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  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    Dura_Ace said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The media have turned a health crisis into a political crisis by seeking to undermine the government's strategy at every turn, exploiting every inconsistency, difficult edge case and personal infraction in a ceaseless competitive spiral to outdo their rivals and, in passing, get one back for Brexit. The government can only manage the pandemic with the full support of the population. The correct role of the media in the face of this national crisis was to reinforce the authorities' core message, not to chip away at it 24/7.
    Indeed. The media has undermined our fight against the coronavirus every single step of the way. Imagine how much easier it would be if the government didn't have to fight them and the virus at the same time?
    Fuck the government (of any shade). They are not owed the unquestioning supplicancy of the media or anyone else no matter what the circumstances.
    Well said - that's why the media was given absolute freedom to report whatever they liked in WW2. If thousands more soldiers, sailors, and airmen lost their lives as a result, well, I'm sure they'd have understood that letting the media weigh in with their sniping and slanted guff was of infinitely greater value than their lives...
    A lot is still unknown about the virus but the consensus of current researchers is that unlike the Nazis, covid19 can't read.
    For you, Dommy, ze var is over!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    No. The killer here is, as I infuriate the Richard III society by pointing out, is that the story is not concocted out of lies and half truths. Although there are lies and half truths at the margins, the fundamentals are as described and they are utterly damning.

    Richard III was not killed because of Tudor propaganda. He was killed because his own army refused to fight for a usurper, murderer and wannabe incestuous rapist. Nothing the Tudors said or did afterwards alters that.

    Similarly Cummings is not damned because of media exaggeration. He’s damned because he broke quarantine repeatedly, in order to suit his own convenience.

    Edit - with all his faults, Cummings is of course no Richard in personality or actions. But the parallel seems a good one.
    This is why the minutiae of the rules are unimportant. Any quarter-competent wargamer would be asking, before embarking on the road to Durham, not "What is this" but "How could this be made to look by hostile commentators?"

    "Marit ayin (Hebrew: מַרְאִית עַיִן 'appearance to the eye'; Ashkenazic transliteration: maris ayin), is a concept in halakha (Jewish law) which states that certain actions which might seem to observers to be in violation of Jewish law, but in reality are fully permissible, are themselves not allowed due to rabbinic enactments that were put in place to prevent onlookers from arriving at a false conclusion."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marit_ayin

    In other words you can't eat bacon sandwiches, and you also can't eat vegan sandwiches cleverly engineered to look exactly like bacon sandwiches. Putting it another way, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. Or a third way, "(iv) Propriety, and the appearance of propriety, are essential to the
    performance of all of the activities of the judge." https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/guide-to-judicial-conduct.pdf

    Things must not only be above board, they must also look above board.

    How hard to understand is this?
    Because then we're no longer living under the rule of law, but under the rule of 'whatever will the neighbours think?' Which is a pretty backward mode of life.
    It's not fair? Oh dear, how sad, never mind. The key is that whether fair or not, it was highly foreseeable. You sound like someone who neglects to lock up his house and gets burgled, and says when it's pointed out to him that he should take basic precautions says "but burglary is ILLEGAL!"
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    HYUFD said:

    Crikey just saw that Opinium poll. We are nearly at crossover. I thought it might take 3 months but this is pretty seismic.

    In a few short weeks the Conservatives have gone from 20% leads to almost neck-and-neck.

    Since GE19 though the Tories voteshare is down just 1%, almost all the movement is Remainers from LD to Labour
    On a GB basis - and Opinium gives us GB data - the Tory vote is down almost 2% and Labour up 6%.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    eadric said:



    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is

    And their failure to get their scalp is what makes this all the more hilarious. The definition of impotent rage.

  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,448

    I'm a wee bit confused. I've read on here that Cumgate is a stroke of tactical genius by the man himself, wrong footing opponents and distracting numpties from more serious and damaging stories. Otoh I've also read that it's a vile witch hunt got up by embittered Remoaners and libtards.

    The really confusing thing is that both these things have been said by the same posters.

    Some of the posters have multiple identities so it is only fair they be allowed multiple conflicting views. Others are just scrambling for any position that they can stick to without looking like a fool and are yet to find one so still trying.

    Its time to move on.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,602
    edited May 2020
    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    eadric said:

    The Blairite Remainer peer ‘organising’ this story is a fascinating twist. Yesterday I was half joking when I suggested Mandelson was probably the ultimate plotter. Now I’m not joking. Him and Blair maybe.

    The right sound more and more like the more extreme Corbynites.

    They were even claiming to win the argument over Cummings.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    Thanks.

    A key line is: "There are various possible explanations, but one that looks increasingly likely is that Germany has more immunological “dark matter” – people who are impervious to infection, perhaps because they are geographically isolated or have some kind of natural resistance. "

    This might be crucial in the future as we all argue why deaths in UK much higher than Germany.

    I'm not sure I understand by the "geographically isolated" bit mind. Germany is fairly populous isn't it?
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    A couple of observations regarding Rosie Duffield, which I have just found out about.

    She didn't really 'do the right thing' - she did the only thing possible given the stance taken by her party and its leader. If she hadn't resigned he would have sacked her - not a difficult choice to make then.

    In resigning from her front bench post, she has dented her income, but not lost her job. The equivalent to what is expected of Cummings is to quit the Commons and make a career elsewhere.

    No effect on her incom from resigning this post. Shadow spokesmen are not paid more than backbench MPs.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    No. The killer here is, as I infuriate the Richard III society by pointing out, is that the story is not concocted out of lies and half truths. Although there are lies and half truths at the margins, the fundamentals are as described and they are utterly damning.

    Richard III was not killed because of Tudor propaganda. He was killed because his own army refused to fight for a usurper, murderer and wannabe incestuous rapist. Nothing the Tudors said or did afterwards alters that.

    Similarly Cummings is not damned because of media exaggeration. He’s damned because he broke quarantine repeatedly, in order to suit his own convenience.

    Edit - with all his faults, Cummings is of course no Richard in personality or actions. But the parallel seems a good one.
    This is why the minutiae of the rules are unimportant. Any quarter-competent wargamer would be asking, before embarking on the road to Durham, not "What is this" but "How could this be made to look by hostile commentators?"

    "Marit ayin (Hebrew: מַרְאִית עַיִן 'appearance to the eye'; Ashkenazic transliteration: maris ayin), is a concept in halakha (Jewish law) which states that certain actions which might seem to observers to be in violation of Jewish law, but in reality are fully permissible, are themselves not allowed due to rabbinic enactments that were put in place to prevent onlookers from arriving at a false conclusion."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marit_ayin

    In other words you can't eat bacon sandwiches, and you also can't eat vegan sandwiches cleverly engineered to look exactly like bacon sandwiches. Putting it another way, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. Or a third way, "(iv) Propriety, and the appearance of propriety, are essential to the
    performance of all of the activities of the judge." https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/guide-to-judicial-conduct.pdf

    Things must not only be above board, they must also look above board.

    How hard to understand is this?
    Because then we're no longer living under the rule of law, but under the rule of 'whatever will the neighbours think?' Which is a pretty backward mode of life.
    In a democracy it is the rule of ‘what will the electorate think’. This is about who is retained as the government’s most influential adviser, not a court case.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,448

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    *looks at the front page of the Mail on Sunday*

    No, I can’t understand why one of the Mirror’s sources wishes to remain anonymous.
    It turns out the guy who made up the story about seeing Cummings later in Barnard Castle - as a ‘joke’ - carefully altered a running app to make it seem he was present when he wasn’t. That is to say: he fabricated evidence.

    Anyone who believes this story is just a random series of eye witnesses unearthed by the Guardian is an idiot.

    Nicely sidestepped. Another witness has been plastered over the front page of the Mail today for no apparent reason other than the Mail wishes to curry favour with the government. If I’d been a witness I too would be ticking the no-publicity box. I have no desire to become the quarry for the government’s pet hyenas.
    Ah, but of course: that way the supposed 'witnesses' get to remain anonymous while the witch-hunt resulting from their smears dominates the public discourse. Brilliant...
    Since Dominic Cummings has confirmed their account, why is their identity relevant?
    Because there is literally no other way of excusing Cummings?
    Apparently it’s an evil plot by which Remainers wickedly hypnotised Dominic Cummings into traversing the country repeatedly and then high-handedly refusing to accept that he’d done anything wrong.
    The key voices who made it the massive story it became were Hartley Brewer, Montgomery, Dale and Morgan, hardly the rebel alliance.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    edited May 2020
    justin124 said:

    A couple of observations regarding Rosie Duffield, which I have just found out about.

    She didn't really 'do the right thing' - she did the only thing possible given the stance taken by her party and its leader. If she hadn't resigned he would have sacked her - not a difficult choice to make then.

    In resigning from her front bench post, she has dented her income, but not lost her job. The equivalent to what is expected of Cummings is to quit the Commons and make a career elsewhere.

    No effect on her incom from resigning this post. Shadow spokesmen are not paid more than backbench MPs.
    Whips are, according to this:

    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7762/

    Click the link to download the report and it’s page 44.

    Around 19-20k per annum.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    *looks at the front page of the Mail on Sunday*

    No, I can’t understand why one of the Mirror’s sources wishes to remain anonymous.
    It turns out the guy who made up the story about seeing Cummings later in Barnard Castle - as a ‘joke’ - carefully altered a running app to make it seem he was present when he wasn’t. That is to say: he fabricated evidence.

    Anyone who believes this story is just a random series of eye witnesses unearthed by the Guardian is an idiot.

    Nicely sidestepped. Another witness has been plastered over the front page of the Mail today for no apparent reason other than the Mail wishes to curry favour with the government. If I’d been a witness I too would be ticking the no-publicity box. I have no desire to become the quarry for the government’s pet hyenas.
    Ah, but of course: that way the supposed 'witnesses' get to remain anonymous while the witch-hunt resulting from their smears dominates the public discourse. Brilliant...
    Since Dominic Cummings has confirmed their account, why is their identity relevant?
    Because there is literally no other way of excusing Cummings?
    Apparently it’s an evil plot by which Remainers wickedly hypnotised Dominic Cummings into traversing the country repeatedly and then high-handedly refusing to accept that he’d done anything wrong.
    The key voices who made it the massive story it became were Hartley Brewer, Montgomery, Dale and Morgan, hardly the rebel alliance.
    And Steve Baker. The first Tory MP to speak out against Cummings. A No Deal Brexiteer who thinks that Cummings is too soft a Brexiteer with too much influence on Johnson.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    nichomar said:
    A medical professional with centrist political views who did not want the UK to leave the European Union.

    Hen's teeth.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,602
    On topic. An actually interesting thing in the nonsense -

    Trump is talking about trying to take away the protection that the online platforms have (see " Section 230" - good explanation here https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/trump-executive-order-misreads-key-law-promoting-free-expression-online-and)

    What is interesting is that there is a similar attitude from the left - Biden doesn't like 230, apparently.

    What it does, is shield platforms from liability for publishing other peoples stuff. For example, in the US, OGH has quite a lot of protection from the consequences of me posting this comment.

    Trump is arguing that because Twitter et al are doing *anything* editorial, then they are not covered under 230.

    Some on the left want to make Facebook, Twitter etc legally responsible for *all* content they publish.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    The reports in today’s Times tell us what we already knew: that the government is run by Cummings and that Boris is no longer mentally or psychologically up to the job. If he ever was.

    If Raab did punch Cummings, he goes up in my estimation, and actually I do rate him as Foreign Secretary. I still don’t understand how the author of “Assault on Liberty” ended up advocating the prorogation of Parliament, though.

    If true , will Cummings pursue charges against him?
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    A couple of observations regarding Rosie Duffield, which I have just found out about.

    She didn't really 'do the right thing' - she did the only thing possible given the stance taken by her party and its leader. If she hadn't resigned he would have sacked her - not a difficult choice to make then.

    In resigning from her front bench post, she has dented her income, but not lost her job. The equivalent to what is expected of Cummings is to quit the Commons and make a career elsewhere.

    No effect on her incom from resigning this post. Shadow spokesmen are not paid more than backbench MPs.
    Whips are, according to this:

    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7762/

    Click the link to download the report and it’s page 44.

    Around 19-20k per annum.
    I understood that the Opposition Chief Whip received additional salary but unaware that applied to Junior Whips.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited May 2020
    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.
    Time to move on?
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    edited May 2020
    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841

    I'm a wee bit confused. I've read on here that Cumgate is a stroke of tactical genius by the man himself, wrong footing opponents and distracting numpties from more serious and damaging stories. Otoh I've also read that it's a vile witch hunt got up by embittered Remoaners and libtards.

    The really confusing thing is that both these things have been said by the same posters.

    Some of the posters have multiple identities so it is only fair they be allowed multiple conflicting views. Others are just scrambling for any position that they can stick to without looking like a fool and are yet to find one so still trying.

    Its time to move on.
    We don't have single posters with multiple extant identities on here, do we.

    As opposed to people who drop one ID and come back with another, I mean. I know there is plenty of that.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,448
    Barnesian said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    *looks at the front page of the Mail on Sunday*

    No, I can’t understand why one of the Mirror’s sources wishes to remain anonymous.
    It turns out the guy who made up the story about seeing Cummings later in Barnard Castle - as a ‘joke’ - carefully altered a running app to make it seem he was present when he wasn’t. That is to say: he fabricated evidence.

    Anyone who believes this story is just a random series of eye witnesses unearthed by the Guardian is an idiot.

    Nicely sidestepped. Another witness has been plastered over the front page of the Mail today for no apparent reason other than the Mail wishes to curry favour with the government. If I’d been a witness I too would be ticking the no-publicity box. I have no desire to become the quarry for the government’s pet hyenas.
    Ah, but of course: that way the supposed 'witnesses' get to remain anonymous while the witch-hunt resulting from their smears dominates the public discourse. Brilliant...
    Since Dominic Cummings has confirmed their account, why is their identity relevant?
    Because there is literally no other way of excusing Cummings?
    Apparently it’s an evil plot by which Remainers wickedly hypnotised Dominic Cummings into traversing the country repeatedly and then high-handedly refusing to accept that he’d done anything wrong.
    The key voices who made it the massive story it became were Hartley Brewer, Montgomery, Dale and Morgan, hardly the rebel alliance.
    And Steve Baker. The first Tory MP to speak out against Cummings. A No Deal Brexiteer who thinks that Cummings is too soft a Brexiteer with too much influence on Johnson.
    I think he had less influence on the media, but yes absolutely, the critical Tory MPs didnt come from remain/leave, centre right/right but from across the party.

    There is a section of Tory voting Britain that very much values follow the rules, honesty and honour. For them Cummings actions will be a bigger issue than many remainers.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    Yes, essentially. (FWIW, I am not a medic or scientists, either.)

    The immunity without antibodies idea is perfectly possible, but AFAIK there is little solid evidence for the extent of this.

    This paper is sparking considerable discussion:

    Different pattern of pre-existing SARS-COV-2 specific T cell immunity in SARS-recovered and uninfected individuals
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832v1
    Memory T cells induced by previous infections can influence the course of new viral infections. Little is known about the pattern of SARS-CoV-2 specific pre-existing memory T cells in human. Here, we first studied T cell responses to structural (nucleocapsid protein, NP) and non-structural (NSP-7 and NSP13 of ORF1) regions of SARS-CoV-2 in convalescent from COVID-19 (n=24). In all of them we demonstrated the presence of CD4 and CD8 T cells recognizing multiple regions of the NP protein. We then show that SARS-recovered patients (n=23), 17 years after the 2003 outbreak, still possess long-lasting memory T cells reactive to SARS-NP, which displayed robust cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 NP. Surprisingly, we observed a differential pattern of SARS-CoV-2 specific T cell immunodominance in individuals with no history of SARS, COVID-19 or contact with SARS/COVID-19 patients (n=18). Half of them (9/18) possess T cells targeting the ORF-1 coded proteins NSP7 and 13, which were rarely detected in COVID-19- and SARS-recovered patients. Epitope characterization of NSP7-specific T cells showed recognition of protein fragments with low homology to “common cold” human coronaviruses but conserved among animal betacoranaviruses.

    Thus, infection with betacoronaviruses induces strong and long-lasting T cell immunity to the structural protein NP. Understanding how pre-existing ORF-1-specific T cells present in the general population impact susceptibility and pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is of paramount importance for the management of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,448
    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.nson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    *looks at the front page of the Mail on Sunday*

    No, I can’t understand why one of the Mirror’s sources wishes to remain anonymous.
    It turns out the guy who made up the story about seeing Cummings later in Barnard Castle - as a ‘joke’ - carefully altered a running app to make it seem he was present when he wasn’t. That is to say: he fabricated evidence.

    Anyone who believes this story is just a random series of eye witnesses unearthed by the Guardian is an idiot.

    Nicely sidestepped. Another witness has been plastered over the front page of the Mail today for no apparent reason other than the Mail wishes to curry favour with the government. If I’d been a witness I too would be ticking the no-publicity box. I have no desire to become the quarry for the government’s pet hyenas.
    Ah, but of course: that way the supposed 'witnesses' get to remain anonymous while the witch-hunt resulting from their smears dominates the public discourse. Brilliant...
    Since Dominic Cummings has confirmed their account, why is their identity relevant?
    Because there is literally no other way of excusing Cummings?
    Apparently it’s an evil plot by which Remainers wickedly hypnotised Dominic Cummings into traversing the country repeatedly and then high-handedly refusing to accept that he’d done anything wrong.
    The key voices who made it the massive story it became were Hartley Brewer, Montgomery, Dale and Morgan, hardly the rebel alliance.
    Because the story was expertly packaged and sold to them, with exquisite timing, complete with the Guardian’s trademark Big Fat Early Lie (he went twice!!)

    Come on. This is PB. We are capable of understanding these two things can BOTH be true:

    1. Cummings is an arrogant political brawler who thinks he is rather above the rules, and acted like that.

    2. This has been seized on by some clever enemies in London who have used it to try and topple him, hurt the PM, and get a different policy outcome
    What evidence can you possibly have that Hartley Brewer, Montgomery and Dale can be sold and amplify a packaged false story? Can you even name a single major foreign policy/trade decision that they have done this on?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited May 2020
    Chris said:

    Not only that, but if you look at the comments Cummings is quoted as saying that his sister lived in a separate house on the property, and the author of the article has found no trace of the existence of such a house.

    Presumably Cummings said that to make it appear that the offer of childcare wouldn't have involved the child moving into the house where his parents lived.
    1 - At a cursory inspection of the docs they uploaded, Cummings only appears to own only a quarter of it despite their previous headline. So "spare cottage on parents' farm" looks accurate.
    2 - Looks rather like either a Class Q Permitted Development conversion, when no PP would be required, or an annexe ancillary to the main dwelling.
    3 - Council tax is entirely a matter for the Council.
    4 - The guy is a contributor to Evolve Politics. Reliable? Suspect he's followed a rabbithole up his own fundament.

    Presumably this could appear as a "fact" in the Independent some time soon, followed by "it has been reported"! in the G or the M sometime soon after.

    Next...
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.

    I think there are many people with a big vested interest in this not emerging as truth, because of the implications.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    You forgot to insert ‘while wearing kimonos’ after ‘like to bludgeon foxes.’
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841

    I'm a wee bit confused. I've read on here that Cumgate is a stroke of tactical genius by the man himself, wrong footing opponents and distracting numpties from more serious and damaging stories. Otoh I've also read that it's a vile witch hunt got up by embittered Remoaners and libtards.

    The really confusing thing is that both these things have been said by the same posters.

    You've missed one.

    Dom did it on purpose - including the pisstake "eye test" - so as to "trigger" the media to overplay their hand, fail to topple him, and thus leave him now impregnable.

    My favourite, this one.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Very good SCon and SLab figures in that Opinium, but I cannot recall a poll which has ever returned zero Scottish Liberal Democrat voters.

    Tories up to 30% in Scotland, which would be their highest voteshare there since 1979. SNP back under 50%

    Looks like anything Ruth can do Jackson can do even better
    Huh?

    That Opinium gives seat distribution of:

    SNP 52 seats (+4)
    SCon 6 seats (nc)
    SLab 1 seat (nc)
    SLD 0 seats (-4)

    ... which is about half what Ruth Davidson managed.
    Ruth Davidson never got the Tories to 30% and the figures would actually see the Tories up to 7 MPs in Scotland and regaining Gordon from the SNP.

    If repeated next year it would see a Unionist majority at Holyrood
    So, the Conservatives are going to provide confidence and supply to FM Leonard? That’s available at the astonishingly good price of 20/1. How much cash have you invested HY?
    No, Sturgeon would stay FM just with a Unionist majority blocking indyref2, as was the case with FM Salmond from 2007 to 2011.

    Of course though on this poll Carlaw would have more MPs and likely MSPs than Leonard too
    So, you are going to use your “Unionist majority” to install a pro-Scotland FM. What is the point in voting Unionist when you have no intention of governing?
    We do if we win most seats, if not then preserving the Union is the priority
    But you just said that you would get a Unionist majority, which by definition means most seats. Why them would you Unionists not use your majority to form a government?
    Unionist is not a party. Labour and Tory are not interchangeable.
    It was HY who claimed we are heading for a “Unionist majority” next year. But if, as you say, Labour and Tory cannot work together, then the concept of “Unionist majority” is pretty meaningless.

    HY loves to add together SLab+SCon+SLD+BrexitP+UKIP+OrangeLodge+BNP+otherbampots

    ... but funnily enough, he always forgets to add Scottish Greens to the Yes side of the equation.
    I accept there is a Nationalist majority now at Holyrood of SNP and Greens.


    However if SCon and SLab and SLDs have a majority combined next year there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood for the first time since 2011.

    A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2.

    I am English, Scottish domestic policy does not interest me and it does not bother me if Sturgeon is First Minister.

    However I am also British and a Unionist and keeping Scotland in the UK and avoiding a Nationalist majority at Holyrood is important to me
    So, you have no interest in Scottish society, culture or national well-being. Therefore, one suspects that your strong desire to keep Scotland in the Union, against the will of the Scottish people, is more to do with your interest in English society, culture and national well-being.

    “A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2” and a Unionist minority is there solely to block indyref2.

    With Tories it is always Heads England Wins, Tails Scotland Loses.
    The will of 55% of Scottish voters in 2014 in a 'once in a generation' referendum was to stay in the UK
    England voting for Brexit was a betrayal of all Better Together’s promises. You won on a false case.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,448
    edited May 2020
    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    For some Brexit is not about leaving the EU, it is about being antagonistic to fellow Brits, simple as that. Rude and ignorant if you ask me.

    To be clear that applies only to those people looking to be antagonistic to their neighbours, not all or most Brexiteers at all.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    A couple of observations regarding Rosie Duffield, which I have just found out about.

    She didn't really 'do the right thing' - she did the only thing possible given the stance taken by her party and its leader. If she hadn't resigned he would have sacked her - not a difficult choice to make then.

    In resigning from her front bench post, she has dented her income, but not lost her job. The equivalent to what is expected of Cummings is to quit the Commons and make a career elsewhere.

    No effect on her incom from resigning this post. Shadow spokesmen are not paid more than backbench MPs.
    Whips are, according to this:

    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7762/

    Click the link to download the report and it’s page 44.

    Around 19-20k per annum.
    I understood that the Opposition Chief Whip received additional salary but unaware that applied to Junior Whips.
    Select Committee chairs get a few grand extra as well, apparently. (I didn’t know that until this morning.)

    Logical, when you consider both that their role is extremely important and it rules them out of government office at least for a time. But not widely publicised.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.nson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    *looks at the front page of the Mail on Sunday*

    No, I can’t understand why one of the Mirror’s sources wishes to remain anonymous.
    It turns out the guy who made up the story about seeing Cummings later in Barnard Castle - as a ‘joke’ - carefully altered a running app to make it seem he was present when he wasn’t. That is to say: he fabricated evidence.

    Anyone who believes this story is just a random series of eye witnesses unearthed by the Guardian is an idiot.

    Nicely sidestepped. Another witness has been plastered over the front page of the Mail today for no apparent reason other than the Mail wishes to curry favour with the government. If I’d been a witness I too would be ticking the no-publicity box. I have no desire to become the quarry for the government’s pet hyenas.
    Ah, but of course: that way the supposed 'witnesses' get to remain anonymous while the witch-hunt resulting from their smears dominates the public discourse. Brilliant...
    Since Dominic Cummings has confirmed their account, why is their identity relevant?
    Because there is literally no other way of excusing Cummings?
    Apparently it’s an evil plot by which Remainers wickedly hypnotised Dominic Cummings into traversing the country repeatedly and then high-handedly refusing to accept that he’d done anything wrong.
    The key voices who made it the massive story it became were Hartley Brewer, Montgomery, Dale and Morgan, hardly the rebel alliance.
    Because the story was expertly packaged and sold to them, with exquisite timing, complete with the Guardian’s trademark Big Fat Early Lie (he went twice!!)

    Come on. This is PB. We are capable of understanding these two things can BOTH be true:

    1. Cummings is an arrogant political brawler who thinks he is rather above the rules, and acted like that.

    2. This has been seized on by some clever enemies in London who have used it to try and topple him, hurt the PM, and get a different policy outcome
    What evidence can you possibly have that Hartley Brewer, Montgomery and Dale can be sold and amplify a packaged false story? Can you even name a single major foreign policy/trade decision that they have done this on?
    Jesus Christ. The enemies aren’t Dale and Morgan

    I give up. The stupid is strong on the site. I am off to work and take the sun
    There is such an easy burn I could make there.

    But I’m feeling nice so I won’t.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Very good SCon and SLab figures in that Opinium, but I cannot recall a poll which has ever returned zero Scottish Liberal Democrat voters.

    Tories up to 30% in Scotland, which would be their highest voteshare there since 1979. SNP back under 50%

    Looks like anything Ruth can do Jackson can do even better
    Huh?

    That Opinium gives seat distribution of:

    SNP 52 seats (+4)
    SCon 6 seats (nc)
    SLab 1 seat (nc)
    SLD 0 seats (-4)

    ... which is about half what Ruth Davidson managed.
    Ruth Davidson never got the Tories to 30% and the figures would actually see the Tories up to 7 MPs in Scotland and regaining Gordon from the SNP.

    If repeated next year it would see a Unionist majority at Holyrood
    So, the Conservatives are going to provide confidence and supply to FM Leonard? That’s available at the astonishingly good price of 20/1. How much cash have you invested HY?
    No, Sturgeon would stay FM just with a Unionist majority blocking indyref2, as was the case with FM Salmond from 2007 to 2011.

    Of course though on this poll Carlaw would have more MPs and likely MSPs than Leonard too
    So, you are going to use your “Unionist majority” to install a pro-Scotland FM. What is the point in voting Unionist when you have no intention of governing?
    We do if we win most seats, if not then preserving the Union is the priority
    But you just said that you would get a Unionist majority, which by definition means most seats. Why them would you Unionists not use your majority to form a government?
    Unionist is not a party. Labour and Tory are not interchangeable.
    It was HY who claimed we are heading for a “Unionist majority” next year. But if, as you say, Labour and Tory cannot work together, then the concept of “Unionist majority” is pretty meaningless.

    HY loves to add together SLab+SCon+SLD+BrexitP+UKIP+OrangeLodge+BNP+otherbampots

    ... but funnily enough, he always forgets to add Scottish Greens to the Yes side of the equation.
    I accept there is a Nationalist majority now at Holyrood of SNP and Greens.


    However if SCon and SLab and SLDs have a majority combined next year there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood for the first time since 2011.

    A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2.

    I am English, Scottish domestic policy does not interest me and it does not bother me if Sturgeon is First Minister.

    However I am also British and a Unionist and keeping Scotland in the UK and avoiding a Nationalist majority at Holyrood is important to me
    So, you have no interest in Scottish society, culture or national well-being. Therefore, one suspects that your strong desire to keep Scotland in the Union, against the will of the Scottish people, is more to do with your interest in English society, culture and national well-being.

    “A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2” and a Unionist minority is there solely to block indyref2.

    With Tories it is always Heads England Wins, Tails Scotland Loses.
    You have no proof that the Scots want to to leave the Union...your comment fails .
    We have proof from the ballot box that Scots voted for the two parties who propose a fresh independence referendum.

    Pro-Scotland MSPs = 69
    Brit Nat MSPs = 61

    Your British Nationalism fails.
    Bullshit.. it will.be another vote.. if it ever happens .... and another failure. The Scots know that the Sainted Nicola will.never lead them to the promised Land....
    Interesting pseudo-religious projection there. Are you an Orange Lodge nutter?

    What is “bullshit”? That pro-IndyRef2 MSPs outnumber BritNat MSPs is a simple statement of fact.

    You seem very sure that Scotland will lose again next time round. Why are you then so scared of letting the Scots decide for themselves?
    Wonderful.to see the ranting of the powerless Scots. There is no majority for Independence. The Scots have already spoken. This is not Ireland where you keep voting till the people vote thr way the local Scits Govt wants..
    “Powerless Scots” = admission that British Nationalists disrespect democracy and fundamental civil rights

    “There is no majority for independence”. How do you know that?

    “The Scots have already spoken”. Yes they have, and they voted for the two pro-IndyRef2 parties.

    Your Irish gobbledygook indicates that I was right: you are an Orange Lodge nutter.
    Just calling it as it is..
    Incidentally Stuart... it was your mate Tony Blair who gave you powers such as they are....
    Tony Blair did not “give” the Scots anything. We took the powers. They were relinquished begrudgingly.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    kinabalu said:

    nichomar said:
    A medical professional with centrist political views who did not want the UK to leave the European Union.

    Hen's teeth.
    Dr Peedell is a clever fellow and correct about many things, but undeniably he is left of centre.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
    Given the predictable path of the disease in every country from Japan (very half hearted lockdown) to Belgium (draconian lockdown) ts just about the only thing that does make sense.

    And now its starting to show up in medical testing (see the speccie report about the Singapore study).
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,602

    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    For some Brexit is not about leaving the EU, it is about being antagonistic to fellow Brits, simple as that. Rude and ignorant if you ask me.

    To be clear that applies only to those people looking to be antagonistic to their neighbours, not all or most Brexiteers at all.
    Or refighting the Putney debates.

    No, seriously, I know people who think that democracy has gone too far. In order to have the country Properly Run, only Proper People should have power.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.
    If you're referring to the Oxford paper that got a lot of news coverage a while ago, that's not what it was saying at all.

    It wasn't making a prediction. It was making the point that we needed more data because a variety of assumptions would be consistent with the data. Or rather, the couple of tiny datasets that they chose to limit themselves to.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,448

    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    For some Brexit is not about leaving the EU, it is about being antagonistic to fellow Brits, simple as that. Rude and ignorant if you ask me.

    To be clear that applies only to those people looking to be antagonistic to their neighbours, not all or most Brexiteers at all.
    Or refighting the Putney debates.

    No, seriously, I know people who think that democracy has gone too far. In order to have the country Properly Run, only Proper People should have power.
    I know at least one person who would prefer a dictatorship, I know others who like the idea of a communist paradise. Neither of which inspire me to regularly try and insult 48% of my nation.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.nson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    *looks at the front page of the Mail on Sunday*

    No, I can’t understand why one of the Mirror’s sources wishes to remain anonymous.
    It turns out the guy who made up the story about seeing Cummings later in Barnard Castle - as a ‘joke’ - carefully altered a running app to make it seem he was present when he wasn’t. That is to say: he fabricated evidence.

    Anyone who believes this story is just a random series of eye witnesses unearthed by the Guardian is an idiot.

    Nicely sidestepped. Another witness has been plastered over the front page of the Mail today for no apparent reason other than the Mail wishes to curry favour with the government. If I’d been a witness I too would be ticking the no-publicity box. I have no desire to become the quarry for the government’s pet hyenas.
    Ah, but of course: that way the supposed 'witnesses' get to remain anonymous while the witch-hunt resulting from their smears dominates the public discourse. Brilliant...
    Since Dominic Cummings has confirmed their account, why is their identity relevant?
    Because there is literally no other way of excusing Cummings?
    Apparently it’s an evil plot by which Remainers wickedly hypnotised Dominic Cummings into traversing the country repeatedly and then high-handedly refusing to accept that he’d done anything wrong.
    The key voices who made it the massive story it became were Hartley Brewer, Montgomery, Dale and Morgan, hardly the rebel alliance.
    Because the story was expertly packaged and sold to them, with exquisite timing, complete with the Guardian’s trademark Big Fat Early Lie (he went twice!!)

    Come on. This is PB. We are capable of understanding these two things can BOTH be true:

    1. Cummings is an arrogant political brawler who thinks he is rather above the rules, and acted like that.

    2. This has been seized on by some clever enemies in London who have used it to try and topple him, hurt the PM, and get a different policy outcome
    What evidence can you possibly have that Hartley Brewer, Montgomery and Dale can be sold and amplify a packaged false story? Can you even name a single major foreign policy/trade decision that they have done this on?
    Jesus Christ. The enemies aren’t Dale and Morgan

    I give up. The stupid is strong on the site. I am off to work and take the sun
    To be honest, you already sound like you’ve had a bit of sunstroke.

    Nobody cares about these witnesses, apart from the MoS who is unfathomably trying to curry favour with this corrupt government.

    All the criticism and controversy is valid according to Cummings’s own direct testimony.

    Trying to turn this into a Brexit versus Remainer thing is just another attempt to divert attention.

    It is you, who are being gulled, not the rest of us.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Chris said:

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.
    If you're referring to the Oxford paper that got a lot of news coverage a while ago, that's not what it was saying at all.

    It wasn't making a prediction. It was making the point that we needed more data because a variety of assumptions would be consistent with the data. Or rather, the couple of tiny datasets that they chose to limit themselves to.
    Oh look ignore it if you want. I saw the interview with Gupta and I know what I heard.

    You want to believe lockdown has made an enormous difference, go ahead. It will at least see you through the coming economic cataclysm it is causing, because I guess you may think it was worth it.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
    Given the predictable path of the disease in every country from Japan (very half hearted lockdown) to Belgium (draconian lockdown) ts just about the only thing that does make sense.

    And now its starting to show up in medical testing (see the speccie report about the Singapore study).
    It really is nonsense. There is no common path of the disease in different countries. In some countries it just keeps rising. In other countries it has reached a peak and declined, but the number of infections at the peak has varied hugely. Anyone has only to look at the data to see it.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Anyone using the term “Remoaner” can be marked down several IQ points.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    eadric said:


    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is

    Rubbish! I voted LEAVE in 2016, BREXIT in May 2019 and TORY in December 2019!
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008

    Chris said:

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.
    If you're referring to the Oxford paper that got a lot of news coverage a while ago, that's not what it was saying at all.

    It wasn't making a prediction. It was making the point that we needed more data because a variety of assumptions would be consistent with the data. Or rather, the couple of tiny datasets that they chose to limit themselves to.
    Oh look ignore it if you want. I saw the interview with Gupta and I know what I heard.
    No doubt you misunderstood most of it.

    But I realise nothing will stop you spewing out your nonsense.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Afghanistan's public health ministry is warning of an impending catastrophe in the country as the confirmed number of coronavirus cases passed 15,000.

    Afghanistan had imposed a strict lockdown but measures were eased for the Muslim Eid festival a week ago.

    Mr Majroh says the virus is spreading because social distancing rules, which are still in place, are being openly flouted.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841

    A couple of observations regarding Rosie Duffield, which I have just found out about.

    She didn't really 'do the right thing' - she did the only thing possible given the stance taken by her party and its leader. If she hadn't resigned he would have sacked her - not a difficult choice to make then.

    In resigning from her front bench post, she has dented her income, but not lost her job. The equivalent to what is expected of Cummings is to quit the Commons and make a career elsewhere.

    The requirement was reprimand and apology, so protecting trust in government.

    Requirement not met hence trust destroyed.

    Trust destroyed means virus response compromised.

    Virus response compromised means avoidable sickness and death.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,911
    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    "embittered remainers" is just a pejorative term for political opponents. Yes your political opponents are going to attack you, it's what they do, especially when you present them with such a golden opportunity.

    A lot of people remain angry at where the Cummings/Farage axis has taken this country and it is not going away any time soon. This government of lightweight Brexiteers is going to get attacked by their opponents and most of those opponents are going to come from the old "remain" side of the political divide, from Labour, from the Lib Dems, from the SNP, the Greens and not an insignificant number of Tories.

    Just screaming "remoaners" every time is going to deliver diminishing returns exactly as it has done in the Cummings case.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
    Yes, unfortunately it is quite unlikely to save us.

    The depressing thing of the week for me was that only 7% of the first survey showed antibodies. A lot depends on the sampling, but if true that means we are only 10% of the way to "herd immunity". At that rate, 60 000 dead means the initial predictions of half a million dead are not far off.

    Antibody testing of staff has started in my hospital last week, with all staff to be covered by the end of the month. In my Trust that is 11 000 staff. That would be a massive sample nationally.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    No. The killer here is, as I infuriate the Richard III society by pointing out, is that the story is not concocted out of lies and half truths. Although there are lies and half truths at the margins, the fundamentals are as described and they are utterly damning.

    Richard III was not killed because of Tudor propaganda. He was killed because his own army refused to fight for a usurper, murderer and wannabe incestuous rapist. Nothing the Tudors said or did afterwards alters that.

    Similarly Cummings is not damned because of media exaggeration. He’s damned because he broke quarantine repeatedly, in order to suit his own convenience.

    Edit - with all his faults, Cummings is of course no Richard in personality or actions. But the parallel seems a good one.
    This is why the minutiae of the rules are unimportant. Any quarter-competent wargamer would be asking, before embarking on the road to Durham, not "What is this" but "How could this be made to look by hostile commentators?"

    "Marit ayin (Hebrew: מַרְאִית עַיִן 'appearance to the eye'; Ashkenazic transliteration: maris ayin), is a concept in halakha (Jewish law) which states that certain actions which might seem to observers to be in violation of Jewish law, but in reality are fully permissible, are themselves not allowed due to rabbinic enactments that were put in place to prevent onlookers from arriving at a false conclusion."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marit_ayin

    In other words you can't eat bacon sandwiches, and you also can't eat vegan sandwiches cleverly engineered to look exactly like bacon sandwiches. Putting it another way, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. Or a third way, "(iv) Propriety, and the appearance of propriety, are essential to the
    performance of all of the activities of the judge." https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/guide-to-judicial-conduct.pdf

    Things must not only be above board, they must also look above board.

    How hard to understand is this?
    Because then we're no longer living under the rule of law, but under the rule of 'whatever will the neighbours think?' Which is a pretty backward mode of life.
    It's not fair? Oh dear, how sad, never mind. The key is that whether fair or not, it was highly foreseeable. You sound like someone who neglects to lock up his house and gets burgled, and says when it's pointed out to him that he should take basic precautions says "but burglary is ILLEGAL!"
    That's your argument? Will you also be arguing that if a woman wears a short skirt on a night out then she's 'asking for it?'

    Ridiculous.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,602

    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    For some Brexit is not about leaving the EU, it is about being antagonistic to fellow Brits, simple as that. Rude and ignorant if you ask me.

    To be clear that applies only to those people looking to be antagonistic to their neighbours, not all or most Brexiteers at all.
    Or refighting the Putney debates.

    No, seriously, I know people who think that democracy has gone too far. In order to have the country Properly Run, only Proper People should have power.
    I know at least one person who would prefer a dictatorship, I know others who like the idea of a communist paradise. Neither of which inspire me to regularly try and insult 48% of my nation.
    As someone who voted remain as a pragmatic, rather than ideological, decision -

    Both sides insult each other. Often in the same style.

    "You lot are all racist thick inbreds. This isn't an insult. It's a fact."

    "You lot are all effete internationalist traitors to the UK. This isn't an insult. It's a fact."

    etc etc.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    A simple shorthand for those who would like to see the media and all Right Thinking Patriotic Brits prostrate before the all-knowing Righteousness of this government might be handy.
    May I offer Dom's Subs?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    On topic. An actually interesting thing in the nonsense -

    Trump is talking about trying to take away the protection that the online platforms have (see " Section 230" - good explanation here https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/trump-executive-order-misreads-key-law-promoting-free-expression-online-and)

    What is interesting is that there is a similar attitude from the left - Biden doesn't like 230, apparently.

    What it does, is shield platforms from liability for publishing other peoples stuff. For example, in the US, OGH has quite a lot of protection from the consequences of me posting this comment.

    Trump is arguing that because Twitter et al are doing *anything* editorial, then they are not covered under 230.

    Some on the left want to make Facebook, Twitter etc legally responsible for *all* content they publish.

    Yep. Twitter's decision to editorialise Trump's Tweets might be about to create a rare cross-party coalition, in favour of reigning in the social media companies.

    Twitter wants to retain the positives of being both an information conduit and a publisher, whilst not being subjected to the negatives of either.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    edited May 2020

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.

    I think there are many people with a big vested interest in this not emerging as truth, because of the implications.
    That is an erroneous conclusion.
    I posted a link to the study just upthread. If you read the whole paper, you will find this at the end:
    ... Importantly, the ORF-1 region contains domains that are extremely conserved among many different coronaviruses . The distribution of these viruses in different animal species might result in periodic human contact and subsequently induction of ORF-1-specific T cells with cross-reactive ability against SARS-CoV-2. Understanding the distribution, frequency and protective ability of the pre-existing structural or non-structural SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive T cells could be of great importance to explain some of the differences in infection rate or pathology observed during this pandemic. T cells specific for viral structural proteins have protective ability in animal models of airway system infection. Nevertheless, the impact that the presence of ORF-1 specific T cells could have in the differential modulation of SARS-CoV-2 infection will have to be carefully evaluated...

    There is no “truth” being hidden - just a relatively limited set of evidence for an idea which needs urgently to be fully explored.
    The authors of the study have little more idea than you or I as to the extent of any possible pre-existing immunity via this mechanism.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
    Given the predictable path of the disease in every country from Japan (very half hearted lockdown) to Belgium (draconian lockdown) ts just about the only thing that does make sense.

    And now its starting to show up in medical testing (see the speccie report about the Singapore study).
    It really is nonsense. There is no common path of the disease in different countries. In some countries it just keeps rising. In other countries it has reached a peak and declined, but the number of infections at the peak has varied hugely. Anyone has only to look at the data to see it.
    Sorry in which countries does it 'just keep rising?'
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,602
    Sandpit said:

    On topic. An actually interesting thing in the nonsense -

    Trump is talking about trying to take away the protection that the online platforms have (see " Section 230" - good explanation here https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/trump-executive-order-misreads-key-law-promoting-free-expression-online-and)

    What is interesting is that there is a similar attitude from the left - Biden doesn't like 230, apparently.

    What it does, is shield platforms from liability for publishing other peoples stuff. For example, in the US, OGH has quite a lot of protection from the consequences of me posting this comment.

    Trump is arguing that because Twitter et al are doing *anything* editorial, then they are not covered under 230.

    Some on the left want to make Facebook, Twitter etc legally responsible for *all* content they publish.

    Yep. Twitter's decision to editorialise Trump's Tweets might be about to create a rare cross-party coalition, in favour of reigning in the social media companies.

    Twitter wants to retain the positives of being both an information conduit and a publisher, whilst not being subjected to the negatives of either.
    Which would also be in the interest of Big Media - since they can afford the lawyers and insurance to protect themselves.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    edited May 2020
    kinabalu said:

    I'm a wee bit confused. I've read on here that Cumgate is a stroke of tactical genius by the man himself, wrong footing opponents and distracting numpties from more serious and damaging stories. Otoh I've also read that it's a vile witch hunt got up by embittered Remoaners and libtards.

    The really confusing thing is that both these things have been said by the same posters.

    You've missed one.

    Dom did it on purpose - including the pisstake "eye test" - so as to "trigger" the media to overplay their hand, fail to topple him, and thus leave him now impregnable.

    My favourite, this one.
    I did miss that one.

    I think we may only be a couple of polls away from 'Tories don't want to get complacent at this stage of the game, Labour being (temporarily) ahead is a very good thing indeed'.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited May 2020
    It would be ironic if Trump only stays in the White House in November because Minnesota goes to the Republicans for the first time since 1972.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    Foxy said:

    kinabalu said:

    nichomar said:
    A medical professional with centrist political views who did not want the UK to leave the European Union.

    Hen's teeth.
    Dr Peedell is a clever fellow and correct about many things, but undeniably he is left of centre.
    OK. I suppose you can be quite left without viewing the EU as a capitalist cabal. I should know that really - for obvious reasons!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    "embittered remainers" is just a pejorative term for political opponents. Yes your political opponents are going to attack you, it's what they do, especially when you present them with such a golden opportunity.

    A lot of people remain angry at where the Cummings/Farage axis has taken this country and it is not going away any time soon. This government of lightweight Brexiteers is going to get attacked by their opponents and most of those opponents are going to come from the old "remain" side of the political divide, from Labour, from the Lib Dems, from the SNP, the Greens and not an insignificant number of Tories.

    Just screaming "remoaners" every time is going to deliver diminishing returns exactly as it has done in the Cummings case.
    I am quite happy for the defenders of Cummings to keep on screaming "unfair". The British public are clearly unimpressed (as shown in various polls, including of Tories and Leavers). Just keep on digging that hole guys!

    Just look at the responses to this risible tweet from the government this morning. Credibility is in tatters:

    https://twitter.com/GOVUK/status/1262658110260498432?s=09
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    No. The killer here is, as I infuriate the Richard III society by pointing out, is that the story is not concocted out of lies and half truths. Although there are lies and half truths at the margins, the fundamentals are as described and they are utterly damning.

    Richard III was not killed because of Tudor propaganda. He was killed because his own army refused to fight for a usurper, murderer and wannabe incestuous rapist. Nothing the Tudors said or did afterwards alters that.

    Similarly Cummings is not damned because of media exaggeration. He’s damned because he broke quarantine repeatedly, in order to suit his own convenience.

    Edit - with all his faults, Cummings is of course no Richard in personality or actions. But the parallel seems a good one.
    This is why the minutiae of the rules are unimportant. Any quarter-competent wargamer would be asking, before embarking on the road to Durham, not "What is this" but "How could this be made to look by hostile commentators?"

    "Marit ayin (Hebrew: מַרְאִית עַיִן 'appearance to the eye'; Ashkenazic transliteration: maris ayin), is a concept in halakha (Jewish law) which states that certain actions which might seem to observers to be in violation of Jewish law, but in reality are fully permissible, are themselves not allowed due to rabbinic enactments that were put in place to prevent onlookers from arriving at a false conclusion."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marit_ayin

    In other words you can't eat bacon sandwiches, and you also can't eat vegan sandwiches cleverly engineered to look exactly like bacon sandwiches. Putting it another way, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. Or a third way, "(iv) Propriety, and the appearance of propriety, are essential to the
    performance of all of the activities of the judge." https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/guide-to-judicial-conduct.pdf

    Things must not only be above board, they must also look above board.

    How hard to understand is this?
    Because then we're no longer living under the rule of law, but under the rule of 'whatever will the neighbours think?' Which is a pretty backward mode of life.
    It's not fair? Oh dear, how sad, never mind. The key is that whether fair or not, it was highly foreseeable. You sound like someone who neglects to lock up his house and gets burgled, and says when it's pointed out to him that he should take basic precautions says "but burglary is ILLEGAL!"
    That's your argument? Will you also be arguing that if a woman wears a short skirt on a night out then she's 'asking for it?'

    Ridiculous.
    It's all about foresight. In the same way, if you want to indulge in extremely boring triumphalism about how your party of choice has emerged unscathed and indeed massively fortified from adversity, it is prudent to hold your fire until the next round of opinion polls is out.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Nigelb said:

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.

    I think there are many people with a big vested interest in this not emerging as truth, because of the implications.
    That is an erroneous conclusion.
    I posted a link to the study just upthread. If you read the whole paper, you will find this at the end:
    ... Importantly, the ORF-1 region contains domains that are extremely conserved among many different coronaviruses . The distribution of these viruses in different animal species might result in periodic human contact and subsequently induction of ORF-1-specific T cells with cross-reactive ability against SARS-CoV-2. Understanding the distribution, frequency and protective ability of the pre-existing structural or non-structural SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive T cells could be of great importance to explain some of the differences in infection rate or pathology observed during this pandemic. T cells specific for viral structural proteins have protective ability in animal models of airway system infection. Nevertheless, the impact that the presence of ORF-1 specific T cells could have in the differential modulation of SARS-CoV-2 infection will have to be carefully evaluated...

    There is no “truth” being hidden - just a relatively limited set of evidence for an idea which needs urgently to be fully explored.
    The authors of the study have little more idea than you or I as to the extent of any possible pre-existing immunity via this mechanism.
    Well in my original post I said there were caveats. Its a very small survey.

    My point is that its very hard emotionally for some people to get used to the idea of a widespread existing immunity, when they have so openly and completely accepted the idea of lockdown.

  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,448

    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    For some Brexit is not about leaving the EU, it is about being antagonistic to fellow Brits, simple as that. Rude and ignorant if you ask me.

    To be clear that applies only to those people looking to be antagonistic to their neighbours, not all or most Brexiteers at all.
    Or refighting the Putney debates.

    No, seriously, I know people who think that democracy has gone too far. In order to have the country Properly Run, only Proper People should have power.
    I know at least one person who would prefer a dictatorship, I know others who like the idea of a communist paradise. Neither of which inspire me to regularly try and insult 48% of my nation.
    As someone who voted remain as a pragmatic, rather than ideological, decision -

    Both sides insult each other. Often in the same style.

    "You lot are all racist thick inbreds. This isn't an insult. It's a fact."

    "You lot are all effete internationalist traitors to the UK. This isn't an insult. It's a fact."

    etc etc.
    In 2020, what proportion of each have you heard on here? Im struggling to think of examples of the former, maybe a few each week. The latter is in double figures every day.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    edited May 2020

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.

    I think there are many people with a big vested interest in this not emerging as truth, because of the implications.
    I just had a quick look at the two papers referred to in the Spectator. Here are links if anyone is interested:
    https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674(20)30610-3
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832v1.full.pdf

    They are extremely cautious in discussing the implications. They certainly don't suggest this means half the population has innate immunity. In the first paper an analogy with flu is suggested that could indicate the people showing this effect may experience less severe disease.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited May 2020
    I don't understand why there's such a strong link between being left-of-centre and being a strong supporter of the lockdown. It could be anti-libertarianism, but at one time the left was just as, if not more, libertarian than the right, in for example the 1960s and 1970s. At that time it was old-fashioned conservatives like Mary Whitehouse who were more likely to be anti-libertarian.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    Foxy said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
    Yes, unfortunately it is quite unlikely to save us.

    The depressing thing of the week for me was that only 7% of the first survey showed antibodies. A lot depends on the sampling, but if true that means we are only 10% of the way to "herd immunity". At that rate, 60 000 dead means the initial predictions of half a million dead are not far off.

    Antibody testing of staff has started in my hospital last week, with all staff to be covered by the end of the month. In my Trust that is 11 000 staff. That would be a massive sample nationally.
    The logical square is circled most easily if a significant further proportion of the population has some natural immunity or resistance, arising either from genetics or previous exposure to other Coronaviruses.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Foxy said:

    OllyT said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    "embittered remainers" is just a pejorative term for political opponents. Yes your political opponents are going to attack you, it's what they do, especially when you present them with such a golden opportunity.

    A lot of people remain angry at where the Cummings/Farage axis has taken this country and it is not going away any time soon. This government of lightweight Brexiteers is going to get attacked by their opponents and most of those opponents are going to come from the old "remain" side of the political divide, from Labour, from the Lib Dems, from the SNP, the Greens and not an insignificant number of Tories.

    Just screaming "remoaners" every time is going to deliver diminishing returns exactly as it has done in the Cummings case.
    I am quite happy for the defenders of Cummings to keep on screaming "unfair". The British public are clearly unimpressed (as shown in various polls, including of Tories and Leavers). Just keep on digging that hole guys!

    Just look at the responses to this risible tweet from the government this morning. Credibility is in tatters:

    https://twitter.com/GOVUK/status/1262658110260498432?s=09
    Is that any different from the responses to any government tweet?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,117

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Very good SCon and SLab figures in that Opinium, but I cannot recall a poll which has ever returned zero Scottish Liberal Democrat voters.

    Tories up to 30% in Scotland, which would be their highest voteshare there since 1979. SNP back under 50%

    Looks like anything Ruth can do Jackson can do even better
    Huh?

    That Opinium gives seat distribution of:

    SNP 52 seats (+4)
    SCon 6 seats (nc)
    SLab 1 seat (nc)
    SLD 0 seats (-4)

    ... which is about half what Ruth Davidson managed.
    Ruth Davidson never got the Tories to 30% and the figures would actually see the Tories up to 7 MPs in Scotland and regaining Gordon from the SNP.

    If repeated next year it would see a Unionist majority at Holyrood
    So, the Conservatives are going to provide confidence and supply to FM Leonard? That’s available at the astonishingly good price of 20/1. How much cash have you invested HY?
    No, Sturgeon would stay FM just with a Unionist majority blocking indyref2, as was the case with FM Salmond from 2007 to 2011.

    Of course though on this poll Carlaw would have more MPs and likely MSPs than Leonard too
    So, you are going to use your “Unionist majority” to install a pro-Scotland FM. What is the point in voting Unionist when you have no intention of governing?
    We do if we win most seats, if not then preserving the Union is the priority
    But you just said that you would get a Unionist majority, which by definition means most seats. Why them would you Unionists not use your majority to form a government?
    Unionist is not a party. Labour and Tory are not interchangeable.
    It was HY who claimed we are heading for a “Unionist majority” next year. But if, as you say, Labour and Tory cannot work together, then the concept of “Unionist majority” is pretty meaningless.

    HY loves to add together SLab+SCon+SLD+BrexitP+UKIP+OrangeLodge+BNP+otherbampots

    ... but funnily enough, he always forgets to add Scottish Greens to the Yes side of the equation.
    I accept there is a Nationalist majority now at Holyrood of SNP and Greens.


    However if SCon and SLab and SLDs have a majority combined next year there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood for the first time since 2011.

    A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2.

    I am English, Scottish domestic policy does not interest me and it does not bother me if Sturgeon is First Minister.

    However I am also British and a Unionist and keeping Scotland in the UK and avoiding a Nationalist majority at Holyrood is important to me
    So, you have no interest in Scottish society, culture or national well-being. Therefore, one suspects that your strong desire to keep Scotland in the Union, against the will of the Scottish people, is more to do with your interest in English society, culture and national well-being.

    “A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2” and a Unionist minority is there solely to block indyref2.

    With Tories it is always Heads England Wins, Tails Scotland Loses.
    You have no proof that the Scots want to to leave the Union...your comment fails .
    We have proof from the ballot box that Scots voted for the two parties who propose a fresh independence referendum.

    Pro-Scotland MSPs = 69
    Brit Nat MSPs = 61

    Your British Nationalism fails.
    Bullshit.. it will.be another vote.. if it ever happens .... and another failure. The Scots know that the Sainted Nicola will.never lead them to the promised Land....
    Interesting pseudo-religious projection there. Are you an Orange Lodge nutter?

    What is “bullshit”? That pro-IndyRef2 MSPs outnumber BritNat MSPs is a simple statement of fact.

    You seem very sure that Scotland will lose again next time round. Why are you then so scared of letting the Scots decide for themselves?
    Wonderful.to see the ranting of the powerless Scots. There is no majority for Independence. The Scots have already spoken. This is not Ireland where you keep voting till the people vote thr way the local Scits Govt wants..
    “Powerless Scots” = admission that British Nationalists disrespect democracy and fundamental civil rights

    “There is no majority for independence”. How do you know that?

    “The Scots have already spoken”. Yes they have, and they voted for the two pro-IndyRef2 parties.

    Your Irish gobbledygook indicates that I was right: you are an Orange Lodge nutter.
    Just calling it as it is..
    Incidentally Stuart... it was your mate Tony Blair who gave you powers such as they are....
    Tony Blair did not “give” the Scots anything. We took the powers. They were relinquished begrudgingly.
    Indeed. He tried to wreck the referendum by adding that question on taxation. I don't suppose he expected the result!
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008

    Nigelb said:

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.

    I think there are many people with a big vested interest in this not emerging as truth, because of the implications.
    That is an erroneous conclusion.
    I posted a link to the study just upthread. If you read the whole paper, you will find this at the end:
    ... Importantly, the ORF-1 region contains domains that are extremely conserved among many different coronaviruses . The distribution of these viruses in different animal species might result in periodic human contact and subsequently induction of ORF-1-specific T cells with cross-reactive ability against SARS-CoV-2. Understanding the distribution, frequency and protective ability of the pre-existing structural or non-structural SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive T cells could be of great importance to explain some of the differences in infection rate or pathology observed during this pandemic. T cells specific for viral structural proteins have protective ability in animal models of airway system infection. Nevertheless, the impact that the presence of ORF-1 specific T cells could have in the differential modulation of SARS-CoV-2 infection will have to be carefully evaluated...

    There is no “truth” being hidden - just a relatively limited set of evidence for an idea which needs urgently to be fully explored.
    The authors of the study have little more idea than you or I as to the extent of any possible pre-existing immunity via this mechanism.
    Well in my original post I said there were caveats. Its a very small survey.

    My point is that its very hard emotionally for some people to get used to the idea of a widespread existing immunity, when they have so openly and completely accepted the idea of lockdown.

    You're an object lesson in being emotionally attached to a point of view and wholly unable to examine the evidence objectively!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    Nigelb said:

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.

    I think there are many people with a big vested interest in this not emerging as truth, because of the implications.
    That is an erroneous conclusion.
    I posted a link to the study just upthread. If you read the whole paper, you will find this at the end:
    ... Importantly, the ORF-1 region contains domains that are extremely conserved among many different coronaviruses . The distribution of these viruses in different animal species might result in periodic human contact and subsequently induction of ORF-1-specific T cells with cross-reactive ability against SARS-CoV-2. Understanding the distribution, frequency and protective ability of the pre-existing structural or non-structural SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive T cells could be of great importance to explain some of the differences in infection rate or pathology observed during this pandemic. T cells specific for viral structural proteins have protective ability in animal models of airway system infection. Nevertheless, the impact that the presence of ORF-1 specific T cells could have in the differential modulation of SARS-CoV-2 infection will have to be carefully evaluated...

    There is no “truth” being hidden - just a relatively limited set of evidence for an idea which needs urgently to be fully explored.
    The authors of the study have little more idea than you or I as to the extent of any possible pre-existing immunity via this mechanism.
    Well in my original post I said there were caveats. Its a very small survey.

    My point is that its very hard emotionally for some people to get used to the idea of a widespread existing immunity, when they have so openly and completely accepted the idea of lockdown.

    Most people who accept the lockdown realise that it is for a limited time in order to give a chance to chart a course to dealing with the pandemic.

    There is a perfectly reasonable case for thinking that we might be relaxing it prematurely as the numbers for new infections are still high, and the apparatus for tracing and dealing with them is not yet in place.

    The idea that there can be no second wave of this - with accompanying economic consequences - is for now supported by rather less evidence.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    edited May 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    I don't understand why there's such a strong link between being left-of-centre and being a strong supporter of the lockdown. It could be anti-libertarianism, but at one time the left was just as, if not more, libertarian than the right, in for example the 1960s and 1970s. At that time it was old-fashioned conservatives like Mary Whitehouse who were more likely to be anti-libertarian.

    Theres a strong link between the maddest supporters of Brexit and Dominic Cummings fans too.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Is that the ONS under-reporting in England, Nicola?

    https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1267004284891267072?s=20
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited May 2020
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    No. The killer here is, as I infuriate the Richard III society by pointing out, is that the story is not concocted out of lies and half truths. Although there are lies and half truths at the margins, the fundamentals are as described and they are utterly damning.

    Richard III was not killed because of Tudor propaganda. He was killed because his own army refused to fight for a usurper, murderer and wannabe incestuous rapist. Nothing the Tudors said or did afterwards alters that.

    Similarly Cummings is not damned because of media exaggeration. He’s damned because he broke quarantine repeatedly, in order to suit his own convenience.

    Edit - with all his faults, Cummings is of course no Richard in personality or actions. But the parallel seems a good one.
    This is why the minutiae of the rules are unimportant. Any quarter-competent wargamer would be asking, before embarking on the road to Durham, not "What is this" but "How could this be made to look by hostile commentators?"

    "Marit ayin (Hebrew: מַרְאִית עַיִן 'appearance to the eye'; Ashkenazic transliteration: maris ayin), is a concept in halakha (Jewish law) which states that certain actions which might seem to observers to be in violation of Jewish law, but in reality are fully permissible, are themselves not allowed due to rabbinic enactments that were put in place to prevent onlookers from arriving at a false conclusion."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marit_ayin

    In other words you can't eat bacon sandwiches, and you also can't eat vegan sandwiches cleverly engineered to look exactly like bacon sandwiches. Putting it another way, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. Or a third way, "(iv) Propriety, and the appearance of propriety, are essential to the
    performance of all of the activities of the judge." https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/guide-to-judicial-conduct.pdf

    Things must not only be above board, they must also look above board.

    How hard to understand is this?
    Because then we're no longer living under the rule of law, but under the rule of 'whatever will the neighbours think?' Which is a pretty backward mode of life.
    It's not fair? Oh dear, how sad, never mind. The key is that whether fair or not, it was highly foreseeable. You sound like someone who neglects to lock up his house and gets burgled, and says when it's pointed out to him that he should take basic precautions says "but burglary is ILLEGAL!"
    That's your argument? Will you also be arguing that if a woman wears a short skirt on a night out then she's 'asking for it?'

    Ridiculous.
    It's all about foresight. In the same way, if you want to indulge in extremely boring triumphalism about how your party of choice has emerged unscathed and indeed massively fortified from adversity, it is prudent to hold your fire until the next round of opinion polls is out.
    If one wished to argue from the basis of a week's polling instead of the perspective of a 4-year term, then one would. The ability to tell the media to go fuck itself is a power that will endure throughout the latter; it remains to be seen whether the effect of the Cummings witch-hunt will last that long.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Andy_JS said:

    I don't understand why there's such a strong link between being left-of-centre and being a strong supporter of the lockdown. It could be anti-libertarianism, but at one time the left was just as, if not more, libertarian than the right, in for example the 1960s and 1970s. At that time it was old-fashioned conservatives like Mary Whitehouse who were more likely to be anti-libertarian.

    There are many on the left who believe in state control of everything with themselves controlling the state.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653

    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    For some Brexit is not about leaving the EU, it is about being antagonistic to fellow Brits, simple as that. Rude and ignorant if you ask me.

    To be clear that applies only to those people looking to be antagonistic to their neighbours, not all or most Brexiteers at all.
    Or refighting the Putney debates.

    No, seriously, I know people who think that democracy has gone too far. In order to have the country Properly Run, only Proper People should have power.
    I think that democracy has gone too far (though I wouldn`t put it like that) when a representative democracy makes decisions by plebiscite. I don`t think we should be run by "Proper People" but I do think high intelligence is paramount.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Foxy said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
    Yes, unfortunately it is quite unlikely to save us.

    The depressing thing of the week for me was that only 7% of the first survey showed antibodies. A lot depends on the sampling, but if true that means we are only 10% of the way to "herd immunity". At that rate, 60 000 dead means the initial predictions of half a million dead are not far off.

    Antibody testing of staff has started in my hospital last week, with all staff to be covered by the end of the month. In my Trust that is 11 000 staff. That would be a massive sample nationally.
    NHS staff antibodies would skew greater than the population at large I'd have thought.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653

    Anyone using the term “Remoaner” can be marked down several IQ points.

    Agreed. The oldest of old jokes.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,117

    Is that the ONS under-reporting in England, Nicola?

    https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1267004284891267072?s=20

    If you look at death certificate data, there is indeed a big gap between covid deaths and excess deaths in England that is just not present in the equivalent Scottish figures - as I have pointed out several times here and as nobody here, nor I, have been able to explain. The Scottish NRS (English equivbalent being the ONS) figures for covid deaths are pretty much the same as the apparent excess for the time of year, but there is a much greater discrepancy with the English figures. So the two countries are indeed doing something differently. The question is what.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,602

    eadric said:

    dixiedean said:

    It is noticeable that the term Remainer is almost exclusively used by only one side these days.

    Because it has become pejorative, and is associated with embittered middle class bedwetters in London who like to bludgeon foxes. It’s not a nice thing to be. So only Leavers use it, as an insult. It’s quite effective.
    For some Brexit is not about leaving the EU, it is about being antagonistic to fellow Brits, simple as that. Rude and ignorant if you ask me.

    To be clear that applies only to those people looking to be antagonistic to their neighbours, not all or most Brexiteers at all.
    Or refighting the Putney debates.

    No, seriously, I know people who think that democracy has gone too far. In order to have the country Properly Run, only Proper People should have power.
    I know at least one person who would prefer a dictatorship, I know others who like the idea of a communist paradise. Neither of which inspire me to regularly try and insult 48% of my nation.
    As someone who voted remain as a pragmatic, rather than ideological, decision -

    Both sides insult each other. Often in the same style.

    "You lot are all racist thick inbreds. This isn't an insult. It's a fact."

    "You lot are all effete internationalist traitors to the UK. This isn't an insult. It's a fact."

    etc etc.
    In 2020, what proportion of each have you heard on here? Im struggling to think of examples of the former, maybe a few each week. The latter is in double figures every day.
    I have heard lots of both - both on PB and elsewhere.

    There is an interesting phenomenon of how one side "hears" the attacks on "their group" but doesn't "hear" attacks on others (not necessarily their opponents).

    The classic in this genre are white people who have never encountered racism. In Alabama.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    edited May 2020

    kinabalu said:

    I'm a wee bit confused. I've read on here that Cumgate is a stroke of tactical genius by the man himself, wrong footing opponents and distracting numpties from more serious and damaging stories. Otoh I've also read that it's a vile witch hunt got up by embittered Remoaners and libtards.

    The really confusing thing is that both these things have been said by the same posters.

    You've missed one.

    Dom did it on purpose - including the pisstake "eye test" - so as to "trigger" the media to overplay their hand, fail to topple him, and thus leave him now impregnable.

    My favourite, this one.
    I did miss that one.

    I think we may only be a couple of polls away from 'Tories don't want to get complacent at this stage of the game, Labour being (temporarily) ahead is a very good thing indeed'.
    Mmm. And deliberate. Dom does rope-a-dope better than Ali ever could.

    TBH, I would like the focus off Cummings and full square on Johnson. The PM. This story for me is about how his weak character and essential vacuousness has led to a craven dependency on his SPAD, rather than about the behaviour or demeanour of the SPAD himself.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,042
    edited May 2020
    justin124 said:

    A couple of observations regarding Rosie Duffield, which I have just found out about.

    She didn't really 'do the right thing' - she did the only thing possible given the stance taken by her party and its leader. If she hadn't resigned he would have sacked her - not a difficult choice to make then.

    In resigning from her front bench post, she has dented her income, but not lost her job. The equivalent to what is expected of Cummings is to quit the Commons and make a career elsewhere.

    No effect on her incom from resigning this post. Shadow spokesmen are not paid more than backbench MPs.
    Wasn't aware of these. She's just increased her leisure time then. It's hardly being exiled to Conhome is it?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    eadric said:

    Anyone using the term “Remoaner” can be marked down several IQ points.

    Says a Remoaner
    So juvenile.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Just not sure he can be described as her partner when his wife and three children allege they knew nothing about the relationship, and are shattered
    One amusing thing about this story is the way Justin instantly described her as beyond the pale for being an adulterer.

    Strangely, this objection never seemed to apply to Corbyn...
    I was never a Corbynite . and had I been presnted with clear evidence that he was an adulterer or fornicator I would have refused to vote for him in his constituency.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    Scott_xP said:
    Alistair Campbell once ordered Robin Cook to make an instant decision - leave your wife, or leave your job.

    He left his wife. Most brutal breakup imaginable (he told her as they were about to board the plane to go on holiday together) but saved the government.

    Typical of how Campbell operated (and Cook, for the matter of that). Not nice, and not good. But such ruthlessness wasn’t needed here. A humble mea culpa, an undertaking to behave in future and an agreement to step back from all work to do with the pandemic and the story would have fizzled out in twelve hours.

    We’ve now got to the stage where it has so damaged the government it is far from clear it can survive much longer, and where the government’s own policies have been fatally undermined and are being widely flouted.

    All to protect a man so insecure he doesn’t have the courage to admit he’s made a mistake.

    The way Campbell operated was abominable, especially towards the unfortunate Margaret Cook. But a little more of that decisiveness would have worked wonders.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    Scott_xP said:
    It was a humiliation for senior ministers to be ordered to tie themselves in knots trying to defend an adviser who is known to hold most of them in contempt. It was demeaning for cabinet members to issue near-identical tweets in his support as if they were no more than fake accounts operated from a bot farm. Given the lack of evidence that all of them are sentient human beings, perhaps some of these ministers are indeed badly written algos run out of Mr Cummings’ laptop. Generously assuming that at least some of them have a latent regard for their own reputations, the ridicule they have endured will leave a bitter taste.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    edited May 2020
    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Barnesian said:

    Chris said:

    Barnesian said:

    MaxPB said:

    My current theory is that London, the South East and East are approaching herd immunity for those currently making use of the new rules available for meeting in parks etc...

    There are so many key workers and households with key/essential workers in them that have been exposed to the virus already that it has made the young and healthy immune in the same way that Germany first saw a huge outbreak among the young which helped them avoid a huge amount of death among vulnerable groups.

    My current theory is that for younger people their innate immunity system protects them so that their acquired immunity system doesn't come into play. So they have no anti-bodies and do not show up as previously infected in serology tests. But they are still part of the firewall for transmission.

    NB. I'm not medical. I make it up as I go along. But I like my scenario. It means it fizzles out.
    You reckon they show up as infected in antigen tests but don't produce any antibodies?
    No - the opposite. They don't show up as infected in antigen tests because igG antibodies are not produced. Their innate immune system deals with their viral dose in the first day or two and the acquired immune system doesn't need to come into play. They are "damp wood" in the conflagration that rips through the dry tinder (old and compromised) but doesn't allow the smouldering embers to flare up again except in isolated hot spots that are quickly extinguished using track, trace, isolate.
    The antigen tests are for the virus, not the antibody.
    oops. I said I was not medical. If their innate immune system deals with the virus in a couple of days and they have an antigen test in those days then I guess the virus would turn up. I'm guessing the antigen test doesn't require anitibodies - just bits of virus.
    The reason I ask is because if you don't think they would show up in antigen tests, and you want to believe they are a large percentage of the population (say 80% or 90%) then you have the problem that to give an apparent R number of 2-3 you would need the real R0 (for propagation into a population without immunity) to be 15-20, which is really not believable.

    Obviously in the circumstance you describe they wouldn't show up in most of the testing that has been done so far, only in random testing, and only if it caught them in a very narrow window of opportunity.

    Unfortunately, this idea of widespread innate immunity doesn't make sense. I wish it did.
    Could you have two populations - one with a very high R (the dry tinder) and the other with a low R (the damp wood)? The initial (composite) R0 could appear to be 2 or 3 but as the dry tinder is consumed, the R drops below 1 without acquired immunity because immunity is innate for a large proportion of the population? Sorry for the naive questions but I'm trying to get my head around this.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Just not sure he can be described as her partner when his wife and three children allege they knew nothing about the relationship, and are shattered
    One amusing thing about this story is the way Justin instantly described her as beyond the pale for being an adulterer.

    Strangely, this objection never seemed to apply to Corbyn...
    I was never a Corbynite . and had I been presnted with clear evidence that he was an adulterer or fornicator I would have refused to vote for him in his constituency.
    Norwich isn’t part of his constituency.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    eadric said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    eadric said:

    ydoethur said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    DougSeal said:

    I could have sworn a labour MP had been caught breaking lockdown rules for some nookie with a married man and had to resign...but not on bbc website, so couldn't have happened.

    Impossible. The BBC regards the violation of lockdown by public figures to be of such critical national importance that their flagship news programme will ditch all pretence of 'impartiality' to smear any suspected perpetrator.

    So if it's not even on their website, it must have never happened at all...

    Hidden away on the live feed, no mention on front page.
    “Not on the website” you said
    Standard BBC, hide away story where 90% never will see it and still be able to claim they covered it. Daily Mirror phone hacking being a classic example.

    This story is a according to BBC editors less important than Pret renegotiating their rents.
    She is an elected representative, was in a junior position in opposition, not making rules effecting others, went out while not suffering from Covid-19, admitted she was wrong, apologised, gave up her front bench role. She can be punished by her constituents at the next election in what was, until 2017, a safe Tory seat.

    Cummings is unelected yet is in a senior position, helping make rules, went out while suffering from Covid-19, denied any wrongdoing, refused to apologise, failed even to give up his role attending SAGE. And he is not answerable to any constituents.

    If you fail to appreciate the differences in newsworthiness here then I cannot help you.
    There's only one reason why Cummings is still a story into its second week in the news cycle: Cummings was the architect of Brexit.
    No. There is only one reason that it's still news, and that's because he's refused to come clean and so people are still trying to find out what his real reasons for behaving like a certifiable lunatic are.

    Personally, I think they're overthinking this.
    Lol. It now turns out the architect of the story is a Remainer Blairite peer in The Lords

    How surprising
    No, the architect of the story is Dominic Cummings, who believes rules do not apply to him.

    If you think otherwise, what offer will you make me for this rather natty bridge I have for sale?
    ‘An anti-Brexit Labour peer who was one of Tony Blair’s closest allies passed on information to help expose Dominic Cummings’s alleged breach of the virus lockdown, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

    Former Durham MP Hilary Armstrong is being feted by Labour colleagues for her role in revealing that the No 10 aide had travelled 260 miles from his London home to stay near his parents in the North East.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372859/Remainer-peer-passed-information-help-expose-Dominic-Cummings-alleged-Covid-19-breach.html

    Said all along this story was driven, at its core, by embittered Remainers. And so it is
    Eadric, how do I put this?

    If he hadn't done it, would there have been any information to pass?
    Of course not. That’s why I didn’t say ‘created’, I said ‘driven’.

    Cummings was a fool to do all this, and he’s surely lying about the eye test road trip. Without his actions, there would be no scandal.

    But this is PB and we can analyze a story in a more sophisticated way. Look at the mysterious witnesses who suddenly disappear on examination, or turn out to be ‘joking’. Where is the Mirror’s supposedly ‘reliable’ other witness? Why can’t they tell us who it is? Curious.

    The story has been hastily concocted out of half truths and outright lies, to bring down the architect of Brexit and expose Boris Johnson, and to enforce a long extension to the transition: a political deed which must be done NOW, hence the timing of the scoop
    *looks at the front page of the Mail on Sunday*

    No, I can’t understand why one of the Mirror’s sources wishes to remain anonymous.
    It turns out the guy who made up the story about seeing Cummings later in Barnard Castle - as a ‘joke’ - carefully altered a running app to make it seem he was present when he wasn’t. That is to say: he fabricated evidence.

    Anyone who believes this story is just a random series of eye witnesses unearthed by the Guardian is an idiot.

    So you are saying Cummings is now making it up?
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Very good SCon and SLab figures in that Opinium, but I cannot recall a poll which has ever returned zero Scottish Liberal Democrat voters.

    Tories up to 30% in Scotland, which would be their highest voteshare there since 1979. SNP back under 50%

    Looks like anything Ruth can do Jackson can do even better
    Huh?

    That Opinium gives seat distribution of:

    SNP 52 seats (+4)
    SCon 6 seats (nc)
    SLab 1 seat (nc)
    SLD 0 seats (-4)

    ... which is about half what Ruth Davidson managed.
    Ruth Davidson never got the Tories to 30% and the figures would actually see the Tories up to 7 MPs in Scotland and regaining Gordon from the SNP.

    If repeated next year it would see a Unionist majority at Holyrood
    So, the Conservatives are going to provide confidence and supply to FM Leonard? That’s available at the astonishingly good price of 20/1. How much cash have you invested HY?
    No, Sturgeon would stay FM just with a Unionist majority blocking indyref2, as was the case with FM Salmond from 2007 to 2011.

    Of course though on this poll Carlaw would have more MPs and likely MSPs than Leonard too
    So, you are going to use your “Unionist majority” to install a pro-Scotland FM. What is the point in voting Unionist when you have no intention of governing?
    We do if we win most seats, if not then preserving the Union is the priority
    But you just said that you would get a Unionist majority, which by definition means most seats. Why them would you Unionists not use your majority to form a government?
    Unionist is not a party. Labour and Tory are not interchangeable.
    It was HY who claimed we are heading for a “Unionist majority” next year. But if, as you say, Labour and Tory cannot work together, then the concept of “Unionist majority” is pretty meaningless.

    HY loves to add together SLab+SCon+SLD+BrexitP+UKIP+OrangeLodge+BNP+otherbampots

    ... but funnily enough, he always forgets to add Scottish Greens to the Yes side of the equation.
    I accept there is a Nationalist majority now at Holyrood of SNP and Greens.


    However if SCon and SLab and SLDs have a majority combined next year there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood for the first time since 2011.

    A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2.

    I am English, Scottish domestic policy does not interest me and it does not bother me if Sturgeon is First Minister.

    However I am also British and a Unionist and keeping Scotland in the UK and avoiding a Nationalist majority at Holyrood is important to me
    So, you have no interest in Scottish society, culture or national well-being. Therefore, one suspects that your strong desire to keep Scotland in the Union, against the will of the Scottish people, is more to do with your interest in English society, culture and national well-being.

    “A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2” and a Unionist minority is there solely to block indyref2.

    With Tories it is always Heads England Wins, Tails Scotland Loses.
    The will of 55% of Scottish voters in 2014 in a 'once in a generation' referendum was to stay in the UK
    England voting for Brexit was a betrayal of all Better Together’s promises. You won on a false case.
    Whereas the independence campaigners were completely honest I suppose ?

    Remind us again of their economic projection and how the oil price featured in it.

    There is never any shortage of electoral promises which turn out to be different to the reality.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Chris said:

    Nigelb said:

    DougSeal said:

    I didn’t understand this at all. But here you are in case you are of a more scientific bent than I am.

    https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1267036867259592705

    To be honest, on reading the article, I keep seeing red flags. This guy is selling a new version of the "ice berg" theory - this time, the idea that large numbers of people, in some populations, can't counteract COVID19. So no antibodies.

    That is an interesting claim - is there any research to backup the idea?

    Oh, and his claim that "traditional" modelling techniques take sagans of computer resources is not correct - a couple of people I know from the University science area are involved in this.

    One of the first things that happened was that everyone re-implemented the models - every grad student, practically. The resources to run them were quite small. The supercomputing groups were practically twiddling their thumbs looking for work on this...

    Hence the point about the Ferguson code being a distraction - multiple implementations by independent groups produced the same results.
    The Spectator has an article about a Singapore study that confirms the immunity 'dark matter' idea. They found that half of their study had some form of immune response to COVID despite never having had it. Not antibodies but other immune signs, as far as I could discern. I'm not a cell biologist.

    This isn;t new. The Oxford group under Gupta trotted out the same sort of idea weeks ago. The idea that for a large chunk of the population the virus just ain't a thing, and that is why we get very low antibody readings.

    I think there are many people with a big vested interest in this not emerging as truth, because of the implications.
    That is an erroneous conclusion.
    I posted a link to the study just upthread. If you read the whole paper, you will find this at the end:
    ... Importantly, the ORF-1 region contains domains that are extremely conserved among many different coronaviruses . The distribution of these viruses in different animal species might result in periodic human contact and subsequently induction of ORF-1-specific T cells with cross-reactive ability against SARS-CoV-2. Understanding the distribution, frequency and protective ability of the pre-existing structural or non-structural SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive T cells could be of great importance to explain some of the differences in infection rate or pathology observed during this pandemic. T cells specific for viral structural proteins have protective ability in animal models of airway system infection. Nevertheless, the impact that the presence of ORF-1 specific T cells could have in the differential modulation of SARS-CoV-2 infection will have to be carefully evaluated...

    There is no “truth” being hidden - just a relatively limited set of evidence for an idea which needs urgently to be fully explored.
    The authors of the study have little more idea than you or I as to the extent of any possible pre-existing immunity via this mechanism.
    Well in my original post I said there were caveats. Its a very small survey.

    My point is that its very hard emotionally for some people to get used to the idea of a widespread existing immunity, when they have so openly and completely accepted the idea of lockdown.

    You're an object lesson in being emotionally attached to a point of view and wholly unable to examine the evidence objectively!
    Its funny but I feel the same about long lockdowners.

    How could they admit their case is anything but absolutely right when you look at the enormous collateral damage it is creating?

    Economic depression, social, decay, skyrocketing mental health issues, heightened death due to causes other than Corona. Enormous and permanent emotional suffering, children losing out on education, particularly those whi can least afford to,

    If long lockdown is proven unnecessary the implications are enormous. What does it say about the people who advanced it?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Very good SCon and SLab figures in that Opinium, but I cannot recall a poll which has ever returned zero Scottish Liberal Democrat voters.

    Tories up to 30% in Scotland, which would be their highest voteshare there since 1979. SNP back under 50%

    Looks like anything Ruth can do Jackson can do even better
    Huh?

    That Opinium gives seat distribution of:

    SNP 52 seats (+4)
    SCon 6 seats (nc)
    SLab 1 seat (nc)
    SLD 0 seats (-4)

    ... which is about half what Ruth Davidson managed.
    Ruth Davidson never got the Tories to 30% and the figures would actually see the Tories up to 7 MPs in Scotland and regaining Gordon from the SNP.

    If repeated next year it would see a Unionist majority at Holyrood
    So, the Conservatives are going to provide confidence and supply to FM Leonard? That’s available at the astonishingly good price of 20/1. How much cash have you invested HY?
    No, Sturgeon would stay FM just with a Unionist majority blocking indyref2, as was the case with FM Salmond from 2007 to 2011.

    Of course though on this poll Carlaw would have more MPs and likely MSPs than Leonard too
    So, you are going to use your “Unionist majority” to install a pro-Scotland FM. What is the point in voting Unionist when you have no intention of governing?
    We do if we win most seats, if not then preserving the Union is the priority
    But you just said that you would get a Unionist majority, which by definition means most seats. Why them would you Unionists not use your majority to form a government?
    Unionist is not a party. Labour and Tory are not interchangeable.
    It was HY who claimed we are heading for a “Unionist majority” next year. But if, as you say, Labour and Tory cannot work together, then the concept of “Unionist majority” is pretty meaningless.

    HY loves to add together SLab+SCon+SLD+BrexitP+UKIP+OrangeLodge+BNP+otherbampots

    ... but funnily enough, he always forgets to add Scottish Greens to the Yes side of the equation.
    I accept there is a Nationalist majority now at Holyrood of SNP and Greens.


    However if SCon and SLab and SLDs have a majority combined next year there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood for the first time since 2011.

    A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2.

    I am English, Scottish domestic policy does not interest me and it does not bother me if Sturgeon is First Minister.

    However I am also British and a Unionist and keeping Scotland in the UK and avoiding a Nationalist majority at Holyrood is important to me
    So, you have no interest in Scottish society, culture or national well-being. Therefore, one suspects that your strong desire to keep Scotland in the Union, against the will of the Scottish people, is more to do with your interest in English society, culture and national well-being.

    “A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2” and a Unionist minority is there solely to block indyref2.

    With Tories it is always Heads England Wins, Tails Scotland Loses.
    You have no proof that the Scots want to to leave the Union...your comment fails .
    We have proof from the ballot box that Scots voted for the two parties who propose a fresh independence referendum.

    Pro-Scotland MSPs = 69
    Brit Nat MSPs = 61

    Your British Nationalism fails.
    Bullshit.. it will.be another vote.. if it ever happens .... and another failure. The Scots know that the Sainted Nicola will.never lead them to the promised Land....
    Interesting pseudo-religious projection there. Are you an Orange Lodge nutter?

    What is “bullshit”? That pro-IndyRef2 MSPs outnumber BritNat MSPs is a simple statement of fact.

    You seem very sure that Scotland will lose again next time round. Why are you then so scared of letting the Scots decide for themselves?
    Wonderful.to see the ranting of the powerless Scots. There is no majority for Independence. The Scots have already spoken. This is not Ireland where you keep voting till the people vote thr way the local Scits Govt wants..
    “Powerless Scots” = admission that British Nationalists disrespect democracy and fundamental civil rights

    “There is no majority for independence”. How do you know that?

    “The Scots have already spoken”. Yes they have, and they voted for the two pro-IndyRef2 parties.

    Your Irish gobbledygook indicates that I was right: you are an Orange Lodge nutter.
    Just calling it as it is..
    Incidentally Stuart... it was your mate Tony Blair who gave you powers such as they are....
    Tony Blair did not “give” the Scots anything. We took the powers. They were relinquished begrudgingly.
    Indeed. He tried to wreck the referendum by adding that question on taxation. I don't suppose he expected the result!
    Are there any sources for that? I thought Labour campaigned for Yes on both questions.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341
    edited May 2020

    Andy_JS said:

    I don't understand why there's such a strong link between being left-of-centre and being a strong supporter of the lockdown. It could be anti-libertarianism, but at one time the left was just as, if not more, libertarian than the right, in for example the 1960s and 1970s. At that time it was old-fashioned conservatives like Mary Whitehouse who were more likely to be anti-libertarian.

    There are many on the left who believe in state control of everything with themselves controlling the state.
    To any sort of libertarian (except the creepy sort who wants the liberty to tell others to conform to them) you first have to be an old fashioned liberal (any resemblance to the LDs as they now are being purely coincidental). There are lots if illiberals on the centre right, but the centre left/left seems to me to have gone further in its intolerance of ways of life, attitudes and beliefs it finds offensive.

    If SKS could manage to turn Labour into an old fashioned philosophically liberal movement as well as having centre left convictions he may find a large audience.

  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    eadric said:


    North London writers can work from their homes. They're probably enjoying the lockdown sun. Posh wankers.


    The Sword is mightier than the Penarth?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,730
    eadric said:

    Andy_JS said:

    I don't understand why there's such a strong link between being left-of-centre and being a strong supporter of the lockdown. It could be anti-libertarianism, but at one time the left was just as, if not more, libertarian than the right, in for example the 1960s and 1970s. At that time it was old-fashioned conservatives like Mary Whitehouse who were more likely to be anti-libertarian.

    Isn't this just a class thing? Labourite Lefties are MORE likely to be middle class, urban, professional, or they are public sector, or students. As such they are insulated from the worst horrors of lockdown. Teachers will not get laid off
    Unless they work in private schools.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,117

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Very good SCon and SLab figures in that Opinium, but I cannot recall a poll which has ever returned zero Scottish Liberal Democrat voters.

    Tories up to 30% in Scotland, which would be their highest voteshare there since 1979. SNP back under 50%

    Looks like anything Ruth can do Jackson can do even better
    Huh?

    That Opinium gives seat distribution of:

    SNP 52 seats (+4)
    SCon 6 seats (nc)
    SLab 1 seat (nc)
    SLD 0 seats (-4)

    ... which is about half what Ruth Davidson managed.
    Ruth Davidson never got the Tories to 30% and the figures would actually see the Tories up to 7 MPs in Scotland and regaining Gordon from the SNP.

    If repeated next year it would see a Unionist majority at Holyrood
    So, the Conservatives are going to provide confidence and supply to FM Leonard? That’s available at the astonishingly good price of 20/1. How much cash have you invested HY?
    No, Sturgeon would stay FM just with a Unionist majority blocking indyref2, as was the case with FM Salmond from 2007 to 2011.

    Of course though on this poll Carlaw would have more MPs and likely MSPs than Leonard too
    So, you are going to use your “Unionist majority” to install a pro-Scotland FM. What is the point in voting Unionist when you have no intention of governing?
    We do if we win most seats, if not then preserving the Union is the priority
    But you just said that you would get a Unionist majority, which by definition means most seats. Why them would you Unionists not use your majority to form a government?
    Unionist is not a party. Labour and Tory are not interchangeable.
    It was HY who claimed we are heading for a “Unionist majority” next year. But if, as you say, Labour and Tory cannot work together, then the concept of “Unionist majority” is pretty meaningless.

    HY loves to add together SLab+SCon+SLD+BrexitP+UKIP+OrangeLodge+BNP+otherbampots

    ... but funnily enough, he always forgets to add Scottish Greens to the Yes side of the equation.
    I accept there is a Nationalist majority now at Holyrood of SNP and Greens.


    However if SCon and SLab and SLDs have a majority combined next year there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood for the first time since 2011.

    A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2.

    I am English, Scottish domestic policy does not interest me and it does not bother me if Sturgeon is First Minister.

    However I am also British and a Unionist and keeping Scotland in the UK and avoiding a Nationalist majority at Holyrood is important to me
    So, you have no interest in Scottish society, culture or national well-being. Therefore, one suspects that your strong desire to keep Scotland in the Union, against the will of the Scottish people, is more to do with your interest in English society, culture and national well-being.

    “A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2” and a Unionist minority is there solely to block indyref2.

    With Tories it is always Heads England Wins, Tails Scotland Loses.
    You have no proof that the Scots want to to leave the Union...your comment fails .
    We have proof from the ballot box that Scots voted for the two parties who propose a fresh independence referendum.

    Pro-Scotland MSPs = 69
    Brit Nat MSPs = 61

    Your British Nationalism fails.
    Bullshit.. it will.be another vote.. if it ever happens .... and another failure. The Scots know that the Sainted Nicola will.never lead them to the promised Land....
    Interesting pseudo-religious projection there. Are you an Orange Lodge nutter?

    What is “bullshit”? That pro-IndyRef2 MSPs outnumber BritNat MSPs is a simple statement of fact.

    You seem very sure that Scotland will lose again next time round. Why are you then so scared of letting the Scots decide for themselves?
    Wonderful.to see the ranting of the powerless Scots. There is no majority for Independence. The Scots have already spoken. This is not Ireland where you keep voting till the people vote thr way the local Scits Govt wants..
    “Powerless Scots” = admission that British Nationalists disrespect democracy and fundamental civil rights

    “There is no majority for independence”. How do you know that?

    “The Scots have already spoken”. Yes they have, and they voted for the two pro-IndyRef2 parties.

    Your Irish gobbledygook indicates that I was right: you are an Orange Lodge nutter.
    Just calling it as it is..
    Incidentally Stuart... it was your mate Tony Blair who gave you powers such as they are....
    Tony Blair did not “give” the Scots anything. We took the powers. They were relinquished begrudgingly.
    Indeed. He tried to wreck the referendum by adding that question on taxation. I don't suppose he expected the result!
    Are there any sources for that? I thought Labour campaigned for Yes on both questions.
    Fair question. I was going from admittedly fading memory of my perception of the situation at the time and the divisions within Labour - there was certainly a suspicion that the horse was being quietly nobbled by its own jockey, or at least someone in its stable, so to speak. The added question was so gratuitious and so unprecedented in such things. But I may well be unfair - perhaps someone who remembers the period better will comment?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    Carnyx said:

    Is that the ONS under-reporting in England, Nicola?

    https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1267004284891267072?s=20

    If you look at death certificate data, there is indeed a big gap between covid deaths and excess deaths in England that is just not present in the equivalent Scottish figures - as I have pointed out several times here and as nobody here, nor I, have been able to explain. The Scottish NRS (English equivbalent being the ONS) figures for covid deaths are pretty much the same as the apparent excess for the time of year, but there is a much greater discrepancy with the English figures. So the two countries are indeed doing something differently. The question is what.
    Just so. I've seen this chart a couple of times and if it's accurate there is something odd going on. It would be good to have an explanation as to why.

    https://twitter.com/Zarkwan/status/1266988471102644229?s=20
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,042
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Very good SCon and SLab figures in that Opinium, but I cannot recall a poll which has ever returned zero Scottish Liberal Democrat voters.

    Tories up to 30% in Scotland, which would be their highest voteshare there since 1979. SNP back under 50%

    Looks like anything Ruth can do Jackson can do even better
    Huh?

    That Opinium gives seat distribution of:

    SNP 52 seats (+4)
    SCon 6 seats (nc)
    SLab 1 seat (nc)
    SLD 0 seats (-4)

    ... which is about half what Ruth Davidson managed.
    Ruth Davidson never got the Tories to 30% and the figures would actually see the Tories up to 7 MPs in Scotland and regaining Gordon from the SNP.

    If repeated next year it would see a Unionist majority at Holyrood
    So, the Conservatives are going to provide confidence and supply to FM Leonard? That’s available at the astonishingly good price of 20/1. How much cash have you invested HY?
    No, Sturgeon would stay FM just with a Unionist majority blocking indyref2, as was the case with FM Salmond from 2007 to 2011.

    Of course though on this poll Carlaw would have more MPs and likely MSPs than Leonard too
    So, you are going to use your “Unionist majority” to install a pro-Scotland FM. What is the point in voting Unionist when you have no intention of governing?
    We do if we win most seats, if not then preserving the Union is the priority
    But you just said that you would get a Unionist majority, which by definition means most seats. Why them would you Unionists not use your majority to form a government?
    Unionist is not a party. Labour and Tory are not interchangeable.
    It was HY who claimed we are heading for a “Unionist majority” next year. But if, as you say, Labour and Tory cannot work together, then the concept of “Unionist majority” is pretty meaningless.

    HY loves to add together SLab+SCon+SLD+BrexitP+UKIP+OrangeLodge+BNP+otherbampots

    ... but funnily enough, he always forgets to add Scottish Greens to the Yes side of the equation.
    I accept there is a Nationalist majority now at Holyrood of SNP and Greens.


    However if SCon and SLab and SLDs have a majority combined next year there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood for the first time since 2011.

    A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2.

    I am English, Scottish domestic policy does not interest me and it does not bother me if Sturgeon is First Minister.

    However I am also British and a Unionist and keeping Scotland in the UK and avoiding a Nationalist majority at Holyrood is important to me
    So, you have no interest in Scottish society, culture or national well-being. Therefore, one suspects that your strong desire to keep Scotland in the Union, against the will of the Scottish people, is more to do with your interest in English society, culture and national well-being.

    “A Unionist majority is there solely to block indyref2” and a Unionist minority is there solely to block indyref2.

    With Tories it is always Heads England Wins, Tails Scotland Loses.
    You have no proof that the Scots want to to leave the Union...your comment fails .
    We have proof from the ballot box that Scots voted for the two parties who propose a fresh independence referendum.

    Pro-Scotland MSPs = 69
    Brit Nat MSPs = 61

    Your British Nationalism fails.
    Bullshit.. it will.be another vote.. if it ever happens .... and another failure. The Scots know that the Sainted Nicola will.never lead them to the promised Land....
    Interesting pseudo-religious projection there. Are you an Orange Lodge nutter?

    What is “bullshit”? That pro-IndyRef2 MSPs outnumber BritNat MSPs is a simple statement of fact.

    You seem very sure that Scotland will lose again next time round. Why are you then so scared of letting the Scots decide for themselves?
    Wonderful.to see the ranting of the powerless Scots. There is no majority for Independence. The Scots have already spoken. This is not Ireland where you keep voting till the people vote thr way the local Scits Govt wants..
    “Powerless Scots” = admission that British Nationalists disrespect democracy and fundamental civil rights

    “There is no majority for independence”. How do you know that?

    “The Scots have already spoken”. Yes they have, and they voted for the two pro-IndyRef2 parties.

    Your Irish gobbledygook indicates that I was right: you are an Orange Lodge nutter.
    Just calling it as it is..
    Incidentally Stuart... it was your mate Tony Blair who gave you powers such as they are....
    Tony Blair did not “give” the Scots anything. We took the powers. They were relinquished begrudgingly.
    Indeed. He tried to wreck the referendum by adding that question on taxation. I don't suppose he expected the result!
    I find that perspective a little hard to swallow, given that St Tony walked on water with a landslide majority at the time. He didn't need to do it, he wanted to. Don't forget that breaking the UK up into regions with their own legislatures was always a cornerstone of EU and New Labour policy. I think he just thought there would be Labour Scottish Governments forever.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Carnyx said:

    Is that the ONS under-reporting in England, Nicola?

    https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1267004284891267072?s=20

    If you look at death certificate data, there is indeed a big gap between covid deaths and excess deaths in England that is just not present in the equivalent Scottish figures - as I have pointed out several times here and as nobody here, nor I, have been able to explain. The Scottish NRS (English equivbalent being the ONS) figures for covid deaths are pretty much the same as the apparent excess for the time of year, but there is a much greater discrepancy with the English figures. So the two countries are indeed doing something differently. The question is what.
    Just so. I've seen this chart a couple of times and if it's accurate there is something odd going on. It would be good to have an explanation as to why.

    https://twitter.com/Zarkwan/status/1266988471102644229?s=20
    Doesn't this z-score also take into account recoveries, which aren't being published?
This discussion has been closed.