Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
Is it something to do with these figures reflecting business sectors rather than economic activity? I agree that the figures seem odd, but I don't actually know what they are measuring. Is all the economic activity that supports construction (for example, all the commercial stuff - tenders etc.) included?
Contrary to one anecdote above, my anecdote is that both companies and individuals (especially elderly individuals) are cutting back on non-essential construction and maintenance work.
"Labour’s dossier on local lockdowns was far more potent. It looked at 20 areas that have spent two months under various restrictions and pointed to how the virus had surged in 19 of them.
In Bolton, Hyndburn and Bury, Covid infections have risen more than tenfold. In Burnley, they have risen twentyfold. "
Telegraph (Fraser Nelson)
We introduced mask wearing in July and since then infections have gone up enormously (as infections have in every European Country where mask wearing is mandatory), but nobody apart from me questions their effectiveness, yet when labour question the effectiveness of lockdowns it is apparently potent.
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
A few additional numbers are relevant.
We're unlikely to be identifying every case of the infection. Perhaps we're identifying 2/3 of the cases.
It looks like only 1/5 of people are isolating when contacted and asked to isolate.
It's taking time to complete the tracing, so people may have started to be infectious before they are contacted. However, let's be optimistic here and say that on average we only miss out on a small fraction of this time - 1/10.
The total proportion of infection prevented by test, trace and isolate would then be:
P(cases identified) x P(contacts contacted) x P(contacts isolating) x P(contacts contacted in time) = 2/3 x 2/3 x 1/5 x 9/10 = 36/450 = 8%
We should be directing all our efforts to improving every term of that equation. Instead we're stuck in a pointless debate over the relative merits of a de jure lockdown or a de facto lockdown, whenever we're not in a more pointless argument over whether we're allowed to consume shandy if we do so while standing on one leg under a beech tree.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
In normal times the August growth figures would be little short of sensational and we would be worrying about uncontrolled booms. What I think can be said is that the horrendous damage caused by Covid and the lockdown is being undone but not quite as fast as it was in the summer. Of course August had the higher base of July for a monthly comparison but even so the force of the bounce back faded somewhat.
I don't agree that the services figure is particularly bad, let alone horrific. Most services are still operating with significantly reduced capacity and that includes restaurants and bars. What is clear is that the new restrictions that we have in Scotland and much of the north of England will drive those figures down further in the coming weeks with severe job implications.
The brutal truth is that our economy cannot operate at its previous level when we have to stay 2m apart, where the capacity of a pub or restaurant or even court house is measured on the fingers of a couple of hands. We are trying to live virtually. Its not working.
I understand why the services numbers are horrific, but they are horrific. And come January a major market for our services sector will become much harder to access. That’s just a fact. Covid we can’t do much about. The rest is about choices our government has made.
We can do a lot about our response to Covid and that will have vastly more effect on our service industries than the end of the transitional arrangements, whatever replaces them.
So far the blessed Nicola has been the mother of the nation in Scotland riding high on a wave of approval but I am detecting a lot of opposition to her most recent measures, a surprising amount of it from SNP supporters. I think we are at the limits of what people are willing to accept in terms of limits on our economy. The price is now payable and people are shocked by it. All too soon, as furlough unwinds, they will be appalled. I think at that point the consensus will switch to living with the virus rather than trying to eliminate it.
Your final statement is all well and good, providing one, or one's loved ones don't succumb to the virus.
My criticism, here is not exclusively reserved for domestic government, but those in charge the world over. Having successfully overcome the first wave, pretty well nothing was put in place to deal with the second. Dealing with Coronavirus should have been a pan-world enterprise manager by the UN.
It is also a situation where the EU could have come into its own. As a former Remainer, I have to reluctantly concede in this area the EU has failed massively.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
When I started watching cricket in the 1990s most of the England team were not privately educated AFAIK:
Graham Gooch, Mike Atherton, Robin Smith, Mark Ramprakash, Jack Russell, Phillip DeFreitas, Gladstone Small, Devon Malcolm, Phil Tufnell, Angus Fraser.
Gooch - Leyton Grammar (State) Atherton - Manchester Grammar (private) Smith - Northwood School (SA) fee paying Ramprakash - Gayton (State) Jack Russell - Archway (state, indeed, state secondary modern) Daffy - Willesden (State) Gladstone Small - not clear which school he was at, but I think he was privately educated on a sports scholarship in Barbados. Devon Malcolm - not clear which school he attended in the Carib, but he was at Richmond College in Sheffield (State) after emigrating here. Phil Tufnell - Highgate (private) Fraser - Gayton (state).
So yes, you’re right, but it isn’t quite clear cut.
Truthfully, I would have said a much bigger impact than even the sale of playing fields is how much less time talented children get to spend on sport in the state sector. An hour a week, maybe, with 1 member of staff among 30 children who may specialise in long distance running doesn’t help with cricket. Whereas in the private sector it could easily be five or six hours, plus extra coaching from specialists for those seen as especially promising.
Not all state schools are like that. We have about 2 hours of PE and games combined each week plus a similar amount after school training for those in school teams (or at least the squads), plus the matches themselves (usually on a Saturday). We couldn’t do it without a large number of non-PE specialist staff being prepared to take a team though and a well organised fund raising effort by parents to pay for coaches (of the wheeled variety) etc. so the school doesn’t have to.
My kids' inner London state secondary school doesn't even seem to do cricket in PE. With cricket games no longer shown on normal telly, I think it has retreated to its elite hinterlands, and is no longer a national game in any meaningful sense, which is a shame. I used to love watching it as a kid and could have named every member of the English team. At my comprehensive we did cricket in PE every summer - even in Scotland! My son probably couldn't name a single member of the current English team, it's just not on his radar, and he is far more interested in sport than I ever was.
Apart from the Florida poll Biden should be pretty happy with the latest bunch. Trump is clearly ahead in Kansas and West Virginia (equivalent to Tories leading in Surrey) and both Texas and Florida are close, but otherwise it looks like a Biden rout at the moment:
"Labour’s dossier on local lockdowns was far more potent. It looked at 20 areas that have spent two months under various restrictions and pointed to how the virus had surged in 19 of them.
In Bolton, Hyndburn and Bury, Covid infections have risen more than tenfold. In Burnley, they have risen twentyfold. "
Telegraph (Fraser Nelson)
We introduced mask wearing in July and since then infections have gone up enormously (as infections have in every European Country where mask wearing is mandatory), but nobody apart from me questions their effectiveness, yet when labour question the effectiveness of lockdowns it is apparently potent.
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
Working fine in my bit of Spain thanks very much. As has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions as a minimum they are restricting viral load and the subsequent need for hospital and icu but you insist on posting crap
Look, I bet on Trump to win Florida. Coud punters please pay attention to the Emerrson poll and move the market accordingly so I can have all my state bets Green please.
Morning to everyone although not a good one given the GDP underperformance. Will be interesting to see what Rishi means by his new measure for jobs.
I spent too much bloody time on here yesterday so this is the only post of the day and then I'm off. First, @HYFUD posted the Florida poll with a +3% Republican lead. Here is an article on it, which claims the pollster got Florida right in 2016 and the scale of Obama's 2008 victory (don't know whether that is true, I haven't had time to check). Biden's rating amongst Hispanics actually looks decent in the poll but it states Trump is winning amongst 45+ and has 12% of the Black vote.
For @OllyT, the same pollster explains why he is sceptical the polling is reliable. He has a slightly different take from me, namely the problem being that it has to do with the switch to cellphone and polling the same pool but his conclusion is the same, namely polling is less reliable than it was:
Finally, from Bitzer at North State politics. This is "old" (a week and half ago) but it is looking at the composition of the early returned ballots in NC. HIs conclusion is there is a good chance the Democrats are merely cannibalising their 2016 votes with the returned ballots rather than adding new voters. - at Sep 27, 71% of Democrats who had voted by mail had voted in person in 2016 vs 66% for the state as a whole, and only 21% had either registered in 2017+ or hadn't voted in 2016 vs 24% for the whole state (and 25% for the much smaller Republican number):
For a moment I read your first sentence as 'not a good one given the GOP underperformance' and my mind was blown. However a closer reading meant the natural order was restored.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
Alot of the supply to construction was shut down hard. And then the management tried to run the businesses with everyone on furlough and a couple of receptionists running the phone.
I exaggerate only slightly.
At one point in the restart, the country nearly ran out of plasterboard because of this kind of thinking..
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
Alot of the supply to construction was shut down hard. And then the management tried to run the businesses with everyone on furlough and a couple of receptionists running the phone.
I exaggerate only slightly.
At one point in the restart, the country nearly ran out of plasterboard because of this kind of thinking..
Nearly running out of plasterboard would imply a lot of work is going on though, which again doesn't seem to sync with construction being harder hit than services.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
I agree. Many, many projects have been mothballed until it can be determined whether they are still viable. Its one of the reasons that Boris was going on about offshore windfarms the other day. He is anxious to get as many projects as possible back on track.
Orange brick bridge to NI also a priority it appears.
"Labour’s dossier on local lockdowns was far more potent. It looked at 20 areas that have spent two months under various restrictions and pointed to how the virus had surged in 19 of them.
In Bolton, Hyndburn and Bury, Covid infections have risen more than tenfold. In Burnley, they have risen twentyfold. "
Telegraph (Fraser Nelson)
We introduced mask wearing in July and since then infections have gone up enormously (as infections have in every European Country where mask wearing is mandatory), but nobody apart from me questions their effectiveness, yet when labour question the effectiveness of lockdowns it is apparently potent.
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
Here in Wales, masks were not mandatory until September, and low and behold lockdown MK2 arrived here before anywhere else in the UK.
You could argue that compulsory maskage coincided with our first lockdown in Caerphilly, but I suspect even you would consider that to be a disingenuous linkage.
Was in your neck of the woods earlier in the week, Romsey. 100% mask compliance and no Covid pings on my NHS app
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
In normal times the August growth figures would be little short of sensational and we would be worrying about uncontrolled booms. What I think can be said is that the horrendous damage caused by Covid and the lockdown is being undone but not quite as fast as it was in the summer. Of course August had the higher base of July for a monthly comparison but even so the force of the bounce back faded somewhat.
I don't agree that the services figure is particularly bad, let alone horrific. Most services are still operating with significantly reduced capacity and that includes restaurants and bars. What is clear is that the new restrictions that we have in Scotland and much of the north of England will drive those figures down further in the coming weeks with severe job implications.
The brutal truth is that our economy cannot operate at its previous level when we have to stay 2m apart, where the capacity of a pub or restaurant or even court house is measured on the fingers of a couple of hands. We are trying to live virtually. Its not working.
And yet when anyone on here tries to suggest an alternative we are met by: will no one think of the grannies.
Look, we have had dreadful experiences, collectively here on PB, with several family members of posters dying and that is beyond awful. My own 90-yr old mother fell and broke her hip two months ago and, from @Dura_Ace's dreadful experience, I realise how dangerous a time that was and can thank my lucky stars that she didn't catch anything in hospital.
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
A snapshot from daughter’s business. The closure from end March to early July cost her £50,000 in lost revenue. That’s before you add in her fixed costs and loss of stock. Furlough helped a bit + the £10,000 grant but even with those she was way down. The EOHO scheme added a grand total of £4,000 to her August revenues which is less than a week’s takings.
Why? She is always pretty much full in August anyway, had to reduce capacity because of the social distancing measures and could not increase capacity to meet demand. On some days she was turning away twice as many people as she was serving. This is not just a matter of space and tables but also kitchen capacity. EOHO helped psychologically but has not been a huge money spinner, though every little bit helps, of course.
Until end of September business for the August - September period has been more or less the same as last year. But now with the 10 pm curfew who knows? And if there is another closure - especially if there is no support, winter - especially if this goes on until next summer or autumn - will be very grim indeed, even with the bonus for keeping on staff due in February.
What the position is like for all those businesses in areas with local lockdowns God only knows. But it will not be good. To put it mildly.
"Labour’s dossier on local lockdowns was far more potent. It looked at 20 areas that have spent two months under various restrictions and pointed to how the virus had surged in 19 of them.
In Bolton, Hyndburn and Bury, Covid infections have risen more than tenfold. In Burnley, they have risen twentyfold. "
Telegraph (Fraser Nelson)
We introduced mask wearing in July and since then infections have gone up enormously (as infections have in every European Country where mask wearing is mandatory), but nobody apart from me questions their effectiveness, yet when labour question the effectiveness of lockdowns it is apparently potent.
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
Working fine in my bit of Spain thanks very much. As has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions as a minimum they are restricting viral load and the subsequent need for hospital and icu but you insist on posting crap
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
Alot of the supply to construction was shut down hard. And then the management tried to run the businesses with everyone on furlough and a couple of receptionists running the phone.
I exaggerate only slightly.
At one point in the restart, the country nearly ran out of plasterboard because of this kind of thinking..
Nearly running out of plasterboard would imply a lot of work is going on though, which again doesn't seem to sync with construction being harder hit than services.
Demand can exceed supply if supply is too low, even if demand is well down.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
Alot of the supply to construction was shut down hard. And then the management tried to run the businesses with everyone on furlough and a couple of receptionists running the phone.
I exaggerate only slightly.
At one point in the restart, the country nearly ran out of plasterboard because of this kind of thinking..
Nearly running out of plasterboard would imply a lot of work is going on though, which again doesn't seem to sync with construction being harder hit than services.
Domestic is in overdrive. Quite a few commercial sites seem to have been mothballed.
There are major construction projects on going all around here. I find it incomprehensible that construction has suffered a greater decline than services, how does that make any sense at all?
The ONS have got contruction figures wrong for many years, I have no idea where they get them from
However they measure the construction sector doesn’t seem to bear any resemblance to on-the-ground observations, where everyone in the trade appears to be working flat out.
"Labour’s dossier on local lockdowns was far more potent. It looked at 20 areas that have spent two months under various restrictions and pointed to how the virus had surged in 19 of them.
In Bolton, Hyndburn and Bury, Covid infections have risen more than tenfold. In Burnley, they have risen twentyfold. "
Telegraph (Fraser Nelson)
We introduced mask wearing in July and since then infections have gone up enormously (as infections have in every European Country where mask wearing is mandatory), but nobody apart from me questions their effectiveness, yet when labour question the effectiveness of lockdowns it is apparently potent.
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
AFAIK mask wearing in the Netherlands has only ever been mandatory on public transport for people over 13. They have also seen infections go up enormously, so I would say that mask-wearing is unlikely to be the cause of infections going up, as you have often suggested. How effective they are I don't know, but here's a recent article that examines the question: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
Misogyny is more common in western society than many realize or accept. It was a factor in Trump's win over HRC. Fitting that it will be a factor in his defeat this time. There is a limit (thank goodness) and it has been reached.
"Labour’s dossier on local lockdowns was far more potent. It looked at 20 areas that have spent two months under various restrictions and pointed to how the virus had surged in 19 of them.
In Bolton, Hyndburn and Bury, Covid infections have risen more than tenfold. In Burnley, they have risen twentyfold. "
Telegraph (Fraser Nelson)
We introduced mask wearing in July and since then infections have gone up enormously (as infections have in every European Country where mask wearing is mandatory), but nobody apart from me questions their effectiveness, yet when labour question the effectiveness of lockdowns it is apparently potent.
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
Working fine in my bit of Spain thanks very much. As has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions as a minimum they are restricting viral load and the subsequent need for hospital and icu but you insist on posting crap
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
How much is it also a visibility thing? My road has loads of houses with bits being done, but I imagine you need a lot of loft extensions to balance an office park.
Those GDP data are really bad. The numbers to focus on are services, since IP and construction combined are barely 20% of the economy, and as others have noted the construction data have always had question marks about them (although the IP numbers are probably better measured than anything else in there). Bear in mind August was probably about as good as it is likely to get in terms of support for growth: Eat out to Help out, the Vat cut, support from the furlough scheme still in place, and with all that support services sector growth still came in at half the expected level, with output still almost 10% below February levels. The fact that consumer facing services like tourism and recreation are still so far off pre-Covid levels is to be expected, but the weakness goes way beyond that. I guess the upsides are that the BOE will likely be doing more QE, and that there is no way the government will countenance a No Deal Brexit with the economy already so far underwater. Small mercies, but seriously, these numbers are awful.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
How much is it also a visibility thing? My road has loads of houses with bits being done, but I imagine you need a lot of loft extensions to balance an office park.
In my local area there are certainly more home renovations than I've noticed before, but there's also many major projects going on. Housebuilding is continuing and a supermarket is being constructed down the road from me very rapidly. But yes, I suspect new offices are probably not high on the priority list right now.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
True.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
How much is it also a visibility thing? My road has loads of houses with bits being done, but I imagine you need a lot of loft extensions to balance an office park.
Its this. Lots of work costing a few grand a piece. Offset by a whole load of projects mothballed or stillborn costing a few tens / hundreds of millions a piece.
Office work is over. Any commercial projects building / refitting office space or support businesses (retail/hospitality) or housing close by said offices/train stations etc are worth far less than they were worth 7 months ago, and we have the long winter of pox to come.
Remember how we were told “the U.K. would never process EU citizen applications in time”?
overall, the total number of applications received up to 30 September 2020 was 4,061,900 overall, the total number of applications concluded up to 30 September 2020 was 3,880,400
How have EU members done with British citizen applications? Funny how many EU citizens want to live in nasty xenophobic “Little Britain” (England, actually, with the overwhelming majority (91%) of the applications).
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
Not really, as we’re in the main testing only those who are symptomatic. So even if we were testing all of those, which we aren’t, around half of infected cases wouldn’t be tested at all.
Add in the days of delay between testing and tracing contacts, and you can see why that’s not the case.
Again this is the consequence of making test accuracy the single most important metric. Number of tests (which must include testing those who are not symptomatic) and speed of results are every bit as important, and have simply not been given equivalent priority from the start.
I do recall in March or April listening to Vallance and Whitty and being told that a test that was not sufficiently accurate was "worse than useless". Even at the time my eyebrows shot up but, in a crowded field, I think it is now clear that that was the worst single piece of advice the government received. Its cost thousands of lives and had horrific economic consequences.
Well what is 'sufficiently' accurate? Hard to say.
What I don't understand is why more people who test positive are not isolating. Is there support in place for them?
"Labour’s dossier on local lockdowns was far more potent. It looked at 20 areas that have spent two months under various restrictions and pointed to how the virus had surged in 19 of them.
In Bolton, Hyndburn and Bury, Covid infections have risen more than tenfold. In Burnley, they have risen twentyfold. "
Telegraph (Fraser Nelson)
We introduced mask wearing in July and since then infections have gone up enormously (as infections have in every European Country where mask wearing is mandatory), but nobody apart from me questions their effectiveness, yet when labour question the effectiveness of lockdowns it is apparently potent.
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
Here is some analysis you could do. Make a list of senior leading politicians around the world. Divide them into those who take precautions like mask wearing seriously, and those who, like you, decry the whole matter and go about their business unmasked. Then go back through the list and mark off those who have contracted the virus, to see if there’s any pattern.
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
Not really, as we’re in the main testing only those who are symptomatic. So even if we were testing all of those, which we aren’t, around half of infected cases wouldn’t be tested at all.
Add in the days of delay between testing and tracing contacts, and you can see why that’s not the case.
Again this is the consequence of making test accuracy the single most important metric. Number of tests (which must include testing those who are not symptomatic) and speed of results are every bit as important, and have simply not been given equivalent priority from the start.
I do recall in March or April listening to Vallance and Whitty and being told that a test that was not sufficiently accurate was "worse than useless". Even at the time my eyebrows shot up but, in a crowded field, I think it is now clear that that was the worst single piece of advice the government received. Its cost thousands of lives and had horrific economic consequences.
It depends where you set the bar for 'sufficiently'. @Nigelb is right though, speed and volume are very important, along with decent sensitivity, specificity less important - you can test again.
I think you have sensitivity/specificity the wrong way round there ?
As long as the test isn't actively misleading (a high rate of false positives is obviously that), even comparatively low sensitivity, provided that is a known characteristic, is better than no test at all.
A lowish rate of false positives is tolerable, again as long as that test characteristic is known (one can then retest isolated positives with a more accurate test).
The cheap, mass produced, rapid antigen tests I think meet those characteristics.
Mr. B2, I think masks are probably a good idea. But also that the sample size you're looking at and the fact they're all in different countries does make such a group near useless for drawing any conclusions.
Not least because many people are asymptomatic. Other leaders may well have had COVID-19 and shown no signs.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
I agree. Many, many projects have been mothballed until it can be determined whether they are still viable. Its one of the reasons that Boris was going on about offshore windfarms the other day. He is anxious to get as many projects as possible back on track.
He's not anxious to get the repair of Hammersmith Bridge back on track.
The bridge is now closed to all pedestrians as well as traffic. Literally thousands of school children are having to make 1+ hour detours at the start and end of the school day. The only thing holding up repairs is the government holding up funding for this key shovel ready infrastructure project. The government is the only body with the funds (£0.14b out of the £100b infrastructure spend promised in the Tory manifesto).
I can only think this is retribution on the local citizens for throwing out Boris's pal Zac at the last election. But it is the kids who are suffering most.
Remember how we were told “the U.K. would never process EU citizen applications in time”?
overall, the total number of applications received up to 30 September 2020 was 4,061,900 overall, the total number of applications concluded up to 30 September 2020 was 3,880,400
How have EU members done with British citizen applications? Funny how many EU citizens want to live in nasty xenophobic “Little Britain” (England, actually, with the overwhelming majority (91%) of the applications).
I'm sorry, but being someone who has gone through gaining German Citizenship in 2019, my experience has been totally different from the EU citizens I know living in the UK, trying to get citizenship.
My application could only be accepted from August 2019, but the immigration office was actively helping me from May 2019 to get my application together so I could make my application on the first day possible. Within a couple of months everything had been processed in the fast lane and exactly one year ago today I was sworn in to be a German citizen. The stories I hear the other way round are of delays, mistrust and administrative incompetence.
How many British citizens have the equivalent of “settled status” in Germany?
Well, until transition ends British citizens are here as EU citizens, so perhaps not that many yet? I was told a couple of years ago that I would only be able to apply for permission to stay after the UK had left the EU - as citizens' rights were something that had not yet been decided, but not sure what people are supposed to be doing during the current transition. But as the process is not very different to applying for citizenship I suspect most eligible (if not married to a German there's usually a 8 or 7 year residency requirement) British citizens will have gone down the citizenship route, especially as if you apply (and fulfil conditions) before Britain leaves (again not sure if this includes current transition), you get to keep British citizenship, afterwards you have to give it up.
Getting German citizenship was mostly very smooth, and inexpensive - certainly compared to people I know of trying to get British (or Italian!) citizenship. What was surprising was that the whole process was run by the local authority, I mean I assume that at some point they check against a national database of terrorist suspects or whatever, but it seemed to have nothing to do with the federal government. Even the big form that I had to fill in was fairly different to forms other people had to fill in in other cities.
Economy well under expectations, stalled at 91% of February according to the ONS, 3% lower than the city consensus. September will be a nothing month and October will be negative.
When I started watching cricket in the 1990s most of the England team were not privately educated AFAIK:
Graham Gooch, Mike Atherton, Robin Smith, Mark Ramprakash, Jack Russell, Phillip DeFreitas, Gladstone Small, Devon Malcolm, Phil Tufnell, Angus Fraser.
Gooch - Leyton Grammar (State) Atherton - Manchester Grammar (private) Smith - Northwood School (SA) fee paying Ramprakash - Gayton (State) Jack Russell - Archway (state, indeed, state secondary modern) Daffy - Willesden (State) Gladstone Small - not clear which school he was at, but I think he was privately educated on a sports scholarship in Barbados. Devon Malcolm - not clear which school he attended in the Carib, but he was at Richmond College in Sheffield (State) after emigrating here. Phil Tufnell - Highgate (private) Fraser - Gayton (state).
So yes, you’re right, but it isn’t quite clear cut.
Truthfully, I would have said a much bigger impact than even the sale of playing fields is how much less time talented children get to spend on sport in the state sector. An hour a week, maybe, with 1 member of staff among 30 children who may specialise in long distance running doesn’t help with cricket. Whereas in the private sector it could easily be five or six hours, plus extra coaching from specialists for those seen as especially promising.
Not all state schools are like that. We have about 2 hours of PE and games combined each week plus a similar amount after school training for those in school teams (or at least the squads), plus the matches themselves (usually on a Saturday). We couldn’t do it without a large number of non-PE specialist staff being prepared to take a team though and a well organised fund raising effort by parents to pay for coaches (of the wheeled variety) etc. so the school doesn’t have to.
My kids' inner London state secondary school doesn't even seem to do cricket in PE. With cricket games no longer shown on normal telly, I think it has retreated to its elite hinterlands, and is no longer a national game in any meaningful sense, which is a shame. I used to love watching it as a kid and could have named every member of the English team. At my comprehensive we did cricket in PE every summer - even in Scotland! My son probably couldn't name a single member of the current English team, it's just not on his radar, and he is far more interested in sport than I ever was.
I don't know what the situation is at the local secondary school, but our small town (pop 5000 or so) has a flourishing cricket club. Three adult teams, a junior and a couple of under 11's. A ladies team is due to start next season; would have this I think, but for the plague. Part of a flourishing local league. Of course Essex, currently one of the country's top teams, does a lot of it's recruitment locally.
Look, I bet on Trump to win Florida. Coud punters please pay attention to the Emerrson poll and move the market accordingly so I can have all my state bets Green please.
Look, I bet on Trump to win Florida. Coud punters please pay attention to the Emerrson poll and move the market accordingly so I can have all my state bets Green please.
Which Emerson poll ?
There's a good Hannity/Fox poll for him but can't see Emerson
When I started watching cricket in the 1990s most of the England team were not privately educated AFAIK:
Graham Gooch, Mike Atherton, Robin Smith, Mark Ramprakash, Jack Russell, Phillip DeFreitas, Gladstone Small, Devon Malcolm, Phil Tufnell, Angus Fraser.
Gooch - Leyton Grammar (State) Atherton - Manchester Grammar (private) Smith - Northwood School (SA) fee paying Ramprakash - Gayton (State) Jack Russell - Archway (state, indeed, state secondary modern) Daffy - Willesden (State) Gladstone Small - not clear which school he was at, but I think he was privately educated on a sports scholarship in Barbados. Devon Malcolm - not clear which school he attended in the Carib, but he was at Richmond College in Sheffield (State) after emigrating here. Phil Tufnell - Highgate (private) Fraser - Gayton (state).
So yes, you’re right, but it isn’t quite clear cut.
Truthfully, I would have said a much bigger impact than even the sale of playing fields is how much less time talented children get to spend on sport in the state sector. An hour a week, maybe, with 1 member of staff among 30 children who may specialise in long distance running doesn’t help with cricket. Whereas in the private sector it could easily be five or six hours, plus extra coaching from specialists for those seen as especially promising.
Not all state schools are like that. We have about 2 hours of PE and games combined each week plus a similar amount after school training for those in school teams (or at least the squads), plus the matches themselves (usually on a Saturday). We couldn’t do it without a large number of non-PE specialist staff being prepared to take a team though and a well organised fund raising effort by parents to pay for coaches (of the wheeled variety) etc. so the school doesn’t have to.
My kids' inner London state secondary school doesn't even seem to do cricket in PE. With cricket games no longer shown on normal telly, I think it has retreated to its elite hinterlands, and is no longer a national game in any meaningful sense, which is a shame. I used to love watching it as a kid and could have named every member of the English team. At my comprehensive we did cricket in PE every summer - even in Scotland! My son probably couldn't name a single member of the current English team, it's just not on his radar, and he is far more interested in sport than I ever was.
Like so many sports the mistake cricket made was to aim at being a sport with a large (and better off) group support instead of one with a general, national, all age and class support. This had been achieved for decades by national free telly coverage.
It will make huge fortunes for a few people as they market meaningless matches to the group of supporters with the time and money, but kill the game in the long run.
Just come up on my Facebook page, from a fellow OAP: "I’m realising what a great boon the new NHS app is to those of us no longer young. If you can’t remember where you are, just wave your phone at the nearest QR code and hey presto, it tells you where you are."
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
I agree. Many, many projects have been mothballed until it can be determined whether they are still viable. Its one of the reasons that Boris was going on about offshore windfarms the other day. He is anxious to get as many projects as possible back on track.
He's not anxious to get the repair of Hammersmith Bridge back on track.
The bridge is now closed to all pedestrians as well as traffic. Literally thousands of school children are having to make 1+ hour detours at the start and end of the school day. The only thing holding up repairs is the government holding up funding for this key shovel ready infrastructure project. The government is the only body with the funds (£0.14b out of the £100b infrastructure spend promised in the Tory manifesto).
I can only think this is retribution on the local citizens for throwing out Boris's pal Zac at the last election. But it is the kids who are suffering most.
As someone who lives in the area - the problem in that the two councils involved are both trying to avoid responsibility. Their attempt to dump it on central government was a farce. The first demand for money under the infrastructure spending boost left out a few items.
Cost Estimated time. What their solution was
Yes, they asked the government for money on the basis of "Give us a pile of cash to do bridgy things to, from, at, or near Hammersmith Bridge. Sorry, we don't know what we will do with the money, or how long it will take. But hey!"
A bit later they tried on the basis of maybe getting the bridge re-opened to pedestrians...
Economy well under expectations, stalled at 91% of February according to the ONS, 3% lower than the city consensus. September will be a nothing month and October will be negative.
The government really fucked it up.
A consumption based economy struggles when its more difficult to consume.
It would also be useful to have more details - comparison between GDP change in London, other cities, towns, rural areas for example.
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
I agree that the current purgatory is not tenable. I'd characterise the current approach as being to use blunt, society-wide restrictions to reduce R, and keep infection levels suppressed below the level of overwhelming the hospital system, until a vaccine, treatment, or cheap insta-test rides to the rescue.
I think it's worth noting that this is the same strategy that Sweden is using. The difference is only that they have implemented it more competently than the UK, and have some advantages which make it easier to achieve (lower population density, stronger social security, better voluntary compliance).
The alternative presented is risk segmentation. I think there are many problems with that as a strategy, which have been well discussed: How do you define the vulnerable population? How do you effectively isolate them when they're mixed within households? Can the health service deal with the numbers who will still need treatment among the low-risk population? Will it actually lead to herd-immunity and a time when it is safe for the vulnerable to leave isolation?
My preference is to go after the virus. We let it get on top of us in the spring and we immediately lost our confidence and decided that victory was impossible. But if we manage to isolate the infectious the virus has nowhere to go.
We can work on speeding up testing. We can make tracing more effective. And we can ensure that those who need to actually do isolate.
Those are the choices. 1. Isolate everyone. 2. Isolate the vulnerable. 3. Isolate the infectious.
Morning to everyone although not a good one given the GDP underperformance. Will be interesting to see what Rishi means by his new measure for jobs.
I spent too much bloody time on here yesterday so this is the only post of the day and then I'm off. First, @HYFUD posted the Florida poll with a +3% Republican lead. Here is an article on it, which claims the pollster got Florida right in 2016 and the scale of Obama's 2008 victory (don't know whether that is true, I haven't had time to check). Biden's rating amongst Hispanics actually looks decent in the poll but it states Trump is winning amongst 45+ and has 12% of the Black vote.
For @OllyT, the same pollster explains why he is sceptical the polling is reliable. He has a slightly different take from me, namely the problem being that it has to do with the switch to cellphone and polling the same pool but his conclusion is the same, namely polling is less reliable than it was:
Finally, from Bitzer at North State politics. This is "old" (a week and half ago) but it is looking at the composition of the early returned ballots in NC. HIs conclusion is there is a good chance the Democrats are merely cannibalising their 2016 votes with the returned ballots rather than adding new voters. - at Sep 27, 71% of Democrats who had voted by mail had voted in person in 2016 vs 66% for the state as a whole, and only 21% had either registered in 2017+ or hadn't voted in 2016 vs 24% for the whole state (and 25% for the much smaller Republican number):
Thanks for your detailed response yesterday, only saw it this morning.
I don't actually agree with you that any of those points are causing the national polling to be way off. Weren't you claiming exactly the same things during the mid-terms, telling us that despite the polls the GOP were going to win the House?
I believe that the national polls will prove to be broadly accurate. We shall soon know which of us is correct.
There are major construction projects on going all around here. I find it incomprehensible that construction has suffered a greater decline than services, how does that make any sense at all?
The ONS have got contruction figures wrong for many years, I have no idea where they get them from
However they measure the construction sector doesn’t seem to bear any resemblance to on-the-ground observations, where everyone in the trade appears to be working flat out.
I remember the same thing a few years ago, in the "recession" we never had.
The ONS would be better off sometimes with a "cranes index", being the number of cranes they can see from their office window.
Grrr. Why is Windows 10 such a hateful OS? I've got 3 windows open on my ultrawide monitor and PB on the laptop screen. I'm copying Outlook items into network folders, filing and renaming them and writing up a commentary for my successor.
Outlook decides to sit down on the job. Won't come back. So Ctrl Alt Del to open Task Manager and kill it that way. Nope. Explorer has now sat down on the job. Can't do anything at all to recover it (after a sit and wait to see if it fixes itself) other than hold the power button to crash the machine and reboot. Took a photo of the work I would lose so that I could type it back in.
A week on Friday. That's (hopefully) the last time I ever have to use Windows.
It's amazing how this stuff creeps up on you, I got a new PC with Windows pre-installed, and added another disk to put Ubuntu on, and the Ubuntu install involved way less swearing than the Windows setup the computer was designed for.
Free software is just such an amazing, incredible, unbelievable success. The only more successful political movement I can think of is the NRA.
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
A few additional numbers are relevant.
We're unlikely to be identifying every case of the infection. Perhaps we're identifying 2/3 of the cases.
It looks like only 1/5 of people are isolating when contacted and asked to isolate.
It's taking time to complete the tracing, so people may have started to be infectious before they are contacted. However, let's be optimistic here and say that on average we only miss out on a small fraction of this time - 1/10.
The total proportion of infection prevented by test, trace and isolate would then be:
P(cases identified) x P(contacts contacted) x P(contacts isolating) x P(contacts contacted in time) = 2/3 x 2/3 x 1/5 x 9/10 = 36/450 = 8%
We should be directing all our efforts to improving every term of that equation. Instead we're stuck in a pointless debate over the relative merits of a de jure lockdown or a de facto lockdown, whenever we're not in a more pointless argument over whether we're allowed to consume shandy if we do so while standing on one leg under a beech tree.
It looks like only 1/5 of people are isolating when contacted Those figures date back to the summer, before the single £500 payment for the less well off was introduced, so they might have improved ? Another improvement would be to provide managed locations for isolation away from home.
"P(cases identified)" is nowhere near 2/3. We don't have a precise figure, but something like 50% of those infected never display symptoms, so don't get tested at all.
Otherwise, I agree - and the single biggest single change would be the introduction of large scale testing that is not dependent on waiting for symptoms. That would greatly improve both your first and last terms.
Remember how we were told “the U.K. would never process EU citizen applications in time”?
overall, the total number of applications received up to 30 September 2020 was 4,061,900 overall, the total number of applications concluded up to 30 September 2020 was 3,880,400
How have EU members done with British citizen applications? Funny how many EU citizens want to live in nasty xenophobic “Little Britain” (England, actually, with the overwhelming majority (91%) of the applications).
I'm sorry, but being someone who has gone through gaining German Citizenship in 2019, my experience has been totally different from the EU citizens I know living in the UK, trying to get citizenship.
My application could only be accepted from August 2019, but the immigration office was actively helping me from May 2019 to get my application together so I could make my application on the first day possible. Within a couple of months everything had been processed in the fast lane and exactly one year ago today I was sworn in to be a German citizen. The stories I hear the other way round are of delays, mistrust and administrative incompetence.
How many British citizens have the equivalent of “settled status” in Germany?
Well, until transition ends British citizens are here as EU citizens, so perhaps not that many yet?
Given they've only got one fortieth at most of the applications the UK has processed already I'll take tales of German efficiency with a pinch of salt.....
When I started watching cricket in the 1990s most of the England team were not privately educated AFAIK:
Graham Gooch, Mike Atherton, Robin Smith, Mark Ramprakash, Jack Russell, Phillip DeFreitas, Gladstone Small, Devon Malcolm, Phil Tufnell, Angus Fraser.
Gooch - Leyton Grammar (State) Atherton - Manchester Grammar (private) Smith - Northwood School (SA) fee paying Ramprakash - Gayton (State) Jack Russell - Archway (state, indeed, state secondary modern) Daffy - Willesden (State) Gladstone Small - not clear which school he was at, but I think he was privately educated on a sports scholarship in Barbados. Devon Malcolm - not clear which school he attended in the Carib, but he was at Richmond College in Sheffield (State) after emigrating here. Phil Tufnell - Highgate (private) Fraser - Gayton (state).
So yes, you’re right, but it isn’t quite clear cut.
Truthfully, I would have said a much bigger impact than even the sale of playing fields is how much less time talented children get to spend on sport in the state sector. An hour a week, maybe, with 1 member of staff among 30 children who may specialise in long distance running doesn’t help with cricket. Whereas in the private sector it could easily be five or six hours, plus extra coaching from specialists for those seen as especially promising.
Not all state schools are like that. We have about 2 hours of PE and games combined each week plus a similar amount after school training for those in school teams (or at least the squads), plus the matches themselves (usually on a Saturday). We couldn’t do it without a large number of non-PE specialist staff being prepared to take a team though and a well organised fund raising effort by parents to pay for coaches (of the wheeled variety) etc. so the school doesn’t have to.
My kids' inner London state secondary school doesn't even seem to do cricket in PE. With cricket games no longer shown on normal telly, I think it has retreated to its elite hinterlands, and is no longer a national game in any meaningful sense, which is a shame. I used to love watching it as a kid and could have named every member of the English team. At my comprehensive we did cricket in PE every summer - even in Scotland! My son probably couldn't name a single member of the current English team, it's just not on his radar, and he is far more interested in sport than I ever was.
Like so many sports the mistake cricket made was to aim at being a sport with a large (and better off) group support instead of one with a general, national, all age and class support. This had been achieved for decades by national free telly coverage.
It will make huge fortunes for a few people as they market meaningless matches to the group of supporters with the time and money, but kill the game in the long run.
Football hasn't been free for a long time but manages.
Look, I bet on Trump to win Florida. Coud punters please pay attention to the Emerrson poll and move the market accordingly so I can have all my state bets Green please.
Which Emerson poll ?
There's a good Hannity/Fox poll for him but can't see Emerson
Oh, got my polling companies confused, it wasn't Emerson.
Those GDP data are really bad. The numbers to focus on are services, since IP and construction combined are barely 20% of the economy, and as others have noted the construction data have always had question marks about them (although the IP numbers are probably better measured than anything else in there). Bear in mind August was probably about as good as it is likely to get in terms of support for growth: Eat out to Help out, the Vat cut, support from the furlough scheme still in place, and with all that support services sector growth still came in at half the expected level, with output still almost 10% below February levels. The fact that consumer facing services like tourism and recreation are still so far off pre-Covid levels is to be expected, but the weakness goes way beyond that. I guess the upsides are that the BOE will likely be doing more QE, and that there is no way the government will countenance a No Deal Brexit with the economy already so far underwater. Small mercies, but seriously, these numbers are awful.
I am not saying that they are good, they're not. We have endured a recession that made 2008 look like a modest bump in the road. I just fear that until the vaccine is to hand this is the new normal.
Anecdote time. I stayed in Edinburgh at an hotel for work related matters on Tuesday night. It was my second stay for that reason since February. Pre-lockdown I would typically stay in Edinburgh 1-2 nights a week. After work I went for a few pints with a friend. First time I had really done that since February. Our usual pub was "full". "Full" meant there was about a dozen socially distanced people in it (plus a large teddy bear for some reason). On a normal night pre-lockdown there might have been 40-50. We got into the second pub. It was bigger and had about 20 people in it. They also had 3 staff on. We had to log in and order by phone and credit card. It was frankly a faff but the staff were really trying hard to make it work. Again this pub would normally have had 50-100 people in it, more if there was football on.
In light of this it is somewhat surprising to me that services are as high as they are and what we did on Tuesday is no longer possible at all. I am old enough to remember when people smoked in pubs, now they are not even allowed to drink in them.
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
I agree that the current purgatory is not tenable. I'd characterise the current approach as being to use blunt, society-wide restrictions to reduce R, and keep infection levels suppressed below the level of overwhelming the hospital system, until a vaccine, treatment, or cheap insta-test rides to the rescue.
I think it's worth noting that this is the same strategy that Sweden is using. The difference is only that they have implemented it more competently than the UK, and have some advantages which make it easier to achieve (lower population density, stronger social security, better voluntary compliance).
The alternative presented is risk segmentation. I think there are many problems with that as a strategy, which have been well discussed: How do you define the vulnerable population? How do you effectively isolate them when they're mixed within households? Can the health service deal with the numbers who will still need treatment among the low-risk population? Will it actually lead to herd-immunity and a time when it is safe for the vulnerable to leave isolation?
My preference is to go after the virus. We let it get on top of us in the spring and we immediately lost our confidence and decided that victory was impossible. But if we manage to isolate the infectious the virus has nowhere to go.
We can work on speeding up testing. We can make tracing more effective. And we can ensure that those who need to actually do isolate.
Those are the choices. 1. Isolate everyone. 2. Isolate the vulnerable. 3. Isolate the infectious.
The vulnerable rely upon the non vulnerable so isolating them is easier said than done.
All of the poor, confusing decisions have lead to this huge economic underperformance. The bill for Boris and his nonsense policies are coming due and we're going to pay for it for the next 20 years.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
I agree that the current purgatory is not tenable. I'd characterise the current approach as being to use blunt, society-wide restrictions to reduce R, and keep infection levels suppressed below the level of overwhelming the hospital system, until a vaccine, treatment, or cheap insta-test rides to the rescue.
I think it's worth noting that this is the same strategy that Sweden is using. The difference is only that they have implemented it more competently than the UK, and have some advantages which make it easier to achieve (lower population density, stronger social security, better voluntary compliance).
The alternative presented is risk segmentation. I think there are many problems with that as a strategy, which have been well discussed: How do you define the vulnerable population? How do you effectively isolate them when they're mixed within households? Can the health service deal with the numbers who will still need treatment among the low-risk population? Will it actually lead to herd-immunity and a time when it is safe for the vulnerable to leave isolation?
My preference is to go after the virus. We let it get on top of us in the spring and we immediately lost our confidence and decided that victory was impossible. But if we manage to isolate the infectious the virus has nowhere to go.
We can work on speeding up testing. We can make tracing more effective. And we can ensure that those who need to actually do isolate.
Those are the choices. 1. Isolate everyone. 2. Isolate the vulnerable. 3. Isolate the infectious.
As we all on here identified seven months ago, testing is the key, IMO.
OK I would like to see a comprehensive and well-thought out risk segmentation strategy but no govt would have the balls to implement it (20-something carers and their carees being banned from going to the pub/hugging their grandchildren might not, I think, play well).
So testing. Everywhere always and often.
Once we can understand who has got it and when and where then we have control. Data is everything.
But we all said this before lockdown. As, tbf to them, did the WHO.
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
Not really, as we’re in the main testing only those who are symptomatic. So even if we were testing all of those, which we aren’t, around half of infected cases wouldn’t be tested at all.
Add in the days of delay between testing and tracing contacts, and you can see why that’s not the case.
Again this is the consequence of making test accuracy the single most important metric. Number of tests (which must include testing those who are not symptomatic) and speed of results are every bit as important, and have simply not been given equivalent priority from the start.
I do recall in March or April listening to Vallance and Whitty and being told that a test that was not sufficiently accurate was "worse than useless". Even at the time my eyebrows shot up but, in a crowded field, I think it is now clear that that was the worst single piece of advice the government received. Its cost thousands of lives and had horrific economic consequences.
It depends where you set the bar for 'sufficiently'. @Nigelb is right though, speed and volume are very important, along with decent sensitivity, specificity less important - you can test again.
I think you have sensitivity/specificity the wrong way round there ?
As long as the test isn't actively misleading (a high rate of false positives is obviously that), even comparatively low sensitivity, provided that is a known characteristic, is better than no test at all.
A lowish rate of false positives is tolerable, again as long as that test characteristic is known (one can then retest isolated positives with a more accurate test).
The cheap, mass produced, rapid antigen tests I think meet those characteristics.
I meant it the way I said it, but I think we're talking about different testing approaches and maybe different definitions of 'high' and 'low' regarding sensitivity and specificity - in short I was not specific enough about my meaning
My thinking, for individual tests: you want most people really infected to come back with positive tests (high sensitivity) so that they go into isolation and you trace contacts. A test that missed say 50% of positives would not be that great at the individual level, but it is a trade off - if the 50% sensitive test lets you test three times the number of people compared to the 90% sensitive test then you potentially still detect more cases and can break more chains of transmission. The false positives, if specificity is not so great, are a bit disruptive to individuals and may lose confidence in the system*, but as long as the rate is not too high (say 10%, 20%) it's ok. If low specificity is a known problem then you can test the positives again (using a more specific test, perhaps, on the smaller sample) if you have the capacity.
If you're talking about pooled testing approaches, which should be done more, then yes good specificity is the key. Poor specificity ruins pooled testing as it dramatically increases the workload/reduces capacity, which negates the whole purpose of pooled testing.
* I think this is where the worse than useless idea comes from. There needs to be confidence in testing, if you have a very low specificity individual test and people are repeatedly being asked to isolate for no reason then people will want to avoid getting tested. Tracing systems also get overwhelmed.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
In normal times the August growth figures would be little short of sensational and we would be worrying about uncontrolled booms. What I think can be said is that the horrendous damage caused by Covid and the lockdown is being undone but not quite as fast as it was in the summer. Of course August had the higher base of July for a monthly comparison but even so the force of the bounce back faded somewhat.
I don't agree that the services figure is particularly bad, let alone horrific. Most services are still operating with significantly reduced capacity and that includes restaurants and bars. What is clear is that the new restrictions that we have in Scotland and much of the north of England will drive those figures down further in the coming weeks with severe job implications.
The brutal truth is that our economy cannot operate at its previous level when we have to stay 2m apart, where the capacity of a pub or restaurant or even court house is measured on the fingers of a couple of hands. We are trying to live virtually. Its not working.
I understand why the services numbers are horrific, but they are horrific. And come January a major market for our services sector will become much harder to access. That’s just a fact. Covid we can’t do much about. The rest is about choices our government has made.
We can do a lot about our response to Covid and that will have vastly more effect on our service industries than the end of the transitional arrangements, whatever replaces them.
So far the blessed Nicola has been the mother of the nation in Scotland riding high on a wave of approval but I am detecting a lot of opposition to her most recent measures, a surprising amount of it from SNP supporters. I think we are at the limits of what people are willing to accept in terms of limits on our economy. The price is now payable and people are shocked by it. All too soon, as furlough unwinds, they will be appalled. I think at that point the consensus will switch to living with the virus rather than trying to eliminate it.
Is the juice worth the squeeze? If nothing but total lockdown helps control the virus and local lockdowns seem to make it worse, then it is obvious we have to learn to live with it. Unfortunately Politicians want to be seen to be in control, and they want to get back to what they saw as control in Spring. Unfortunately they (and we) cannot now afford to do that again - and lesser measures don’t seem to help.
Ideally they would be preparing the public saying that if measures don’t work then we will have to go back to the simple measures of hands face space, and protecting to vulnerable, which seem to have the clearest benefits.
Some new polling out of Michigan makes grim reading for Trump.
Emerson the pollsters are A- rated on Nate Silvers site .
Biden 54
Trump 43
17% of people have already voted there .
Michigan is hardly a swing State now but the size of the lead is eye-catching. Similar story in New Hampshire which Clinton won narrowly in 2016. St Anselm have Biden 12 ahead. It's a famously idiosyncratic electorate but that's a hell of a lead in a State which was thought earlier in the the campaign to be a ppotential flip to Trump.
The Florida poll is good for him however. Whatever the National result I expect him to perform relatively well in Florida.
Up 7 in Texas is also good for him but it's Rasmussen so judgement is reserved.
Nate Silver's site now has Biden up Nationally by 9.8, a new high. It feels too high to me, and I suspect it is over-influenced by the prolific USC Dornlife outfit, but the general impression is that the challenger is a good 8 to 9 clear on a rising trajectory. It can be turned round. There are plenty of examples of that kind of thing being done elsewhere but it would help if Trump stopped firing at his feet. The recent Yes/No/Wait over the debates didn't help and as for being rude about the fragrant Kamala.....
Laters. Have a nice morning everyone.
But can it really be turned around? The polls have been static all year despite a whole series of momentous events. What's going to change in the last 3 weeks, especially given that a large chunk of people have already voted?
Further to the thread header Biden is now leading urban women by a landslide and suburban women by double digits but Trump still leads with rural women.
Biden also leads urban men by a landslide, suburban men are almost tied with a narrow Biden lead amongst them and Trump wins rural men by a landslide.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
I agree. Many, many projects have been mothballed until it can be determined whether they are still viable. Its one of the reasons that Boris was going on about offshore windfarms the other day. He is anxious to get as many projects as possible back on track.
He's not anxious to get the repair of Hammersmith Bridge back on track.
The bridge is now closed to all pedestrians as well as traffic. Literally thousands of school children are having to make 1+ hour detours at the start and end of the school day. The only thing holding up repairs is the government holding up funding for this key shovel ready infrastructure project. The government is the only body with the funds (£0.14b out of the £100b infrastructure spend promised in the Tory manifesto).
I can only think this is retribution on the local citizens for throwing out Boris's pal Zac at the last election. But it is the kids who are suffering most.
As someone who lives in the area - the problem in that the two councils involved are both trying to avoid responsibility. Their attempt to dump it on central government was a farce. The first demand for money under the infrastructure spending boost left out a few items.
Cost Estimated time. What their solution was
Yes, they asked the government for money on the basis of "Give us a pile of cash to do bridgy things to, from, at, or near Hammersmith Bridge. Sorry, we don't know what we will do with the money, or how long it will take. But hey!"
A bit later they tried on the basis of maybe getting the bridge re-opened to pedestrians...
What! Not so. I live about 100 yards from the bridge so I am directly affected and am following events very closely. The two councils and Tfl do not have the funds (£0.14b) to repair this major link between north and south of the river.
There is an estimate of the cost (£0.14b), time (3 years) and solution (temp pedestrian bridge will major repairs to bridge are carried out). Both Councils are ready to rapidly progress planning permissions etc.
But I'm not going to get into a tit-for-tat political discussion with you on here. It really wouldn't be productive. My energies on this are directed elsewhere.
But it was notable that Trump’s own experience of the virus, rather than prompting an outpouring of sympathy and concern, often produced the usually unspoken reaction that it served him right – both because of his disdain for masks and social distancing, and his wider handling of the crisis: “Look where he’s sitting today. That’s ironic. Nobody could have done anything about it but yes, as a leader, he could have done listening to science. But he totally discarded that aspect and went on with his own ingenuity;” “I hate to say I would like to see him suffer a little bit, but in all reality, he’s not handling it right. The reason he has it is because he didn’t handle the situation correctly;” “With him getting covid and his blatant disrespect for wearing masks, that’s a problem for me. More people in the White House are getting infected. Against the blatant disrespect for PPE, I don’t know, it just seems like he could have avoided that and avoided other people getting it as well;” “It was kind of a negative for me that he pretended it wasn’t a big deal and then went and caught it anyway;” “During the debate he said, oh, Biden, you could be 200 feet away and you’d wear the biggest, stupidest mask ever. He made it kind of an insult to wear a mask, and then he goes and contracts covid.”
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
I agree that the current purgatory is not tenable. I'd characterise the current approach as being to use blunt, society-wide restrictions to reduce R, and keep infection levels suppressed below the level of overwhelming the hospital system, until a vaccine, treatment, or cheap insta-test rides to the rescue.
I think it's worth noting that this is the same strategy that Sweden is using. The difference is only that they have implemented it more competently than the UK, and have some advantages which make it easier to achieve (lower population density, stronger social security, better voluntary compliance).
The alternative presented is risk segmentation. I think there are many problems with that as a strategy, which have been well discussed: How do you define the vulnerable population? How do you effectively isolate them when they're mixed within households? Can the health service deal with the numbers who will still need treatment among the low-risk population? Will it actually lead to herd-immunity and a time when it is safe for the vulnerable to leave isolation?
My preference is to go after the virus. We let it get on top of us in the spring and we immediately lost our confidence and decided that victory was impossible. But if we manage to isolate the infectious the virus has nowhere to go.
We can work on speeding up testing. We can make tracing more effective. And we can ensure that those who need to actually do isolate.
Those are the choices. 1. Isolate everyone. 2. Isolate the vulnerable. 3. Isolate the infectious.
The vulnerable rely upon the non vulnerable so isolating them is easier said than done.
Well, yes, but to be fair, the characteristics of Sars-Cov-2 (spread by those pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic) also make it (isolating the infectious) easier said than done.
And enduring the current purgatory is no longer easy to say, let alone do.
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
Not really, as we’re in the main testing only those who are symptomatic. So even if we were testing all of those, which we aren’t, around half of infected cases wouldn’t be tested at all.
Add in the days of delay between testing and tracing contacts, and you can see why that’s not the case.
Again this is the consequence of making test accuracy the single most important metric. Number of tests (which must include testing those who are not symptomatic) and speed of results are every bit as important, and have simply not been given equivalent priority from the start.
I do recall in March or April listening to Vallance and Whitty and being told that a test that was not sufficiently accurate was "worse than useless". Even at the time my eyebrows shot up but, in a crowded field, I think it is now clear that that was the worst single piece of advice the government received. Its cost thousands of lives and had horrific economic consequences.
It depends where you set the bar for 'sufficiently'. @Nigelb is right though, speed and volume are very important, along with decent sensitivity, specificity less important - you can test again.
I think you have sensitivity/specificity the wrong way round there ?
As long as the test isn't actively misleading (a high rate of false positives is obviously that), even comparatively low sensitivity, provided that is a known characteristic, is better than no test at all.
A lowish rate of false positives is tolerable, again as long as that test characteristic is known (one can then retest isolated positives with a more accurate test).
The cheap, mass produced, rapid antigen tests I think meet those characteristics.
I meant it the way I said it, but I think we're talking about different testing approaches and maybe different definitions of 'high' and 'low' regarding sensitivity and specificity - in short I was not specific enough about my meaning
My thinking, for individual tests: you want most people really infected to come back with positive tests (high sensitivity) so that they go into isolation and you trace contacts. A test that missed say 50% of positives would not be that great at the individual level, but it is a trade off - if the 50% sensitive test lets you test three times the number of people compared to the 90% sensitive test then you potentially still detect more cases and can break more chains of transmission. The false positives, if specificity is not so great, are a bit disruptive to individuals and may lose confidence in the system*, but as long as the rate is not too high (say 10%, 20%) it's ok. If low specificity is a known problem then you can test the positives again (using a more specific test, perhaps, on the smaller sample) if you have the capacity.
If you're talking about pooled testing approaches, which should be done more, then yes good specificity is the key. Poor specificity ruins pooled testing as it dramatically increases the workload/reduces capacity, which negates the whole purpose of pooled testing.
* I think this is where the worse than useless idea comes from. There needs to be confidence in testing, if you have a very low specificity individual test and people are repeatedly being asked to isolate for no reason then people will want to avoid getting tested. Tracing systems also get overwhelmed.
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
Not really, as we’re in the main testing only those who are symptomatic. So even if we were testing all of those, which we aren’t, around half of infected cases wouldn’t be tested at all.
Add in the days of delay between testing and tracing contacts, and you can see why that’s not the case.
Again this is the consequence of making test accuracy the single most important metric. Number of tests (which must include testing those who are not symptomatic) and speed of results are every bit as important, and have simply not been given equivalent priority from the start.
I do recall in March or April listening to Vallance and Whitty and being told that a test that was not sufficiently accurate was "worse than useless". Even at the time my eyebrows shot up but, in a crowded field, I think it is now clear that that was the worst single piece of advice the government received. Its cost thousands of lives and had horrific economic consequences.
It depends where you set the bar for 'sufficiently'. @Nigelb is right though, speed and volume are very important, along with decent sensitivity, specificity less important - you can test again.
I think you have sensitivity/specificity the wrong way round there ?
As long as the test isn't actively misleading (a high rate of false positives is obviously that), even comparatively low sensitivity, provided that is a known characteristic, is better than no test at all.
A lowish rate of false positives is tolerable, again as long as that test characteristic is known (one can then retest isolated positives with a more accurate test).
The cheap, mass produced, rapid antigen tests I think meet those characteristics.
I meant it the way I said it, but I think we're talking about different testing approaches and maybe different definitions of 'high' and 'low' regarding sensitivity and specificity - in short I was not specific enough about my meaning
My thinking, for individual tests: you want most people really infected to come back with positive tests (high sensitivity) so that they go into isolation and you trace contacts. A test that missed say 50% of positives would not be that great at the individual level, but it is a trade off - if the 50% sensitive test lets you test three times the number of people compared to the 90% sensitive test then you potentially still detect more cases and can break more chains of transmission. The false positives, if specificity is not so great, are a bit disruptive to individuals and may lose confidence in the system*, but as long as the rate is not too high (say 10%, 20%) it's ok. If low specificity is a known problem then you can test the positives again (using a more specific test, perhaps, on the smaller sample) if you have the capacity.
If you're talking about pooled testing approaches, which should be done more, then yes good specificity is the key. Poor specificity ruins pooled testing as it dramatically increases the workload/reduces capacity, which negates the whole purpose of pooled testing.
* I think this is where the worse than useless idea comes from. There needs to be confidence in testing, if you have a very low specificity individual test and people are repeatedly being asked to isolate for no reason then people will want to avoid getting tested. Tracing systems also get overwhelmed.
There is a medical establishment dislike of inaccurate tests, in general. See the debate over PSA testing for prostate cancer etc.
It makes sense that the others would back Trump if forced to choose. Many of these will be former GOP voters who don't want to vote Trump but can't bring themselves to vote Democrat either.
In the same way I believe the Brexit Party standing in Labour seats really aided the Tories. People who were willing to vote Tory did, but people who were put off by Corbyn or wanted to back Brexit but couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory had an outlet. I suspect if the Brexit Party hadn't stood and they'd been forced to choose many would have gone Labour.
There are major construction projects on going all around here. I find it incomprehensible that construction has suffered a greater decline than services, how does that make any sense at all?
The ONS have got contruction figures wrong for many years, I have no idea where they get them from
However they measure the construction sector doesn’t seem to bear any resemblance to on-the-ground observations, where everyone in the trade appears to be working flat out.
I remember the same thing a few years ago, in the "recession" we never had.
The ONS would be better off sometimes with a "cranes index", being the number of cranes they can see from their office window.
Forgive me for asking out of ignorance, but how many of those cranes might be sitting idle, or underused, waiting for work to resume at full pace?
All of the poor, confusing decisions have lead to this huge economic underperformance. The bill for Boris and his nonsense policies are coming due and we're going to pay for it for the next 20 years.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
You seem to imply that we wouldn't have been paying for it for 20 years without the nonsense policies. I'd suggest that is pretty absurd and the only difference if Boris and co had done differently would be in the precise amount, a reduction in scale, but still absolutely massive.
There's criticism to be made, but implying all would have been well without the actions of Boris I think overplays how powerful he is.
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
I agree that the current purgatory is not tenable. I'd characterise the current approach as being to use blunt, society-wide restrictions to reduce R, and keep infection levels suppressed below the level of overwhelming the hospital system, until a vaccine, treatment, or cheap insta-test rides to the rescue.
I think it's worth noting that this is the same strategy that Sweden is using. The difference is only that they have implemented it more competently than the UK, and have some advantages which make it easier to achieve (lower population density, stronger social security, better voluntary compliance).
The alternative presented is risk segmentation. I think there are many problems with that as a strategy, which have been well discussed: How do you define the vulnerable population? How do you effectively isolate them when they're mixed within households? Can the health service deal with the numbers who will still need treatment among the low-risk population? Will it actually lead to herd-immunity and a time when it is safe for the vulnerable to leave isolation?
My preference is to go after the virus. We let it get on top of us in the spring and we immediately lost our confidence and decided that victory was impossible. But if we manage to isolate the infectious the virus has nowhere to go.
We can work on speeding up testing. We can make tracing more effective. And we can ensure that those who need to actually do isolate.
Those are the choices. 1. Isolate everyone. 2. Isolate the vulnerable. 3. Isolate the infectious.
As we all on here identified seven months ago, testing is the key, IMO.
OK I would like to see a comprehensive and well-thought out risk segmentation strategy but no govt would have the balls to implement it (20-something carers and their carees being banned from going to the pub/hugging their grandchildren might not, I think, play well).
So testing. Everywhere always and often.
Once we can understand who has got it and when and where then we have control. Data is everything.
But we all said this before lockdown. As, tbf to them, did the WHO.
Yes, on March 16th the Director General of the WHO said: “We have a simple message to all countries - test, test, test.” He was right then, and nearly seven months later he is still right.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
In normal times the August growth figures would be little short of sensational and we would be worrying about uncontrolled booms. What I think can be said is that the horrendous damage caused by Covid and the lockdown is being undone but not quite as fast as it was in the summer. Of course August had the higher base of July for a monthly comparison but even so the force of the bounce back faded somewhat.
I don't agree that the services figure is particularly bad, let alone horrific. Most services are still operating with significantly reduced capacity and that includes restaurants and bars. What is clear is that the new restrictions that we have in Scotland and much of the north of England will drive those figures down further in the coming weeks with severe job implications.
The brutal truth is that our economy cannot operate at its previous level when we have to stay 2m apart, where the capacity of a pub or restaurant or even court house is measured on the fingers of a couple of hands. We are trying to live virtually. Its not working.
I understand why the services numbers are horrific, but they are horrific. And come January a major market for our services sector will become much harder to access. That’s just a fact. Covid we can’t do much about. The rest is about choices our government has made.
We can do a lot about our response to Covid and that will have vastly more effect on our service industries than the end of the transitional arrangements, whatever replaces them.
So far the blessed Nicola has been the mother of the nation in Scotland riding high on a wave of approval but I am detecting a lot of opposition to her most recent measures, a surprising amount of it from SNP supporters. I think we are at the limits of what people are willing to accept in terms of limits on our economy. The price is now payable and people are shocked by it. All too soon, as furlough unwinds, they will be appalled. I think at that point the consensus will switch to living with the virus rather than trying to eliminate it.
She doesn't have a choice on the recent measures. Apart from schools, which everyone thinks should be kept open full time, closing hospitality is the only tool left in her box. The arguments about what is cafe etc is really her government trying to mitigate some of the negative effects of these measures by providing minimal opportunities for social interaction. Hospitality owners and workers are tragically screwed.
Reopening universities was a mistake and she needs to close those down too, unfortunately.
Economy well under expectations, stalled at 91% of February according to the ONS, 3% lower than the city consensus. September will be a nothing month and October will be negative.
The government really fucked it up.
A consumption based economy struggles when its more difficult to consume.
It would also be useful to have more details - comparison between GDP change in London, other cities, towns, rural areas for example.
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
I agree that the current purgatory is not tenable. I'd characterise the current approach as being to use blunt, society-wide restrictions to reduce R, and keep infection levels suppressed below the level of overwhelming the hospital system, until a vaccine, treatment, or cheap insta-test rides to the rescue.
I think it's worth noting that this is the same strategy that Sweden is using. The difference is only that they have implemented it more competently than the UK, and have some advantages which make it easier to achieve (lower population density, stronger social security, better voluntary compliance).
The alternative presented is risk segmentation. I think there are many problems with that as a strategy, which have been well discussed: How do you define the vulnerable population? How do you effectively isolate them when they're mixed within households? Can the health service deal with the numbers who will still need treatment among the low-risk population? Will it actually lead to herd-immunity and a time when it is safe for the vulnerable to leave isolation?
My preference is to go after the virus. We let it get on top of us in the spring and we immediately lost our confidence and decided that victory was impossible. But if we manage to isolate the infectious the virus has nowhere to go.
We can work on speeding up testing. We can make tracing more effective. And we can ensure that those who need to actually do isolate.
Those are the choices. 1. Isolate everyone. 2. Isolate the vulnerable. 3. Isolate the infectious.
The vulnerable rely upon the non vulnerable so isolating them is easier said than done.
Well, yes, but to be fair, the characteristics of Sars-Cov-2 (spread by those pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic) also make it (isolating the infectious) easier said than done.
And enduring the current purgatory is no longer easy to say, let alone do.
Indeed.
I wish we had more news on the vaccine trials. The Oxford vaccine is well into its final phase trials and I believe manufacturing of it is also well underway. It could theoretically begin rollout next month.
If it's a case of we have a few more weeks to endure and then vaccinations will begin on the most vulnerable I think everyone could live with that. It's the unknown of this being dragged out and the fear it could be for years that is really getting to people now I think.
All of the poor, confusing decisions have lead to this huge economic underperformance. The bill for Boris and his nonsense policies are coming due and we're going to pay for it for the next 20 years.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
You seem to imply that we wouldn't have been paying for it for 20 years without the nonsense policies. I'd suggest that is pretty absurd and the only difference if Boris and co had done differently would be in the precise amount, a reduction in scale, but still absolutely massive.
There's criticism to be made, but implying all would have been well without the actions of Boris I think overplays how powerful he is.
Proper policies would have taken us up to 94-96% of GDP before stalling. We're now hitting the wall of organic growth rather than recovering what was lost. That additional 3-5% is going to add at least two years onto the recovery period which means an additional £200bn in borrowing. It took 12 years to almost balance the fiscal budget from a 6% GDP drop in a growing global economy. It will take 20+ to do it for a 9% drop in worse economic conditions.
While everyone was having a laugh about go out but don't go out and go to the office but don't go to the office it was causing huge economic damage as people just don't know what it is they should or shouldn't do any more.
Some new polling out of Michigan makes grim reading for Trump.
Emerson the pollsters are A- rated on Nate Silvers site .
Biden 54
Trump 43
17% of people have already voted there .
Michigan is hardly a swing State now but the size of the lead is eye-catching. Similar story in New Hampshire which Clinton won narrowly in 2016. St Anselm have Biden 12 ahead. It's a famously idiosyncratic electorate but that's a hell of a lead in a State which was thought earlier in the the campaign to be a ppotential flip to Trump.
The Florida poll is good for him however. Whatever the National result I expect him to perform relatively well in Florida.
Up 7 in Texas is also good for him but it's Rasmussen so judgement is reserved.
Nate Silver's site now has Biden up Nationally by 9.8, a new high. It feels too high to me, and I suspect it is over-influenced by the prolific USC Dornlife outfit, but the general impression is that the challenger is a good 8 to 9 clear on a rising trajectory. It can be turned round. There are plenty of examples of that kind of thing being done elsewhere but it would help if Trump stopped firing at his feet. The recent Yes/No/Wait over the debates didn't help and as for being rude about the fragrant Kamala.....
Laters. Have a nice morning everyone.
But can it really be turned around? The polls have been static all year despite a whole series of momentous events. What's going to change in the last 3 weeks, especially given that a large chunk of people have already voted?
Yes, I think the stability of the polls is pretty impressive. And the flow of events isn't very helpful to Trump - the Whitmer press conference is pretty devastating IMO, strengthened by being quite consensually phrased.
Morning to everyone although not a good one given the GDP underperformance. Will be interesting to see what Rishi means by his new measure for jobs.
I spent too much bloody time on here yesterday so this is the only post of the day and then I'm off. First, @HYFUD posted the Florida poll with a +3% Republican lead. Here is an article on it, which claims the pollster got Florida right in 2016 and the scale of Obama's 2008 victory (don't know whether that is true, I haven't had time to check). Biden's rating amongst Hispanics actually looks decent in the poll but it states Trump is winning amongst 45+ and has 12% of the Black vote.
For @OllyT, the same pollster explains why he is sceptical the polling is reliable. He has a slightly different take from me, namely the problem being that it has to do with the switch to cellphone and polling the same pool but his conclusion is the same, namely polling is less reliable than it was:
Finally, from Bitzer at North State politics. This is "old" (a week and half ago) but it is looking at the composition of the early returned ballots in NC. HIs conclusion is there is a good chance the Democrats are merely cannibalising their 2016 votes with the returned ballots rather than adding new voters. - at Sep 27, 71% of Democrats who had voted by mail had voted in person in 2016 vs 66% for the state as a whole, and only 21% had either registered in 2017+ or hadn't voted in 2016 vs 24% for the whole state (and 25% for the much smaller Republican number):
Thanks for your detailed response yesterday, only saw it this morning.
I don't actually agree with you that any of those points are causing the national polling to be way off. Weren't you claiming exactly the same things during the mid-terms, telling us that despite the polls the GOP were going to win the House?
I believe that the national polls will prove to be broadly accurate. We shall soon know which of us is correct.
Indeed, the article above saying polling is "not anywhere as reliable as it was before" offers zero evidence for this assertion. Whereas: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/ has some actual numbers, and comes to the opposite conclusion, and is from before the 2018 mid-terms, where pollsters did quite well.
I think it's also at least as likely that the polls underestimate Biden's lead - just as many people were making arguments (often similar to those saying Trump will do better than the polls) for the polls overestimating Macron's lead over Le Pen in 2017, some even saying that she had a good chance of winning. In fact the polls massively underestimated Macron's winning margin. One of the biggest polling misses of recent years.
My prediction: Biden will win nationally by 6-7%, which will be a fairly comfortable Electoral College win. How comfortable maybe depending on whether he picks up Florida or not, where Trump has had some good polls. But anything from a narrow Trump EC win to a Biden landslide (= double figures national lead) wouldn't surprise me.
Good call from Starmer. It's important during this national crisis that Starmer doesn't create additional noise around the government's already confused messaging. But he'd be failing in his duty to hold them to account if he didn't point out their serial incompetence and try to help them correct their errors. The only real question is whether Labour would even want to inherit the smoking ruins of the economy in 2024.
Look, I bet on Trump to win Florida. Coud punters please pay attention to the Emerrson poll and move the market accordingly so I can have all my state bets Green please.
Which Emerson poll ?
There's a good Hannity/Fox poll for him but can't see Emerson
That's one of my hedge bets. Trump to hold Florida. Decided to do things this way rather than closing any Supremacy.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
A snapshot from daughter’s business. The closure from end March to early July cost her £50,000 in lost revenue. That’s before you add in her fixed costs and loss of stock. Furlough helped a bit + the £10,000 grant but even with those she was way down. The EOHO scheme added a grand total of £4,000 to her August revenues which is less than a week’s takings.
Why? She is always pretty much full in August anyway, had to reduce capacity because of the social distancing measures and could not increase capacity to meet demand. On some days she was turning away twice as many people as she was serving. This is not just a matter of space and tables but also kitchen capacity. EOHO helped psychologically but has not been a huge money spinner, though every little bit helps, of course.
Until end of September business for the August - September period has been more or less the same as last year. But now with the 10 pm curfew who knows? And if there is another closure - especially if there is no support, winter - especially if this goes on until next summer or autumn - will be very grim indeed, even with the bonus for keeping on staff due in February.
What the position is like for all those businesses in areas with local lockdowns God only knows. But it will not be good. To put it mildly.
I’m currently being made redundant from my job in the property side of hospitality so am a bit salty about all this, but I would agree that for lots of places it is very difficult. Ironically the most successful operators who had their pubs trading well every day, and every session, are disproportionately being affected. A lot of those will have had a balance of food, wet sales, and likely events / weddings etc. A good operator would have been looking to be pretty much full Friday Saturday Sunday and looking to drive sales early and midweek with special offers. I know of examples where due to the current situation these sites are 75% down.
On the other hand a middle of the road pub that was moderately busy and does a little bit of food on the value end has benefitted from Lockdown, where lots of them spent time doing up their pubs, and since with limited menus and drinks offers prior to curfew these were trading at almost the same levels as last year. They have been significantly helped if they are suburban with people working from home more and socialising closer to home. I know of one pub that was up 600% on last year in August as new publicans had done up the pub and put on a suitable food offer.
Construction activity wise then it is essential spend only - boilers, cellar cooling units , electrics, roof repairs - , with all major projects on hold. Some projects will have been finished off after lockdown, but the pipeline is now dry. This is pretty bad for our suppliers who are probably looking at spend at 25% of last year, and obviously people like me who are now seen as dispensable where there are no projects to be managed.
My casual observation of construction is that projects that were already underway at lockdown are being picked up again but new projects are not started.
Good call from Starmer. It's important during this national crisis that Starmer doesn't create additional noise around the government's already confused messaging. But he'd be failing in his duty to hold them to account if he didn't point out their serial incompetence and try to help them correct their errors. The only real question is whether Labour would even want to inherit the smoking ruins of the economy in 2024.
Being in power is always better than not being in power. People said the same about winning in 2010, that maybe leaving Labour to clear up their mess was better than winning. It wasn't true then and it won't be in 2024.
All of the poor, confusing decisions have lead to this huge economic underperformance. The bill for Boris and his nonsense policies are coming due and we're going to pay for it for the next 20 years.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
You seem to imply that we wouldn't have been paying for it for 20 years without the nonsense policies. I'd suggest that is pretty absurd and the only difference if Boris and co had done differently would be in the precise amount, a reduction in scale, but still absolutely massive.
There's criticism to be made, but implying all would have been well without the actions of Boris I think overplays how powerful he is.
Proper policies would have taken us up to 94-96% of GDP before stalling. We're now hitting the wall of organic growth rather than recovering what was lost. That additional 3-5% is going to add at least two years onto the recovery period which means an additional £200bn in borrowing. It took 12 years to almost balance the fiscal budget from a 6% GDP drop in a growing global economy. It will take 20+ to do it for a 9% drop in worse economic conditions.
While everyone was having a laugh about go out but don't go out and go to the office but don't go to the office it was causing huge economic damage as people just don't know what it is they should or shouldn't do any more.
I think you're overly pessimistic. There are a couple of big differences.
In 2008 there was a major structural deficit already and had been for years. Going into this crash the deficit was down to 1.2% of GDP and falling every year so there was more slack for the deficit. Also the 2008 crash was due to structural problems and not an artificial constraint or fear that would be lifted.
Also the growth at the minute reflects that people are staying in still. Out of fear of the virus as much as any restrictions. Anecdotally, in August I went out a few times with my family but I know my grandparents remained inside throughout and they'd normally pre virus even in their 80s and 90s had very active social lives and would go out a couple of times a week.
Indeed pre virus the "grey pound" was very very valuable and if people are shielding they're not spending it.
Once we are out the other side of this, one way or another, there will be slack in the economy from where we are now to recover quickly.
Remember how we were told “the U.K. would never process EU citizen applications in time”?
overall, the total number of applications received up to 30 September 2020 was 4,061,900 overall, the total number of applications concluded up to 30 September 2020 was 3,880,400
How have EU members done with British citizen applications? Funny how many EU citizens want to live in nasty xenophobic “Little Britain” (England, actually, with the overwhelming majority (91%) of the applications).
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
Mixed bag. The growth figures are disappointing (though I'm extremely sceptical about the construction figures, they don't pass the sniff test).
On the other hand having a trade surplus is an excellent position to be in - and also surprising given how many people have been still continuing to order stuff from Amazon etc online it seems interesting that there is a trade surplus.
Alternatively doesn't it suggest that that anecdotal evidence (which possibly sometimes focuses on some things at the expense of others) is a bad judge of the overall state of the economy. Big backlogs on construction projects could be indicative of a shortage of workers, or retrenchment from some firms leading to general supply shortages or whatever? Also maybe construction didn't as fall as far in the first place.
There doesn't seem any intuitive or logical explanation why the crash in Construction would be worse than the crash in Services. It doesn't make any sense to me at least.
It may be right, but it doesn't seem logical. Especially since the 2 metre restrictions etc seem to be more vigorously enforced in Services than in Construction.
Construction was allowed to remain open through the summer when many Services weren't too, so why would Construction have had such a heavier decline? It seems very odd to me.
I guess it depends in how construction is actually defined. A lot of regular maintenance work will have been mothballed, for example. My nephew is an electrician in London and is struggling to find work currently.
I agree. Many, many projects have been mothballed until it can be determined whether they are still viable. Its one of the reasons that Boris was going on about offshore windfarms the other day. He is anxious to get as many projects as possible back on track.
He's not anxious to get the repair of Hammersmith Bridge back on track.
The bridge is now closed to all pedestrians as well as traffic. Literally thousands of school children are having to make 1+ hour detours at the start and end of the school day. The only thing holding up repairs is the government holding up funding for this key shovel ready infrastructure project. The government is the only body with the funds (£0.14b out of the £100b infrastructure spend promised in the Tory manifesto).
I can only think this is retribution on the local citizens for throwing out Boris's pal Zac at the last election. But it is the kids who are suffering most.
As someone who lives in the area - the problem in that the two councils involved are both trying to avoid responsibility. Their attempt to dump it on central government was a farce. The first demand for money under the infrastructure spending boost left out a few items.
Cost Estimated time. What their solution was
Yes, they asked the government for money on the basis of "Give us a pile of cash to do bridgy things to, from, at, or near Hammersmith Bridge. Sorry, we don't know what we will do with the money, or how long it will take. But hey!"
A bit later they tried on the basis of maybe getting the bridge re-opened to pedestrians...
What! Not so. I live about 100 yards from the bridge so I am directly affected and am following events very closely. The two councils and Tfl do not have the funds (£0.14b) to repair this major link between north and south of the river.
There is an estimate of the cost (£0.14b), time (3 years) and solution (temp pedestrian bridge will major repairs to bridge are carried out). Both Councils are ready to rapidly progress planning permissions etc.
But I'm not going to get into a tit-for-tat political discussion with you on here. It really wouldn't be productive. My energies on this are directed elsewhere.
The only problem is that no-one will agree on a solution - Hammersmith bridge can't be made into a road bridge again. You could do a fake - where all the structure is replaced and the pretty bits stuck on top. But the bridge is fundamentally junk.
It needs knocking down completely. But that can't happen - TIB - This Is Britain.
The temp bridge ideas keep getting knocked back because someone objects to something. The latest farce was the suggestion of a ferry service. Given the tidal range, that would be perfect for about 1 hour a day. With piers pretty much meeting in the middle of the river.... You could put a plank between them, probably.
A temporary foot bridge wouldn't cost even a fraction of 140 million - standard military bridging kit would do the job. Meccano at 1-1 scale... IIRC the timescale for doing a bridge crossing of a river that size, *under fire* is hours.... But that would involve doing something.
All of the poor, confusing decisions have lead to this huge economic underperformance. The bill for Boris and his nonsense policies are coming due and we're going to pay for it for the next 20 years.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
You seem to imply that we wouldn't have been paying for it for 20 years without the nonsense policies. I'd suggest that is pretty absurd and the only difference if Boris and co had done differently would be in the precise amount, a reduction in scale, but still absolutely massive.
There's criticism to be made, but implying all would have been well without the actions of Boris I think overplays how powerful he is.
Proper policies would have taken us up to 94-96% of GDP before stalling. We're now hitting the wall of organic growth rather than recovering what was lost. That additional 3-5% is going to add at least two years onto the recovery period which means an additional £200bn in borrowing. It took 12 years to almost balance the fiscal budget from a 6% GDP drop in a growing global economy. It will take 20+ to do it for a 9% drop in worse economic conditions.
While everyone was having a laugh about go out but don't go out and go to the office but don't go to the office it was causing huge economic damage as people just don't know what it is they should or shouldn't do any more.
That's a totally different argument to simply blaming the government for us paying things back over such a long period at all, which is inevitable, which your original post was far from clear on.
Morning to everyone although not a good one given the GDP underperformance. Will be interesting to see what Rishi means by his new measure for jobs.
I spent too much bloody time on here yesterday so this is the only post of the day and then I'm off. First, @HYFUD posted the Florida poll with a +3% Republican lead. Here is an article on it, which claims the pollster got Florida right in 2016 and the scale of Obama's 2008 victory (don't know whether that is true, I haven't had time to check). Biden's rating amongst Hispanics actually looks decent in the poll but it states Trump is winning amongst 45+ and has 12% of the Black vote.
For @OllyT, the same pollster explains why he is sceptical the polling is reliable. He has a slightly different take from me, namely the problem being that it has to do with the switch to cellphone and polling the same pool but his conclusion is the same, namely polling is less reliable than it was:
Finally, from Bitzer at North State politics. This is "old" (a week and half ago) but it is looking at the composition of the early returned ballots in NC. HIs conclusion is there is a good chance the Democrats are merely cannibalising their 2016 votes with the returned ballots rather than adding new voters. - at Sep 27, 71% of Democrats who had voted by mail had voted in person in 2016 vs 66% for the state as a whole, and only 21% had either registered in 2017+ or hadn't voted in 2016 vs 24% for the whole state (and 25% for the much smaller Republican number):
Thanks for your detailed response yesterday, only saw it this morning.
I don't actually agree with you that any of those points are causing the national polling to be way off. Weren't you claiming exactly the same things during the mid-terms, telling us that despite the polls the GOP were going to win the House?
I believe that the national polls will prove to be broadly accurate. We shall soon know which of us is correct.
Indeed, the article above saying polling is "not anywhere as reliable as it was before" offers zero evidence for this assertion. Whereas: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/ has some actual numbers, and comes to the opposite conclusion, and is from before the 2018 mid-terms, where pollsters did quite well.
I think it's also at least as likely that the polls underestimate Biden's lead - just as many people were making arguments (often similar to those saying Trump will do better than the polls) for the polls overestimating Macron's lead over Le Pen in 2017, some even saying that she had a good chance of winning. In fact the polls massively underestimated Macron's winning margin. One of the biggest polling misses of recent years.
My prediction: Biden will win nationally by 6-7%, which will be a fairly comfortable Electoral College win. How comfortable maybe depending on whether he picks up Florida or not, where Trump has had some good polls. But anything from a narrow Trump EC win to a Biden landslide (= double figures national lead) wouldn't surprise me.
I have no doubt Biden will win the popular vote but even if he wins it by 4% Trump could still theoretically win the EC even if that is only a small chance.
In the 2017 first round in France as the map showed Le Pen actually won at least half of the departements, especially in ex industrial areas like those Trump won in the US and Fillon also won a few rural areas and Melenchon a few urban areas, it was only in the run off Macron really got a big lead.
One French poll over the summer had it Macron 55% Le Pen 45% in the run off and the latest poll is Macron 58% Le Pen 42%, so not far off the current Biden and Trump polling
All of the poor, confusing decisions have lead to this huge economic underperformance. The bill for Boris and his nonsense policies are coming due and we're going to pay for it for the next 20 years.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
You seem to imply that we wouldn't have been paying for it for 20 years without the nonsense policies. I'd suggest that is pretty absurd and the only difference if Boris and co had done differently would be in the precise amount, a reduction in scale, but still absolutely massive.
There's criticism to be made, but implying all would have been well without the actions of Boris I think overplays how powerful he is.
Proper policies would have taken us up to 94-96% of GDP before stalling. We're now hitting the wall of organic growth rather than recovering what was lost. That additional 3-5% is going to add at least two years onto the recovery period which means an additional £200bn in borrowing. It took 12 years to almost balance the fiscal budget from a 6% GDP drop in a growing global economy. It will take 20+ to do it for a 9% drop in worse economic conditions.
While everyone was having a laugh about go out but don't go out and go to the office but don't go to the office it was causing huge economic damage as people just don't know what it is they should or shouldn't do any more.
I think you're overly pessimistic. There are a couple of big differences.
In 2008 there was a major structural deficit already and had been for years. Going into this crash the deficit was down to 1.2% of GDP and falling every year so there was more slack for the deficit. Also the 2008 crash was due to structural problems and not an artificial constraint or fear that would be lifted.
Also the growth at the minute reflects that people are staying in still. Out of fear of the virus as much as any restrictions. Anecdotally, in August I went out a few times with my family but I know my grandparents remained inside throughout and they'd normally pre virus even in their 80s and 90s had very active social lives and would go out a couple of times a week.
Indeed pre virus the "grey pound" was very very valuable and if people are shielding they're not spending it.
Once we are out the other side of this, one way or another, there will be slack in the economy from where we are now to recover quickly.
I'm pessimistic because today's data is uniformly horrible. It's actually quite depressing how bad it is.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
In normal times the August growth figures would be little short of sensational and we would be worrying about uncontrolled booms. What I think can be said is that the horrendous damage caused by Covid and the lockdown is being undone but not quite as fast as it was in the summer. Of course August had the higher base of July for a monthly comparison but even so the force of the bounce back faded somewhat.
I don't agree that the services figure is particularly bad, let alone horrific. Most services are still operating with significantly reduced capacity and that includes restaurants and bars. What is clear is that the new restrictions that we have in Scotland and much of the north of England will drive those figures down further in the coming weeks with severe job implications.
The brutal truth is that our economy cannot operate at its previous level when we have to stay 2m apart, where the capacity of a pub or restaurant or even court house is measured on the fingers of a couple of hands. We are trying to live virtually. Its not working.
I understand why the services numbers are horrific, but they are horrific. And come January a major market for our services sector will become much harder to access. That’s just a fact. Covid we can’t do much about. The rest is about choices our government has made.
We can do a lot about our response to Covid and that will have vastly more effect on our service industries than the end of the transitional arrangements, whatever replaces them.
So far the blessed Nicola has been the mother of the nation in Scotland riding high on a wave of approval but I am detecting a lot of opposition to her most recent measures, a surprising amount of it from SNP supporters. I think we are at the limits of what people are willing to accept in terms of limits on our economy. The price is now payable and people are shocked by it. All too soon, as furlough unwinds, they will be appalled. I think at that point the consensus will switch to living with the virus rather than trying to eliminate it.
David, good chance her other woes will have forced her out before that stage. Unless she wises up and throws her husband under the bus along with some of the other schemers , she will be toast.
Good call from Starmer. It's important during this national crisis that Starmer doesn't create additional noise around the government's already confused messaging. But he'd be failing in his duty to hold them to account if he didn't point out their serial incompetence and try to help them correct their errors. The only real question is whether Labour would even want to inherit the smoking ruins of the economy in 2024.
Being in power is always better than not being in power. People said the same about winning in 2010, that maybe leaving Labour to clear up their mess was better than winning. It wasn't true then and it won't be in 2024.
And yet people still haven't forgiven the LDs for going into power when they had the chance.
All of the poor, confusing decisions have lead to this huge economic underperformance. The bill for Boris and his nonsense policies are coming due and we're going to pay for it for the next 20 years.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
You seem to imply that we wouldn't have been paying for it for 20 years without the nonsense policies. I'd suggest that is pretty absurd and the only difference if Boris and co had done differently would be in the precise amount, a reduction in scale, but still absolutely massive.
There's criticism to be made, but implying all would have been well without the actions of Boris I think overplays how powerful he is.
Proper policies would have taken us up to 94-96% of GDP before stalling. We're now hitting the wall of organic growth rather than recovering what was lost. That additional 3-5% is going to add at least two years onto the recovery period which means an additional £200bn in borrowing. It took 12 years to almost balance the fiscal budget from a 6% GDP drop in a growing global economy. It will take 20+ to do it for a 9% drop in worse economic conditions.
While everyone was having a laugh about go out but don't go out and go to the office but don't go to the office it was causing huge economic damage as people just don't know what it is they should or shouldn't do any more.
I think you're overly pessimistic. There are a couple of big differences.
In 2008 there was a major structural deficit already and had been for years. Going into this crash the deficit was down to 1.2% of GDP and falling every year so there was more slack for the deficit. Also the 2008 crash was due to structural problems and not an artificial constraint or fear that would be lifted.
Also the growth at the minute reflects that people are staying in still. Out of fear of the virus as much as any restrictions. Anecdotally, in August I went out a few times with my family but I know my grandparents remained inside throughout and they'd normally pre virus even in their 80s and 90s had very active social lives and would go out a couple of times a week.
Indeed pre virus the "grey pound" was very very valuable and if people are shielding they're not spending it.
Once we are out the other side of this, one way or another, there will be slack in the economy from where we are now to recover quickly.
I'm pessimistic because today's data is uniformly horrible. It's actually quite depressing how bad it is.
Indeed it is very bad.
But its also because we have temporary restrictions (imposed and self-imposed), we shouldn't lose sight of that.
Those services numbers are horrific given August was Eat Out to Help Out month. And Services are going to be very badly affected by whatever Brexit deal we do or don’t end up with. Thankfully, services are only a small part of the UK economy ...
In normal times the August growth figures would be little short of sensational and we would be worrying about uncontrolled booms. What I think can be said is that the horrendous damage caused by Covid and the lockdown is being undone but not quite as fast as it was in the summer. Of course August had the higher base of July for a monthly comparison but even so the force of the bounce back faded somewhat.
I don't agree that the services figure is particularly bad, let alone horrific. Most services are still operating with significantly reduced capacity and that includes restaurants and bars. What is clear is that the new restrictions that we have in Scotland and much of the north of England will drive those figures down further in the coming weeks with severe job implications.
The brutal truth is that our economy cannot operate at its previous level when we have to stay 2m apart, where the capacity of a pub or restaurant or even court house is measured on the fingers of a couple of hands. We are trying to live virtually. Its not working.
I understand why the services numbers are horrific, but they are horrific. And come January a major market for our services sector will become much harder to access. That’s just a fact. Covid we can’t do much about. The rest is about choices our government has made.
We can do a lot about our response to Covid and that will have vastly more effect on our service industries than the end of the transitional arrangements, whatever replaces them.
So far the blessed Nicola has been the mother of the nation in Scotland riding high on a wave of approval but I am detecting a lot of opposition to her most recent measures, a surprising amount of it from SNP supporters. I think we are at the limits of what people are willing to accept in terms of limits on our economy. The price is now payable and people are shocked by it. All too soon, as furlough unwinds, they will be appalled. I think at that point the consensus will switch to living with the virus rather than trying to eliminate it.
She doesn't have a choice on the recent measures. Apart from schools, which everyone thinks should be kept open full time, closing hospitality is the only tool left in her box. The arguments about what is cafe etc is really her government trying to mitigate some of the negative effects of these measures by providing minimal opportunities for social interaction. Hospitality owners and workers are tragically screwed.
Reopening universities was a mistake and she needs to close those down too, unfortunately.
I think that's a fair assessment. She has at least been clearer than some - and without the embellishments of Mr Johnson who keeps trying to gild the covid measures turd - but could have been earlier. However, the Unionist opposition has been so intense (partly because London is lagging behind on English measures) that it can't be easy to do so while running what remains a minority administration, and without any control of the furlough scheme etc. The Greens, in particular, rely disproportionately on the student vote in general, and so too will some Unionist MPs and MSPs too in those university cities [edit] which hace a lot of students coming in from outside Scotland and therefore unfamiliar with Scottish politics and tending to vote for London-based parties simply out of familiarity.
Note, however, that her governmenbt put into law a way for students to be released from rental contracts (possibly for university accommodation only?) back in April, IIRC. That could be very important if it comes to closing unis. This is not the case for rUK.
Is that bad? Or is that good? I genuinely don't know. What proportion of sexual contacts does an STD clinic manage to trace? What is the comparator here?
It seems to me that if 2/3 of those who have been in contact with someone found to be infected are being traced this should be more than sufficient to reduce R below 1. As that is not happening I wonder how they are defining "contacts" and how quickly those 2/3 are being traced.
Not really, as we’re in the main testing only those who are symptomatic. So even if we were testing all of those, which we aren’t, around half of infected cases wouldn’t be tested at all.
Add in the days of delay between testing and tracing contacts, and you can see why that’s not the case.
Again this is the consequence of making test accuracy the single most important metric. Number of tests (which must include testing those who are not symptomatic) and speed of results are every bit as important, and have simply not been given equivalent priority from the start.
I do recall in March or April listening to Vallance and Whitty and being told that a test that was not sufficiently accurate was "worse than useless". Even at the time my eyebrows shot up but, in a crowded field, I think it is now clear that that was the worst single piece of advice the government received. Its cost thousands of lives and had horrific economic consequences.
It depends where you set the bar for 'sufficiently'. @Nigelb is right though, speed and volume are very important, along with decent sensitivity, specificity less important - you can test again.
I think you have sensitivity/specificity the wrong way round there ?
As long as the test isn't actively misleading (a high rate of false positives is obviously that), even comparatively low sensitivity, provided that is a known characteristic, is better than no test at all.
A lowish rate of false positives is tolerable, again as long as that test characteristic is known (one can then retest isolated positives with a more accurate test).
The cheap, mass produced, rapid antigen tests I think meet those characteristics.
I meant it the way I said it, but I think we're talking about different testing approaches and maybe different definitions of 'high' and 'low' regarding sensitivity and specificity - in short I was not specific enough about my meaning
My thinking, for individual tests: you want most people really infected to come back with positive tests (high sensitivity) so that they go into isolation and you trace contacts. A test that missed say 50% of positives would not be that great at the individual level, but it is a trade off - if the 50% sensitive test lets you test three times the number of people compared to the 90% sensitive test then you potentially still detect more cases and can break more chains of transmission. The false positives, if specificity is not so great, are a bit disruptive to individuals and may lose confidence in the system*, but as long as the rate is not too high (say 10%, 20%) it's ok. If low specificity is a known problem then you can test the positives again (using a more specific test, perhaps, on the smaller sample) if you have the capacity.
If you're talking about pooled testing approaches, which should be done more, then yes good specificity is the key. Poor specificity ruins pooled testing as it dramatically increases the workload/reduces capacity, which negates the whole purpose of pooled testing.
* I think this is where the worse than useless idea comes from. There needs to be confidence in testing, if you have a very low specificity individual test and people are repeatedly being asked to isolate for no reason then people will want to avoid getting tested. Tracing systems also get overwhelmed.
I think we are talking about different approaches - but that in itself demonstrates that a whole host of testing modalities are possible with less than perfect tests, and having had over half a year to work out out the details, we've barely deviated from the single PCR test approach.
I was thinking of a testing regime where you might be conducting 10 million self administered antigen tests a week. A 10% rate of false positives there would be a problem with current resources; 2% entirely manageable. With that rate of testing, contact tracing becomes less important, as you'd simply ask those who self test positive to isolate (and then get a confirmatory PCR test). And it cuts out the days of delay between testing and isolating contacts.
Remember how we were told “the U.K. would never process EU citizen applications in time”?
overall, the total number of applications received up to 30 September 2020 was 4,061,900 overall, the total number of applications concluded up to 30 September 2020 was 3,880,400
How have EU members done with British citizen applications? Funny how many EU citizens want to live in nasty xenophobic “Little Britain” (England, actually, with the overwhelming majority (91%) of the applications).
I'm sorry, but being someone who has gone through gaining German Citizenship in 2019, my experience has been totally different from the EU citizens I know living in the UK, trying to get citizenship.
My application could only be accepted from August 2019, but the immigration office was actively helping me from May 2019 to get my application together so I could make my application on the first day possible. Within a couple of months everything had been processed in the fast lane and exactly one year ago today I was sworn in to be a German citizen. The stories I hear the other way round are of delays, mistrust and administrative incompetence.
How many British citizens have the equivalent of “settled status” in Germany?
Well, until transition ends British citizens are here as EU citizens, so perhaps not that many yet?
Given they've only got one fortieth at most of the applications the UK has processed already I'll take tales of German efficiency with a pinch of salt.....
Well, as I include the not-so-great experience of people I know applying for British citizenship from way before Brexit, I totally stand by my comments. Perhaps these were exceptions, and no doubt you can find people having problems and delays with German applications, though I don't know of any. And my own personal experience with close friends and family having to deal with the Home Office is it was a nightmare for 100% of them.
Also in 2019 153,000 people were granted British citizenship. 128,00 were granted German citizenship. I don't make that one fortieth, but you might be using alternative maths.
Comments
Since August in Paris mask wearing has been required in all outdoor and indoor public areas. They are about to go into full lockdown because of the huge increase in cases there. How does this real world example show that mask wearing is helping?
We're unlikely to be identifying every case of the infection. Perhaps we're identifying 2/3 of the cases.
It looks like only 1/5 of people are isolating when contacted and asked to isolate.
It's taking time to complete the tracing, so people may have started to be infectious before they are contacted. However, let's be optimistic here and say that on average we only miss out on a small fraction of this time - 1/10.
The total proportion of infection prevented by test, trace and isolate would then be:
P(cases identified) x P(contacts contacted) x P(contacts isolating) x P(contacts contacted in time)
=
2/3 x 2/3 x 1/5 x 9/10 = 36/450 = 8%
We should be directing all our efforts to improving every term of that equation. Instead we're stuck in a pointless debate over the relative merits of a de jure lockdown or a de facto lockdown, whenever we're not in a more pointless argument over whether we're allowed to consume shandy if we do so while standing on one leg under a beech tree.
My criticism, here is not exclusively reserved for domestic government, but those in charge the world over. Having successfully overcome the first wave, pretty well nothing was put in place to deal with the second. Dealing with Coronavirus should have been a pan-world enterprise manager by the UN.
It is also a situation where the EU could have come into its own. As a former Remainer, I have to reluctantly concede in this area the EU has failed massively.
I also suspect after thinking on it that there might be an iceberg effect. We can see people working in hard hats with pre-approved already started construction projects but could what should be projects earlier in the process be getting mothballed or simply not planned?
EG does conveyancing etc and other bits in the planning for construction projects count as construction or count as a service? I would have thought it would be classed within services not actual construction but if there are elements like that included within the sector they could be getting hit hard?
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
I exaggerate only slightly.
At one point in the restart, the country nearly ran out of plasterboard because of this kind of thinking..
You could argue that compulsory maskage coincided with our first lockdown in Caerphilly, but I suspect even you would consider that to be a disingenuous linkage.
Was in your neck of the woods earlier in the week, Romsey. 100% mask compliance and no Covid pings on my NHS app
Look, we have had dreadful experiences, collectively here on PB, with several family members of posters dying and that is beyond awful. My own 90-yr old mother fell and broke her hip two months ago and, from @Dura_Ace's dreadful experience, I realise how dangerous a time that was and can thank my lucky stars that she didn't catch anything in hospital.
But we need to find a modus vivendi with this thing because in advance of a vaccine, life as things stand is simply not tenable.
Why? She is always pretty much full in August anyway, had to reduce capacity because of the social distancing measures and could not increase capacity to meet demand. On some days she was turning away twice as many people as she was serving. This is not just a matter of space and tables but also kitchen capacity. EOHO helped psychologically but has not been a huge money spinner, though every little bit helps, of course.
Until end of September business for the August - September period has been more or less the same as last year. But now with the 10 pm curfew who knows? And if there is another closure - especially if there is no support, winter - especially if this goes on until next summer or autumn - will be very grim indeed, even with the bonus for keeping on staff due in February.
What the position is like for all those businesses in areas with local lockdowns God only knows. But it will not be good. To put it mildly.
https://www.france24.com/en/20201007-covid-19-patients-take-up-40-percent-of-paris-region-icu-beds
How effective they are I don't know, but here's a recent article that examines the question:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
Bear in mind August was probably about as good as it is likely to get in terms of support for growth: Eat out to Help out, the Vat cut, support from the furlough scheme still in place, and with all that support services sector growth still came in at half the expected level, with output still almost 10% below February levels. The fact that consumer facing services like tourism and recreation are still so far off pre-Covid levels is to be expected, but the weakness goes way beyond that.
I guess the upsides are that the BOE will likely be doing more QE, and that there is no way the government will countenance a No Deal Brexit with the economy already so far underwater. Small mercies, but seriously, these numbers are awful.
Office work is over. Any commercial projects building / refitting office space or support businesses (retail/hospitality) or housing close by said offices/train stations etc are worth far less than they were worth 7 months ago, and we have the long winter of pox to come.
What I don't understand is why more people who test positive are not isolating. Is there support in place for them?
As long as the test isn't actively misleading (a high rate of false positives is obviously that), even comparatively low sensitivity, provided that is a known characteristic, is better than no test at all.
A lowish rate of false positives is tolerable, again as long as that test characteristic is known (one can then retest isolated positives with a more accurate test).
The cheap, mass produced, rapid antigen tests I think meet those characteristics.
Mr. B2, I think masks are probably a good idea. But also that the sample size you're looking at and the fact they're all in different countries does make such a group near useless for drawing any conclusions.
Not least because many people are asymptomatic. Other leaders may well have had COVID-19 and shown no signs.
The bridge is now closed to all pedestrians as well as traffic. Literally thousands of school children are having to make 1+ hour detours at the start and end of the school day. The only thing holding up repairs is the government holding up funding for this key shovel ready infrastructure project. The government is the only body with the funds (£0.14b out of the £100b infrastructure spend promised in the Tory manifesto).
I can only think this is retribution on the local citizens for throwing out Boris's pal Zac at the last election. But it is the kids who are suffering most.
Getting German citizenship was mostly very smooth, and inexpensive - certainly compared to people I know of trying to get British (or Italian!) citizenship. What was surprising was that the whole process was run by the local authority, I mean I assume that at some point they check against a national database of terrorist suspects or whatever, but it seemed to have nothing to do with the federal government. Even the big form that I had to fill in was fairly different to forms other people had to fill in in other cities.
The government really fucked it up.
Part of a flourishing local league.
Of course Essex, currently one of the country's top teams, does a lot of it's recruitment locally.
There's a good Hannity/Fox poll for him but can't see Emerson
It will make huge fortunes for a few people as they market meaningless matches to the group of supporters with the time and money, but kill the game in the long run.
"I’m realising what a great boon the new NHS app is to those of us no longer young. If you can’t remember where you are, just wave your phone at the nearest QR code and hey presto, it tells you where you are."
Cost
Estimated time.
What their solution was
Yes, they asked the government for money on the basis of "Give us a pile of cash to do bridgy things to, from, at, or near Hammersmith Bridge. Sorry, we don't know what we will do with the money, or how long it will take. But hey!"
A bit later they tried on the basis of maybe getting the bridge re-opened to pedestrians...
It would also be useful to have more details - comparison between GDP change in London, other cities, towns, rural areas for example.
I think it's worth noting that this is the same strategy that Sweden is using. The difference is only that they have implemented it more competently than the UK, and have some advantages which make it easier to achieve (lower population density, stronger social security, better voluntary compliance).
The alternative presented is risk segmentation. I think there are many problems with that as a strategy, which have been well discussed: How do you define the vulnerable population? How do you effectively isolate them when they're mixed within households? Can the health service deal with the numbers who will still need treatment among the low-risk population? Will it actually lead to herd-immunity and a time when it is safe for the vulnerable to leave isolation?
My preference is to go after the virus. We let it get on top of us in the spring and we immediately lost our confidence and decided that victory was impossible. But if we manage to isolate the infectious the virus has nowhere to go.
We can work on speeding up testing. We can make tracing more effective. And we can ensure that those who need to actually do isolate.
Those are the choices.
1. Isolate everyone.
2. Isolate the vulnerable.
3. Isolate the infectious.
I don't actually agree with you that any of those points are causing the national polling to be way off. Weren't you claiming exactly the same things during the mid-terms, telling us that despite the polls the GOP were going to win the House?
I believe that the national polls will prove to be broadly accurate. We shall soon know which of us is correct.
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1314427325564493824?s=20
The ONS would be better off sometimes with a "cranes index", being the number of cranes they can see from their office window.
Free software is just such an amazing, incredible, unbelievable success. The only more successful political movement I can think of is the NRA.
Those figures date back to the summer, before the single £500 payment for the less well off was introduced, so they might have improved ?
Another improvement would be to provide managed locations for isolation away from home.
"P(cases identified)" is nowhere near 2/3. We don't have a precise figure, but something like 50% of those infected never display symptoms, so don't get tested at all.
Otherwise, I agree - and the single biggest single change would be the introduction of large scale testing that is not dependent on waiting for symptoms.
That would greatly improve both your first and last terms.
Come and breathe the air of the Messiah! He will Cure You of the Chinese Plague!
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1314433299687911425?s=20
Anecdote time. I stayed in Edinburgh at an hotel for work related matters on Tuesday night. It was my second stay for that reason since February. Pre-lockdown I would typically stay in Edinburgh 1-2 nights a week. After work I went for a few pints with a friend. First time I had really done that since February. Our usual pub was "full". "Full" meant there was about a dozen socially distanced people in it (plus a large teddy bear for some reason). On a normal night pre-lockdown there might have been 40-50. We got into the second pub. It was bigger and had about 20 people in it. They also had 3 staff on. We had to log in and order by phone and credit card. It was frankly a faff but the staff were really trying hard to make it work. Again this pub would normally have had 50-100 people in it, more if there was football on.
In light of this it is somewhat surprising to me that services are as high as they are and what we did on Tuesday is no longer possible at all. I am old enough to remember when people smoked in pubs, now they are not even allowed to drink in them.
I actually can't put into context just how awful this is going to be.
https://twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1313569276511518720?s=20
OK I would like to see a comprehensive and well-thought out risk segmentation strategy but no govt would have the balls to implement it (20-something carers and their carees being banned from going to the pub/hugging their grandchildren might not, I think, play well).
So testing. Everywhere always and often.
Once we can understand who has got it and when and where then we have control. Data is everything.
But we all said this before lockdown. As, tbf to them, did the WHO.
My thinking, for individual tests: you want most people really infected to come back with positive tests (high sensitivity) so that they go into isolation and you trace contacts. A test that missed say 50% of positives would not be that great at the individual level, but it is a trade off - if the 50% sensitive test lets you test three times the number of people compared to the 90% sensitive test then you potentially still detect more cases and can break more chains of transmission. The false positives, if specificity is not so great, are a bit disruptive to individuals and may lose confidence in the system*, but as long as the rate is not too high (say 10%, 20%) it's ok. If low specificity is a known problem then you can test the positives again (using a more specific test, perhaps, on the smaller sample) if you have the capacity.
If you're talking about pooled testing approaches, which should be done more, then yes good specificity is the key. Poor specificity ruins pooled testing as it dramatically increases the workload/reduces capacity, which negates the whole purpose of pooled testing.
* I think this is where the worse than useless idea comes from. There needs to be confidence in testing, if you have a very low specificity individual test and people are repeatedly being asked to isolate for no reason then people will want to avoid getting tested. Tracing systems also get overwhelmed.
Ideally they would be preparing the public saying that if measures don’t work then we will have to go back to the simple measures of hands face space, and protecting to vulnerable, which seem to have the clearest benefits.
Biden also leads urban men by a landslide, suburban men are almost tied with a narrow Biden lead amongst them and Trump wins rural men by a landslide.
https://twitter.com/Autarkh/status/1314458588560015360?s=20
There is an estimate of the cost (£0.14b), time (3 years) and solution (temp pedestrian bridge will major repairs to bridge are carried out). Both Councils are ready to rapidly progress planning permissions etc.
But I'm not going to get into a tit-for-tat political discussion with you on here. It really wouldn't be productive. My energies on this are directed elsewhere.
https://fortuneandfreedom.com
Who's on board for this exciting new financial services offer? I might sell all my cars and get on board with some magic bean futures.
But it was notable that Trump’s own experience of the virus, rather than prompting an outpouring of sympathy and concern, often produced the usually unspoken reaction that it served him right – both because of his disdain for masks and social distancing, and his wider handling of the crisis: “Look where he’s sitting today. That’s ironic. Nobody could have done anything about it but yes, as a leader, he could have done listening to science. But he totally discarded that aspect and went on with his own ingenuity;” “I hate to say I would like to see him suffer a little bit, but in all reality, he’s not handling it right. The reason he has it is because he didn’t handle the situation correctly;” “With him getting covid and his blatant disrespect for wearing masks, that’s a problem for me. More people in the White House are getting infected. Against the blatant disrespect for PPE, I don’t know, it just seems like he could have avoided that and avoided other people getting it as well;” “It was kind of a negative for me that he pretended it wasn’t a big deal and then went and caught it anyway;” “During the debate he said, oh, Biden, you could be 200 feet away and you’d wear the biggest, stupidest mask ever. He made it kind of an insult to wear a mask, and then he goes and contracts covid.”
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2020/10/who-says-you-have-to-like-the-president-he-pretended-it-wasnt-a-big-deal-and-then-went-and-caught-it-i-think-there-might-be-riots-no-matter-who-wins-my-campaign-focus-groups-in-florida/
And enduring the current purgatory is no longer easy to say, let alone do.
https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1314477024078168065?s=20
In the same way I believe the Brexit Party standing in Labour seats really aided the Tories. People who were willing to vote Tory did, but people who were put off by Corbyn or wanted to back Brexit but couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory had an outlet. I suspect if the Brexit Party hadn't stood and they'd been forced to choose many would have gone Labour.
There's criticism to be made, but implying all would have been well without the actions of Boris I think overplays how powerful he is.
Reopening universities was a mistake and she needs to close those down too, unfortunately.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-8815625/House-prices-hit-18-year-high-house-sales-rising-Rics-says.html
I wish we had more news on the vaccine trials. The Oxford vaccine is well into its final phase trials and I believe manufacturing of it is also well underway. It could theoretically begin rollout next month.
If it's a case of we have a few more weeks to endure and then vaccinations will begin on the most vulnerable I think everyone could live with that. It's the unknown of this being dragged out and the fear it could be for years that is really getting to people now I think.
While everyone was having a laugh about go out but don't go out and go to the office but don't go to the office it was causing huge economic damage as people just don't know what it is they should or shouldn't do any more.
https://youtu.be/SlfTb0tBR3Y
Whereas:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/
has some actual numbers, and comes to the opposite conclusion, and is from before the 2018 mid-terms, where pollsters did quite well.
I think it's also at least as likely that the polls underestimate Biden's lead - just as many people were making arguments (often similar to those saying Trump will do better than the polls) for the polls overestimating Macron's lead over Le Pen in 2017, some even saying that she had a good chance of winning. In fact the polls massively underestimated Macron's winning margin. One of the biggest polling misses of recent years.
My prediction: Biden will win nationally by 6-7%, which will be a fairly comfortable Electoral College win. How comfortable maybe depending on whether he picks up Florida or not, where Trump has had some good polls. But anything from a narrow Trump EC win to a Biden landslide (= double figures national lead) wouldn't surprise me.
The only real question is whether Labour would even want to inherit the smoking ruins of the economy in 2024.
On the other hand a middle of the road pub that was moderately busy and does a little bit of food on the value end has benefitted from Lockdown, where lots of them spent time doing up their pubs, and since with limited menus and drinks offers prior to curfew these were trading at almost the same levels as last year. They have been significantly helped if they are suburban with people working from home more and socialising closer to home. I know of one pub that was up 600% on last year in August as new publicans had done up the pub and put on a suitable food offer.
Construction activity wise then it is essential spend only - boilers, cellar cooling units , electrics, roof repairs - , with all major projects on hold. Some projects will have been finished off after lockdown, but the pipeline is now dry. This is pretty bad for our suppliers who are probably looking at spend at 25% of last year, and obviously people like me who are now seen as dispensable where there are no projects to be managed.
In 2008 there was a major structural deficit already and had been for years. Going into this crash the deficit was down to 1.2% of GDP and falling every year so there was more slack for the deficit. Also the 2008 crash was due to structural problems and not an artificial constraint or fear that would be lifted.
Also the growth at the minute reflects that people are staying in still. Out of fear of the virus as much as any restrictions. Anecdotally, in August I went out a few times with my family but I know my grandparents remained inside throughout and they'd normally pre virus even in their 80s and 90s had very active social lives and would go out a couple of times a week.
Indeed pre virus the "grey pound" was very very valuable and if people are shielding they're not spending it.
Once we are out the other side of this, one way or another, there will be slack in the economy from where we are now to recover quickly.
It needs knocking down completely. But that can't happen - TIB - This Is Britain.
The temp bridge ideas keep getting knocked back because someone objects to something. The latest farce was the suggestion of a ferry service. Given the tidal range, that would be perfect for about 1 hour a day. With piers pretty much meeting in the middle of the river.... You could put a plank between them, probably.
A temporary foot bridge wouldn't cost even a fraction of 140 million - standard military bridging kit would do the job. Meccano at 1-1 scale... IIRC the timescale for doing a bridge crossing of a river that size, *under fire* is hours.... But that would involve doing something.
In the 2017 first round in France as the map showed Le Pen actually won at least half of the departements, especially in ex industrial areas like those Trump won in the US and Fillon also won a few rural areas and Melenchon a few urban areas, it was only in the run off Macron really got a big lead.
https://twitter.com/TrineeshB/status/858963710341238784?s=20.
One French poll over the summer had it Macron 55% Le Pen 45% in the run off and the latest poll is Macron 58% Le Pen 42%, so not far off the current Biden and Trump polling
https://www.ifop.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/117452-Rapport.pdf
https://harris-interactive.fr/opinion_polls/intentions-de-vote-a-lelection-presidentielle-de-2022-quel-candidat-pour-la-droite-a-2-ans-de-lelection-presidentielle/
But its also because we have temporary restrictions (imposed and self-imposed), we shouldn't lose sight of that.
Note, however, that her governmenbt put into law a way for students to be released from rental contracts (possibly for university accommodation only?) back in April, IIRC. That could be very important if it comes to closing unis. This is not the case for rUK.
I was thinking of a testing regime where you might be conducting 10 million self administered antigen tests a week. A 10% rate of false positives there would be a problem with current resources; 2% entirely manageable.
With that rate of testing, contact tracing becomes less important, as you'd simply ask those who self test positive to isolate (and then get a confirmatory PCR test). And it cuts out the days of delay between testing and isolating contacts.
Also in 2019 153,000 people were granted British citizenship. 128,00 were granted German citizenship. I don't make that one fortieth, but you might be using alternative maths.