The pursuit of happiness – politicalbetting.com
The pursuit of happiness – politicalbetting.com
No sparing the blushes of Matt Hancock this morning. From the rule of six to the rules of sex – what is the government advice around close relationships? RH#KayBurley pic.twitter.com/RLjBa13S0R
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You been peering in windows Meeks?
"Highway code for Covid" - I like that.
That was an interview with a journalist. To walk away from a 2 man debate is a lot more dangerous, because it allows Trump 90 minutes to say more or less what he wants.
EDIT Great thread header Alastair. Sorry to divert
Not that he'd be seen dead in Tescos.
Enforcement also an issue, as the impression is it's all basically voluntary. No reason at all not to make an example of Stanley Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn - we're not talking about sending them to Belmarsh, for goodness sake, simply a fine that they are well able to pay for breaches that are egregious and not denied. I cannot for the life of me see why this is not done.
https://youtu.be/aVIA1n5ng4Y
ironically BJ likely doesn't have a problem with Tescos when he has need of a wine box of Chateau Getwrecked and one of those terrible, terrible suits that he barely inhabits.
Thanks for your comment, Ed, and the nice compliment which I accept immodestly.
It's people like you that help punters keep straight when overexuberence threatens our objectivity. Those that haven't much experience of the US probably need it more than most. My own experiences include a short spell living there, driving from coast to coast, and some fairly lengthy visits and holidays. Yes, I've been to Pennsylvania and fairly recently Upper New York State too, which has a similar demographic and political climate. (Away from the cities it is distinctly Republican.) For those who haven't visited, the excellent Oscar-winning film Manchester By The Sea captures beautifully the spirit the author of the excellent piece you quoted was trying to convey. I have numerous US friends, some fanatical Trump supporters. I get what they see in him, but since he is widely regarded as something of a figure of fun over here, it's good to be reminded from time to time.
All the same, I can't help feeling it's close to a wrap now. Sure, you can extrapolate from some half decent polls such as the Nationals from Monmouth and Emerson a few days back, not to mention the positives from scratchier outfits like Rasmussen and Trafalgar. There are anecdotes and suppositions that can be thrown in too. Shy-Trumpers are particularly popular with those padding out an insubstantial case because, like fairies at the bottom of the garden, it is very difficult to prove they really don't exist.
The overwhelming evidence now points clearly to a Biden win, quite possibly a big one. You'd be a fool to ignore it. Of course the disappointed voters of the neglected parts of PA and elsewhere will ache for a saviour and remain sceptical of Biden and his Party. They won't give up lightly on Trump or the GoP, but they too have disappointed and it appears they cannot call on the same levels of support that got Trump over the line (just) last time around.
The models are showing the President should be 7/2, at least. They are largely fact-based. Time is running out for the Donald. Biden is a Punter's gift at 4/6. Sometimes things are as they seem to be.
Please keep posting. Helps keep us all honest.
Still has.
Plus it's got a seat cover which surely adds cool-as-fuck points.
He used to visit Morrisons a fair bit when he went to Devon and Cornwall.
Splendid. Except that the version of Tier 2 in West Yorkshire is different to that in the North East. Are they at Tier two-and-a-half?
Dildo:
Guido understands Middlesbrough and Hartlepool are to enter local lockdowns, akin to those seen in the rest of north east, as of midnight on the 5th.
Middlesbrough is only included because they asked to be included.
https://order-order.com/2020/09/30/exclusive-new-middlesbrough-and-hartlepool-to-enter-local-lockdown/
Andy Preston, Mayoral Panjandrum of Middlesbrough:
https://twitter.com/Tees_Issues/status/1311612081091809280
This could be a good project for PB. Let's think of some other ways of saying: "Another example of disconnect" when a poll which asks if people would be happy to leave the EU gets a 94% yes result.
I was thinking back to earlier years - the 1980s - through BSE and Mr Gummer trying to feed his daughter burgers in public - to the later years of Mrs T and AIDS/HIV. I seem to remember her doing much better than the current lot on HIV after - I also STR - some false steps/delay because Gays were not approved of by the Tories and nice ladies didn't talk about practices that went on in the communal bathhouses of SF and the like. Perhaps it was her scientific training, but ISTR she got things together still more quickly on the ozone layer when the scientists warned her - for which she perhapos doesn't get enough credit.
But one difference is that in those days there were only 4 TV channels and people bought and read newspapers as well. Public service messaging was surely simpler then. Though the reputed geniuses in the current lot should have been able to solve that conumdrum, they seem to spend far less emergy in dealing with coronavirus than they did with pushing to win the referendum in 2016. Or am I unfair?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moderna-ceo-coronavirus-vaccine-wont-be-ready-until-spring-2021/
And what happens when it doesn't come next spring. Another year of this?
No, we must learn to live with the virus.
I doubt they know themselves. Johnson clearly doesn't.
https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1311574127162150914
Hurrah!
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1311633773214261248
Rudolf Virchow: “An epidemic is a social phenomenon that has a few medical aspects.”
And they will be manufacturing in the meantime.
I don't think this is a significant change from recent guidance - more a reaction to Trump saying it might be ready next week.
If Covid is present in the community, and if that community socialises indoors, then the virus will spread. In the absence of the vaccine that leaves us with three alternatives.
Catch It - We could decide that treatment options have improved sufficiently that it's now safe enough to let the virus spread relatively unrestricted.
Hide From It - We could continue in our current joyless limbo, where we use blunt rules of anti-social distancing to stop the virus from spreading too much. I reckon this is where we'd end up if we tried to go for Catch It, because people would come up with the rules themselves once they saw the hospitals start to get overwhelmed. It would just be with a higher level of virus circulation. Some people find it easier to hide than others, as well.
Kill It - We follow other island countries, like New Zealand and Taiwan (and effectively South Korea given the status of their land border), and take the short term pain to achieve zero covid, so that we can live with much greater freedom once that's achieved, albeit with a tight quarantine at the coast.
HIV is not the right model for this, since Covid spreads far too much more easily. There is no single behaviour change that will cut transmission in the same way as condom use does for HIV.
...And use your legs and leave a blank for Hogg
And put a cross for Lindsay.
There are only too many who say 'What difference does it
make
One way or the other?
To turn the stream of history will take
More than a by-election.’
So Thursday came and Oxford went to the polls
And made its coward vote and the streets resounded
To the triumphant cheers of the lost souls —
The profiteers, the dunderheads, the smarties.
And I drove back to London in the dark of the morning,
the trees
Standing out in the headlights cut from cardboard;
Wondering which disease
Is worse — the Status Quo or the Mere Utopia.
For from now on
Each occasion must be used, however trivial,
To rally the ranks of those whose chance will soon be
gone
For even guerrilla warfare.
The nicest people in England have always been the least
Apt to solidarity or alignment
But all of them must now align against the beast
That prowls at every door and barks in every headline.
Dawn and London and daylight and last the sun:
I stop the car and take the yellow placard
Off the bonnet; that little job is done
Though without success or glory...
But even that is a long way in the past now.
The UK should have gone for risk segmentation as discussed on here a day or so ago. We'd have been over it by about August bank holiday 2020. This is dragging on interminably while the UK government stands there and pisses ~£500,000,000,000 down the toilet. By Christmas I assume it'll be £600,000,000,000.
Thanks yesterday evening BTW to @Anabobazina for highlighting 538 as being more reliable than RCP
(However much I might argue with him.)
Covid: Vaccine will 'not return life to normal in spring'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54371559
An endless death by attrition of our businesses is, to coin a phrase, simply an unviable strategy. Italy has, after an appalling start - and, perhaps, because of it - done well at balancing safety and the economy. Why can’t we learn from them?
Apart from all that it's the holy grail.
Failure of a trial would be a disappointment but it's actually all gone a little quicker than I expected.
(Cue the National Anthem and pictures of crowds waving Union Flags)
Or it could be that we just have a bunch of talentless jerks in charge who listen to few and fail to understand those that they do listen to.
Or maybe they just do not give a f***? With all the unaccountability going on, I wonder how many are feathering their nests and packing their bank accounts?
Whatever the reason, it is not good for UK plc and the average person in the street.
Boris is hardly likely to be outlawing sex.
Sometimes government is sensible and the people are stupid. When AIDs struck there was a rise in conventional venereal disease incidence in the UK.
"Scientists at the University of Oxford say they should have at least a million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by September this year."
Sarah Gilbert/Adrian Hill, 17 April 2020
So, expectations explicitly set by those best placed to set them. Some sort of vaccine will come along eventually, but we can't go further than that.
I'd say the way forward is to implement and properly enforce restrictions that are the least detrimental to our freedom and economy while still keeping the death rate in check. This will obviously cause hardship to some, so the second priority is to determine how best to alleviate this hardship until we eventually reach herd immunity / develop a vaccine.
Asian food, OTOH .....
Indeed the article Francis posted talks about emergency approval next month.
That said I think there's a reasonable balance to be reached. In Scotland we were down to single-figure infections a day before the schools went back and long after pubs were open. I don't think schools going back was the direct cause of increases by the way, I think that was because of more people going back into work when they could have been working from home, as well as some laxity in basic measures like masking and hygeine (I went into B&Q today and about 40% of the staff were doing the "nose out" style of mask wearing). Right now we're having a headache because of people mixing too much in people's houses which they weren't doing so much when the weather was warmer. We're also seeing the effect of students going back, which was a silly decision. I think we might need to accept that we aren't going to be having house parties or barbeques for the forseeable future and nightclubs are fucked (and should be given extended furlough and government support). Universities will need to be mostly or entirely online and the students should just be allowed to study from home if they want to. That way you can clear out most residences and only have them at 50% capacity for people who can't study from home for whatever reason. Pubs and particularly restaurants seem to be able to operate safely, provided they follow the hygeine rules (which should be as rigorously enforced as any other hygeine regime). The Italians and Germans seem to have done this more intelligently than we have, which is to have slowly eased restrictions one at a time while beefing up their testing. We did far too much at once frankly and now we're paying for it by having to roll things back. At least we have better data this time for what risk factors are involved in transmission. I was unhappy at the B&Q with the stupid staff, but that setting is unlikely to be conducive to spread because almost everyone apart from the mouthbreathers were masked and people only had fleeting interaction with others.
In reality zero restrictions would be mean people make their own arrangements and their own choices, based on the information we know about COVID. The elderly and infirm would self shelter or be sheltered by relatives and carers. And that would mean the hospitals would be able to survive.
And the well could go on powering the economy forward to pay for it all.
The worst way to protect the NHS is the shut down the engine that pays for it.