on the other the Google thinks I work at an Italian restaurant, and if you buy one toilet, the whole internet concludes that you're really, really into buying toilets.

eek said:

edmundintokyo said:

LostPassword said:

Dura_Ace said:

Endillion said:

I've been thinking, and I can't identify a single negative outcome from the government knowing where I am at any one specific moment in time.

What about when some 10 quid/hour contractor presses the wrong button and your location data gets swapped for that of a regular at the Finsbury Park mosque who has a timeshare in Raqqa.

Yes. Had an email from Google about my monthly travel/location history that managed to place me in Tokyo for 15 minutes during a month when I hadn't left Britannia.

The time before, and immediately after had me correctly located, near enough, so one of the major problems is being able to prove that the data is shit when some official is treating it as gospel and making decisions on the basis of it.

Yes, on the one hand the data these providers hold is terrifying, on the other the Google thinks I work at an Italian restaurant, and if you buy one toilet, the whole internet concludes that you're really, really into buying toilets.

Why remarketing companies don't have a stop trying to sell me this item button is something I've never understood.

Luckyguy1983 said:

Theuniondivvie said:

MarqueeMark said:

HYUFD said:

MarqueeMark said:

And for political balance, Conor Burns, entitled pillock of a Conservative MP, was a complete twat too.

Saw himself as a close friend of Thatcher I believe

Mark, presumably...

Some concepts are too unlikely to encompass. Close friends of Mark Thatcher is one of them.

He was a close friend of Baroness Thatcher.

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

stjohn said:

Re the study that commented on Super Spreaders and Hyper Connectedness.

This sounds important. I'm trying to get my head around it.

A greater proportion of hyper connected people than the average rate for the population will have already caught the virus simply because of their increased connectedness. The hyper infectious ones will have been super spreaders. Most of these will now largely be immune and so they have been taken out of the pool. Are we saying/hoping that maybe a majority of hyper connected individuals will have already caught the virus?

However, there are still a large majority of people who have yet to be infected and some of these will prove to be hyper infectious when they get infected. Some of these will also be hyper connected individuals as a result of their jobs and so they will be another group pf super spreaders. Some will, by chance, happen to be hyper connected at the time they become infectious, e.g by attending a large gathering of people at the time they happen to be infected. So they will also be super spreaders.

Does the above make sense?

One obvious conclusion seems to be to avoid hyper connected people unless you know them to be immune and to avoid large gatherings. But I guess we already know that. Also avoid potentially hyper infectious people. But of course these aren't identifiable until after the fact.

NerysHughes said:

Pulpstar said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

Apparently small differences in R 1.4 and R 0.8 are night and day too. If the virus has a 5 day turnaround in financial terms R1.4 would be 46 trillion % APR whereas 0.8 would reduce a billion quid to less than a hundred quid.

A roulette wheel or FOBT based on one is basically a device with R 0.97 for your money. Expert card counters get banned for pushing their cash R from 0.98 on the blackjack tables to 1.01 or 1.02.

Your graph seems to show that the R number was falling before any advice was given

Philip_Thompson said:

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

In London probably yes.

Worth remembering that an R even slightly above 1 means increasing cases. R needs to be below 1. Getting it from 3 to 1.5 is good but insufficient.

eek said:

MaxPB said:

eek said:

edmundintokyo said:

LostPassword said:

Dura_Ace said:

Endillion said:

I've been thinking, and I can't identify a single negative outcome from the government knowing where I am at any one specific moment in time.

What about when some 10 quid/hour contractor presses the wrong button and your location data gets swapped for that of a regular at the Finsbury Park mosque who has a timeshare in Raqqa.

Yes. Had an email from Google about my monthly travel/location history that managed to place me in Tokyo for 15 minutes during a month when I hadn't left Britannia.

The time before, and immediately after had me correctly located, near enough, so one of the major problems is being able to prove that the data is shit when some official is treating it as gospel and making decisions on the basis of it.

Yes, on the one hand the data these providers hold is terrifying, on the other the Google thinks I work at an Italian restaurant, and if you buy one toilet, the whole internet concludes that you're really, really into buying toilets.

Why remarketing companies don't have a stop trying to sell me this item button is something I've never understood.

I've done consulting for a pretty big purchase intent data company before, the way they gauge it is quite simplistic. Not sure they could implement such a button.

google ads offer the option but it's not fed back to the advertiser in a meaningful way.

And yes most systems are idiotic because more complex systems usually fail for different reasons.

Dura_Ace said:

Endillion said:

I've been thinking, and I can't identify a single negative outcome from the government knowing where I am at any one specific moment in time.

What about when some 10 quid/hour contractor presses the wrong button and your location data gets swapped for that of a regular at the Finsbury Park mosque who has a timeshare in Raqqa.

SandyRentool said:

MarqueeMark said:

Moth du Jour: Privet Hawkmoth. These are big beasts! Not uncommon - fair chance of attracting these to a suburban moth trap on a warm June/July evening.

While other outlets have Readers' Wives, we have a daily moth. Much more uplifting

edmundintokyo said:

LostPassword said:

Dura_Ace said:

Endillion said:

I've been thinking, and I can't identify a single negative outcome from the government knowing where I am at any one specific moment in time.

What about when some 10 quid/hour contractor presses the wrong button and your location data gets swapped for that of a regular at the Finsbury Park mosque who has a timeshare in Raqqa.

Yes. Had an email from Google about my monthly travel/location history that managed to place me in Tokyo for 15 minutes during a month when I hadn't left Britannia.

The time before, and immediately after had me correctly located, near enough, so one of the major problems is being able to prove that the data is shit when some official is treating it as gospel and making decisions on the basis of it.

Yes, on the one hand the data these providers hold is terrifying, on the other the Google thinks I work at an Italian restaurant, and if you buy one toilet, the whole internet concludes that you're really, really into buying toilets.

kinabalu said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

I think that without the lockdown, elements 3 and 4 would not really have stuck. To be honest, 4 is probably the most important one as it contains the furlough rules and the closure of schools (for most pupils). Without the lockdown, more people would be working (I guess) and more children would need to go to school.

And an Rt over 1 means that we never reach a peak; it keeps on climbing.

Lockdown started on 24th March. So if deaths peaked on 8th April new infections probably peaked before the start of lockdown - does that not follow?

eek said:

Of probably little interest here to most people but a couple may be interested so
https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1257487701017653248

kinabalu said:

RobD said:

Pulpstar said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

Apparently small differences in R 1.4 and R 0.8 are night and day too. If the virus has a 5 day turnaround in financial terms R1.4 would be 46 trillion % APR whereas 0.8 would reduce a billion quid to less than a hundred quid.

A roulette wheel or FOBT based on one is basically a device with R 0.97 for your money. Expert card counters get banned for pushing their cash R from 0.98 on the blackjack tables to 1.01 or 1.02.

I don't think this plot is correct. The advice was the R was still above 2 the day the lockdown was announced.

11:08am
Sage warned London ICU could have breached in 7 days
The lockdown decision was taken by the Prime Minister after Sage was presented with modelling evidence suggesting intensive care units across the country would be swamped.

At the March 23 meeting of Sage, the day Boris Johnson announced the lockdown, experts considered a summary of the coronavirus modelling which warned "it is very likely that we will see ICU capacity in London breached by the end of the month, even if additional measures are put in place today".

"The rest of the UK is one-two weeks behind London. In the absence of additional measures being put into place in the next few days, it is likely that we will breach ICU capacity in other regions."

The modelling suggested the rapid increase in intensive care admissions suggested the reproduction number - the R rate - was higher than the 2.4 previously estimated and could have been more than three.

The lockdown was a decision taken on balance of risk and IMO was the correct one. If anything it should have come earlier. However, as to R being above 2 on 23rd March when it was announced, this seems unlikely to me if deaths peaked on or around 8th April.

williamglenn said:

eek said:

Of probably little interest here to most people but a couple may be interested so
https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1257487701017653248

And Tesco’s revenue is higher than Google.

isam said:

stjohn said:

Re the study that commented on Super Spreaders and Hyper Connectedness.

This sounds important. I'm trying to get my head around it.

A greater proportion of hyper connected people than the average rate for the population will have already caught the virus simply because of their increased connectedness. The hyper infectious ones will have been super spreaders. Most of these will now largely be immune and so they have been taken out of the pool. Are we saying/hoping that maybe a majority of hyper connected individuals will have already caught the virus?

However, there are still a large majority of people who have yet to be infected and some of these will prove to be hyper infectious when they get infected. Some of these will also be hyper connected individuals as a result of their jobs and so they will be another group pf super spreaders. Some will, by chance, happen to be hyper connected at the time they become infectious, e.g by attending a large gathering of people at the time they happen to be infected. So they will also be super spreaders.

Does the above make sense?

One obvious conclusion seems to be to avoid hyper connected people unless you know them to be immune and to avoid large gatherings. But I guess we already know that. Also avoid potentially hyper infectious people. But of course these aren't identifiable until after the fact.

All it takes really is a couple of those hyper infections super spreaders from the same country to catch it and pass it on to a care home worker each, and one country’s death rate/approach to combatting the disease is lampooned while another, whose super spreaders didn’t catch it, is lauded

Theuniondivvie said:

kinabalu said:

malcolmg said:

kinabalu said:

HYUFD said:

Gallowgate said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

FPT

RochdalePioneers said:

We were going to make cuts - don't forget that the Labour manifesto in 2010 would have spent slightly less than the coalition did.

As I have been pointing out the problem wasn't cutting spending but what was cut and how.

When the Tory PM writes to his Tory council leader saying look here, why are you cutting front line services when we have made all this money available to you, the council leader details no you haven't, and number 10 responds yes we have that's the austerity problem in a single example.

It's not enough to say "we spent more on the NHS". What did you spend it on in the NHS? More money spent but savage cuts to provision shows money being syphoned off to more traditional Tory causes like consultants and lawyers and pointless layers of management.

The fact was that the Government didn't notice they had both increased the demands on the council and yet decreased the money available. As a simplified example to show the actual issue:-

Previously:
Government Adult Social care £10m
Council expenditure £10m
Total available £20m

After reforms:
Council Expenditure £15m
Total available: £15m

Osbourne and Cameron's Government sat there and said we've given you £5m more a year but ignored the fact they are increased Council required Expenditure by £10m.

Are Councils required to pay themselves more than the Prime Minister gets paid?

Ever heard of market powers? Once one council starts paying over the odds to poach a leader from another council it becomes inevitable...

Guess what happened in the market for competent Council leaders.

If you consider that very few people switch from the public to the private sector, the Government should set national pay bands for councils and force top salaries down.

I thought Conservatives believed in free market capitalism? I’m confused.

Absolutely. We believe in capitalism.

There is no free market there. People taking taxes by force of the law and giving it in largesse to themselves while whining they haven't got enough money and cutting services is not free market capitalism.

If it was a free market company that was slashing its services while paying over the odds to its Chief Executives a competitor that was leaner would arise and people would take their consumption and expenditure to that one. That can't happen with taxes though. Appeals to some 'market' are absurd.

A good Council leader would be one who lives within the budget they have, getting their best results possible and being paid accordingly. Not slashing services and being paid well over the odds.

You assume there is an infinite supply of people able to put up with crap from Councillors and willing to lead councils. My view is that there is a finite supply of such people, and an even smaller supply of competent and the demand for such competent people is far greater than the actual supply.

And what evidence do you have for that proposition?

My view is that it is a pampered, unaffordable luxury to be paying county staff more than the Prime Minister of the country - and if you can afford to do that then there hasn't been enough austerity yet.

I would suggest thinking about what the job entails and then deciding that. A lot of the highest paid chief executives are actually running 2 or more councils.

Oh and remember the only reason why the PM's pay is what it is, is because Gordon Brown pulled a fast one in the days before the 2010 election and hadn't taken the full amount before then.

Blair was on the 2010 equivalent of £190,000 see https://fullfact.org/law/how-much-does-prime-minister-get-paid/

Yeah I personally think the Prime Minister is criminally underpaid. Should be at least hitting 500k. It is arguably the most important job in the country.

I would certainly raise the PM's pay to at least £162 000 which would put them in the top 1% of earners but at the same time the PM is still in a public service, public sector role not a private sector role creating wealth so I wouldn't go as far as paying them £500k which is even more than the US President gets paid

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-7357395/Who-1-Britain-one-them.html

PM is a Top Job - none topper - and IMO the occupant should receive a hefty financial reward for doing it. Not sure about this current one though. Anything north of £75k looks excessive for Boris Johnson. He seems to be forever either electioneering, on holiday, off sick, or otherwise incommunicado and trying to sort out his private life. True or not, this is the perception of many shrewd observers. Perhaps it's harsh, I sense it might be, but perception really matters in politics - especially the perception of shrewd observers.

The lazy slob will get gazillions for his book when he is booted out.

Book and a blockbuster film, I'd have thought. No doubt called simply "Boris" and with some ridiculously flattering and unsuitable choice such as Idris Elba playing the eponymous. One doesn't look forward to it.

It'll be one of the poshos that seem to make up the acting fraternity nowadays, eg Damian Lewis in a fright wig.

MarqueeMark said:

When my friend's mother was suffering from dementia, she became convinced that "They are diluting my water!"

Dementia means never having to explain - with what?

kinabalu said:

RobD said:

Pulpstar said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

Apparently small differences in R 1.4 and R 0.8 are night and day too. If the virus has a 5 day turnaround in financial terms R1.4 would be 46 trillion % APR whereas 0.8 would reduce a billion quid to less than a hundred quid.

A roulette wheel or FOBT based on one is basically a device with R 0.97 for your money. Expert card counters get banned for pushing their cash R from 0.98 on the blackjack tables to 1.01 or 1.02.

I don't think this plot is correct. The advice was the R was still above 2 the day the lockdown was announced.

11:08am
Sage warned London ICU could have breached in 7 days
The lockdown decision was taken by the Prime Minister after Sage was presented with modelling evidence suggesting intensive care units across the country would be swamped.

At the March 23 meeting of Sage, the day Boris Johnson announced the lockdown, experts considered a summary of the coronavirus modelling which warned "it is very likely that we will see ICU capacity in London breached by the end of the month, even if additional measures are put in place today".

"The rest of the UK is one-two weeks behind London. In the absence of additional measures being put into place in the next few days, it is likely that we will breach ICU capacity in other regions."

The modelling suggested the rapid increase in intensive care admissions suggested the reproduction number - the R rate - was higher than the 2.4 previously estimated and could have been more than three.

The lockdown was a decision taken on balance of risk and IMO was the correct one. If anything it should have come earlier. However, as to R being above 2 on 23rd March when it was announced, this seems unlikely to me if deaths peaked on or around 8th April.

Philip_Thompson said:

Stocky said:

Andy_Cooke said:

Malmesbury said:

NerysHughes said:

Andy_JS said:

BigRich posted an interesting comment about why Sweden has probably done the right thing, and nearly all of the replies were to do with a grammar dispute.

Sometimes people do not seem willing to engage in sciientific discussion on this site.The graph yesterday showing that the R figure was below 1 before the lockdown and that the reduction coincided with the hand washing advice I thought was really striking. Yet alI I got was abuse for discussing it and no one seemed interested in it. If science does not agree with someones opinion then it seems it is not worthy.

https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1257303355199635456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8673/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-covid-19-it-s-not-your-fault/p1

The method of calculation of R in that graph is, almost certainly, not valid.

No error bars on the R values is a warning sign that this is not valid, as well.

Very spiky as well, which looks very strange.

Using a median incubation period of 5 days and time to fatality median/interquartile ranges from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095212/ , and the hospital deaths data from public health England, with some five-day smoothing and pulling out interquartile ranges over those five days) I got something that looked like this (bearing in mind that I'm not at all confident about the methodology):



Putting on dates of significant interventions, I got this:



1 - Handwashing advice given
2 - Premier Leaguse suspended and much other sport, elections deferred
3 - PM advises everyone against non-essential travel, avoiding pubs/restaurants/clubs, wfh if possible. Vulnerable people advised to self-isolate.
4 - Pubs, cafes, restaurants ordered to close immediately; nightclubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas, leisure entres told to close as soon as possible; last day of schools for most pupils. Furlough rules announced by Sunak.
5 - Announcement of lockdown with immediate effect

To be fair, the handwashing advice does seem to have been helpful to a degree...

The handwashing advice seems massively significant to me. I guess the question becomes this: was lockdown (Event 5 in your graph (or perhaps 4?)) necessary to ensure that the NHS was not overwhelmed (given that was the reason given for the lockdown in the first place).

In London probably yes.

Worth remembering that an R even slightly above 1 means increasing cases. R needs to be below 1. Getting it from 3 to 1.5 is good but insufficient.

rottenborough said:

MaxPB said:

rottenborough said:

eek said:

Going back to the NHS App - Unless GCHQ have donated that 0 day exploit here is an overview of why it won't work https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app/

Basically unless the program is running in the foreground all the time (the phone switched on and enabled, display on, NHS app on display, rather than twitter, whatsapp, facebook) the phone won't be broadcasting it's details to other people.

Assuming the article is technically accurate then it is a devastating take down of the NHS plans.

I did predict on here last week that this would be a disaster, but I had no idea it would be as big a disaster as it now appears.

Wow. Hancock is brave.

Hancock has previous form with Apple and Google. I'm sure that's played its role in the decision to ignore their efforts. I honestly hope this works because I hate this lockdown but I'm pretty sure it won't.

I've been told that our app also won't be internationally compatible which means British people will need to install multiple apps if they go overseas while the others can be made interoperable.

If this app fails like it looks like it will because of the problem of when the phone is asleep, then Hancock will have to resign. He is done.