The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
This thread tells us exactly why Johnson/Cummings are so keen to emasculate judicial review. Without it, it gets much easier to throw public money at their mates.
Sounds like libel to me. Hope you have deep pockets.
It's extremely bold in a Yes Minister kind of way. In the 1930s large scale housebuilding was the key element of Keynes plan to get us out of recession. It just might happen again. Demand for housing is there. Whether the finance is has to be more open to question.
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
Well there are a variety of reasons, not least of which is the ease of internal movement. I can understand why local lockdowns have become a thing again, the economics give us no choice, but I really thought that we had established as early as March from the Italian experience that they just did not work and facilitated the spread of the virus to other areas.
Ease of internal movement is an issue, for sure. It’s very tough to get from NE Spain to SE Spain without being able to fly. It is not a regular journey. Spain is a very big country with a lot of empty bits between population centres away from the coasts and Madrid. At this stage, it’s hard to see the case for a national lockdown.
As I say, economically we have no choice but we are not learning from our and others' mistakes.
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
I think the Bank has got to be more cautious in case they need to ramp up the printing presses, can't very well do that and have a forecast of just a 5-7% drop in GDP this year and for an almost full recovery by mid 2021.
The plans protect the green belt, they simply ensure planning permission is granted to individual schemes in zones approved for planning permission under council local plans
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
This thread tells us exactly why Johnson/Cummings are so keen to emasculate judicial review. Without it, it gets much easier to throw public money at their mates.
Sounds like libel to me. Hope you have deep pockets.
The pattern here is too upset the elite and it is working
The elite is loving it. This government of the elite is handing over public money left, right and centre to very wealthy, immensely privileged people. What’s to get upset about?
It has gone on in politics in all parties since politics began
I am not condoning it but am indicating that even beyond that the elite/establishment are seeing change that is driving them near insane.
How are Cummings, Johnson and co not part of the elite/establishment? They run the country!! They are currently in the process of centralising power and removing scrutiny. Where this ends is anyone’s guess, but up to now they are following the Orban/Erdogan playbook almost to the letter. If you don’t find that concerning, so be it - but let’s not pretend that when democracies break down it’s the existing elites that suffer.
The Tories are using their classic divide and conquer tactics and sadly it’s working, like it usually does.
They’ve got normal people fulminating at luvvies, cosmopolitans, Islington liberals, snowflakes, etc, etc, add your own personal bugbears to the list as you wish.
While the high Tory/rich business types - the real elite - are steadily demolishing any hurdles to their graft. See the tweets on this thread about the contracts the govt has awarded to its chums. The proposed shake up to the judiciary is another symptom of this.
Like Tories always do they will whip up hysteria, distracting normal people with enemies that aren’t really enemies whilst shovelling cash into their and their mates’ pockets. The wider country will ultimately suffer. But there’s always someone else to blame. Furriners, unelected EU bureaucrats, Extinction Rebellion, BLM, Remainers, the list goes on and on. The right wing press will hammer it repeatedly and of the vast bulk of people who don’t follow politics, just enough will be brainwashed to vote against their own interests. Like they so often are.
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
And what do we do about the thousands of foreign students due to return over the next few weeks? Having worked so hard to limit the incidence of the virus in our own community this is an obvious and incredible risk. The Scottish government says it does not have the capacity to test them all. God alone knows why not. It should be mandatory if they are to attend classes.
That's easy, make them arrive two weeks before the start of term, test them on arrival and put them in forced quarantine if they have it. Students are very easy to track because of visa requirements.
It is easy. But its not being done. Its another big mistake coming down the track that no one in government is paying sufficient attention to.
Britain is heading for an unemployment crisis of Biblical proportions by the end of the year unless the Treasury's policy is torn up very soon.
Businesses will start "shedding" jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
The plans protect the green belt, they simply ensure planning permission is granted to individual schemes in zones approved for planning permission under council local plans
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
You'll upset Priti P, going on like that!
There must have been some wry moments at the Home Office - "Now they are *demanding* I stop all immigration?!"
Britain is heading for an unemployment crisis of Biblical proportions by the end of the year unless the Treasury's policy is torn up very soon.
Businesses will start "shedding" jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
It's not going to be as bad as that. Businesses who are worried about investing will hire people instead. We saw it from 2010-2019, chronic underinvestment in capital coupled with a jobs boom, I expect much the same to happen after this is over.
The people who will lose out will include neighbours of developments, where the planning process currently drives tweaks in proposals to ensure that they don't unduly affect neighbouring properties, for example in terms of overlooking or loss of light, and rejects outright the worst of such.
"Local people" (has the government yet defined what this means) having a say over the zoning of development within their district isn't the same as an individual having the right to object to something proposed next door.
I think that first point is perfectly right, but I wonder if they truly have the guts to push it further when the effects become clear.
Whose idea was changing the planning laws in this way, or rather scrapping them? Giving developers their head in London and the Home Counties seems an odd fit with Cummings' desire to rebuild left-behind communities up north and by the seaside.
This planning policy is not going to benefit those in the red wall, where housing is already fairly cheap and new builds plentiful.
Its hard to see that this policy has any electoral value - although it could still be good despite that. I doubt it though.
It will have negative electoral value, and negligible impact on the housing crisis, where developers already fail to implement millions of permissions preferring to sit on land to keep prices high.
Developers will like it nevertheless because it cuts out the hassle and inconvenience of going through the planning process.
It is almost as if property developers were big funders of the Tory party.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
Interesting. Not in the manifesto? I thought FPTP protected us from policies not in the manifesto? Clearly not.
It's not been in the news much but there is apparently some bug going around that has caused some government policies to evolve somewhat since the election.
I think that first point is perfectly right, but I wonder if they truly have the guts to push it further when the effects become clear.
Fundamentally, it is something the Tories need to do for their long term prospects as home owners are more likely to vote Tory but of course it risks upsetting current home owners and landlords
It's extremely bold in a Yes Minister kind of way. In the 1930s large scale housebuilding was the key element of Keynes plan to get us out of recession. It just might happen again. Demand for housing is there. Whether the finance is has to be more open to question.
Looks like a recipe for making the Labour vote in and around major cities more efficient.
Britain is heading for an unemployment crisis of Biblical proportions by the end of the year unless the Treasury's policy is torn up very soon.
Businesses will start "shedding" jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
It's not going to be as bad as that. Businesses who are worried about investing will hire people instead. We saw it from 2010-2019, chronic underinvestment in capital coupled with a jobs boom, I expect much the same to happen after this is over.
The furlough scheme is a call option on the recovery. We've got to hope it pays off. We'll find out in a couple of months time if the unwinding is kept to the timetable.
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
And what do we do about the thousands of foreign students due to return over the next few weeks? Having worked so hard to limit the incidence of the virus in our own community this is an obvious and incredible risk. The Scottish government says it does not have the capacity to test them all. God alone knows why not. It should be mandatory if they are to attend classes.
That's easy, make them arrive two weeks before the start of term, test them on arrival and put them in forced quarantine if they have it. Students are very easy to track because of visa requirements.
It is easy. But its not being done. Its another big mistake coming down the track that no one in government is paying sufficient attention to.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
Yes.
(And quite what its got to do with judicial review escapes me).
Ironically the biggest complaint on various local Facebook groups from Tory/Brexit voters here in the NE is that “affordable housing” on new build estates is not. That is despite the NE having some of the cheapest housing in England.
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
All of the recent European increases* are localised - at least that I am aware of. UK, France, Germany, Spain etc.
So local lockdowns are the pattern....
In the rush of positive/negative nationalism, it is often useful to step back and ask yourself - what is happening elsewhere?
*Not sure that "second wave" is the right term for "Increase on the tail end of epidemic curve". Like this -
As far as I am aware, no-one has defined what 'second-wave' means. Combine this with a scientifically challenged and mathematically ignorant media and every minor increase in detected cases (for whatever reason) has suddenly become the second wave. Clearly across Europe, lockdowns of varying degrees of harshness have been lifted and inevitably more interacting people means more chance for infections to spread. Pace Newsnight last night, so far, there is minimal evidence of an increase in serious cases leading to hospital/death. Long may that continue.
Interesting. Not in the manifesto? I thought FPTP protected us from policies not in the manifesto? Clearly not.
It's not been in the news much but there is apparently some bug going around that has caused some government policies to evolve somewhat since the election.
What has that got to do with planning policy? Come on @DavidL you’re better than this...
I think that first point is perfectly right, but I wonder if they truly have the guts to push it further when the effects become clear.
Fundamentally, it is something the Tories need to do for their long term prospects as home owners are more likely to vote Tory but of course it risks upsetting current home owners and landlords
I have always predicted that there will come a point where the interests of potential home buyers will be seen as politically greater than the interests of home owners.
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
And what do we do about the thousands of foreign students due to return over the next few weeks? Having worked so hard to limit the incidence of the virus in our own community this is an obvious and incredible risk. The Scottish government says it does not have the capacity to test them all. God alone knows why not. It should be mandatory if they are to attend classes.
That's easy, make them arrive two weeks before the start of term, test them on arrival and put them in forced quarantine if they have it. Students are very easy to track because of visa requirements.
It is easy. But its not being done. Its another big mistake coming down the track that no one in government is paying sufficient attention to.
I do wonder why it's not being done.
My guess is that the Universities Minister is already panicking about the financial implications of a significant drop in the number of foreign students and does not want to do anything that might put them off.
Which is just stupid. We should be emphasising to those students that they are going to be safe here and having everyone in Halls tested and cleared before they take up occupancy is a key part of that.
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
And what do we do about the thousands of foreign students due to return over the next few weeks? Having worked so hard to limit the incidence of the virus in our own community this is an obvious and incredible risk. The Scottish government says it does not have the capacity to test them all. God alone knows why not. It should be mandatory if they are to attend classes.
That's easy, make them arrive two weeks before the start of term, test them on arrival and put them in forced quarantine if they have it. Students are very easy to track because of visa requirements.
It is easy. But its not being done. Its another big mistake coming down the track that no one in government is paying sufficient attention to.
I do wonder why it's not being done.
My guess is that the Universities Minister is already panicking about the financial implications of a significant drop in the number of foreign students and does not want to do anything that might put them off.
Which is just stupid. We should be emphasising to those students that they are going to be safe here and having everyone in Halls tested and cleared before they take up occupancy is a key part of that.
Yeah surely a testing on arrival scheme helps everyone to feel safe.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
Being seen to get PPE at that point was life and death stuff for the reputation of the government. Nevertheless that reputation seems to be suffering some long term and debilitating after-effects..
This planning policy is not going to benefit those in the red wall, where housing is already fairly cheap and new builds plentiful.
Its hard to see that this policy has any electoral value - although it could still be good despite that. I doubt it though.
The Tory heartland and the largest percentage of Tory seats are still in the South of England outside London where housing is more expensive, not the Red Wall
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
All of the recent European increases* are localised - at least that I am aware of. UK, France, Germany, Spain etc.
So local lockdowns are the pattern....
In the rush of positive/negative nationalism, it is often useful to step back and ask yourself - what is happening elsewhere?
*Not sure that "second wave" is the right term for "Increase on the tail end of epidemic curve". Like this -
As far as I am aware, no-one has defined what 'second-wave' means. Combine this with a scientifically challenged and mathematically ignorant media and every minor increase in detected cases (for whatever reason) has suddenly become the second wave. Clearly across Europe, lockdowns of varying degrees of harshness have been lifted and inevitably more interacting people means more chance for infections to spread. Pace Newsnight last night, so far, there is minimal evidence of an increase in serious cases leading to hospital/death. Long may that continue.
The reason that the recent increases have not led to increasing numbers of serious cases is probably this -
In recent weeks, the age profile of those infected has shifted massively towards the younger groups.
The problem is that, elsewhere (such as Florida), such rises have started among the young. So lots of cases, not too many hospitalisations. Then the epidemic pivots into the elderly.
That is why, across Europe (and around the world), there is an attempt to tread on these rises early.
Also I've been looking into the city consensus for GDP next week, I think our estimates are much more pessimistic, the range is -10% to -14% with most coming in the upper tier at close to -10%, that would take the peak to trough drop to -16%, July has been pencilled in for +6% and August for something like +4% and I'm sticking in +3% for September. If the economy performs anywhere near that, we'd be up to 95% of peak GDP by the end of September. I have to say last night felt like things were closer to normal than most people realised.
Brining in flight restrictions from hot zones is an absolute must. People should not be allowed to arrive into the UK from any of the current red listed countries at all even if it means pissing off giant baby Trump and the airlines. The last thing we need is a bunch of irresponsible people going to India and Pakistan in October after monsoon season ends and coming back infected in December setting off a whole new wave.
And what do we do about the thousands of foreign students due to return over the next few weeks? Having worked so hard to limit the incidence of the virus in our own community this is an obvious and incredible risk. The Scottish government says it does not have the capacity to test them all. God alone knows why not. It should be mandatory if they are to attend classes.
That's easy, make them arrive two weeks before the start of term, test them on arrival and put them in forced quarantine if they have it. Students are very easy to track because of visa requirements.
It is easy. But its not being done. Its another big mistake coming down the track that no one in government is paying sufficient attention to.
I do wonder why it's not being done.
My guess is that the Universities Minister is already panicking about the financial implications of a significant drop in the number of foreign students and does not want to do anything that might put them off.
Which is just stupid. We should be emphasising to those students that they are going to be safe here and having everyone in Halls tested and cleared before they take up occupancy is a key part of that.
Yeah surely a testing on arrival scheme helps everyone to feel safe.
For me this is nursing homes all over again. But much worse as these students will be out and about in the community far, far more.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
I wouldn't fancy being a Tory councillor up for re-election in next year's Super Tuesday. Especially in the leafy home counties seats where the LibDems are potential challengers.
Cant wait for developers to start building high-rise flats all over Epping, clad in Neon panels. @HYUFD will definitely appreciate that.
So long as they meet building regs that’s okay right? No need to be in keeping?
If you had bothered to read the plans which clearly you have not you would know development has to be in accordance with local plans and in zones assigned for development under those plans, Epping's Local Plan has already been done
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
The Tory heartland and the largest percentage of Tory seats are still in the South of England outside London where housing is more expensive, not the Red Wall
That's the point.
A policy that depresses house prices in the Tory shires while making no difference "Up North" seems unlikely to go down well with Tory voters of either sort
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
All of the recent European increases* are localised - at least that I am aware of. UK, France, Germany, Spain etc.
So local lockdowns are the pattern....
In the rush of positive/negative nationalism, it is often useful to step back and ask yourself - what is happening elsewhere?
*Not sure that "second wave" is the right term for "Increase on the tail end of epidemic curve". Like this -
As far as I am aware, no-one has defined what 'second-wave' means. Combine this with a scientifically challenged and mathematically ignorant media and every minor increase in detected cases (for whatever reason) has suddenly become the second wave. Clearly across Europe, lockdowns of varying degrees of harshness have been lifted and inevitably more interacting people means more chance for infections to spread. Pace Newsnight last night, so far, there is minimal evidence of an increase in serious cases leading to hospital/death. Long may that continue.
The reason that the recent increases have not led to increasing numbers of serious cases is probably this -
In recent weeks, the age profile of those infected has shifted massively towards the younger groups.
The problem is that, elsewhere (such as Florida), such rises have started among the young. So lots of cases, not too many hospitalisations. Then the epidemic pivots into the elderly.
That is why, across Europe (and around the world), there is an attempt to tread on these rises early.
Which is possibly an argument for the over 50's lockdown approach...
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
Cant wait for developers to start building high-rise flats all over Epping, clad in Neon panels. @HYUFD will definitely appreciate that.
So long as they meet building regs that’s okay right? No need to be in keeping?
If you had bothered to read the plans which clearly you have not you would know development has to be in accordance with local plans and in zones assigned for development under those plans, Epping's Local Plan has already been done
So why is this policy in any way beneficial to anyone? What difference is it going to make?
Ironically the biggest complaint on various local Facebook groups from Tory/Brexit voters here in the NE is that “affordable housing” on new build estates is not. That is despite the NE having some of the cheapest housing in England.
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Regulations don't work to make homes cheaper. What works to make homes cheaper is actually quite simple: increasing supply faster than you increase demand.
I am of the belief that policies like Help To Buy as much as anything are the reason the red wall seats fell to the Tories. For years now up here in the North housebuilding has been going with lots of new developments that is enabling house prices to stay steady rather than rising and lots of new people getting onto the property ladder.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Labour Party to ensure the poor stay impoverished. It is in their interests to ensure they have a client state of voters that need their help.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Tory Party to get people out of poverty. To get the off requiring state support. To ensure that as many people as possible can own their own home and have shares in the economy.
Protecting the house prices of existing owners who want to pull the ladder up after them is both morally reprehensible and against the long-term interests of the party. Doing the right thing for the country and doing the right thing for the party are the same thing here.
Interesting. Not in the manifesto? I thought FPTP protected us from policies not in the manifesto? Clearly not.
It's not been in the news much but there is apparently some bug going around that has caused some government policies to evolve somewhat since the election.
What has that got to do with planning policy? Come on @DavidL you’re better than this...
It means that the government is desperately searching around for ways to get the economy moving fast. Rishi's dishies is a good start but a housebuilding boom has real potential to get unemployment back down and investment up. The government wants to get anything in the road of that removed whether it was in the manifesto last year or not.
The plans protect the green belt, they simply ensure planning permission is granted to individual schemes in zones approved for planning permission under council local plans
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
The story upthread is about buying PPE that doesn't work...
Speed is clearly not more important than "anything else"
I hope that isn't the scientific method you teach?
The reason that procurement process exists is to try and prevent such mistakes.
At this point I apologise to the widows and orphans of those who died laughing at the above statement.
Nonetheless, it does work to an extent. So, bypassing it in an emergency leads to an increase in failures.
I have been told that officials in the NHS/Health system resisted the expansion of testing on the grounds that it meant breaking the procurement process.
Following the process would have meant that expansion would have take 6-12 months. At least. So we would still be on a few 10ks of tests per day, with expansion happening next year....
The Tory heartland and the largest percentage of Tory seats are still in the South of England outside London where housing is more expensive, not the Red Wall
That's the point.
A policy that depresses house prices in the Tory shires while making no difference "Up North" seems unlikely to go down well with Tory voters of either sort
It will if more can buy property and get on the housing ladder thus longer term creating more Tory voters
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
Yes, and that is why, to an extent, these errors are forgiveable. Perhaps the system worked: the flaws have been caught before delivery to hospitals; is there a quality clause in the contract that means we do not have to pay for defective goods, one wonders.
And yet even during emergencies we must guard against sweetheart deals and cronyism. Critics of Labour's list should not reverse ferret when the blue list turns out to be as bad if not worse because that is the one where money was spent. If JM's twitter thread is right about the structuring of the deal through intermediary companies then surely someone should have smelt a rat.
The Tory heartland and the largest percentage of Tory seats are still in the South of England outside London where housing is more expensive, not the Red Wall
That's the point.
A policy that depresses house prices in the Tory shires while making no difference "Up North" seems unlikely to go down well with Tory voters of either sort
No you're completely wrong.
Increasing home ownership rates improves the party. House prices are a side-effect but not the be all and end all. What actually matters is changing home ownership rates.
Seats that have been swinging to the Tories are seats where home ownership rates increase, not seats where house prices increase. Seats that have been swinging to the Tories are seats where home ownership rates fall, not seats where house prices fall.
Ironically the biggest complaint on various local Facebook groups from Tory/Brexit voters here in the NE is that “affordable housing” on new build estates is not. That is despite the NE having some of the cheapest housing in England.
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Regulations don't work to make homes cheaper. What works to make homes cheaper is actually quite simple: increasing supply faster than you increase demand.
I am of the belief that policies like Help To Buy as much as anything are the reason the red wall seats fell to the Tories. For years now up here in the North housebuilding has been going with lots of new developments that is enabling house prices to stay steady rather than rising and lots of new people getting onto the property ladder.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Labour Party to ensure the poor stay impoverished. It is in their interests to ensure they have a client state of voters that need their help.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Tory Party to get people out of poverty. To get the off requiring state support. To ensure that as many people as possible can own their own home and have shares in the economy.
Protecting the house prices of existing owners who want to pull the ladder up after them is both morally reprehensible and against the long-term interests of the party. Doing the right thing for the country and doing the right thing for the party are the same thing here.
That’s a lot of words to say very little. What point are you trying to make? I’m a huge believer in home ownership and you admitted that the North has seen a huge amount of house building in the last 20 years. My point is that people still complain they are too expensive, and want them cheaper. This is despite housing in the North (and in the North East especially) being some of the cheapest in England. I doubt this policy is going to lead to cheaper housing in the North.
I wouldn't fancy being a Tory councillor up for re-election in next year's Super Tuesday. Especially in the leafy home counties seats where the LibDems are potential challengers.
Many already lost their seats to the LDs in May 2019 which was the worst Tory local election night since 1995, in Epping the LDs have always been the most Nimby and anti development for years so nothing changed and they hold half the council seats
Interesting. Not in the manifesto? I thought FPTP protected us from policies not in the manifesto? Clearly not.
It's not been in the news much but there is apparently some bug going around that has caused some government policies to evolve somewhat since the election.
What has that got to do with planning policy? Come on @DavidL you’re better than this...
It means that the government is desperately searching around for ways to get the economy moving fast. Rishi's dishies is a good start but a housebuilding boom has real potential to get unemployment back down and investment up. The government wants to get anything in the road of that removed whether it was in the manifesto last year or not.
Britain is heading for an unemployment crisis of Biblical proportions by the end of the year unless the Treasury's policy is torn up very soon.
Businesses will start "shedding" jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
Sigh. So the answer to avoiding a recession is that the government continues to pay more than half the workforce's wages indefinitely so that they can avoid doing productive work?
Yes, a hell of a lot of jobs are going to go. But extending the furlough scheme is not the answer. The answer is to facilitate work as much as possible given the virus, targeted help for specific sectors and government investment to spur demand where it is lacking.
Ironically the biggest complaint on various local Facebook groups from Tory/Brexit voters here in the NE is that “affordable housing” on new build estates is not. That is despite the NE having some of the cheapest housing in England.
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Regulations don't work to make homes cheaper. What works to make homes cheaper is actually quite simple: increasing supply faster than you increase demand.
I am of the belief that policies like Help To Buy as much as anything are the reason the red wall seats fell to the Tories. For years now up here in the North housebuilding has been going with lots of new developments that is enabling house prices to stay steady rather than rising and lots of new people getting onto the property ladder.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Labour Party to ensure the poor stay impoverished. It is in their interests to ensure they have a client state of voters that need their help.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Tory Party to get people out of poverty. To get the off requiring state support. To ensure that as many people as possible can own their own home and have shares in the economy.
Protecting the house prices of existing owners who want to pull the ladder up after them is both morally reprehensible and against the long-term interests of the party. Doing the right thing for the country and doing the right thing for the party are the same thing here.
That’s a lot of words to say very little. What point are you trying to make? I’m a huge believer in home ownership and you admitted that the North has seen a huge amount of house building in the last 20 years. My point is that people still complain they are too expensive, and want them cheaper. This is despite housing in the North (and in the North East especially) being some of the cheapest in England. I doubt this policy is going to lead to cheaper housing in the North.
The point I am making is getting people onto the housing ladder is the end goal - both for the country and the party.
I don't see why you say "admitted" that the North has seen a huge amount of house building. Absolutely it has, which is why the North has gone from rock solid Labour to huge swathes of the North ending up Tory. Yes Brexit and Corbyn played a factor but they simply amplified a trend that has been going on for a decade as home ownership rates picked up. It is fantastic news that there has been house building in the past and it needs to be continued and improved wherever possible.
Secondly yes cheaper housing is wanted and the way to get that is to clear regulatory burdens that prevent increasing supply. If this policy leads to more housing being built then the fundamental economic laws of supply and demand mean that there will be cheaper housing as a result. The only long term way to get cheaper housing is to increase supply - and that supply should be of good quality homes, not "affordable" homes that are tiny crap.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
PPE was going to be needed, and quickly but this - well it the stench of corruption about it.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
All of the recent European increases* are localised - at least that I am aware of. UK, France, Germany, Spain etc.
So local lockdowns are the pattern....
In the rush of positive/negative nationalism, it is often useful to step back and ask yourself - what is happening elsewhere?
*Not sure that "second wave" is the right term for "Increase on the tail end of epidemic curve". Like this -
As far as I am aware, no-one has defined what 'second-wave' means. Combine this with a scientifically challenged and mathematically ignorant media and every minor increase in detected cases (for whatever reason) has suddenly become the second wave. Clearly across Europe, lockdowns of varying degrees of harshness have been lifted and inevitably more interacting people means more chance for infections to spread. Pace Newsnight last night, so far, there is minimal evidence of an increase in serious cases leading to hospital/death. Long may that continue.
Indeed, despite all the hype about the "Leicester hotspot" we now have only 18 covid patients in Leicester Hospitals, down more than 50% over the month of July.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
We are, the Moderna vaccine is a whole new type and has never previously been proven to work. Even the Oxford vaccine is fairly novel. Literally we're hoping to strike lucky and buying up options for things that have never been tried before. It's still the right thing to do.
Ironically the biggest complaint on various local Facebook groups from Tory/Brexit voters here in the NE is that “affordable housing” on new build estates is not. That is despite the NE having some of the cheapest housing in England.
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Regulations don't work to make homes cheaper. What works to make homes cheaper is actually quite simple: increasing supply faster than you increase demand.
I am of the belief that policies like Help To Buy as much as anything are the reason the red wall seats fell to the Tories. For years now up here in the North housebuilding has been going with lots of new developments that is enabling house prices to stay steady rather than rising and lots of new people getting onto the property ladder.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Labour Party to ensure the poor stay impoverished. It is in their interests to ensure they have a client state of voters that need their help.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Tory Party to get people out of poverty. To get the off requiring state support. To ensure that as many people as possible can own their own home and have shares in the economy.
Protecting the house prices of existing owners who want to pull the ladder up after them is both morally reprehensible and against the long-term interests of the party. Doing the right thing for the country and doing the right thing for the party are the same thing here.
That’s a lot of words to say very little. What point are you trying to make? I’m a huge believer in home ownership and you admitted that the North has seen a huge amount of house building in the last 20 years. My point is that people still complain they are too expensive, and want them cheaper. This is despite housing in the North (and in the North East especially) being some of the cheapest in England. I doubt this policy is going to lead to cheaper housing in the North.
The point I am making is getting people onto the housing ladder is the end goal - both for the country and the party.
I don't see why you say "admitted" that the North has seen a huge amount of house building. Absolutely it has, which is why the North has gone from rock solid Labour to huge swathes of the North ending up Tory. Yes Brexit and Corbyn played a factor but they simply amplified a trend that has been going on for a decade as home ownership rates picked up. It is fantastic news that there has been house building in the past and it needs to be continued and improved wherever possible.
Secondly yes cheaper housing is wanted and the way to get that is to clear regulatory burdens that prevent increasing supply. If this policy leads to more housing being built then the fundamental economic laws of supply and demand mean that there will be cheaper housing as a result. The only long term way to get cheaper housing is to increase supply - and that supply should be of good quality homes, not "affordable" homes that are tiny crap.
I can tell you already that if there are no regulations, the houses that get built will be tiny, ugly, crap. Why wouldn’t they? They sell regardless.
My new build housing estate is beautiful only because the council forced the developer to make it “in keeping” with the village. The one just down the road had no such requirement and its ugly as sin. They still sell every single one.
All your opinions on this matter come from “economic theory” rather than any actual first hand experience in this area. Real life doesn’t work the same as a text book.
"We specialise in currency trading, offshore property, private equity and trade financing.".
Doesn't look like an obvious source of PPE to me. This government's procurement policy is, already, the most corrupt I've ever seen. Covid has given them an excuse to bypass any notion of good practice and dish vast sums out to an array of dodgy or poor companies, ranging from Serco and G4S to a whole load of "new" players with links to friends of government.
I'm surprised that people with integrity, like Big G, don't see this for what it is. Money for the elites.
Under those circumstances, yes it was. You buy as much as you can get hold of knowing that some might not work so that you have enough that does.
None of this shipment worked.
Speed was clearly not the most important factor in this purchasing decision.
"Hey kids, put on your safety specs for this next bit. I don't know if they work, but I got same day shipping..."
None of that shipment worked but it wasn't the only shipment ordered.
With lives on the line the government threw everything at getting supplies from wherever they could. Better to waste money on 10 shipments that fail while getting 40 that succeed, than to take your time identify which 40 shipments may succeed then belatedly order them only to find people are dead due to your tardiness.
Honestly give over. Either attack them for being slow to respond, or responding too fast, but this constant flip flopping just makes you look utterly absurd.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
All of the recent European increases* are localised - at least that I am aware of. UK, France, Germany, Spain etc.
So local lockdowns are the pattern....
In the rush of positive/negative nationalism, it is often useful to step back and ask yourself - what is happening elsewhere?
*Not sure that "second wave" is the right term for "Increase on the tail end of epidemic curve". Like this -
As far as I am aware, no-one has defined what 'second-wave' means. Combine this with a scientifically challenged and mathematically ignorant media and every minor increase in detected cases (for whatever reason) has suddenly become the second wave. Clearly across Europe, lockdowns of varying degrees of harshness have been lifted and inevitably more interacting people means more chance for infections to spread. Pace Newsnight last night, so far, there is minimal evidence of an increase in serious cases leading to hospital/death. Long may that continue.
Indeed, despite all the hype about the "Leicester hotspot" we now have only 18 covid patients in Leicester Hospitals, down more than 50% over the month of July.
Could be because the government forced a new lockdown which limited transmission to older people. Obviously we have no way of knowing what the road not taken looks like in this instance but the road taken had a reasonable outcome.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
All of the recent European increases* are localised - at least that I am aware of. UK, France, Germany, Spain etc.
So local lockdowns are the pattern....
In the rush of positive/negative nationalism, it is often useful to step back and ask yourself - what is happening elsewhere?
*Not sure that "second wave" is the right term for "Increase on the tail end of epidemic curve". Like this -
As far as I am aware, no-one has defined what 'second-wave' means. Combine this with a scientifically challenged and mathematically ignorant media and every minor increase in detected cases (for whatever reason) has suddenly become the second wave. Clearly across Europe, lockdowns of varying degrees of harshness have been lifted and inevitably more interacting people means more chance for infections to spread. Pace Newsnight last night, so far, there is minimal evidence of an increase in serious cases leading to hospital/death. Long may that continue.
The reason that the recent increases have not led to increasing numbers of serious cases is probably this -
In recent weeks, the age profile of those infected has shifted massively towards the younger groups.
The problem is that, elsewhere (such as Florida), such rises have started among the young. So lots of cases, not too many hospitalisations. Then the epidemic pivots into the elderly.
That is why, across Europe (and around the world), there is an attempt to tread on these rises early.
Which is possibly an argument for the over 50's lockdown approach...
The question is whether they can be isolated to that extent. But yes, that is why that scenario was looked into.
Britain is heading for an unemployment crisis of Biblical proportions by the end of the year unless the Treasury's policy is torn up very soon.
Businesses will start "shedding" jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
Sigh. So the answer to avoiding a recession is that the government continues to pay more than half the workforce's wages indefinitely so that they can avoid doing productive work?
Yes, a hell of a lot of jobs are going to go. But extending the furlough scheme is not the answer. The answer is to facilitate work as much as possible given the virus, targeted help for specific sectors and government investment to spur demand where it is lacking.
Oh I agree that it must come to an end. Best to do so by simultaneously tapering it down (which they are doing - the 70% thing, but other modes are possible) while promoting/encouraging/investing in the new opportunities that arise out of the dust that settles in the aftermath. Some of the job losses will be permanent, and the public subsidies for these should certainly be unwound. But how to discern and discriminate which they are? Avoiding losers is the obverse of picking winners.
With lives on the line the government threw everything at getting supplies from wherever they could. Better to waste money on 10 shipments that fail while getting 40 that succeed, than to take your time identify which 40 shipments may succeed then belatedly order them only to find people are dead due to your tardiness.
No
Buying stuff that doesn't work is not better than not having stuff that works.
In both cases you don't have stuff that works.
Anybody who died "while waiting for the right stuff" would have died anyway if you used the stuff that doesn't work.
In matters of life and death, getting it right really does matter.
"We specialise in currency trading, offshore property, private equity and trade financing.".
Doesn't look like an obvious source of PPE to me. This government's procurement policy is, already, the most corrupt I've ever seen. Covid has given them an excuse to bypass any notion of good practice and dish vast sums out to an array of dodgy or poor companies, ranging from Serco and G4S to a whole load of "new" players with links to friends of government.
I'm surprised that people with integrity, like Big G, don't see this for what it is. Money for the elites.
What was it about your own company that made you advise the Minister to give them 150m quid?
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
The story upthread is about buying PPE that doesn't work...
Speed is clearly not more important than "anything else"
I hope that isn't the scientific method you teach?
Under those circumstances, yes it was. You buy as much as you can get hold of knowing that some might not work so that you have enough that does.
Just like we are currently doing with the vaccine program.
You are making the best the enemy of the good.
The FFP2 masks are not "good" as the 50 million of them are not up to standard. They have only recently been delivered too, so are too late. The company providing was merely a middleman with no background in medical equipment too. An off shore finance company speculating in PPE, why not buy direct for this scale of order?
Ironically the biggest complaint on various local Facebook groups from Tory/Brexit voters here in the NE is that “affordable housing” on new build estates is not. That is despite the NE having some of the cheapest housing in England.
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Regulations don't work to make homes cheaper. What works to make homes cheaper is actually quite simple: increasing supply faster than you increase demand.
I am of the belief that policies like Help To Buy as much as anything are the reason the red wall seats fell to the Tories. For years now up here in the North housebuilding has been going with lots of new developments that is enabling house prices to stay steady rather than rising and lots of new people getting onto the property ladder.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Labour Party to ensure the poor stay impoverished. It is in their interests to ensure they have a client state of voters that need their help.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Tory Party to get people out of poverty. To get the off requiring state support. To ensure that as many people as possible can own their own home and have shares in the economy.
Protecting the house prices of existing owners who want to pull the ladder up after them is both morally reprehensible and against the long-term interests of the party. Doing the right thing for the country and doing the right thing for the party are the same thing here.
That’s a lot of words to say very little. What point are you trying to make? I’m a huge believer in home ownership and you admitted that the North has seen a huge amount of house building in the last 20 years. My point is that people still complain they are too expensive, and want them cheaper. This is despite housing in the North (and in the North East especially) being some of the cheapest in England. I doubt this policy is going to lead to cheaper housing in the North.
The point I am making is getting people onto the housing ladder is the end goal - both for the country and the party.
I don't see why you say "admitted" that the North has seen a huge amount of house building. Absolutely it has, which is why the North has gone from rock solid Labour to huge swathes of the North ending up Tory. Yes Brexit and Corbyn played a factor but they simply amplified a trend that has been going on for a decade as home ownership rates picked up. It is fantastic news that there has been house building in the past and it needs to be continued and improved wherever possible.
Secondly yes cheaper housing is wanted and the way to get that is to clear regulatory burdens that prevent increasing supply. If this policy leads to more housing being built then the fundamental economic laws of supply and demand mean that there will be cheaper housing as a result. The only long term way to get cheaper housing is to increase supply - and that supply should be of good quality homes, not "affordable" homes that are tiny crap.
I can tell you already that if there are no regulations, the houses that get built will be tiny, ugly, crap. Why wouldn’t they? They sell regardless.
My new build housing estate is beautiful only because the council forced the developer to make it “in keeping” with the village. The one just down the road had no such requirement and its ugly as sin. They still sell every single one.
All your opinions on this matter come from “economic theory” rather than any actual first hand experience in this area. Real life doesn’t work the same as a text book.
No my opinions on this come from both economic theory and from living in the North and from having in the last decade bought a new build home on a new build estate. Though my circumstances changed so we subsequently sold the home and now live on rented accommodation and are now trying to save for a deposit to try and get back on the property ladder and would like the opportunity to again buy a new home if possible. That's pretty first hand experience.
With lives on the line the government threw everything at getting supplies from wherever they could. Better to waste money on 10 shipments that fail while getting 40 that succeed, than to take your time identify which 40 shipments may succeed then belatedly order them only to find people are dead due to your tardiness.
No
Buying stuff that doesn't work is not better than not having stuff that works.
In both cases you don't have stuff that works.
Anybody who died "while waiting for the right stuff" would have died anyway if you used the stuff that doesn't work.
In matters of life and death, getting it right really does matter.
Don't be an idiot. If this was the only order you'd be right. If the government orders lots of orders and some fail then you throw away the failures but you have the stuff that works.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
We are, the Moderna vaccine is a whole new type and has never previously been proven to work. Even the Oxford vaccine is fairly novel. Literally we're hoping to strike lucky and buying up options for things that have never been tried before. It's still the right thing to do.
Of course they are novel, but they're all researched by proper scientists with phds working at universities or biotech companies with a track record.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
Spain’s outbreaks remain very localised. Why shut down Extremadura if most of the problems are hundreds of miles to the north-east?
All of the recent European increases* are localised - at least that I am aware of. UK, France, Germany, Spain etc.
So local lockdowns are the pattern....
In the rush of positive/negative nationalism, it is often useful to step back and ask yourself - what is happening elsewhere?
*Not sure that "second wave" is the right term for "Increase on the tail end of epidemic curve". Like this -
As far as I am aware, no-one has defined what 'second-wave' means. Combine this with a scientifically challenged and mathematically ignorant media and every minor increase in detected cases (for whatever reason) has suddenly become the second wave. Clearly across Europe, lockdowns of varying degrees of harshness have been lifted and inevitably more interacting people means more chance for infections to spread. Pace Newsnight last night, so far, there is minimal evidence of an increase in serious cases leading to hospital/death. Long may that continue.
Indeed, despite all the hype about the "Leicester hotspot" we now have only 18 covid patients in Leicester Hospitals, down more than 50% over the month of July.
Why dont you do a France and keep them in for an extra few weeks
Gallowgate in a market economy what do you think long-term leads to lower-prices?
More regulations, less supply? Or fewer regulations, more supply?
Why does regulations impact supply? In the long term supply is fed by demand and nothing else.
Only if regulations don't get in the way and there's a proper free market.
If regulations get in the way and slow down or prevent construction then that artificially constricts supply leading to not all demand getting met and higher prices.
With lives on the line the government threw everything at getting supplies from wherever they could. Better to waste money on 10 shipments that fail while getting 40 that succeed, than to take your time identify which 40 shipments may succeed then belatedly order them only to find people are dead due to your tardiness.
No
Buying stuff that doesn't work is not better than not having stuff that works.
In both cases you don't have stuff that works.
Anybody who died "while waiting for the right stuff" would have died anyway if you used the stuff that doesn't work.
In matters of life and death, getting it right really does matter.
Ok so applying your logic we should wait for a vaccine to successfully complete PIII trials before committing to purchasing? Fine, but that means we won't take delivery until late 2021 or early 2022. The answer is to buy what's available and throw away what doesn't work. We're in a state of emergency which is causing untold personal and economic carnage. Waiting around isn't and was never an option.
Ironically the biggest complaint on various local Facebook groups from Tory/Brexit voters here in the NE is that “affordable housing” on new build estates is not. That is despite the NE having some of the cheapest housing in England.
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Regulations don't work to make homes cheaper. What works to make homes cheaper is actually quite simple: increasing supply faster than you increase demand.
I am of the belief that policies like Help To Buy as much as anything are the reason the red wall seats fell to the Tories. For years now up here in the North housebuilding has been going with lots of new developments that is enabling house prices to stay steady rather than rising and lots of new people getting onto the property ladder.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Labour Party to ensure the poor stay impoverished. It is in their interests to ensure they have a client state of voters that need their help.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Tory Party to get people out of poverty. To get the off requiring state support. To ensure that as many people as possible can own their own home and have shares in the economy.
Protecting the house prices of existing owners who want to pull the ladder up after them is both morally reprehensible and against the long-term interests of the party. Doing the right thing for the country and doing the right thing for the party are the same thing here.
That’s a lot of words to say very little. What point are you trying to make? I’m a huge believer in home ownership and you admitted that the North has seen a huge amount of house building in the last 20 years. My point is that people still complain they are too expensive, and want them cheaper. This is despite housing in the North (and in the North East especially) being some of the cheapest in England. I doubt this policy is going to lead to cheaper housing in the North.
The point I am making is getting people onto the housing ladder is the end goal - both for the country and the party.
I don't see why you say "admitted" that the North has seen a huge amount of house building. Absolutely it has, which is why the North has gone from rock solid Labour to huge swathes of the North ending up Tory. Yes Brexit and Corbyn played a factor but they simply amplified a trend that has been going on for a decade as home ownership rates picked up. It is fantastic news that there has been house building in the past and it needs to be continued and improved wherever possible.
Secondly yes cheaper housing is wanted and the way to get that is to clear regulatory burdens that prevent increasing supply. If this policy leads to more housing being built then the fundamental economic laws of supply and demand mean that there will be cheaper housing as a result. The only long term way to get cheaper housing is to increase supply - and that supply should be of good quality homes, not "affordable" homes that are tiny crap.
I can tell you already that if there are no regulations, the houses that get built will be tiny, ugly, crap. Why wouldn’t they? They sell regardless.
My new build housing estate is beautiful only because the council forced the developer to make it “in keeping” with the village. The one just down the road had no such requirement and its ugly as sin. They still sell every single one.
All your opinions on this matter come from “economic theory” rather than any actual first hand experience in this area. Real life doesn’t work the same as a text book.
No my opinions on this come from both economic theory and from living in the North and from having in the last decade bought a new build home on a new build estate. Though my circumstances changed so we subsequently sold the home and now live on rented accommodation and are now trying to save for a deposit to try and get back on the property ladder and would like the opportunity to again buy a new home if possible. That's pretty first hand experience.
Well then you’ll know that this policy will make little difference to the supply and quality of new builds in the North.
Why do you think that housebuilders will be motivated to build homes that are not tiny, when they know they will sell regardless? What economic theory is going to convince them make less profit?
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
We are, the Moderna vaccine is a whole new type and has never previously been proven to work. Even the Oxford vaccine is fairly novel. Literally we're hoping to strike lucky and buying up options for things that have never been tried before. It's still the right thing to do.
You're talking about two different things, though. In the vaccine cases, both vaccines are technologies which have been a decade in development, not something sketched on the back of a fag packet.
Granted, there are considerable risks involved (particularly with the Moderna effort) - the largest being that they simply don't work - but thus far it looks as though both might well pay off.
The story of Moderna getting US funding to put its program into action is an interesting one - basically meant selling a science project to an ignoramus, which they did rather effectively: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/01/us/coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-invs/index.html (note, there's an error in that piece: the Regeneron treatment is manufactured antibodies, not a vaccine.)
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
We are, the Moderna vaccine is a whole new type and has never previously been proven to work. Even the Oxford vaccine is fairly novel. Literally we're hoping to strike lucky and buying up options for things that have never been tried before. It's still the right thing to do.
Of course they are novel, but they're all researched by proper scientists with phds working at universities or biotech companies with a track record.
Moderna has no track record, BioNTech has no track record. They've never had a single successful vaccine. Yet we've spent billions securing tens of millions of doses.
With lives on the line the government threw everything at getting supplies from wherever they could. Better to waste money on 10 shipments that fail while getting 40 that succeed, than to take your time identify which 40 shipments may succeed then belatedly order them only to find people are dead due to your tardiness.
No
Buying stuff that doesn't work is not better than not having stuff that works.
In both cases you don't have stuff that works.
Anybody who died "while waiting for the right stuff" would have died anyway if you used the stuff that doesn't work.
In matters of life and death, getting it right really does matter.
Ok so applying your logic we should wait for a vaccine to successfully complete PIII trials before committing to purchasing? Fine, but that means we won't take delivery until late 2021 or early 2022. The answer is to buy what's available and throw away what doesn't work. We're in a state of emergency which is causing untold personal and economic carnage. Waiting around isn't and was never an option.
There’s a difference between purchasing supply from a known entity such as the partnership of Oxford Uni and AstraZeneca and that from a shell company in a tax haven with no trading history.
For f*ck sake you guys really will defend the indefensible. It’s obscene.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
Imagine it the other way around. Corbyn PM, dishes out £150m to a new company owned by Milne and Williamson to deliver PPE that was never used. Of course none of the Tory fanboys would have had a problem with that at all.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
We are, the Moderna vaccine is a whole new type and has never previously been proven to work. Even the Oxford vaccine is fairly novel. Literally we're hoping to strike lucky and buying up options for things that have never been tried before. It's still the right thing to do.
Of course they are novel, but they're all researched by proper scientists with phds working at universities or biotech companies with a track record.
Moderna has no track record, BioNTech has no track record. They've never had a single successful vaccine. Yet we've spent billions securing tens of millions of doses.
BioNTech has no track record with what? I used to design products for them ffs. They are a well respected biopharma company.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
We are, the Moderna vaccine is a whole new type and has never previously been proven to work. Even the Oxford vaccine is fairly novel. Literally we're hoping to strike lucky and buying up options for things that have never been tried before. It's still the right thing to do.
You're talking about two different things, though. In the vaccine cases, both vaccines are technologies which have been a decade in development, not something sketched on the back of a fag packet.
Granted, there are considerable risks involved (particularly with the Moderna effort) - the largest being that they simply don't work - but thus far it looks as though both might well pay off.
The story of Moderna getting US funding to put its program into action is an interesting one - basically meant selling a science project to an ignoramus, which they did rather effectively: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/01/us/coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-invs/index.html (note, there's an error in that piece: the Regeneron treatment is manufactured antibodies, not a vaccine.)
I'm not saying they are bad decisions, they aren't but we shouldn't pretend that buying up these initial stocks before PIII is anything more than a punt. A good one sure, but still a punt. The prudent decision by traditional accounting would be to wait for PIII to conclude and purchase whichever is cheapest. Personally I'd be pretty upset if the government took that path to save a few billion.
With lives on the line the government threw everything at getting supplies from wherever they could. Better to waste money on 10 shipments that fail while getting 40 that succeed, than to take your time identify which 40 shipments may succeed then belatedly order them only to find people are dead due to your tardiness.
No
Buying stuff that doesn't work is not better than not having stuff that works.
In both cases you don't have stuff that works.
Anybody who died "while waiting for the right stuff" would have died anyway if you used the stuff that doesn't work.
In matters of life and death, getting it right really does matter.
Ok so applying your logic we should wait for a vaccine to successfully complete PIII trials before committing to purchasing? Fine, but that means we won't take delivery until late 2021 or early 2022. The answer is to buy what's available and throw away what doesn't work. We're in a state of emergency which is causing untold personal and economic carnage. Waiting around isn't and was never an option.
With the PPE chancers does/did the Gov't have a "not fit for purpose" clause in the contract signed to get back the dosh if stuff didn't exist or was a pile of shite ?
On the vaccines, the various producers/parties - Moderna; AstraZeneca/University of Oxford, Pfizer are all big fish to begin with with obviously huge hurdles to entry so it's ok to take a punt on stuff that might not work as the effort needed by these firms is obviously there and being put in regardless.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
None of the PPE procured in this case seems to have been used because it turns out that buying it from a 100 quid company with no track record... didn't work.
Ultimately it was a punt, same as what the government are doing for vaccines. It went badly, countless others went well.
To my knowledge we aren't throwing 100m+ quid at a vaccine company with no track record set up by a Ministerial adviser this year.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
We are, the Moderna vaccine is a whole new type and has never previously been proven to work. Even the Oxford vaccine is fairly novel. Literally we're hoping to strike lucky and buying up options for things that have never been tried before. It's still the right thing to do.
Of course they are novel, but they're all researched by proper scientists with phds working at universities or biotech companies with a track record.
Moderna has no track record, BioNTech has no track record. They've never had a single successful vaccine. Yet we've spent billions securing tens of millions of doses.
BioNTech has no track record with what? I used to design products for them ffs. They are a well respected biopharma company.
Comments
Get this right and Boris will be up there with the greatest PMs of all time.
But you know that. You will always defend those picking the public purse, as long as they wear a blue rosette while doing so.
So long as they meet building regs that’s okay right? No need to be in keeping?
They’ve got normal people fulminating at luvvies, cosmopolitans, Islington liberals, snowflakes, etc, etc, add your own personal bugbears to the list as you wish.
While the high Tory/rich business types - the real elite - are steadily demolishing any hurdles to their graft. See the tweets on this thread about the contracts the govt has awarded to its chums. The proposed shake up to the judiciary is another symptom of this.
Like Tories always do they will whip up hysteria, distracting normal people with enemies that aren’t really enemies whilst shovelling cash into their and their mates’ pockets. The wider country will ultimately suffer. But there’s always someone else to blame. Furriners, unelected EU bureaucrats, Extinction Rebellion, BLM, Remainers, the list goes on and on. The right wing press will hammer it repeatedly and of the vast bulk of people who don’t follow politics, just enough will be brainwashed to vote against their own interests. Like they so often are.
Businesses will start "shedding" jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/05/economic-consequences-mr-sunak/
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
Its hard to see that this policy has any electoral value - although it could still be good despite that. I doubt it though.
"Local people" (has the government yet defined what this means) having a say over the zoning of development within their district isn't the same as an individual having the right to object to something proposed next door.
Developers will like it nevertheless because it cuts out the hassle and inconvenience of going through the planning process.
It is almost as if property developers were big funders of the Tory party.
The Chancellor's problem might be that Boris is no longer floundering at PMQs once a week.
(And quite what its got to do with judicial review escapes me).
They basically want more regulation, not less, to force developers into selling houses cheaper. I doubt a laissez-faire policy on planning is going to be popular or beneficial up here.
I know other parts of the country are different, but just a little anecdotal report from the coal face...
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
At which point, goodbye to stopping development.
Which is just stupid. We should be emphasising to those students that they are going to be safe here and having everyone in Halls tested and cleared before they take up occupancy is a key part of that.
Speed is clearly not more important than "anything else"
I hope that isn't the scientific method you teach?
In recent weeks, the age profile of those infected has shifted massively towards the younger groups.
The problem is that, elsewhere (such as Florida), such rises have started among the young. So lots of cases, not too many hospitalisations. Then the epidemic pivots into the elderly.
That is why, across Europe (and around the world), there is an attempt to tread on these rises early.
A policy that depresses house prices in the Tory shires while making no difference "Up North" seems unlikely to go down well with Tory voters of either sort
I am of the belief that policies like Help To Buy as much as anything are the reason the red wall seats fell to the Tories. For years now up here in the North housebuilding has been going with lots of new developments that is enabling house prices to stay steady rather than rising and lots of new people getting onto the property ladder.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Labour Party to ensure the poor stay impoverished. It is in their interests to ensure they have a client state of voters that need their help.
Ultimately it is in the long-term interests of the Tory Party to get people out of poverty. To get the off requiring state support. To ensure that as many people as possible can own their own home and have shares in the economy.
Protecting the house prices of existing owners who want to pull the ladder up after them is both morally reprehensible and against the long-term interests of the party. Doing the right thing for the country and doing the right thing for the party are the same thing here.
But thanks for the compliment.
At this point I apologise to the widows and orphans of those who died laughing at the above statement.
Nonetheless, it does work to an extent. So, bypassing it in an emergency leads to an increase in failures.
I have been told that officials in the NHS/Health system resisted the expansion of testing on the grounds that it meant breaking the procurement process.
Following the process would have meant that expansion would have take 6-12 months. At least. So we would still be on a few 10ks of tests per day, with expansion happening next year....
And yet even during emergencies we must guard against sweetheart deals and cronyism. Critics of Labour's list should not reverse ferret when the blue list turns out to be as bad if not worse because that is the one where money was spent. If JM's twitter thread is right about the structuring of the deal through intermediary companies then surely someone should have smelt a rat.
Increasing home ownership rates improves the party. House prices are a side-effect but not the be all and end all. What actually matters is changing home ownership rates.
Seats that have been swinging to the Tories are seats where home ownership rates increase, not seats where house prices increase.
Seats that have been swinging to the Tories are seats where home ownership rates fall, not seats where house prices fall.
Just like we are currently doing with the vaccine program.
You are making the best the enemy of the good.
Yes, a hell of a lot of jobs are going to go. But extending the furlough scheme is not the answer. The answer is to facilitate work as much as possible given the virus, targeted help for specific sectors and government investment to spur demand where it is lacking.
I don't see why you say "admitted" that the North has seen a huge amount of house building. Absolutely it has, which is why the North has gone from rock solid Labour to huge swathes of the North ending up Tory. Yes Brexit and Corbyn played a factor but they simply amplified a trend that has been going on for a decade as home ownership rates picked up. It is fantastic news that there has been house building in the past and it needs to be continued and improved wherever possible.
Secondly yes cheaper housing is wanted and the way to get that is to clear regulatory burdens that prevent increasing supply. If this policy leads to more housing being built then the fundamental economic laws of supply and demand mean that there will be cheaper housing as a result. The only long term way to get cheaper housing is to increase supply - and that supply should be of good quality homes, not "affordable" homes that are tiny crap.
I get that govt should take risks and not be afraid to waste money.
And fine for normal procurement to be suspended in an emergency. But handing this contract to one of your advisers is.... pretty dubious to say this least.
Speed was clearly not the most important factor in this purchasing decision.
"Hey kids, put on your safety specs for this next bit. I don't know if they work, but I got same day shipping..."
More regulations, less supply?
Or fewer regulations, more supply?
My new build housing estate is beautiful only because the council forced the developer to make it “in keeping” with the village. The one just down the road had no such requirement and its ugly as sin. They still sell every single one.
All your opinions on this matter come from “economic theory” rather than any actual first hand experience in this area. Real life doesn’t work the same as a text book.
https://www.ayandacapital.com/
"We specialise in currency trading, offshore property, private equity and trade financing.".
Doesn't look like an obvious source of PPE to me. This government's procurement policy is, already, the most corrupt I've ever seen. Covid has given them an excuse to bypass any notion of good practice and dish vast sums out to an array of dodgy or poor companies, ranging from Serco and G4S to a whole load of "new" players with links to friends of government.
I'm surprised that people with integrity, like Big G, don't see this for what it is. Money for the elites.
With lives on the line the government threw everything at getting supplies from wherever they could. Better to waste money on 10 shipments that fail while getting 40 that succeed, than to take your time identify which 40 shipments may succeed then belatedly order them only to find people are dead due to your tardiness.
Honestly give over. Either attack them for being slow to respond, or responding too fast, but this constant flip flopping just makes you look utterly absurd.
Using your logic, we should remove building regulations because they get in the way of supply.
Buying stuff that doesn't work is not better than not having stuff that works.
In both cases you don't have stuff that works.
Anybody who died "while waiting for the right stuff" would have died anyway if you used the stuff that doesn't work.
In matters of life and death, getting it right really does matter.
If regulations get in the way and slow down or prevent construction then that artificially constricts supply leading to not all demand getting met and higher prices.
Why do you think that housebuilders will be motivated to build homes that are not tiny, when they know they will sell regardless? What economic theory is going to convince them make less profit?
Come on...
In the vaccine cases, both vaccines are technologies which have been a decade in development, not something sketched on the back of a fag packet.
Granted, there are considerable risks involved (particularly with the Moderna effort) - the largest being that they simply don't work - but thus far it looks as though both might well pay off.
The story of Moderna getting US funding to put its program into action is an interesting one - basically meant selling a science project to an ignoramus, which they did rather effectively:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/01/us/coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-invs/index.html
(note, there's an error in that piece: the Regeneron treatment is manufactured antibodies, not a vaccine.)
For f*ck sake you guys really will defend the indefensible. It’s obscene.
On the vaccines, the various producers/parties - Moderna; AstraZeneca/University of Oxford, Pfizer are all big fish to begin with with obviously huge hurdles to entry so it's ok to take a punt on stuff that might not work as the effort needed by these firms is obviously there and being put in regardless.