They watch as employees who can't work suddenly get 80% of their income paid by the state.
Yet we have been told for years that the country can't afford to increase benefits for disabled.
The employees have been paying taxes in the past and will be in the future. The payments they're getting are a proportion of their taxed income they were paying taxes on.
Anyone on benefits is living on the taxes taken off the workers.
Many carers are older and have paid taxes and NI for decades.
And they'll be eligible to pensions etc based upon those contributions no doubt if they're old enough.
Paying for a one off crisis is one thing, paying someone's wages at a higher rate permanently is something else. The government couldn't permanently pay the furlough scheme yet you're trying to permanently adjust benefits for those who aren't working based on a one-off temporary scheme.
If the government had not introduced the 80% scheme, plus all the self employment support, then 100,000s of people may well have been told that thanks to the raw brute bad luck of the virus they are on £70-100 a week of unemployment benefit, UC etc.
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
Waste in covid-19 research https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1847 .... An extraordinary number of covid-19 trials have been registered since the pandemic started. The National Library of Medicine registry ClinicalTrials.gov lists 1087 covid-19 studies, and though some will provide useful information, many are too small and poorly designed to be helpful, merely adding to the covid-19 noise. Of the 145 registered trials of hydroxychloroquine, for example, 32 have a planned sample size of ≤100, 10 have no control group, and 12 are comparative but non-randomised. Outcome measures vary widely, and only 50 seem to be multicentre. Strikingly, only one provides a protocol, and even limited registry details reveal unjustified outcome switching.
The imbalance in trial topics is worrying, in particular the paucity of trials on non-drug interventions. Despite non-drug interventions being the mainstay of current mitigation, we could find just two trials of masks on ClinicalTrials.gov and none examining social distancing, quarantine effect or adherence, hand hygiene, or other non-drug interventions. Covid-19 research funding mirrors this woeful imbalance. A search of Covid-19 Research Project Tracker, a live database of funded covid-19 projects, found almost no primary research of the effects of non-drug interventions on transmissibility, compared with hundreds of drug intervention projects worth at least $74m (£60m; €67m)....
Jonathan Meades did an interesting documentary on Essex a couple of years ago. It's available to watch in various places I think.
It’s probably England’s most underrated county. Absolutely beautiful in parts. It also has the longest coastline of any English county!
Er... Cornwall says hello!
I thought at the moment the reaction was more bugger off, dont you go bringing that plague round these parts.
Given the number of people in Cornwall who are dependent on tourism, I am not sure that's the case generally.
In all seriousness it is really tricky situation. Cornwall doesn't have much other than tourism, but it also doesn't have the infrastructure to cope if masses of people get ill down there.
The threat to Starmer’s – and to any successor’s – dreams of office comes from failing to win back Scotland. So long as Scots insist on returning regiments of nationalist MPs to Westminster, Starmer will be forced at the next election to explain whether he will contemplate coming to some sort of post-election arrangement whereby the SNP agree to maintain a minority Labour government in office. It’s not a question on which he can prevaricate: everyone watching the TV news will know that a simple yes or no answer is within his grasp. If the answer is no, how will he form a government? If it’s yes, what will he give the SNP in return?
If Labour reaches 40% in GB polls, there is a good prospect of polling 30% in Scotland - at which point many SNP seats would become vulnerable. Were Starmer to develop serious momentum and become seen as a likely PM in 2024, I expect there will be a significant impact in Scotland.
Maybe. OTOH the Sainted Jeremy got to 40% in 2017 and was rewarded with half-a-dozen barely held marginals, all of which he lost again two years down the line.
Besides, when the SNP went a bit backwards the Tories made more gains than Labour did, so the performance was worse than useless from Labour's POV.
In 2017, Labour's surge in Scotland seemed to happen very late and appeared to take almost everybody by surprise. Even I only suggested the possibility of 4 or 5 seats rather than the 7 Labour ended up with.I also suspect that many pro-Union Labour voters misdirected themselves by voting Tory and effectively denied Labour a few seats which otherwise would have been won. However, if Starmer is perceived to be a serious challenger over an extended period long before the election, I would anticipate a psychological impact to Labour's benefit. Labour could reasonably aim for 20 seats there next time.
Weren't your last set of Scotland predicitions an absolute load of old cock?
They watch as employees who can't work suddenly get 80% of their income paid by the state.
Yet we have been told for years that the country can't afford to increase benefits for disabled.
The employees have been paying taxes in the past and will be in the future. The payments they're getting are a proportion of their taxed income they were paying taxes on.
Anyone on benefits is living on the taxes taken off the workers.
Many carers are older and have paid taxes and NI for decades.
And they'll be eligible to pensions etc based upon those contributions no doubt if they're old enough.
Paying for a one off crisis is one thing, paying someone's wages at a higher rate permanently is something else. The government couldn't permanently pay the furlough scheme yet you're trying to permanently adjust benefits for those who aren't working based on a one-off temporary scheme.
If the government had not introduced the 80% scheme, plus all the self employment support, then 100,000s of people may well have been told that thanks to the raw brute bad luck of the virus they are on £70-100 a week of unemployment benefit, UC etc.
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
Its not just about luck though and there's a difference between temporary and permanent which you are deliberately ignoring no matter how much it gets pointed out to you.
To make a household analogy no matter how much you might love sport and movies you might have to say that you can't afford a Sky with Sports and Movies subscription for £60 per month as you can't afford it - but if the boiler goes you might have no choice but to pay a plumber £200 to repair it.
Of course in one month the £200 is much more than £60 so why one and not the other? But you're not going to have to pay the plumber £200 every single month.
They watch as employees who can't work suddenly get 80% of their income paid by the state.
Yet we have been told for years that the country can't afford to increase benefits for disabled.
The employees have been paying taxes in the past and will be in the future. The payments they're getting are a proportion of their taxed income they were paying taxes on.
Anyone on benefits is living on the taxes taken off the workers.
Many carers are older and have paid taxes and NI for decades.
And they'll be eligible to pensions etc based upon those contributions no doubt if they're old enough.
Paying for a one off crisis is one thing, paying someone's wages at a higher rate permanently is something else. The government couldn't permanently pay the furlough scheme yet you're trying to permanently adjust benefits for those who aren't working based on a one-off temporary scheme.
If the government had not introduced the 80% scheme, plus all the self employment support, then 100,000s of people may well have been told that thanks to the raw brute bad luck of the virus they are on £70-100 a week of unemployment benefit, UC etc.
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
Its not just about luck though and there's a difference between temporary and permanent which you are deliberately ignoring no matter how much it gets pointed out to you.
To make a household analogy no matter how much you might love sport and movies you might have to say that you can't afford a Sky with Sports and Movies subscription for £60 per month as you can't afford it - but if the boiler goes you might have no choice but to pay a plumber £200 to repair it.
Of course in one month the £300 is much more than £60 so why one and not the other? But you're not going to have to pay the plumber £200 every single month.
This week we have seen the EU and ECJ take on Germany's consitutional court, serve UK notice re freedom of movement, threaten the UK over a bi lateral deal with France, and now seeking to stop the agreement reached with Baltic Countries to act in their own bubble allowing movement to each other
And on top of that show no awareness of the car crash that is a no deal
How can anyone defend this institution
Covid has thrown all it's structures into disarray
That is one view.
A different view is that the above shows how crucial it is to have such institutions to do do these things, because that is the only way to balance the pursuit of common purpose against the conflicts of interests of different, sovereign nation states.
That is the EU view but not that of countries responsible to their electorate
You realise it those countries that are driving the hard line that the EU is taking with the UK on LPF and fishing quotas?
New York, March 25th 2113: almost a century since the former United Kingdom left the former European Union, and 38 years after England became the 61st state, trade negotiations between the US and the New Hanseatic League broke down yet again over the vexed issue of shellfish quotas...
61st state? Which were numbers 51 to 60?
Puerto Rico and the nine English speaking provinces of the former Canada.
They watch as employees who can't work suddenly get 80% of their income paid by the state.
Yet we have been told for years that the country can't afford to increase benefits for disabled.
The employees have been paying taxes in the past and will be in the future. The payments they're getting are a proportion of their taxed income they were paying taxes on.
Anyone on benefits is living on the taxes taken off the workers.
Many carers are older and have paid taxes and NI for decades.
And they'll be eligible to pensions etc based upon those contributions no doubt if they're old enough.
Paying for a one off crisis is one thing, paying someone's wages at a higher rate permanently is something else. The government couldn't permanently pay the furlough scheme yet you're trying to permanently adjust benefits for those who aren't working based on a one-off temporary scheme.
If the government had not introduced the 80% scheme, plus all the self employment support, then 100,000s of people may well have been told that thanks to the raw brute bad luck of the virus they are on £70-100 a week of unemployment benefit, UC etc.
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
Its not just about luck though and there's a difference between temporary and permanent which you are deliberately ignoring no matter how much it gets pointed out to you.
To make a household analogy no matter how much you might love sport and movies you might have to say that you can't afford a Sky with Sports and Movies subscription for £60 per month as you can't afford it - but if the boiler goes you might have no choice but to pay a plumber £200 to repair it.
Of course in one month the £300 is much more than £60 so why one and not the other? But you're not going to have to pay the plumber £200 every single month.
What on earth are you talking about?
The furlough scheme is a one-off and temporary (the boiler failing in my analogy)
Welfare is permanent (the monthly subscription in my analogy)
One off options are more affordable than permanent ones.
They watch as employees who can't work suddenly get 80% of their income paid by the state.
Yet we have been told for years that the country can't afford to increase benefits for disabled.
The employees have been paying taxes in the past and will be in the future. The payments they're getting are a proportion of their taxed income they were paying taxes on.
Anyone on benefits is living on the taxes taken off the workers.
Many carers are older and have paid taxes and NI for decades.
And they'll be eligible to pensions etc based upon those contributions no doubt if they're old enough.
Paying for a one off crisis is one thing, paying someone's wages at a higher rate permanently is something else. The government couldn't permanently pay the furlough scheme yet you're trying to permanently adjust benefits for those who aren't working based on a one-off temporary scheme.
If the government had not introduced the 80% scheme, plus all the self employment support, then 100,000s of people may well have been told that thanks to the raw brute bad luck of the virus they are on £70-100 a week of unemployment benefit, UC etc.
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
Its not just about luck though and there's a difference between temporary and permanent which you are deliberately ignoring no matter how much it gets pointed out to you.
To make a household analogy no matter how much you might love sport and movies you might have to say that you can't afford a Sky with Sports and Movies subscription for £60 per month as you can't afford it - but if the boiler goes you might have no choice but to pay a plumber £200 to repair it.
Of course in one month the £300 is much more than £60 so why one and not the other? But you're not going to have to pay the plumber £200 every single month.
What on earth are you talking about?
The furlough scheme is a one-off and temporary (the boiler failing in my analogy)
Welfare is permanent (the monthly subscription in my analogy)
One off options are more affordable than permanent ones.
But we are constantly told that UC provides enough to live off. Why be more generous (even for a temporary period) if UC levels of support are enough?
The threat to Starmer’s – and to any successor’s – dreams of office comes from failing to win back Scotland. So long as Scots insist on returning regiments of nationalist MPs to Westminster, Starmer will be forced at the next election to explain whether he will contemplate coming to some sort of post-election arrangement whereby the SNP agree to maintain a minority Labour government in office. It’s not a question on which he can prevaricate: everyone watching the TV news will know that a simple yes or no answer is within his grasp. If the answer is no, how will he form a government? If it’s yes, what will he give the SNP in return?
If Labour reaches 40% in GB polls, there is a good prospect of polling 30% in Scotland - at which point many SNP seats would become vulnerable. Were Starmer to develop serious momentum and become seen as a likely PM in 2024, I expect there will be a significant impact in Scotland.
Maybe. OTOH the Sainted Jeremy got to 40% in 2017 and was rewarded with half-a-dozen barely held marginals, all of which he lost again two years down the line.
Besides, when the SNP went a bit backwards the Tories made more gains than Labour did, so the performance was worse than useless from Labour's POV.
In 2017, Labour's surge in Scotland seemed to happen very late and appeared to take almost everybody by surprise. Even I only suggested the possibility of 4 or 5 seats rather than the 7 Labour ended up with.I also suspect that many pro-Union Labour voters misdirected themselves by voting Tory and effectively denied Labour a few seats which otherwise would have been won. However, if Starmer is perceived to be a serious challenger over an extended period long before the election, I would anticipate a psychological impact to Labour's benefit. Labour could reasonably aim for 20 seats there next time.
Weren't your last set of Scotland predicitions an absolute load of old cock?
I made no such predictions for the 2019 election - but had suggested in 2017 that Labour might manage 4 or 5 seats. My prediction was ridiculed.
Generally speaking I think he's not keen on anyone who doesn't want to have the entire population locked in an individual concrete cell for a year.
Well, the entire population except for Piers Morgan, who will broadcast to a screen in each cell telling us how shit we all are.
In theory, he's got his finger on the pulse of middle england and yet it seems that my local pedestrianised high street has been rammed for the last few days with non-social distancing pensioners chatting away in groups.
They watch as employees who can't work suddenly get 80% of their income paid by the state.
Yet we have been told for years that the country can't afford to increase benefits for disabled.
The employees have been paying taxes in the past and will be in the future. The payments they're getting are a proportion of their taxed income they were paying taxes on.
Anyone on benefits is living on the taxes taken off the workers.
Many carers are older and have paid taxes and NI for decades.
And they'll be eligible to pensions etc based upon those contributions no doubt if they're old enough.
Paying for a one off crisis is one thing, paying someone's wages at a higher rate permanently is something else. The government couldn't permanently pay the furlough scheme yet you're trying to permanently adjust benefits for those who aren't working based on a one-off temporary scheme.
If the government had not introduced the 80% scheme, plus all the self employment support, then 100,000s of people may well have been told that thanks to the raw brute bad luck of the virus they are on £70-100 a week of unemployment benefit, UC etc.
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
Its not just about luck though and there's a difference between temporary and permanent which you are deliberately ignoring no matter how much it gets pointed out to you.
To make a household analogy no matter how much you might love sport and movies you might have to say that you can't afford a Sky with Sports and Movies subscription for £60 per month as you can't afford it - but if the boiler goes you might have no choice but to pay a plumber £200 to repair it.
Of course in one month the £300 is much more than £60 so why one and not the other? But you're not going to have to pay the plumber £200 every single month.
What on earth are you talking about?
The furlough scheme is a one-off and temporary (the boiler failing in my analogy)
Welfare is permanent (the monthly subscription in my analogy)
One off options are more affordable than permanent ones.
But we are constantly told that UC provides enough to live off. Why be more generous (even for a temporary period) if UC levels of support are enough?
They watch as employees who can't work suddenly get 80% of their income paid by the state.
Yet we have been told for years that the country can't afford to increase benefits for disabled.
The employees have been paying taxes in the past and will be in the future. The payments they're getting are a proportion of their taxed income they were paying taxes on.
Anyone on benefits is living on the taxes taken off the workers.
Many carers are older and have paid taxes and NI for decades.
And they'll be eligible to pensions etc based upon those contributions no doubt if they're old enough.
Paying for a one off crisis is one thing, paying someone's wages at a higher rate permanently is something else. The government couldn't permanently pay the furlough scheme yet you're trying to permanently adjust benefits for those who aren't working based on a one-off temporary scheme.
If the government had not introduced the 80% scheme, plus all the self employment support, then 100,000s of people may well have been told that thanks to the raw brute bad luck of the virus they are on £70-100 a week of unemployment benefit, UC etc.
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
Its not just about luck though and there's a difference between temporary and permanent which you are deliberately ignoring no matter how much it gets pointed out to you.
To make a household analogy no matter how much you might love sport and movies you might have to say that you can't afford a Sky with Sports and Movies subscription for £60 per month as you can't afford it - but if the boiler goes you might have no choice but to pay a plumber £200 to repair it.
Of course in one month the £300 is much more than £60 so why one and not the other? But you're not going to have to pay the plumber £200 every single month.
What on earth are you talking about?
The furlough scheme is a one-off and temporary (the boiler failing in my analogy)
Welfare is permanent (the monthly subscription in my analogy)
One off options are more affordable than permanent ones.
But we are constantly told that UC provides enough to live off. Why be more generous (even for a temporary period) if UC levels of support are enough?
Because people have bills to pay based upon their existing commitments. Rent/mortgage, subscriptions. If you are on a restricted income that you can foresee then you can budget accordingly, if its sudden and unforeseen you can't.
That's why you can get more UC support up front when you join it too rather than waiting weeks (which was a bad mistake when first introduced).
Maybe the Treasury modellers worked out that if they didn't provide 80% wages to 100,000s of people and instead made them survive on the "adequate" levels of UC and unemployment benefit then so many voters would realise that the safety net is threadbare and not actually a shirkers paradise that there would have to be long term change.
Happy to settle on second longest coastline and most islands.
Actually, it’s the interior of Essex that I rate most of all. It really is a pretty, rural East Anglian county, with lovely white clapboard houses and pubs and some gorgeous villages. Big skies in the summer, I remember from long bike rides.
Maybe HYUFD will be along to defend her as no one else will
Fine but you have to accept the lost revenue for the NHS.
I would prefer her resignation/sacking
She is a liability with no compassion
She's Priti vacant.
I think she's a hottie.
Future PM.
Her constituency is in Essex. We are all talking about Essex for a reason right now.
It's an omen, I tell you.
Essex has now overtaken Surrey as the safest Tory county, every seat in the county held by the Tories and no seat in the top 50 Labour or LD target seats
"Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—the Question Is How to Get There Safely By Nils Karlson, Charlotta Stern, and Daniel B. Klein"
Of course, the argument hinges on the assumption that infection confers lasting immunity. They take that as read. It would be interesting to know why. They are a political scientist, a sociologist and an economist.
All the evidence is that there is strong T cell response to CV-19.
OK - a political scientist, a sociologist, an economist, and you.
Generally speaking I think he's not keen on anyone who doesn't want to have the entire population locked in an individual concrete cell for a year.
Well, the entire population except for Piers Morgan, who will broadcast to a screen in each cell telling us how shit we all are.
In theory, he's got his finger on the pulse of middle england and yet it seems that my local pedestrianised high street has been rammed for the last few days with non-social distancing pensioners chatting away in groups.
I can't say as I've seen similar groups when I've been in town but it's probably only a matter of time. Social distancing seems to be well observed out and about, but I suspect - from the way that road traffic has been gradually creeping up for weeks, not just since Boris Johnson's last broadcast - that quiet visits to friends and family have been getting more common for some time. And it'll probably keep on breaking down at an accelerating rate.
The idea that people can go for years with little social interaction and no physical contact with one another is for the birds. I mean, there will be very disciplined exceptions, especially amongst introverts and the extremely frightened, but most of us can only carry on like this for so long - whether know-nothing TV presenters approve or not.
Generally speaking I think he's not keen on anyone who doesn't want to have the entire population locked in an individual concrete cell for a year.
Well, the entire population except for Piers Morgan, who will broadcast to a screen in each cell telling us how shit we all are.
In theory, he's got his finger on the pulse of middle england and yet it seems that my local pedestrianised high street has been rammed for the last few days with non-social distancing pensioners chatting away in groups.
I can't say as I've seen similar groups when I've been in town but it's probably only a matter of time. Social distancing seems to be well observed out and about, but I suspect - from the way that road traffic has been gradually creeping up for weeks, not just since Boris Johnson's last broadcast - that quiet visits to friends and family have been getting more common for some time. And it'll probably keep on breaking down at an accelerating rate.
The idea that people can go for years with little social interaction and no physical contact with one another is for the birds. I mean, there will be very disciplined exceptions, especially amongst introverts and the extremely frightened, but most of us can only carry on like this for so long - whether know-nothing TV presenters approve or not.
Maybe the Treasury modellers worked out that if they didn't provide 80% wages to 100,000s of people and instead made them survive on the "adequate" levels of UC and unemployment benefit then so many voters would realise that the safety net is threadbare and not actually a shirkers paradise that there would have to be long term change.
Indeed. And the fact they felt it a matter of the utmost urgency to dramatically raise the level of UC at the drop of a hat lends credence to your view.
This week we have seen the EU and ECJ take on Germany's consitutional court, serve UK notice re freedom of movement, threaten the UK over a bi lateral deal with France, and now seeking to stop the agreement reached with Baltic Countries to act in their own bubble allowing movement to each other
And on top of that show no awareness of the car crash that is a no deal
How can anyone defend this institution
Covid has thrown all it's structures into disarray
That is one view.
A different view is that the above shows how crucial it is to have such institutions to do do these things, because that is the only way to balance the pursuit of common purpose against the conflicts of interests of different, sovereign nation states.
That is the EU view but not that of countries responsible to their electorate
You realise it those countries that are driving the hard line that the EU is taking with the UK on LPF and fishing quotas?
New York, March 25th 2113: almost a century since the former United Kingdom left the former European Union, and 38 years after England became the 61st state, trade negotiations between the US and the New Hanseatic League broke down yet again over the vexed issue of shellfish quotas...
61st state? Which were numbers 51 to 60?
Puerto Rico and the nine English speaking provinces of the former Canada.
It's a long story.
In the recent past statehood has been raised for Guam, possibly in a joint statehood bid with Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Marshall Islands and similarly for American Samoa (not implausible as a sort of counter to Chinese ambitions in the Pacific), and to the East it's been mooted for the US Virgin Islands too. Canada keeps trying to buy up the Turks and Caicos islands so it wouldn't be totally crazy for the US to nab them instead. Buying Greenland would be a bit of a stretch but also has some strategic sense to it.
There's also the anomaly of Washington DC which has an active statehood movement, and been the odd attempt at partitioning existing states (eg splitting off bits of rural northern California of southern Oregon to form a State of Jefferson or splitting off Upper Michigan as a State of Superior"). On that basis it's not too hard to at least imagine an increase in the number of US states, but their growth rate has certainly stalled over the last century so a big increase would be surprising...
"Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—the Question Is How to Get There Safely By Nils Karlson, Charlotta Stern, and Daniel B. Klein"
Of course, the argument hinges on the assumption that infection confers lasting immunity. They take that as read. It would be interesting to know why. They are a political scientist, a sociologist and an economist.
All the evidence is that there is strong T cell response to CV-19.
OK - a political scientist, a sociologist, an economist, and you.
There have been some amusing quotes from scientists recently, like the one who said that unless they cure the dead the death total can only rise in answer to a silly question.
Saw a similar one with an expert being interviewed who (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) when asked why they were confident that having been through the disease would give some sort of immunity replied that because if it wasn't you would die from the disease.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Phoenix Nights was a belter. If only there was a 3rd series.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Phoenix Nights was a belter. If only there was a 3rd series.
Phoenix Nights was my favourite, probably because my folks used to take me to such places as a kid. The one line quips are brilliant.
The threat to Starmer’s – and to any successor’s – dreams of office comes from failing to win back Scotland. So long as Scots insist on returning regiments of nationalist MPs to Westminster, Starmer will be forced at the next election to explain whether he will contemplate coming to some sort of post-election arrangement whereby the SNP agree to maintain a minority Labour government in office. It’s not a question on which he can prevaricate: everyone watching the TV news will know that a simple yes or no answer is within his grasp. If the answer is no, how will he form a government? If it’s yes, what will he give the SNP in return?
If Labour reaches 40% in GB polls, there is a good prospect of polling 30% in Scotland - at which point many SNP seats would become vulnerable. Were Starmer to develop serious momentum and become seen as a likely PM in 2024, I expect there will be a significant impact in Scotland.
Maybe. OTOH the Sainted Jeremy got to 40% in 2017 and was rewarded with half-a-dozen barely held marginals, all of which he lost again two years down the line.
Besides, when the SNP went a bit backwards the Tories made more gains than Labour did, so the performance was worse than useless from Labour's POV.
In 2017, Labour's surge in Scotland seemed to happen very late and appeared to take almost everybody by surprise. Even I only suggested the possibility of 4 or 5 seats rather than the 7 Labour ended up with.I also suspect that many pro-Union Labour voters misdirected themselves by voting Tory and effectively denied Labour a few seats which otherwise would have been won. However, if Starmer is perceived to be a serious challenger over an extended period long before the election, I would anticipate a psychological impact to Labour's benefit. Labour could reasonably aim for 20 seats there next time.
Weren't your last set of Scotland predicitions an absolute load of old cock?
I made no such predictions for the 2019 election - but had suggested in 2017 that Labour might manage 4 or 5 seats. My prediction was ridiculed.
My apologies it must have been someone else who said
But the SNP have already lost a great deal of ground compared to 2015. I expect that trend to continue at Westminster elections.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
In New Jersey, Clinton beat Trump by 14 in 2016 but Biden leads by 23. In Ohio, Trump won by 8 but is now up by only 3.
In Texas, Trump won by 9 and is now up by 6 while in North Carolina Trump won by four and now leads by three.
In Florida Trump won by one last time and now trails by six so we can deduce there's a 2.5-3% swing away from Trump out there.
Better news from California where Trump lost by 30 and is still only 30 behind Biden so he's doing all right.
Biden must be odds on to win the popular vote. The biased Electoral College is another matter.
Market certainly agrees, 67% chance Biden wins the vote but just over 40% he's next President. I must admit, a 25% chance of a vote/EC split seems a bit high to me (albeit not massively). I wonder if the prospect of Trump winning the vote too is underrated. Even with the midwest and so on giving a GOP EC advantage there's a fairly small target zone for a split taking place. Remember Clinton won the vote by 2.1% and she was very close in enough swing states to win the EC. 2.5% was probably the limit before she'd have been near certain to win the EC, I'm not convinced Biden has a limit any higher. If anything he may be a bit better in the Midwest so the vote/EC split may stop at lower.
If the election were in the next month I think Biden would win the PV and EC but there is a long way to go before November. The economy will hardly have recovered at all by November but Trump is still polling ahead of Biden on the economy and probably will continue to do so right through to polling day. I don't think Trump will get much of the blame for the economy tanking. Even in the middle of this crisis he really isn't too far behind in those states he needs to take.
This year will hinge on whether the pandemic and the fear of a second wave trumps (no pun intended) the conventional wisdom that economic issues determine the outcome. If I were a Trump strategist I would be beginning to get worried about the male/female voting splits. He is losing very heavily amongst women right now and I think that is down to his poor response to Covid-19. If that is still a big issue in November I don't believe a lot of those female voters are going to switch back.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Election on BBC1 a great satire film with Tracy Flick often compared to Hillary Clinton
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Coupling was an underrated but great show from then too, at least the first couple of seasons.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Election on BBC1 a great satire film with Tracy Flick often compared to Hillary Clinton
I'm pretty sure Tracy Flick was modelled on Ms Clinton,
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Coupling was an underrated but great show from then too, at least the first couple of seasons.
Never saw it but am aware it was highly rated. That adds to my list.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Election on BBC1 a great satire film with Tracy Flick often compared to Hillary Clinton
I'm pretty sure Tracy Flick was modelled on Ms Clinton,
Re the Priti thing, temporarily exempting foreign NHS staff from the payments - when many are working well beyond their contracted hours and in dangerous conditions - doesn't seem like an outrageous thing to do.
But then again, she likes to be seen to be tough on immigration. This is a way of allowing her to stake out that position in the Cabinet.
In New Jersey, Clinton beat Trump by 14 in 2016 but Biden leads by 23. In Ohio, Trump won by 8 but is now up by only 3.
In Texas, Trump won by 9 and is now up by 6 while in North Carolina Trump won by four and now leads by three.
In Florida Trump won by one last time and now trails by six so we can deduce there's a 2.5-3% swing away from Trump out there.
Better news from California where Trump lost by 30 and is still only 30 behind Biden so he's doing all right.
Biden must be odds on to win the popular vote. The biased Electoral College is another matter.
Market certainly agrees, 67% chance Biden wins the vote but just over 40% he's next President. I must admit, a 25% chance of a vote/EC split seems a bit high to me (albeit not massively). I wonder if the prospect of Trump winning the vote too is underrated. Even with the midwest and so on giving a GOP EC advantage there's a fairly small target zone for a split taking place. Remember Clinton won the vote by 2.1% and she was very close in enough swing states to win the EC. 2.5% was probably the limit before she'd have been near certain to win the EC, I'm not convinced Biden has a limit any higher. If anything he may be a bit better in the Midwest so the vote/EC split may stop at lower.
If the election were in the next month I think Biden would win the PV and EC but there is a long way to go before November. The economy will hardly have recovered at all by November but Trump is still polling ahead of Biden on the economy and probably will continue to do so right through to polling day. I don't think Trump will get much of the blame for the economy tanking. Even in the middle of this crisis he really isn't too far behind in those states he needs to take.
This year will hinge on whether the pandemic and the fear of a second wave trumps (no pun intended) the conventional wisdom that economic issues determine the outcome. If I were a Trump strategist I would be beginning to get worried about the male/female voting splits. He is losing very heavily amongst women right now and I think that is down to his poor response to Covid-19. If that is still a big issue in November I don't believe a lot of those female voters are going to switch back.
I think I would like to bet on the extremes: either Biden runs away with it, grabbing a 5+ point lead in votes and winning a clear majority of the Electoral College.
Or... Trump turns it around and wins both the PV and the EC.
It would be entertaining (and far from impossible) for Trump to win the PV but lose the EC. However, it might also lead to civil war in the US, so maybe I shouldn't hope for that...
Re the Priti thing, temporarily exempting foreign NHS staff from the payments - when many are working well beyond their contracted hours and in dangerous conditions - doesn't seem like an outrageous thing to do.
But then again, she likes to be seen to be tough on immigration. This is a way of allowing her to stake out that position in the Cabinet.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Election on BBC1 a great satire film with Tracy Flick often compared to Hillary Clinton
I'm pretty sure Tracy Flick was modelled on Ms Clinton,
In New Jersey, Clinton beat Trump by 14 in 2016 but Biden leads by 23. In Ohio, Trump won by 8 but is now up by only 3.
In Texas, Trump won by 9 and is now up by 6 while in North Carolina Trump won by four and now leads by three.
In Florida Trump won by one last time and now trails by six so we can deduce there's a 2.5-3% swing away from Trump out there.
Better news from California where Trump lost by 30 and is still only 30 behind Biden so he's doing all right.
Biden must be odds on to win the popular vote. The biased Electoral College is another matter.
Market certainly agrees, 67% chance Biden wins the vote but just over 40% he's next President. I must admit, a 25% chance of a vote/EC split seems a bit high to me (albeit not massively). I wonder if the prospect of Trump winning the vote too is underrated. Even with the midwest and so on giving a GOP EC advantage there's a fairly small target zone for a split taking place. Remember Clinton won the vote by 2.1% and she was very close in enough swing states to win the EC. 2.5% was probably the limit before she'd have been near certain to win the EC, I'm not convinced Biden has a limit any higher. If anything he may be a bit better in the Midwest so the vote/EC split may stop at lower.
If the election were in the next month I think Biden would win the PV and EC but there is a long way to go before November. The economy will hardly have recovered at all by November but Trump is still polling ahead of Biden on the economy and probably will continue to do so right through to polling day. I don't think Trump will get much of the blame for the economy tanking. Even in the middle of this crisis he really isn't too far behind in those states he needs to take.
This year will hinge on whether the pandemic and the fear of a second wave trumps (no pun intended) the conventional wisdom that economic issues determine the outcome. If I were a Trump strategist I would be beginning to get worried about the male/female voting splits. He is losing very heavily amongst women right now and I think that is down to his poor response to Covid-19. If that is still a big issue in November I don't believe a lot of those female voters are going to switch back.
JC Penney with 90k.employees filed for bankruptcy today. There are 33m Americans already unemployed. There is a severe danger of a depression of unprecedented proportions. It is becoming increasingly inconceivable to see that many 're hiring any time soon. What this means for November is unknown, but this is a demand side shock like we've never seen.
The threat to Starmer’s – and to any successor’s – dreams of office comes from failing to win back Scotland. So long as Scots insist on returning regiments of nationalist MPs to Westminster, Starmer will be forced at the next election to explain whether he will contemplate coming to some sort of post-election arrangement whereby the SNP agree to maintain a minority Labour government in office. It’s not a question on which he can prevaricate: everyone watching the TV news will know that a simple yes or no answer is within his grasp. If the answer is no, how will he form a government? If it’s yes, what will he give the SNP in return?
If Labour reaches 40% in GB polls, there is a good prospect of polling 30% in Scotland - at which point many SNP seats would become vulnerable. Were Starmer to develop serious momentum and become seen as a likely PM in 2024, I expect there will be a significant impact in Scotland.
Maybe. OTOH the Sainted Jeremy got to 40% in 2017 and was rewarded with half-a-dozen barely held marginals, all of which he lost again two years down the line.
Besides, when the SNP went a bit backwards the Tories made more gains than Labour did, so the performance was worse than useless from Labour's POV.
In 2017, Labour's surge in Scotland seemed to happen very late and appeared to take almost everybody by surprise. Even I only suggested the possibility of 4 or 5 seats rather than the 7 Labour ended up with.I also suspect that many pro-Union Labour voters misdirected themselves by voting Tory and effectively denied Labour a few seats which otherwise would have been won. However, if Starmer is perceived to be a serious challenger over an extended period long before the election, I would anticipate a psychological impact to Labour's benefit. Labour could reasonably aim for 20 seats there next time.
Weren't your last set of Scotland predicitions an absolute load of old cock?
I made no such predictions for the 2019 election - but had suggested in 2017 that Labour might manage 4 or 5 seats. My prediction was ridiculed.
My apologies it must have been someone else who said
But the SNP have already lost a great deal of ground compared to 2015. I expect that trend to continue at Westminster elections.
Well the SNP in 2019 did remain well below the vote share achieved in 2015 - and indeed the number of seats won. It is certainly the case that in the last Parliament I did suggest that if the polls implied a close election - in respect of which Labour appeared very competitive - further gains at SNP expense in Scotland were likely. Such a scenario,however, did not arise - and ,at no stage did I predict furher Labour gains there in the context of a commanding Tory victory across GB.
In New Jersey, Clinton beat Trump by 14 in 2016 but Biden leads by 23. In Ohio, Trump won by 8 but is now up by only 3.
In Texas, Trump won by 9 and is now up by 6 while in North Carolina Trump won by four and now leads by three.
In Florida Trump won by one last time and now trails by six so we can deduce there's a 2.5-3% swing away from Trump out there.
Better news from California where Trump lost by 30 and is still only 30 behind Biden so he's doing all right.
Biden must be odds on to win the popular vote. The biased Electoral College is another matter.
Market certainly agrees, 67% chance Biden wins the vote but just over 40% he's next President. I must admit, a 25% chance of a vote/EC split seems a bit high to me (albeit not massively). I wonder if the prospect of Trump winning the vote too is underrated. Even with the midwest and so on giving a GOP EC advantage there's a fairly small target zone for a split taking place. Remember Clinton won the vote by 2.1% and she was very close in enough swing states to win the EC. 2.5% was probably the limit before she'd have been near certain to win the EC, I'm not convinced Biden has a limit any higher. If anything he may be a bit better in the Midwest so the vote/EC split may stop at lower.
If the election were in the next month I think Biden would win the PV and EC but there is a long way to go before November. The economy will hardly have recovered at all by November but Trump is still polling ahead of Biden on the economy and probably will continue to do so right through to polling day. I don't think Trump will get much of the blame for the economy tanking. Even in the middle of this crisis he really isn't too far behind in those states he needs to take.
This year will hinge on whether the pandemic and the fear of a second wave trumps (no pun intended) the conventional wisdom that economic issues determine the outcome. If I were a Trump strategist I would be beginning to get worried about the male/female voting splits. He is losing very heavily amongst women right now and I think that is down to his poor response to Covid-19. If that is still a big issue in November I don't believe a lot of those female voters are going to switch back.
JC Penney with 90k.employees filed for bankruptcy today. There are 33m Americans already unemployed. There is a severe danger of a depression of unprecedented proportions. It is becoming increasingly inconceivable to see that many 're hiring any time soon. What this means for November is unknown, but this is a demand side shock like we've never seen.
And some here worry about the cost of our furlough scheme.
These are the scenes we'd be getting if it wasn't for the furlough scheme. Yes some furloughed aren't coming back, but there's tens of millions not coming back in the USA.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
Off topic. Am watching Black Books on C4. Am thinking the period 1998-2002 was a golden age of British sitcom. League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
The threat to Starmer’s – and to any successor’s – dreams of office comes from failing to win back Scotland. So long as Scots insist on returning regiments of nationalist MPs to Westminster, Starmer will be forced at the next election to explain whether he will contemplate coming to some sort of post-election arrangement whereby the SNP agree to maintain a minority Labour government in office. It’s not a question on which he can prevaricate: everyone watching the TV news will know that a simple yes or no answer is within his grasp. If the answer is no, how will he form a government? If it’s yes, what will he give the SNP in return?
If Labour reaches 40% in GB polls, there is a good prospect of polling 30% in Scotland - at which point many SNP seats would become vulnerable. Were Starmer to develop serious momentum and become seen as a likely PM in 2024, I expect there will be a significant impact in Scotland.
Maybe. OTOH the Sainted Jeremy got to 40% in 2017 and was rewarded with half-a-dozen barely held marginals, all of which he lost again two years down the line.
Besides, when the SNP went a bit backwards the Tories made more gains than Labour did, so the performance was worse than useless from Labour's POV.
In 2017, Labour's surge in Scotland seemed to happen very late and appeared to take almost everybody by surprise. Even I only suggested the possibility of 4 or 5 seats rather than the 7 Labour ended up with.I also suspect that many pro-Union Labour voters misdirected themselves by voting Tory and effectively denied Labour a few seats which otherwise would have been won. However, if Starmer is perceived to be a serious challenger over an extended period long before the election, I would anticipate a psychological impact to Labour's benefit. Labour could reasonably aim for 20 seats there next time.
Weren't your last set of Scotland predicitions an absolute load of old cock?
Bishop's Stortford is in Hertfordshire, of course - though if you go back far enough I believe that we used to be part of the Kingdom of Essex. As was the City of London.
Really? I though a London was always Mercian not East Anglian ?
Several kingdoms played pass the parcel with London during the Anglo-Saxon period. Broadly speaking, it started in Essex, then got nicked by the Mercians, and finally - after some nastiness with the Danes - it ended up in Wessex.
Essex itself was eventually overrun and passed back and forth between the Danes and Wessex a couple of times.
To be pedantic...
Wasn’t that Lundwic not London?
I’d date London from Alfred’s relocation of the town inside the walls of Londinium. Admittedly it was Wessex briefly but he then gave it to Aethlworth of Mercia (? I always get my Aethel’s muddled up) as a wedding present
I see there's some hilarity on my comment of earlier.
In the EU's words: the UK is too big and too close to have a deal like Canada's. In other words, they are worried about what we'd do with our powers to undercut their markets (an unlevel playing field).
If we don't do a deal, and do start to undercut it and do rather well, then they've (a) lost any cliff-edge leverage and (b) will want better access to that successful market which, remember, still represents 20% of Europe's economy. That's a big and meaningful chunk.
So we will get to a fair deal in the end but will have to go through a few years of WTO first to get there.
This isn't a controversial point.
It isn't a controversial point. But it's also why the LPF is the EU's absolute red line for any deal. We may go through WTO first and we will likely get to a deal eventually but it is very likely to include LPF conditions,
I think the UK might eventually even accept some LPF conditions.
But, not these conditions. Not now. And it would need to involve a level of UK-European co-governance.
The key LPF conditions for the EU, I think are State Aid and Taxation (exemptions more than rates), because these are the easiest to game. The environment and social standards probably could pass on an equivalence basis. So it's up to the UK to find a way it can live with state aid and taxation rules that are the same as the EU and applied in the same way and make the case for it to the EU. Otherwise all deals are off indefinitely, I think.
Its like France, beautiful country shame its full of French people (i am joking).
I am glad you owned up to a rather crude and offensive joke. It's not that beautiful.
You are either a complete crank or you have barely visited France.
Actually, don’t bother responding. I already know which it is!
I lived in Nice for three months.
I hope you liked the old town - and also took the opportunity to visit the plethora of other gems that contribute to its being the world’s most popular country for visitors.
Too much dog shit in Nice.
Still better than the human shit in Monoco
Haha - remember the dogshit well. It was almost religious the way the residents insisted their little rat dogs decorated the pavement.
But there are of course some delightful aspects. I preferred Antibes and the surrounding area to Nice itself. There is a cute adjoining town Cagnes Sur Mer, which was nice.
I much prefer Antibes. Cagnes is nice & I liked St Juan for drinks. But Eze is my favourite
Waste in covid-19 research https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1847 .... An extraordinary number of covid-19 trials have been registered since the pandemic started. The National Library of Medicine registry ClinicalTrials.gov lists 1087 covid-19 studies, and though some will provide useful information, many are too small and poorly designed to be helpful, merely adding to the covid-19 noise. Of the 145 registered trials of hydroxychloroquine, for example, 32 have a planned sample size of ≤100, 10 have no control group, and 12 are comparative but non-randomised. Outcome measures vary widely, and only 50 seem to be multicentre. Strikingly, only one provides a protocol, and even limited registry details reveal unjustified outcome switching.
The imbalance in trial topics is worrying, in particular the paucity of trials on non-drug interventions. Despite non-drug interventions being the mainstay of current mitigation, we could find just two trials of masks on ClinicalTrials.gov and none examining social distancing, quarantine effect or adherence, hand hygiene, or other non-drug interventions. Covid-19 research funding mirrors this woeful imbalance. A search of Covid-19 Research Project Tracker, a live database of funded covid-19 projects, found almost no primary research of the effects of non-drug interventions on transmissibility, compared with hundreds of drug intervention projects worth at least $74m (£60m; €67m)....
I thought clinicsltrials.gov was only pharmacological? I wouldn’t expect to find masks, hand washing, social distancing etc on there?
Its like France, beautiful country shame its full of French people (i am joking).
I am glad you owned up to a rather crude and offensive joke. It's not that beautiful.
You are either a complete crank or you have barely visited France.
Actually, don’t bother responding. I already know which it is!
I lived in Nice for three months.
I hope you liked the old town - and also took the opportunity to visit the plethora of other gems that contribute to its being the world’s most popular country for visitors.
Too much dog shit in Nice.
Still better than the human shit in Monoco
Haha - remember the dogshit well. It was almost religious the way the residents insisted their little rat dogs decorated the pavement.
But there are of course some delightful aspects. I preferred Antibes and the surrounding area to Nice itself. There is a cute adjoining town Cagnes Sur Mer, which was nice.
I much prefer Antibes. Cagnes is nice & I liked St Juan for drinks. But Eze is my favourite
In New Jersey, Clinton beat Trump by 14 in 2016 but Biden leads by 23. In Ohio, Trump won by 8 but is now up by only 3.
In Texas, Trump won by 9 and is now up by 6 while in North Carolina Trump won by four and now leads by three.
In Florida Trump won by one last time and now trails by six so we can deduce there's a 2.5-3% swing away from Trump out there.
Better news from California where Trump lost by 30 and is still only 30 behind Biden so he's doing all right.
Biden must be odds on to win the popular vote. The biased Electoral College is another matter.
Market certainly agrees, 67% chance Biden wins the vote but just over 40% he's next President. I must admit, a 25% chance of a vote/EC split seems a bit high to me (albeit not massively). I wonder if the prospect of Trump winning the vote too is underrated. Even with the midwest and so on giving a GOP EC advantage there's a fairly small target zone for a split taking place. Remember Clinton won the vote by 2.1% and she was very close in enough swing states to win the EC. 2.5% was probably the limit before she'd have been near certain to win the EC, I'm not convinced Biden has a limit any higher. If anything he may be a bit better in the Midwest so the vote/EC split may stop at lower.
If the election were in the next month I think Biden would win the PV and EC but there is a long way to go before November. The economy will hardly have recovered at all by November but Trump is still polling ahead of Biden on the economy and probably will continue to do so right through to polling day. I don't think Trump will get much of the blame for the economy tanking. Even in the middle of this crisis he really isn't too far behind in those states he needs to take.
This year will hinge on whether the pandemic and the fear of a second wave trumps (no pun intended) the conventional wisdom that economic issues determine the outcome. If I were a Trump strategist I would be beginning to get worried about the male/female voting splits. He is losing very heavily amongst women right now and I think that is down to his poor response to Covid-19. If that is still a big issue in November I don't believe a lot of those female voters are going to switch back.
JC Penney with 90k.employees filed for bankruptcy today. There are 33m Americans already unemployed. There is a severe danger of a depression of unprecedented proportions. It is becoming increasingly inconceivable to see that many 're hiring any time soon. What this means for November is unknown, but this is a demand side shock like we've never seen.
Chapter 11 isn’t quite the same as “administration” over here. There’s usually a viable business at the end of it
Its like France, beautiful country shame its full of French people (i am joking).
I am glad you owned up to a rather crude and offensive joke. It's not that beautiful.
You are either a complete crank or you have barely visited France.
Actually, don’t bother responding. I already know which it is!
I lived in Nice for three months.
I hope you liked the old town - and also took the opportunity to visit the plethora of other gems that contribute to its being the world’s most popular country for visitors.
Too much dog shit in Nice.
Still better than the human shit in Monoco
Haha - remember the dogshit well. It was almost religious the way the residents insisted their little rat dogs decorated the pavement.
But there are of course some delightful aspects. I preferred Antibes and the surrounding area to Nice itself. There is a cute adjoining town Cagnes Sur Mer, which was nice.
I much prefer Antibes. Cagnes is nice & I liked St Juan for drinks. But Eze is my favourite
I got married in Eze.
Good choice.
We honeymooned on the Cap d’Antibes
The Chèvre d’or in Eze is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to
Its like France, beautiful country shame its full of French people (i am joking).
I am glad you owned up to a rather crude and offensive joke. It's not that beautiful.
You are either a complete crank or you have barely visited France.
Actually, don’t bother responding. I already know which it is!
I lived in Nice for three months.
I hope you liked the old town - and also took the opportunity to visit the plethora of other gems that contribute to its being the world’s most popular country for visitors.
Too much dog shit in Nice.
Still better than the human shit in Monoco
Haha - remember the dogshit well. It was almost religious the way the residents insisted their little rat dogs decorated the pavement.
But there are of course some delightful aspects. I preferred Antibes and the surrounding area to Nice itself. There is a cute adjoining town Cagnes Sur Mer, which was nice.
I much prefer Antibes. Cagnes is nice & I liked St Juan for drinks. But Eze is my favourite
I got married in Eze.
Good choice.
We honeymooned on the Cap d’Antibes
The Chèvre d’or in Eze is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to
That's where got married, although our reception was down by the sea at the Rothschild Etruscan Villa
Its like France, beautiful country shame its full of French people (i am joking).
I am glad you owned up to a rather crude and offensive joke. It's not that beautiful.
You are either a complete crank or you have barely visited France.
Actually, don’t bother responding. I already know which it is!
I lived in Nice for three months.
I hope you liked the old town - and also took the opportunity to visit the plethora of other gems that contribute to its being the world’s most popular country for visitors.
Too much dog shit in Nice.
Still better than the human shit in Monoco
Haha - remember the dogshit well. It was almost religious the way the residents insisted their little rat dogs decorated the pavement.
But there are of course some delightful aspects. I preferred Antibes and the surrounding area to Nice itself. There is a cute adjoining town Cagnes Sur Mer, which was nice.
I much prefer Antibes. Cagnes is nice & I liked St Juan for drinks. But Eze is my favourite
I got married in Eze.
That must have been glorious - it's so beautiful there.
Comments
Cue massive social unrest.
Yet, every week of every year thanks to brute bad luck people become disabled and have to give up work or become carers and expected to live on £70-100 a week.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1847
.... An extraordinary number of covid-19 trials have been registered since the pandemic started. The National Library of Medicine registry ClinicalTrials.gov lists 1087 covid-19 studies, and though some will provide useful information, many are too small and poorly designed to be helpful, merely adding to the covid-19 noise. Of the 145 registered trials of hydroxychloroquine, for example, 32 have a planned sample size of ≤100, 10 have no control group, and 12 are comparative but non-randomised. Outcome measures vary widely, and only 50 seem to be multicentre. Strikingly, only one provides a protocol, and even limited registry details reveal unjustified outcome switching.
The imbalance in trial topics is worrying, in particular the paucity of trials on non-drug interventions. Despite non-drug interventions being the mainstay of current mitigation, we could find just two trials of masks on ClinicalTrials.gov and none examining social distancing, quarantine effect or adherence, hand hygiene, or other non-drug interventions. Covid-19 research funding mirrors this woeful imbalance. A search of Covid-19 Research Project Tracker, a live database of funded covid-19 projects, found almost no primary research of the effects of non-drug interventions on transmissibility, compared with hundreds of drug intervention projects worth at least $74m (£60m; €67m)....
Probably not the best time to head home to america.
Future PM.
To make a household analogy no matter how much you might love sport and movies you might have to say that you can't afford a Sky with Sports and Movies subscription for £60 per month as you can't afford it - but if the boiler goes you might have no choice but to pay a plumber £200 to repair it.
Of course in one month the £200 is much more than £60 so why one and not the other? But you're not going to have to pay the plumber £200 every single month.
It's a long story.
Welfare is permanent (the monthly subscription in my analogy)
One off options are more affordable than permanent ones.
Even the ugly bits can be surprisingly filmic ...
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1261343230144032770?s=20
It's an omen, I tell you.
Well, the entire population except for Piers Morgan, who will broadcast to a screen in each cell telling us how shit we all are.
That's why you can get more UC support up front when you join it too rather than waiting weeks (which was a bad mistake when first introduced).
Actually, it’s the interior of Essex that I rate most of all. It really is a pretty, rural East Anglian county, with lovely white clapboard houses and pubs and some gorgeous villages. Big skies in the summer, I remember from long bike rides.
The idea that people can go for years with little social interaction and no physical contact with one another is for the birds. I mean, there will be very disciplined exceptions, especially amongst introverts and the extremely frightened, but most of us can only carry on like this for so long - whether know-nothing TV presenters approve or not.
And the fact they felt it a matter of the utmost urgency to dramatically raise the level of UC at the drop of a hat lends credence to your view.
There's also the anomaly of Washington DC which has an active statehood movement, and been the odd attempt at partitioning existing states (eg splitting off bits of rural northern California of southern Oregon to form a State of Jefferson or splitting off Upper Michigan as a State of Superior"). On that basis it's not too hard to at least imagine an increase in the number of US states, but their growth rate has certainly stalled over the last century so a big increase would be surprising...
As an aside, in 1948 Newfoundland came close - just a few % in a referendum - to union with the USA rather than Canada (which it was administered separately from at the time)
Saw a similar one with an expert being interviewed who (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) when asked why they were confident that having been through the disease would give some sort of immunity replied that because if it wasn't you would die from the disease.
League of Gentlemen, Phoenix Nights, Spaced, The Office, Royle Family, Dinnerladies off the top of my head.
https://twitter.com/Rachael_Swindon/status/1261228129374351360
Be interesting to know if Cambridge model is wrong on R, how that affects their predictions on how many people have had it.
Cornwall: 1086 km.
Essex: 905 km.
Devon: 819 km.
But the SNP have already lost a great deal of ground compared to 2015. I expect that trend to continue at Westminster elections.
This year will hinge on whether the pandemic and the fear of a second wave trumps (no pun intended) the conventional wisdom that economic issues determine the outcome. If I were a Trump strategist I would be beginning to get worried about the male/female voting splits. He is losing very heavily amongst women right now and I think that is down to his poor response to Covid-19. If that is still a big issue in November I don't believe a lot of those female voters are going to switch back.
I am happy to withdraw my previous, erroneous remark.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lib-dem-general-election-campaign-report-jo-swinson-brexit-a9517721.html
But then again, she likes to be seen to be tough on immigration. This is a way of allowing her to stake out that position in the Cabinet.
Or... Trump turns it around and wins both the PV and the EC.
It would be entertaining (and far from impossible) for Trump to win the PV but lose the EC. However, it might also lead to civil war in the US, so maybe I shouldn't hope for that...
These are the scenes we'd be getting if it wasn't for the furlough scheme. Yes some furloughed aren't coming back, but there's tens of millions not coming back in the USA.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ManI1H9vA
Wasn’t that Lundwic not London?
I’d date London from Alfred’s relocation of the town inside the walls of Londinium. Admittedly it was Wessex briefly but he then gave it to Aethlworth of Mercia (? I always get my Aethel’s muddled up) as a wedding present
We honeymooned on the Cap d’Antibes
The Chèvre d’or in Eze is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to
Frankfurt to win at 1730 UK time is my pick. It will be interesting to see how the atmosphere is in an empty stadium.