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With just 46 days to go till WH2020 Biden moves up in the betting – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • Alistair said:

    nico679 said:

    Pulpstar said:
    How would Warren and Sanders be polling in those states ? Biden is an underwhelming nominee , gaffe prone but could be in the right place at the right time and importantly has improved on Clinton’s numbers with white voters.
    Unless the cross-tables reveal some bad assumptions, these are devastating numbers for Trump. Don't have time to look at them tonite. Will be interested in what other PBers make of them.

    Is it these polls that Betfair has reacted to? It's not a massive move, but much more than e've seen for some time.
    Civiqs have a pretty big Dem lean IIRC.
    Rated B/C by FIveThirtyEIght. However thier results are similar to what Maris College (A+) retrieved last week
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082

    nichomar said:

    @nichomar there’s no requirement for shop workers, waiting staff, etc to wear masks in the England. In fact in my experience restaurant workers are by and large universally not wearing them.

    I know, was amazed they don’t have to and don’t wear them voluntarily, it actually makes mask wearing by customers far less effective.
    Yeah I don’t understand it either. Being a waiter in a restaurant seems to be such a high risks activity as customers wont be wearing their masks whilst sitting at tables.
    People who wait tables in restaurants are by and large youngsters who are unlikely to suffer badly even if they catch the disease - the likelihood of which is low in the first instance, since they're not taking part in prolonged social interaction with their clientele. They're stood over them for thirty seconds or a minute at a time whilst they take orders, distribute and collect plates.

    I would also venture to suggest that you do not work in an occupation where you are made to spend eight hours a day, five days a week in one of these gags. It's all very well declaring that these impositions are something that other people should suffer for long periods every day for their own good when you only have to put up with one for twenty minutes twice a week to do the shopping.

    FWIW, mask adoption by staff in hospitality venues does indeed seem variable. I've been to three since they re-opened - one without masks, another that definitely had masks or visors everywhere, and a third where I think they may have been using visors, but I'm so used to seeing them by now that I don't quite recall. However, I expect these differences in approach will soon be ironed out when a blanket order enforcing masks in workplaces comes into effect. It's surely only a matter of time?
    Its more the waiting staff spreading it to customers that I would be concerned about.

    We saw in this incident how effective masks for staff were:

    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6928e2.htm

    I wouldn’t eat in a place where staff were unmasked myself. A needless risk.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    Talking of masks in restaurants, I went to quite a swanky restaurant in London this week. The staff were wearing rather fancy perspex masks, but they weren't just the single-sheet visor type you see quite often (which I imagine are very ineffective), they had an inner part and filter.

    It was rather funny when, as we were leaving, the waiter tried to blow out a candle with his mask on. He was rather puzzled that nothing seemed to happen.

    So they should: visors on their own (without masks) are very ineffective:

    http://www.pharmafile.com/news/554149/face-shields-did-not-protect-people-covid-19-outbreak-switzerland-masks-did-according-he

    'Infections were reported at a hotel in the Graübunden region, where multiple employees tested positive for the virus. All those who had been infected were only wearing face shields as protection while no one who had worn a mask became infected.'
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769

    Talking of masks in restaurants, I went to quite a swanky restaurant in London this week. The staff were wearing rather fancy perspex masks, but they weren't just the single-sheet visor type you see quite often (which I imagine are very ineffective), they had an inner part and filter.

    It was rather funny when, as we were leaving, the waiter tried to blow out a candle with his mask on. He was rather puzzled that nothing seemed to happen.

    He was probably well lit by then.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    In another busy restaurant in Coventry. No social distancing. No mask usage. Nothing. Business as usual.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    edited September 2020
    stodge said:

    .Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience.

    Not so much Sunak, but Johnson and Cummings have always looked like a pair of Cnuts.

    Damnit, autocorrect gets it wrong again...
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    CNUT
    did *not* think he could stop the tide. He was demonstrating to his dimmer courtiers that he could not do so. So comparing him to johnson implies a level of modesty and intelligence on Johnson's part which is at variance with the actuality. I don't suppose he is looking further than 31 December at anything, let alone medium to long term housing stategies, anyway.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    IshmaelZ said:

    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    CNUT
    did *not* think he could stop the tide. He was demonstrating to his dimmer courtiers that he could not do so. So comparing him to johnson implies a level of modesty and intelligence on Johnson's part which is at variance with the actuality. I don't suppose he is looking further than 31 December at anything, let alone medium to long term housing stategies, anyway.
    On the other hand, Cnut did screw around a lot, so a parallel could be made there.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    IshmaelZ said:

    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    CNUT
    did *not* think he could stop the tide. He was demonstrating to his dimmer courtiers that he could not do so. So comparing him to johnson implies a level of modesty and intelligence on Johnson's part which is at variance with the actuality. I don't suppose he is looking further than 31 December at anything, let alone medium to long term housing stategies, anyway.
    Possibly his own housing strategy requires looking at
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,623
    glw said:

    The truth is that running about telling people to wash their hands a bit more and put a little bit more distance and wear some flimsy face coverings are not bad things to suggest but they are not remotely magic bullets. They are firing paperclips at a fighter jet. They are a panacea designed to look like concrete remedial action. I am convinced they are all only rounding errors on the "natural" R number of the virus.

    Even small reductions in transmission add up over the course of a pandemic. You might not stop it occuring, but it might be the difference between 50,000 or a 100,000 more deaths by next spring.
    That's why I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be employed - merely that they are ultimately not sufficient to stop the need for full lockdown anyway, despite the fact that there are many quarters who believe if people just "stick to the guidance" that it will all be enough.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    @Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    glw said:

    The truth is that running about telling people to wash their hands a bit more and put a little bit more distance and wear some flimsy face coverings are not bad things to suggest but they are not remotely magic bullets. They are firing paperclips at a fighter jet. They are a panacea designed to look like concrete remedial action. I am convinced they are all only rounding errors on the "natural" R number of the virus.

    Even small reductions in transmission add up over the course of a pandemic. You might not stop it occuring, but it might be the difference between 50,000 or a 100,000 more deaths by next spring.
    That's why I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be employed - merely that they are ultimately not sufficient to stop the need for full lockdown anyway, despite the fact that there are many quarters who believe if people just "stick to the guidance" that it will all be enough.
    ..
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,547
    We're about two weeks ahead of where I expected to be on the Covid resurgence. No particular insight, just do the arithmetic on R. We never got much below R=1 even in hard lockdown. Every activity that is unlockdowned adds a fraction of a percent to R. Hospitality opens, add a bit to R. Tourism restarts, add another bit. Schools a big extra bit because of the large number of social interactions. House parties another big bit. Universities a bit. Opening offices another bit. Add it all up and you get well into exponential growth territory.
  • stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
  • In another busy restaurant in Coventry. No social distancing. No mask usage. Nothing. Business as usual.

    Make the most of it, before they all shut down for good.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    IshmaelZ said:


    CNUT
    did *not* think he could stop the tide. He was demonstrating to his dimmer courtiers that he could not do so. So comparing him to johnson implies a level of modesty and intelligence on Johnson's part which is at variance with the actuality. I don't suppose he is looking further than 31 December at anything, let alone medium to long term housing stategies, anyway.

    Like most analogies, it doesn't stand up to close inspection, I cheerfully concede.

    However, with two pop references for @TSE, I thought I was on a roll, I couldn't lose.

  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,547
    FF43 said:

    We're about two weeks ahead of where I expected to be on the Covid resurgence. No particular insight, just do the arithmetic on R. We never got much below R=1 even in hard lockdown. Every activity that is unlockdowned adds a fraction of a percent to R. Hospitality opens, add a bit to R. Tourism restarts, add another bit. Schools a big extra bit because of the large number of social interactions. House parties another big bit. Universities a bit. Opening offices another bit. Add it all up and you get well into exponential growth territory.

    Which is why we need to learn to live with the virus. Make choices collectively and individually about what activities are important to us, and which we leave out. And do the mitigations like mask wearing, testing, self isolating etc that allow us to do more activity.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    We're about two weeks ahead of where I expected to be on the Covid resurgence. No particular insight, just do the arithmetic on R. We never got much below R=1 even in hard lockdown. Every activity that is unlockdowned adds a fraction of a percent to R. Hospitality opens, add a bit to R. Tourism restarts, add another bit. Schools a big extra bit because of the large number of social interactions. House parties another big bit. Universities a bit. Opening offices another bit. Add it all up and you get well into exponential growth territory.

    Which is why we need to learn to live with the virus. Make choices collectively and individually about what activities are important to us, and which we leave out. And do the mitigations like mask wearing, testing, self isolating etc that allow us to do more activity.
    You can do all of that but you are still dependent on others to have been to a degree responsible. Should the care home worker go to the pub? The nurse not attended a large family gathering etc. one thing for certain whilst the UK government communications and knee jerk reactions are crap the problem is a global one and there appear to be few solutions out there.
  • France reported an unprecedented 13,215 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours.

    The health ministry also said that the total number of deaths from Covid-19 increased by 154 to 31,249. That would make the daily toll the highest in three months.


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/sep/18/coronavirus-live-news-global-cases-on-brink-of-30m-as-france-reports-record-new-infections?page=with:block-5f64fa308f083ee3ac1f2283#block-5f64fa308f083ee3ac1f2283
  • FPT - Scotland in Union weren't trying exclusively to test opinion on the referendum question: they were testing the salience of some of their campaigning hypotheses.

    That's what makes it interesting.

    Scotland in union are a total and utter irrelevance and their voodoo poll tells us the square root of nothing
    Speaks an ardent Scottish Nationalist..

    I might as well ask Ian Paisley for his opinion of the papacy.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    nichomar said:

    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    We're about two weeks ahead of where I expected to be on the Covid resurgence. No particular insight, just do the arithmetic on R. We never got much below R=1 even in hard lockdown. Every activity that is unlockdowned adds a fraction of a percent to R. Hospitality opens, add a bit to R. Tourism restarts, add another bit. Schools a big extra bit because of the large number of social interactions. House parties another big bit. Universities a bit. Opening offices another bit. Add it all up and you get well into exponential growth territory.

    Which is why we need to learn to live with the virus. Make choices collectively and individually about what activities are important to us, and which we leave out. And do the mitigations like mask wearing, testing, self isolating etc that allow us to do more activity.
    You can do all of that but you are still dependent on others to have been to a degree responsible. Should the care home worker go to the pub? The nurse not attended a large family gathering etc. one thing for certain whilst the UK government communications and knee jerk reactions are crap the problem is a global one and there appear to be few solutions out there.
    One of the solutions is to throw testing capacity at the problem and separate people who test positive in government run hotels. Unfortunately our government gave up the chance of this when it decided not to continue expanding testing capacity as quickly as necessary.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    France reported an unprecedented 13,215 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours.

    The health ministry also said that the total number of deaths from Covid-19 increased by 154 to 31,249. That would make the daily toll the highest in three months.


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/sep/18/coronavirus-live-news-global-cases-on-brink-of-30m-as-france-reports-record-new-infections?page=with:block-5f64fa308f083ee3ac1f2283#block-5f64fa308f083ee3ac1f2283

    Any linkage to the tour?
  • So with "lockdown harder" incoming, when should we expect "lockdown with a vengeance", complete with Boris wandering the streets of Tower Hamlets wearing a sandwich containing a racist message?

    Can we pretend lock down harder 4 and 5 never happened?
    I'm not sure BLM would like the start of Lockdown 3.
  • kinabalu said:

    Trump is still too short. Only thing stopping me doing even more on betfair or the spreads is lack of bottle.

    Friendly advice: don't go in over your head.

    You need to think about how you'd cope if you lost it all, or at least had to trade out heavily underwater.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911

    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
  • Omnium said:

    BIden up to 78% chance on 538 as well.

    If it was 'Horse 2' then you'd be all over BF.

    'Biden' not so much. I just see him as a puppet man. He's not pulling his own strings.
    So who IS pulling Uncle Joe's strings? The Jesuit-Masonic conspiracy? The Tri-lateral Commission? NPR & PBS? OR the Tooth Fairy?

    Enquiring minds want to know!
    Pretty sure the tooth fairy would have stopped taking any interest in Joe Biden quite some time ago.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,547
    nichomar said:

    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    We're about two weeks ahead of where I expected to be on the Covid resurgence. No particular insight, just do the arithmetic on R. We never got much below R=1 even in hard lockdown. Every activity that is unlockdowned adds a fraction of a percent to R. Hospitality opens, add a bit to R. Tourism restarts, add another bit. Schools a big extra bit because of the large number of social interactions. House parties another big bit. Universities a bit. Opening offices another bit. Add it all up and you get well into exponential growth territory.

    Which is why we need to learn to live with the virus. Make choices collectively and individually about what activities are important to us, and which we leave out. And do the mitigations like mask wearing, testing, self isolating etc that allow us to do more activity.
    You can do all of that but you are still dependent on others to have been to a degree responsible. Should the care home worker go to the pub? The nurse not attended a large family gathering etc. one thing for certain whilst the UK government communications and knee jerk reactions are crap the problem is a global one and there appear to be few solutions out there.
    Absolutely. Governments can't dictate responsibility. But they can explain the choices and get buy in from the population for any collective choices they make. It comes down to a collective and individual choice. If the epidemic goes out of control it's because we choose to allow it to do so.

    To be fair to Johnson, most governments have been bad at explaining this.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    edited September 2020

    Talking of masks in restaurants, I went to quite a swanky restaurant in London this week. The staff were wearing rather fancy perspex masks, but they weren't just the single-sheet visor type you see quite often (which I imagine are very ineffective), they had an inner part and filter.

    It was rather funny when, as we were leaving, the waiter tried to blow out a candle with his mask on. He was rather puzzled that nothing seemed to happen.

    A restaurant where candle-snuffers are unknown?

    It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
  • kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    To be fair, his second tweet is the direction in which the UK is moving.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    FF43 said:

    nichomar said:

    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    We're about two weeks ahead of where I expected to be on the Covid resurgence. No particular insight, just do the arithmetic on R. We never got much below R=1 even in hard lockdown. Every activity that is unlockdowned adds a fraction of a percent to R. Hospitality opens, add a bit to R. Tourism restarts, add another bit. Schools a big extra bit because of the large number of social interactions. House parties another big bit. Universities a bit. Opening offices another bit. Add it all up and you get well into exponential growth territory.

    Which is why we need to learn to live with the virus. Make choices collectively and individually about what activities are important to us, and which we leave out. And do the mitigations like mask wearing, testing, self isolating etc that allow us to do more activity.
    You can do all of that but you are still dependent on others to have been to a degree responsible. Should the care home worker go to the pub? The nurse not attended a large family gathering etc. one thing for certain whilst the UK government communications and knee jerk reactions are crap the problem is a global one and there appear to be few solutions out there.
    Absolutely. Governments can't dictate responsibility. But they can explain the choices and get buy in from the population for any collective choices they make. It comes down to a collective and individual choice. If the epidemic goes out of control it's because we choose to allow it to do so.

    To be fair to Johnson, most governments have been bad at explaining this.
    Yes and no, we have no control over the government's pitiful travel policy which still allows people from India, Pakistan, America, Brazil and other disaster zone countries to enter on a self certified quarantine basis. We have no control over the government's testing policy. We have no control over their horrible communications policy which has led to people with sniffles and a few sneezes asking for tests so they can go back to work or send their kids back to school. All of this lies at the feet of Boris and the c***. You're being far too forgiving.
  • I passed our local pub earlier. Nine kids all clustered together on the top of the climbing frame in the beer garden.

    Counting to six not their strongpoint.
  • So with "lockdown harder" incoming, when should we expect "lockdown with a vengeance", complete with Boris wandering the streets of Tower Hamlets wearing a sandwich containing a racist message?

    Can we pretend lock down harder 4 and 5 never happened?
    "Lockdown Harder" would be a GREAT name for a (rather intimidating) character in a movie, novel, play, etc.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769

    I passed our local pub earlier. Nine kids all clustered together on the top of the climbing frame in the beer garden.

    Counting to six not their strongpoint.

    I blame their teachers.

    Ah...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    I passed our local pub earlier. Nine kids all clustered together on the top of the climbing frame in the beer garden.

    Counting to six not their strongpoint.

    Clearly missing school from March to July is to blame! 😆
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    nichomar said:

    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    We're about two weeks ahead of where I expected to be on the Covid resurgence. No particular insight, just do the arithmetic on R. We never got much below R=1 even in hard lockdown. Every activity that is unlockdowned adds a fraction of a percent to R. Hospitality opens, add a bit to R. Tourism restarts, add another bit. Schools a big extra bit because of the large number of social interactions. House parties another big bit. Universities a bit. Opening offices another bit. Add it all up and you get well into exponential growth territory.

    Which is why we need to learn to live with the virus. Make choices collectively and individually about what activities are important to us, and which we leave out. And do the mitigations like mask wearing, testing, self isolating etc that allow us to do more activity.
    You can do all of that but you are still dependent on others to have been to a degree responsible. Should the care home worker go to the pub? The nurse not attended a large family gathering etc. one thing for certain whilst the UK government communications and knee jerk reactions are crap the problem is a global one and there appear to be few solutions out there.
    Absolutely. Governments can't dictate responsibility. But they can explain the choices and get buy in from the population for any collective choices they make. It comes down to a collective and individual choice. If the epidemic goes out of control it's because we choose to allow it to do so.

    To be fair to Johnson, most governments have been bad at explaining this.
    Yes and no, we have no control over the government's pitiful travel policy which still allows people from India, Pakistan, America, Brazil and other disaster zone countries to enter on a self certified quarantine basis. We have no control over the government's testing policy. We have no control over their horrible communications policy which has led to people with sniffles and a few sneezes asking for tests so they can go back to work or send their kids back to school. All of this lies at the feet of Boris and the c***. You're being far too forgiving.
    What is the difference between Boris Johnson and an arsehole?

    One spews a constant stream of shit, and the other is technically called a rectum.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    nichomar said:

    What is it about human nature that when some people see a rule they have to push it to the limit and beyond, could they not see that by not sticking to the rules they risked losing the very freedoms they were abusing, everybody seemed desperate to find loopholes to fit their needs and the end result will be far more restrictions than were initially proposed. Are people I’ll informed, not terribly bright or just anarchists by nature?

    They are just selfish
  • Just catching up with PB - excellent clear explanation of the Internal Markets Bill in the last thread header by @Cyclefree.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769

    Omnium said:

    BIden up to 78% chance on 538 as well.

    If it was 'Horse 2' then you'd be all over BF.

    'Biden' not so much. I just see him as a puppet man. He's not pulling his own strings.
    So who IS pulling Uncle Joe's strings? The Jesuit-Masonic conspiracy? The Tri-lateral Commission? NPR & PBS? OR the Tooth Fairy?

    Enquiring minds want to know!
    Pretty sure the tooth fairy would have stopped taking any interest in Joe Biden quite some time ago.
    Old Soviet joke, in the dog days of Brezhnev when the average age of the politburo was hitting 70:

    What has four legs and forty teeth? A crocodile.

    What has forty legs and four teeth? The Central Committee.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911

    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    To be fair, his second tweet is the direction in which the UK is moving.
    It's the direction in which the law commission has recommended the government moves. The government have made absolutely no moves toward implementing the recommendations.

    The biggest swizz of all is that Jenrick's planning reforms grant the freeholder the right to add another two storeys to your building, if you're a leaseholder. Not you, the freeholder. An estimated windfall of 20-40bn for the UK's freeholders. And if you want to buy the freeholder out (if you are able to - for many reasons enfranchisement is a difficult if not impossible process) buying out the right to the extra two hypothetical storeys will set the leaseholder back an extra ten grand on how much enfranchisement cost before the planning reforms. Cheers, Jenrick!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    To be fair, his second tweet is the direction in which the UK is moving.
    But only rowing back from 20? 30? years of barking insanity when the contagion spread from flats to proper houses. I did 6 months conveyancing in London in the 80s and I don't remember a single house paying ground rent or coming with a management agreement.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    edited September 2020
    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    I live in a leasehold flat but mainly as an investment which my partner and I can then combine with the house she owns to buy a freehold house together (presently completing the complex lease extension process), though I agree commonhold or US style condo or Spanish style community owned flats are the way forward and used in most western nations now.

    That way unlike leasehold the flat owners collectively own the property rather than a third party management company and they do not have ground rent, though they each have to contribute to a collective fund for service charges and maintenance still
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,542
    Trump giving 13 billion dollars in aid to Puerto Rico for hurricane Maria which happened in 2017 ! Nothing of course to do with Puerto Rican voters in Florida ! This looks desperate and shows his campaign is in trouble . Trump never does anything because it’s the right thing to do but he always expects a return which he won’t get as they won’t forget his response in 2017.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    HYUFD said:

    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    I live in a leasehold flat but mainly as an investment which my partner and I can then combine with the house she owns to buy a freehold house together (presently completing the complex lease extension process), though I agree commonhold or US style condo or Spanish style community owned flats are the way forward and used in most western nations now.

    That way unlike leasehold the the flat owners collectively own the property and do not have ground rent, though they each have to contribute to a collective fund for service charges and maintenance still
    Are you aware you will almost certainly need an EWS1 form to sell it, or remortgage?

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/sep/05/uk-flat-owners-sell-fire-safety-ews1-survey

    And that form might not arrive for five years or more as there are potentially 3m flats affected and only 300 surveyors qualified to fill out the form...


  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    kyf_100 said:

    HYUFD said:

    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    I live in a leasehold flat but mainly as an investment which my partner and I can then combine with the house she owns to buy a freehold house together (presently completing the complex lease extension process), though I agree commonhold or US style condo or Spanish style community owned flats are the way forward and used in most western nations now.

    That way unlike leasehold the the flat owners collectively own the property and do not have ground rent, though they each have to contribute to a collective fund for service charges and maintenance still
    Are you aware you will almost certainly need an EWS1 form to sell it, or remortgage?

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/sep/05/uk-flat-owners-sell-fire-safety-ews1-survey

    And that form might not arrive for five years or more as there are potentially 3m flats affected and only 300 surveyors qualified to fill out the form...


    I thought that depended on how high the block of flats is?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    edited September 2020
    35% of Tory voters think Boris would have a better relationship with Trump, just 13% with Biden.

    Labour and LD voters also think he would have a better relationship with Trump but by a smaller margin, Labour voters by 27% to 18% and LDs by just 28% for Trump and 22% for Biden
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1306972448101937153?s=20
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    GOP has pulled funding from TX-7.

    They won it by 24 points in 2012 and 12 in 2016 but lost it by 5 in the 2018 mid-terms.

    https://twitter.com/TexasTribAbby/status/1306996689610432513?s=19
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    nico679 said:

    Trump giving 13 billion dollars in aid to Puerto Rico for hurricane Maria which happened in 2017 ! Nothing of course to do with Puerto Rican voters in Florida ! This looks desperate and shows his campaign is in trouble . Trump never does anything because it’s the right thing to do but he always expects a return which he won’t get as they won’t forget his response in 2017.

    https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1307037320042995713?s=19
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    @Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.

    Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
    stodge said:

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    HYUFD said:
    And if the polls are as wrong as 2012 Biden obliterates Trump.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780
    I've not posted much on CV19, but the reality is that it was perfectly possible to keep CV19 cases at relatively low levels, with minimal impact on the real economy. However, the summer was wasted, and instead we've found ourselves in a situation where keeping R around 1 sill sees tens of thousands of cases per week.

    What needed to happen fell into three categories:

    1. Travel restrictions

    This isn't complex, guys. The self certification quarantine system - particularly for those arriving from high risk areas - is a joke.

    Everybody should be tested at the airport. And those from higher risk destinations need to spend some time in an airport hotel.

    2. Rapid testing

    There are systems for getting (pretty good) test results in 15 minutes. A large amount of money should have been thrown at that so that you could get on top of local outbreaks quickly.

    3. Restrictions on high risk activities

    Choirs, karaoke, nightclubs, probably some sporting events.
    Perhaps requiring punters to be seated in pubs.
    Masks on public transport.

    Together these would have minimised the importation of cases, minimised super-spreader events, and would have enabled the government to prevent cases spiralling. With little impact on civil liberties or on the broader economy.

    Sadly, Johnson and Cummings - for it is they who must take the blame - have flunked it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    edited September 2020
    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:
    And if the polls are as wrong as 2012 Biden obliterates Trump.
    True but that would require black and Hispanic turnout as big as Obama got in 2012 for Biden, if there is the same polling error as 2016 the NYT says Trump wins by 278 EC votes to 260 for Biden, though that would still be the closest EC result since 2000.

    Biden would pick up Michigan, Arizona and NE02, Trump holds his other 2016 states

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780
    HYUFD said:
    Yet, if the polls are as wrong at the national level as 2016, then Biden walks it. Indeed, if they're as wrong as the worst polling miss in recent times (2012), and that miss is understating the Republicans, then Biden still probably wins.

    As an aside, if the polls are as wrong in 2020 as they were in 2016 about Texas, then Biden picks that up.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
  • Charles! Was worried about you, bro, hoping you had NOT succumbed to the smoke. Which has vastly improved up here in Pacific Northwest today - just very unhealthy as opposed to grossly hazardous.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780
    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
    It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    edited September 2020
    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    HYUFD said:

    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    I live in a leasehold flat but mainly as an investment which my partner and I can then combine with the house she owns to buy a freehold house together (presently completing the complex lease extension process), though I agree commonhold or US style condo or Spanish style community owned flats are the way forward and used in most western nations now.

    That way unlike leasehold the the flat owners collectively own the property and do not have ground rent, though they each have to contribute to a collective fund for service charges and maintenance still
    Are you aware you will almost certainly need an EWS1 form to sell it, or remortgage?

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/sep/05/uk-flat-owners-sell-fire-safety-ews1-survey

    And that form might not arrive for five years or more as there are potentially 3m flats affected and only 300 surveyors qualified to fill out the form...


    I thought that depended on how high the block of flats is?
    Nope. The government changed their guidance late last year so now most mortgage providers are asking for EWS1 forms for buildings under 18m even though the government guidance on EWS1 for buildings under 18m is strictly advisory.

    The joke is that now many people in flats under 18m are caught in a catch 22. The mortgage provider demands it, while the freeholder says that it's not needed as the block of flats is under 18m.

    It's a complete nightmare that is affecting up to 3m flats.

    A quick google of "EWS1" will throw up *a lot* of horror stories.

    Edit: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/03/cladding-crisis-making-3000000-peoples-homes-worthless-13213365/
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles! Was worried about you, bro, hoping you had NOT succumbed to the smoke. Which has vastly improved up here in Pacific Northwest today - just very unhealthy as opposed to grossly hazardous.

    Thank you. Just way way too much work on. Already 50% above budget for the year and it ain’t slowing down...
  • kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    I do own a sixth of the company that owns the freehold of our small block, and we recently extended the lease to 999 years. In my Tyneside flat I leased the upstairs flat from my downstairs neighbour, and vice versa, so better arrangements do exist.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780

    @Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.

    Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
    stodge said:

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
    Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?

    https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2026913

    Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.

    (Don't tell @NerysHughes )
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    HYUFD said:

    35% of Tory voters think Boris would have a better relationship with Trump, just 13% with Biden.

    Labour and LD voters also think he would have a better relationship with Trump but by a smaller margin, Labour voters by 27% to 18% and LDs by just 28% for Trump and 22% for Biden
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1306972448101937153?s=20

    I seem to recall there was some discomfort when Clinton won in 1992 after the "help" the Conservatives provided to George HW Bush. Nonetheless, after a brief froideur, it was business as usual.

    The same will be true if Biden wins in November - once he is in the Oval Office, life will go on and I'm sure Johnson will be suitably feted by the new administration - perhaps not as much as Merkel, Trudeau or Macron but nonetheless he'll get his turn.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
    It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
    Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
  • Second wave as predicted
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    kyf_100 said:

    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    HYUFD said:

    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    I live in a leasehold flat but mainly as an investment which my partner and I can then combine with the house she owns to buy a freehold house together (presently completing the complex lease extension process), though I agree commonhold or US style condo or Spanish style community owned flats are the way forward and used in most western nations now.

    That way unlike leasehold the the flat owners collectively own the property and do not have ground rent, though they each have to contribute to a collective fund for service charges and maintenance still
    Are you aware you will almost certainly need an EWS1 form to sell it, or remortgage?

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/sep/05/uk-flat-owners-sell-fire-safety-ews1-survey

    And that form might not arrive for five years or more as there are potentially 3m flats affected and only 300 surveyors qualified to fill out the form...


    I thought that depended on how high the block of flats is?
    Nope. The government changed their guidance late last year so now most mortgage providers are asking for EWS1 forms for buildings under 18m even though the government guidance on EWS1 for buildings under 18m is strictly advisory.

    The joke is that now many people in flats under 18m are caught in a catch 22. The mortgage provider demands it, while the freeholder says that it's not needed as the block of flats is under 18m.

    It's a complete nightmare that is affecting up to 3m flats.

    A quick google of "EWS1" will throw up *a lot* of horror stories.

    Edit: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/03/cladding-crisis-making-3000000-peoples-homes-worthless-13213365/
    I also understood that they had promised to clamp down on this.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-54062189

    Not that it affects me either way. I own houses, not flats.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    edited September 2020
    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    35% of Tory voters think Boris would have a better relationship with Trump, just 13% with Biden.

    Labour and LD voters also think he would have a better relationship with Trump but by a smaller margin, Labour voters by 27% to 18% and LDs by just 28% for Trump and 22% for Biden
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1306972448101937153?s=20

    I seem to recall there was some discomfort when Clinton won in 1992 after the "help" the Conservatives provided to George HW Bush. Nonetheless, after a brief froideur, it was business as usual.

    The same will be true if Biden wins in November - once he is in the Oval Office, life will go on and I'm sure Johnson will be suitably feted by the new administration - perhaps not as much as Merkel, Trudeau or Macron but nonetheless he'll get his turn.
    He may well do but if Biden becomes President as long as Boris remains PM the 'special relationship' will be at its frostiest since Eden and Eisenhower and Suez or Wilson refused to send more than some bagpipes to help LBJ in Vietnam, unlike the Major and Clinton relationship which was soon patched up due to no major policy differences Boris and Biden differ profoundly now on the question of the GFA and a border in the Irish Sea
  • HYUFD said:

    35% of Tory voters think Boris would have a better relationship with Trump, just 13% with Biden.

    Labour and LD voters also think he would have a better relationship with Trump but by a smaller margin, Labour voters by 27% to 18% and LDs by just 28% for Trump and 22% for Biden
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1306972448101937153?s=20

    IF yours truly was polled on this, response would be, no difference.

    Biden has shown an ability to get along and work together with a WIDE variety of people, politicos & fellow egos from around the globe and across the aisle.

    His natural instinct will be to try to establish personal contact and rapport with WHOMEVER is Prime Minister.

    AND think that - for all his faults - Boris Johnson is naturally sociable as Joe Biden.

    Like the late, great Sam Rayburn used to say, get along to go along.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
    It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
    Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
    In over 80% of cases in both the UK and the US, the polling error is reversed between elections.

    Remember 2019 - Tories understate. 2017 overstated. 2015 understated. 2010 overstated.
    There's a similar patter in the US as pollsters seek to correct their errors and over compensate.

    That's why I think blindly assuming that the polls are as wrong as 2016 (and in the same direction) is a very good way of losing lots of money.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    edited September 2020
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
    It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
    Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
    In over 80% of cases in both the UK and the US, the polling error is reversed between elections.

    Remember 2019 - Tories understate. 2017 overstated. 2015 understated. 2010 overstated.
    There's a similar patter in the US as pollsters seek to correct their errors and over compensate.

    That's why I think blindly assuming that the polls are as wrong as 2016 (and in the same direction) is a very good way of losing lots of money.
    Or alternatively the best pollster for the previous election may be right again eg in 2008 PPP were most accurate and in 2012 they also were closest to Obama's winning score, in 2016 Rasmussen was closest nationally to Clinton's popular vote lead and Trafalgar closest to Trump's winning margin in the rustbelt swing states.

    Here in 2015 Survation's final unpublished poll was closest, in 2017 Survation's final published poll was closest and in 2019 Survation's final poll had an almost spot on 11% Tory lead
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,542
    The polling errors in the swing states in 2016 were down to white non college voters being under represented in samples . Polling companies have tried to remedy this. Whether they have or not only time will tell. Biden however is not Clinton and many Brits who aren’t political junkies like in these forums fail to understand that as flawed as Biden might be of all the candidates from the Dem side he was always best placed to win back those swing states . Running up huge wins in California and NY are pointless with the EC system .
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861
    rcs1000 said:

    @Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.

    Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
    stodge said:

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
    Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?

    https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2026913

    Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.

    (Don't tell @NerysHughes )
    "Don't tell @NerysHughes"
    Please do. As often as possible.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    HYUFD said:

    kyf_100 said:


    stodge said:

    Evening again all :)

    Considering the logistics and the politics of a second "lockdown". Oddly enough, the Prime Minister might have more trouble with the Conservative Party than with the country as a whole, most of whom, I suspect, will be supportive of the action being taken as case numbers rise.

    Logistics - it seems inconceivable after all the hard work that schools will be closed again. It's been the received wisdom since the summer that it .could be pubs and cafes that close before schools and that looks probable and while I don't share the apocalyptic terminology of @Black_Rook it will clearly be a huge blow for sectors who have already ensured a dreadful year.

    Will we see a renewed campaign against public transport? Passenger numbers remain well below pre-Covid levels but there are clear signs in London of a partial return of the "rush hour" but many continue to eschew public transport.

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    As I argued last evening, the promotion of normality has been the problem. Government messaging has been strongly about "normal", defined as a pre-virus lifestyle, but that isn't and can't be the case until or unless a vaccine comes along. Indeed, some aspects of life adapted quickly and well to the virus (home working, home deliveries etc) but the super-tanker of economic thinking has failed to turn and the assumption is the only positive economic outcome is a restoration of the status quo pre-Covid.

    Sunak and Johnson look like a pair of Canutes (no sniggering in the cheap seats) standing against the tide of socio-economic and cultural change brought about by the virus experience. The housing market still seems predicated on building huge blocks of flats on brownfield sites yet the virus has changed all that. People now want space and both planning and housing policy should be looking at the provision of that space per household.

    That may not be what rural and provincial England wants to hear but the "village" of the future isn't going to be a commuter dormitory or second-home wasteland if it's a community of home workers and families.

    Surely people will still want flats. I reckon they are a better use of space than a small house, and I still see a home as a base to explore the world rather than my world itself. I'd rather spend my money on travelling and having fun rather than enclosing cubic inches of air.

    OK I am lucky that I have a spare bedroom that I can use as a dedicated office.

    On the other hand, what is this shit about not socialising with people not in my household? If I don't socialise with people not in my household I don't socialise. Have they not heard of single people?
    The problem with flats is leasehold. You "buy" the flat without ever owning a single brick. Then you get shafted for unlimited, unaudited service charges. You're also on the hook for remediation works (like removal of Grenfell style cladding, costing leaseholders up to 80k per flat) without ever actually owning the property.The freeholder owns it. You just live there. And pay all the bills.

    The law commission has recommended the abolition of the whole insane system, indeed the UK is the last in the world to use it.

    Until that changes there's absolutely no point in buying a flat unless you want to be saddled with bills that can potentially bankrupt you for a property someone else still owns.

    https://www.ft.com/content/b8068d5f-b4b9-4be6-a67e-1866fee6896c

    And a perspective on how mad it all looks from someone outside the UK

    https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1286700538994683909
    I live in a leasehold flat but mainly as an investment which my partner and I can then combine with the house she owns to buy a freehold house together (presently completing the complex lease extension process), though I agree commonhold or US style condo or Spanish style community owned flats are the way forward and used in most western nations now.

    That way unlike leasehold the the flat owners collectively own the property and do not have ground rent, though they each have to contribute to a collective fund for service charges and maintenance still
    Are you aware you will almost certainly need an EWS1 form to sell it, or remortgage?

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/sep/05/uk-flat-owners-sell-fire-safety-ews1-survey

    And that form might not arrive for five years or more as there are potentially 3m flats affected and only 300 surveyors qualified to fill out the form...


    I thought that depended on how high the block of flats is?
    Nope. The government changed their guidance late last year so now most mortgage providers are asking for EWS1 forms for buildings under 18m even though the government guidance on EWS1 for buildings under 18m is strictly advisory.

    The joke is that now many people in flats under 18m are caught in a catch 22. The mortgage provider demands it, while the freeholder says that it's not needed as the block of flats is under 18m.

    It's a complete nightmare that is affecting up to 3m flats.

    A quick google of "EWS1" will throw up *a lot* of horror stories.

    Edit: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/03/cladding-crisis-making-3000000-peoples-homes-worthless-13213365/
    I also understood that they had promised to clamp down on this.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-54062189

    Not that it affects me either way. I own houses, not flats.
    A politican's promise.

    If you watch interviews Jenrick is noticeably evasive as to exactly when this will happen. Next month? Next year? Next decade?

    Meanwhile 3m properties are unsaleable and effectively valued at zero, meaning people can't move, young mums are turning their living room into their kids' bedrooms, people are trapped on variable rates of of 6% or more paying double what they ought to (and more than they can afford to) to live in properties they don't want to be in and may be as unsafe as Grenfell.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    nico679 said:

    The polling errors in the swing states in 2016 were down to white non college voters being under represented in samples . Polling companies have tried to remedy this. Whether they have or not only time will tell. Biden however is not Clinton and many Brits who aren’t political junkies like in these forums fail to understand that as flawed as Biden might be of all the candidates from the Dem side he was always best placed to win back those swing states . Running up huge wins in California and NY are pointless with the EC system .

    Agreed and I think Biden will do better in the EC than Hillary as he is doing better than she did with non college educated whites, however there is also evidence Trump is doing better with rich voters now in the suburbs than he was in 2016 and also better with Hispanics. particularly in Florida, Biden might be doing better with black voters than Hillary helped by Harris on the ticket and BLM
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,842
    edited September 2020
    2 further big issues coming very soon.
    Evictions ban ends Sunday. A big hit for the individuals concerned. Where will they go?
    Football. Can't see crowds of any decent size any time soon. Fine for PL.
    EFL clubs have huge wage bills, (and often substantial debts they can no longer service) with a comparitive pittance in TV money. Most still rely on gate money.
    Can see a number following Macclesfield in short order.
    Big psychological hit for their communities. Most of them towns where the Tories did well.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,289
    I am puzzled that the betting markets have Biden increasing his lead.

    Both the 538 and RCP polling averages have shown a slow but steady closing of the gap over the past month. Biden's lead has reduced by 1.6% (538) and 1.4% (RCP) since 18 August.

    Carry on at that rate for the next 6 weeks and it will be around 4%... too close to call given Trump's EC advantage.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
    It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
    Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
    In over 80% of cases in both the UK and the US, the polling error is reversed between elections.

    Remember 2019 - Tories understate. 2017 overstated. 2015 understated. 2010 overstated.
    There's a similar patter in the US as pollsters seek to correct their errors and over compensate.

    That's why I think blindly assuming that the polls are as wrong as 2016 (and in the same direction) is a very good way of losing lots of money.
    Or alternatively the best pollster for the previous election may be right again eg in 2008 PPP were most accurate and in 2012 they also were closest to Obama's winning score, in 2016 Rasmussen was closest nationally and Trafalgar in the rustbelt swing states.

    Here in 2015 Survation's final unpublished poll was closest, in 2017 Survation's final published poll was closest and in 2019 Survation's final poll had an almost spot on 11% Tory lead
    Hang on.

    Rasmussen was not the ONLY pollster to call 2016 about right. Indeed, given the polling average was only 1% off at the national level, it would be staggering if only one pollster had called it right. So lets look at all the pollsters who got 2016 right (which I'll describe as 2% +/- 1%):

    Google +2%
    Selzer +3%
    Marist +1%
    USC +2%
    Morning Consult +3%
    Rasmussen +2%
    Fox +2%
    CBS +3%

    Of those pollsters who were pretty much on the nose, how many (this year) show a Trump lead?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,780

    I am puzzled that the betting markets have Biden increasing his lead.

    Both the 538 and RCP polling averages have shown a slow but steady closing of the gap over the past month. Biden's lead has reduced by 1.6% (538) and 1.4% (RCP) since 18 August.

    Carry on at that rate for the next 6 weeks and it will be around 4%... too close to call given Trump's EC advantage.

    According to Nate Silver, a 4-5% lead is a close to 90% chance for Biden.

    So, the betting marketing tightening makes perfect sense. Trump needs to be gaining faster on Biden. Or he needs the national polls to be more wrong in 2020 than in 2016, and for them to be wrong in his direction.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,842
    Off topic. I've just liked one of @Pagan2 's posts.
    The virus has made some strange alliances.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,719
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
    It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
    Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
    In over 80% of cases in both the UK and the US, the polling error is reversed between elections.

    Remember 2019 - Tories understate. 2017 overstated. 2015 understated. 2010 overstated.
    There's a similar patter in the US as pollsters seek to correct their errors and over compensate.

    That's why I think blindly assuming that the polls are as wrong as 2016 (and in the same direction) is a very good way of losing lots of money.
    Or alternatively the best pollster for the previous election may be right again eg in 2008 PPP were most accurate and in 2012 they also were closest to Obama's winning score, in 2016 Rasmussen was closest nationally and Trafalgar in the rustbelt swing states.

    Here in 2015 Survation's final unpublished poll was closest, in 2017 Survation's final published poll was closest and in 2019 Survation's final poll had an almost spot on 11% Tory lead
    Hang on.

    Rasmussen was not the ONLY pollster to call 2016 about right. Indeed, given the polling average was only 1% off at the national level, it would be staggering if only one pollster had called it right. So lets look at all the pollsters who got 2016 right (which I'll describe as 2% +/- 1%):

    Google +2%
    Selzer +3%
    Marist +1%
    USC +2%
    Morning Consult +3%
    Rasmussen +2%
    Fox +2%
    CBS +3%

    Of those pollsters who were pretty much on the nose, how many (this year) show a Trump lead?
    Google was the only other pollster alongside Rasmussen to correctly have a 2% Clinton lead in their final poll, USC/LA Times had Trump ahead and Fox's final poll had Clinton +4%
    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/national-polls/
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,289
    rcs1000 said:

    I am puzzled that the betting markets have Biden increasing his lead.

    Both the 538 and RCP polling averages have shown a slow but steady closing of the gap over the past month. Biden's lead has reduced by 1.6% (538) and 1.4% (RCP) since 18 August.

    Carry on at that rate for the next 6 weeks and it will be around 4%... too close to call given Trump's EC advantage.

    According to Nate Silver, a 4-5% lead is a close to 90% chance for Biden.

    So, the betting marketing tightening makes perfect sense. Trump needs to be gaining faster on Biden. Or he needs the national polls to be more wrong in 2020 than in 2016, and for them to be wrong in his direction.
    I see, so the improving betting margin for Biden is a factor of time running out faster than the polling gap is closing.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    dixiedean said:

    2 further big issues coming very soon.
    Evictions ban ends Sunday. A big hit for the individuals concerned. Where will they go?
    Football. Can't see crowds of any decent size any time soon. Fine for PL.
    EFL clubs have huge wage bills, (and often substantial debts they can no longer service) with a comparitive pittance in TV money. Most still rely on gate money.
    Can see a number following Macclesfield in short order.
    Big psychological hit for their communities. Most of them towns where the Tories did well.

    Football clubs closing will be a big thing. For a lot of people it is far more important than politics.

    Wigan sounds screwed.
  • dixiedean said:

    Off topic. I've just liked one of @Pagan2 's posts.
    The virus has made some strange alliances.

    Felix liked one of mine a few days ago. I have been in shock... :)
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,289
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:
    Profoundly wrong. The polls could be right, wrong in the way they were wrong in 2016, or wrong in any number of ways which are not the way in which they were wrong in 2016. Obviously (and especially obviously to virtually all readers of this blog).
    It is, of course, worth remembering that polling errors rarely go in the same direction twice.
    Until 2016 US pollsters had rarely called the winner of the EC wrong before, certainly not on average
    In over 80% of cases in both the UK and the US, the polling error is reversed between elections.

    Remember 2019 - Tories understate. 2017 overstated. 2015 understated. 2010 overstated.
    There's a similar patter in the US as pollsters seek to correct their errors and over compensate.

    That's why I think blindly assuming that the polls are as wrong as 2016 (and in the same direction) is a very good way of losing lots of money.
    Or alternatively the best pollster for the previous election may be right again eg in 2008 PPP were most accurate and in 2012 they also were closest to Obama's winning score, in 2016 Rasmussen was closest nationally and Trafalgar in the rustbelt swing states.

    Here in 2015 Survation's final unpublished poll was closest, in 2017 Survation's final published poll was closest and in 2019 Survation's final poll had an almost spot on 11% Tory lead
    Hang on.

    Rasmussen was not the ONLY pollster to call 2016 about right. Indeed, given the polling average was only 1% off at the national level, it would be staggering if only one pollster had called it right. So lets look at all the pollsters who got 2016 right (which I'll describe as 2% +/- 1%):

    Google +2%
    Selzer +3%
    Marist +1%
    USC +2%
    Morning Consult +3%
    Rasmussen +2%
    Fox +2%
    CBS +3%

    Of those pollsters who were pretty much on the nose, how many (this year) show a Trump lead?
    I've tried this with @HYUFD a couple of times but to no avail. Rasmussen were perfect; every one else was nowhere. Apparently.
  • I am puzzled that the betting markets have Biden increasing his lead.

    Both the 538 and RCP polling averages have shown a slow but steady closing of the gap over the past month. Biden's lead has reduced by 1.6% (538) and 1.4% (RCP) since 18 August.

    Carry on at that rate for the next 6 weeks and it will be around 4%... too close to call given Trump's EC advantage.

    Re: betting markets, is it case of many punters hedging their bets? With complexities far beyond my humble ken?

    Few appear to believe the Yellow Brick Road is straightforward journey A to B. Though you may well encounter a few muchkins.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,289
    When do we think we will know the outcome of the US Presidential election for certain?

    November 4th seems unlikely.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,542
    Biden talking in Duluth Minnesota on CNN .

    Still gaffe prone but in the first few minutes you can see how he can connect with those white blue collar workers like Clinton never could .
  • Scott_xP said:
    A known non Boris fan to say the least. Of course he's right.

    More worrying to Downing Street will be the Judith Wood piece in the Boris Bible, the Telegraph. Johnson was absolutely blasted.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:



    1. Travel restrictions

    This isn't complex, guys. The self certification quarantine system - particularly for those arriving from high risk areas - is a joke.

    Everybody should be tested at the airport. And those from higher risk destinations need to spend some time in an airport hotel.

    The Truth and Reconciliation Commission will really need to dig in on this one.

    Even countries with no lockdown at all of any form whatsoever, like Sweden, banned flights. Yet at the height of the New York outbreak you could theoretically step on a plane from JFK to London and then walk off into the city.

    Absolute psychotic, self destructive, desire to keep our borders open. A group of people must have fought tooth and nail for this. Why? What was the payoff (figuratively or literally). Were people so wedded to the Flu Pandemic plan that literally no one could see the benefit of stopping importing cases? Inconceivable.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,769
    Scott_xP said:
    Hmmm - I’ll put him down as a ‘maybe.’
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    A known non Boris fan to say the least. Of course he's right.

    More worrying to Downing Street will be the Judith Wood piece in the Boris Bible, the Telegraph. Johnson was absolutely blasted.

    The Spectator also dangerously off-message
  • rcs1000 said:

    @Black_Rook some restaurants seem to manage just fine. Masks are not that bad ffs, and them being young is irrelevant, without masks they could spread the virus to more vulnerable people.

    Yes, clearly you aren't forced to wear them all day. But like I said before, masks whenever you leave the house are probably coming anyway (followed a few days later by the inevitable total shutdown of hospitality, which will render this whole debate academic in any event.)
    stodge said:

    The hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer are receding into memory and while it won't be forever autumn, the social life of many starts to move from outdoors to indoors and that means, regrettably, enhanced risk. For weeks, the large-scale flouting of regulations in cities and large towns has presaged a return of the virus - I fully accept large parts of rural and suburban England will be perplexed as to all this but the cities and the people seem to have got this wrong somehow in some way.

    I think about the only hope left for us living out in the sticks is that the Government elects to cricket bat the cities and spares us the worst of the restrictions - but I don't think they're likely to be that discriminating. Just like in the North-East, where the wilds of North Northumberland were thwacked with the same intensity as Newcastle city centre, the plague pits and the virtually Covid-free villages are all going over the cliff edge together.
    Did you not see the research on masks in the NEJM?

    https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2026913

    Widespread mask wearing is likely what is dramatically reducing the seriousness of CV19 cases, and is why hospitalisations are so low this time around.

    (Don't tell @NerysHughes )
    I don't disagree with you, but I feel I should point out that the NEJM article isn't research. It's a "perspective" piece (more like an opinion piece) and it is quite careful to say "if" a lot: "if the viral inoculum matters...", "if this theory bears out...", and so on. They aren't in a position to make claims about what is actually true. It does contain some basic statistics about asymptomatic rates in some outbreaks, but it's only a surface look (e.g. those comparisons aren't age-controlled).

    To be honest, I think it's too soon to tell whether hospitalisations are going to be low for this second wave. Remember Germany's experience in the first wave, where by chance the first cohorts of infected people were disproportionately young, and it seemed that the country was suffering almost no deaths. I remember people asking what they were doing so spectacularly well. The situation later deteriorated (though they still only had about 10k deaths total; I don't know their antibody prevalence).

    I'm hopeful that masks are helping, but it's just so hard to tell for certain.

    --AS
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,289

    I am puzzled that the betting markets have Biden increasing his lead.

    Both the 538 and RCP polling averages have shown a slow but steady closing of the gap over the past month. Biden's lead has reduced by 1.6% (538) and 1.4% (RCP) since 18 August.

    Carry on at that rate for the next 6 weeks and it will be around 4%... too close to call given Trump's EC advantage.

    Re: betting markets, is it case of many punters hedging their bets? With complexities far beyond my humble ken?

    Few appear to believe the Yellow Brick Road is straightforward journey A to B. Though you may well encounter a few muchkins.
    Will the Wizard of Oz finally admit to being a humbug though?
This discussion has been closed.