I think that he might well calm down the culture wars a bit by being a bit of a blancmange who achieves very little. Even that will be an improvement on Trump throwing kerosene on the bbq every day with his twitter account. I think its difficult to overstate how much damage Trump has done to the impression of the US as a serious country.
Agree - there's a lot more to "not Trump" than there was to "not Bush".
Dull, administrative moderate competence will be a huge upgrade.
Whatever happens over 5he next four years, it’s not going to be dull. The problems to be addressed are just too big for that.
Being able to make it sound unexciting and reasonable might well be an advantage, though.
In 2016 the markets gave Trump a lower chance than the 538 model at the off.
The punters had their fingers burned last time out and are incredibly cautious this time. There's a lot of people like HYUFD out there who see a Trafalgar poll and have their biases confirmed. Whatever the polls say this time people are still scarred by 2016.
Yeah, but if Biden wins a landslide (which is not even improbable) they'll get burned again.
There must be more mug punters out there than I would ever have imgined.
You can see how much has been staked on each selection now on Betfair.
Biden has had 59 million staked on him, Trump 72 million.
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
Ooh, I do hope so, that sounds rather positive about SKS.
Hang on, I keep being told it's the Conservatives who want to start a culture war?
I think both sides do. It plays well to their bases. I hate to admit it, but I get a bit swept up in it from time to time - it just feels easier to boil things down to a culture war.
If it was "too large" why the feck are people like Jo Johnson, Claire Fox or Lebedev there?
When people cannot even come up with a plausible excuse, it is a bad sign (like when politicians fall back on the 'I'm stupid' defence for some problem).
The argument seems to be that he deserves an undeserved peerage to compensate for the loss of a former undeserved peerage. Hard to get excited about, and his record over dealing with sex abuse by clergy is iffy.
I'm unconcerned whether he has one or not, but as their reason for not giving him one is a nonsense, it immediately raises questions about what the actual reason is.
Exactly right - and I was shouted down for saying the same.
I am sure it's not due to racism but the excuse they gave means I can totally see how people have got there.
I notice that one major issue in the Sentamu matter hasn't been mentioned - a major chunk of the Church of England despises him, and what he stands for. I could quite easily see that being a factor in this.
Why is that ? Living in York he seems well liked by most people.
Basically you have the progressive wing of the CoE - all about getting rid of all those bothersome decisive things. Like doctrine.
Sentamu from the traditionalist wing. As is much of the CoE - outside the UK.
It's a culture war, essentially. Conductive with academic* levels of loathing and backstabbing.
His popularity with the general public is seen as a count against him, by the way - "self aggrandising", "populist" etc. By those who are totally ignored by the population at large....
*academic politics has to be seen to be believed. I believe the nastiness and ferocity is only matched by the culture in charities. The average politician would be barbecue in minutes in such an environment.
I must admit I was somewhat taken aback by the Oxford college as exemplified by Christ Church and its war with its bishop/head of college.
I remember the startled reception that my suggestion for an improvement in academic behaviour got.
It was quite simple - in the event of someone getting someone else's research grant reduced, there would be no possibility of the first academic getting the money had to his/her work. Instead they would have *their* grant reduced by an equal amount.
So back stabbing would become suicide.
This suggestion was met with what might politely be described as contempt.....
One of the most wonderful privileges of being an academic is the opportunity to talk with brilliant people.
One of the worst aspects of being an academic is being forced to spend time with spiteful and pole-climbing b******s.
Note that not *all* of my colleagues fall into the second category.
He's consistently graceful and reasonable, when she's aggressive, hyper-partisan, rude and desperate to get a political gotcha moment. Even Channel4 would be ashamed of it.
The Kiwi accents are rather charming though.
I know very little of New Zealand politics, but it was an awfully aggressive stance for a broadcaster, I'd have assumed it was a debate between two political parties. Usually broadcasters qualify the more aggressive stance with caveats like 'Some say that you have X' or the like.
I don’t know the background, but the way she shut him down at one point, I suspect it’s something to do with Covid denial being his party’s stance.
If it was "too large" why the feck are people like Jo Johnson, Claire Fox or Lebedev there?
When people cannot even come up with a plausible excuse, it is a bad sign (like when politicians fall back on the 'I'm stupid' defence for some problem).
The argument seems to be that he deserves an undeserved peerage to compensate for the loss of a former undeserved peerage. Hard to get excited about, and his record over dealing with sex abuse by clergy is iffy.
I'm unconcerned whether he has one or not, but as their reason for not giving him one is a nonsense, it immediately raises questions about what the actual reason is.
Exactly right - and I was shouted down for saying the same.
I am sure it's not due to racism but the excuse they gave means I can totally see how people have got there.
I notice that one major issue in the Sentamu matter hasn't been mentioned - a major chunk of the Church of England despises him, and what he stands for. I could quite easily see that being a factor in this.
Why is that ? Living in York he seems well liked by most people.
Basically you have the progressive wing of the CoE - all about getting rid of all those bothersome decisive things. Like doctrine.
Sentamu from the traditionalist wing. As is much of the CoE - outside the UK.
It's a culture war, essentially. Conductive with academic* levels of loathing and backstabbing.
His popularity with the general public is seen as a count against him, by the way - "self aggrandising", "populist" etc. By those who are totally ignored by the population at large....
*academic politics has to be seen to be believed. I believe the nastiness and ferocity is only matched by the culture in charities. The average politician would be barbecue in minutes in such an environment.
I must admit I was somewhat taken aback by the Oxford college as exemplified by Christ Church and its war with its bishop/head of college.
I remember the startled reception that my suggestion for an improvement in academic behaviour got.
It was quite simple - in the event of someone getting someone else's research grant reduced, there would be no possibility of the first academic getting the money had to his/her work. Instead they would have *their* grant reduced by an equal amount.
So back stabbing would become suicide.
This suggestion was met with what might politely be described as contempt.....
One of the most wonderful privileges of being an academic is the opportunity to talk with brilliant people.
One of the worst aspects of being an academic is being forced to spend time with spiteful and pole-climbing b******s.
Note that not *all* of my colleagues fall into the second category.
--AS
The problem is, that in academia, if you don't play the game, you can't actually get to do that research stuff.
The supposedly moderate Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has at last revealed himself as the fanatic he really is, with his wild calls for even more mass destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of Labour voters in a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’.
I am not surprised. Most people who report on politics in this country do not understand the subject, lacking the Marxist training which I had in my distant youth. They call Sir Keir ‘moderate’ because he is not Jeremy Corbyn. A fat lot they know.
Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, a wild Leftist, a man of clenched-fist salutes, street protests and red banners who probably dreams of storming Buckingham Palace at the head of a detachment of Red Guards. But he is one of the obvious, old-fashioned sort, steam-powered, coal-fired. You can see him a mile off and defeat him with ease. Sir Keir is much more dangerous. His fanaticism is as smooth as the moisturiser he applies daily to his handsome face. It is designed for the age of the internet.
But you will have to search hard for any major media mention of his stint, in his mid-20s, on the editorial board of a Trotskyist magazine called Socialist Alternatives. Its few issues can still be read on the internet. I have read them, though most of Sir Keir’s articles were written with the blunt end of a bread pudding, and are hard going.
Ah, you may say, this was just youthful folly. People change. He’s even taken a knighthood. Except Sir Keir has not changed much. This is the age he was born for.
In an interview with the New Statesman, he recently said: ‘I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind… The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important. Broadly speaking, I think the Labour Party has done that very successfully.’
The sect he was mixed up with in the 1980s helped pioneer the New Left – Green mixed with Red, radical sexual politics. ‘Red must be made Green, and Green must be made Red,’ they said. This way of thinking has no time for the clapped-out yelling and posturing of the Corbynites.
It wants a cultural revolution which leaves all the buildings standing but changes everything that goes on inside them. It might find a huge economic and social convulsion, such as Johnson has visited on us, very convenient for that purpose."
Ooh, I do hope so, that sounds rather positive about SKS.
Hang on, I keep being told it's the Conservatives who want to start a culture war?
I think both sides do. It plays well to their bases. I hate to admit it, but I get a bit swept up in it from time to time - it just feels easier to boil things down to a culture war.
Another irregular verb....
- I am being decent - you are being controversial - he/she has started a culture war
Very simple. Those are not targets but capacity. They need the extra capacity for when things get worse. This came up a week or two back (not on PB?) and that was the reason.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
He's consistently graceful and reasonable, when she's aggressive, hyper-partisan, rude and desperate to get a political gotcha moment. Even Channel4 would be ashamed of it.
The Kiwi accents are rather charming though.
I know very little of New Zealand politics, but it was an awfully aggressive stance for a broadcaster, I'd have assumed it was a debate between two political parties. Usually broadcasters qualify the more aggressive stance with caveats like 'Some say that you have X' or the like.
I don’t know the background, but the way she shut him down at one point, I suspect it’s something to do with Covid denial being his party’s stance.
So I gather, but I'd still have expected a little more professional distance in the tone, though it is not as though people like Marr or Neil are immune from arguing directly with interviewees from time to time
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Times running out for Trump, those long lines are cutting into any black swan event time for him, and only 2 weeks to go.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Times running out for Trump, those long lines are cutting into any black swan event time for him, and only 2 weeks to go.
Trump's campaign has about as much chance as John Cleese's Norwegian Blue.
If it was "too large" why the feck are people like Jo Johnson, Claire Fox or Lebedev there?
When people cannot even come up with a plausible excuse, it is a bad sign (like when politicians fall back on the 'I'm stupid' defence for some problem).
The argument seems to be that he deserves an undeserved peerage to compensate for the loss of a former undeserved peerage. Hard to get excited about, and his record over dealing with sex abuse by clergy is iffy.
I'm unconcerned whether he has one or not, but as their reason for not giving him one is a nonsense, it immediately raises questions about what the actual reason is.
Exactly right - and I was shouted down for saying the same.
I am sure it's not due to racism but the excuse they gave means I can totally see how people have got there.
I notice that one major issue in the Sentamu matter hasn't been mentioned - a major chunk of the Church of England despises him, and what he stands for. I could quite easily see that being a factor in this.
Why is that ? Living in York he seems well liked by most people.
Basically you have the progressive wing of the CoE - all about getting rid of all those bothersome decisive things. Like doctrine.
Sentamu from the traditionalist wing. As is much of the CoE - outside the UK.
It's a culture war, essentially. Conductive with academic* levels of loathing and backstabbing.
His popularity with the general public is seen as a count against him, by the way - "self aggrandising", "populist" etc. By those who are totally ignored by the population at large....
*academic politics has to be seen to be believed. I believe the nastiness and ferocity is only matched by the culture in charities. The average politician would be barbecue in minutes in such an environment.
I must admit I was somewhat taken aback by the Oxford college as exemplified by Christ Church and its war with its bishop/head of college.
I remember the startled reception that my suggestion for an improvement in academic behaviour got.
It was quite simple - in the event of someone getting someone else's research grant reduced, there would be no possibility of the first academic getting the money had to his/her work. Instead they would have *their* grant reduced by an equal amount.
So back stabbing would become suicide.
This suggestion was met with what might politely be described as contempt.....
One of the most wonderful privileges of being an academic is the opportunity to talk with brilliant people.
One of the worst aspects of being an academic is being forced to spend time with spiteful and pole-climbing b******s.
Note that not *all* of my colleagues fall into the second category.
--AS
The problem is, that in academia, if you don't play the game, you can't actually get to do that research stuff.
Very political in that sense.
That's true up to a point. I think I do okay without playing the game, and I know a few others similarly, but I think one has to be lucky as well as good to land in that position. Certainly the incentive structures in academia are very poorly aligned with good behaviour: I've been banging on about this for a while in my institution, but I realize that it's fruitless. And every outside influence -- competition from Google et al, "leadership" imported from business, government, funding bodies -- pushes in the wrong direction too. It's not going to get better overall, but I do the best I can in my own little ivory tower.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Very simple. Those are not targets but capacity. They need the extra capacity for when things get worse. This came up a week or two back (not on PB?) and that was the reason.
The evidence so far is that if the testing gets to more than 90% of capacity, then we start seeing constraints/problems - The last few tests being at test centres that are extremely far away etc. This is entirely un-surprising from an OR point of view.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
The problem is the government aren't willing to pay the sums you're talking about. You're talking about many billions a month ... The argument between Burnham and the government is about millions not billions a month.
Very simple. Those are not targets but capacity. They need the extra capacity for when things get worse. This came up a week or two back (not on PB?) and that was the reason.
Aren't things already "worse"? At a near 18% positivity rate shouldn't more tests be being run?
Is there no need to use available capacity?
On August 17, the First Minister in a Covid-19 briefing said the current weekday capacity in Scotland was just over 40,000 tests a day. And she said they were working to increase that to 65,000 tests a day.
But in an October 2 Freedom of Information response, the Scottish Government said the overall normal weekday capacity is approximately 24,000 - 16,000 less - as the nation enters a second wave of the virus.
According to official figures, the average number of daily tests being carried out in Scotland over the eight days to October 6, was just 15,776.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Very simple. Those are not targets but capacity. They need the extra capacity for when things get worse. This came up a week or two back (not on PB?) and that was the reason.
Aren't things already "worse"? At a near 18% positivity rate shouldn't more tests be being run?
Is there no need to use available capacity?
On August 17, the First Minister in a Covid-19 briefing said the current weekday capacity in Scotland was just over 40,000 tests a day. And she said they were working to increase that to 65,000 tests a day.
But in an October 2 Freedom of Information response, the Scottish Government said the overall normal weekday capacity is approximately 24,000 - 16,000 less - as the nation enters a second wave of the virus.
According to official figures, the average number of daily tests being carried out in Scotland over the eight days to October 6, was just 15,776.
Occam's Razor is that capacity is not 40k per day. Or anywhere close to it.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
The problem is the government aren't willing to pay the sums you're talking about. You're talking about many billions a month ... The argument between Burnham and the government is about millions not billions a month.
£1000 per week in isolation for all 450,000 who currently have the virus (per the ONS) works out to £450m per week and a bit extra in administration costs. It's a cheap policy compared to the jobs support scheme and allows the rest of the economy to stay open without many restrictions.
I wonder how many more examples of "us" and "them" the Tories can get away with before their new coalition falls apart and is unrecoverable for another 40 years
UK politics in the last few years has had a distinctly French Revolution feel, with fissiparous ideologues purging one another. By my estimation the referendum was the storming of the Bastille, leaving the EU was the execution of Louis XVI. I expect Robespierre to fall before the end of summer 2021.
Sounds interesting and raises the question who's been cast for the Bonaparte role? Gove, Priti, Nigel, Tommy, Toby Young?
First off, they have to be highly competent to fit the Napoleon role. That ought to narrow it down somewhat.
Time to put up a market? Next British Emperor instead of next UK PM?
We're nearly a decade from Napoleon coming to power. Right now, he's not even made a name for himself with his audacious Italian campaigns. Looking further ahead, looks like we'll be rejoining the EU in April 2040.
Very simple. Those are not targets but capacity. They need the extra capacity for when things get worse. This came up a week or two back (not on PB?) and that was the reason.
The evidence so far is that if the testing gets to more than 90% of capacity, then we start seeing constraints/problems - The last few tests being at test centres that are extremely far away etc. This is entirely un-surprising from an OR point of view.
Scotland's testing is running at 60% of FOI admitted capacity, 37% of First Minister claimed available capacity and 25% of First Minister claimed target capacity.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Very simple. Those are not targets but capacity. They need the extra capacity for when things get worse. This came up a week or two back (not on PB?) and that was the reason.
The evidence so far is that if the testing gets to more than 90% of capacity, then we start seeing constraints/problems - The last few tests being at test centres that are extremely far away etc. This is entirely un-surprising from an OR point of view.
Scotland's testing is running at 60% of FOI admitted capacity, 37% of First Minister claimed available capacity and 25% of First Minister claimed target capacity.
I suspect that is down to the politicians not shoving the "use all the tests" line as hard in Scotland.
There is considerable resistance to idea of mass testing in the UK medical establishment, in general.
Note how every time any kind of increase in capacity is talked of, the press get briefed by various people that this is a bad idea.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
For me it like for the last week or two (especially) he's been rolling out the greatest hits of the 2016 campaign. "Lock Her Up" directed against the popular Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who was nearly recenly the victim of a kidnap and probable assassination, at the last rally. This attempt to rerun the Clinton email debacle. Like HYUFD he's anticpating a carbon copy rerun (or as near as dammit) of 2016. It's like if Cameron ran in 2010 on a promise of not joining the Euro.
Very simple. Those are not targets but capacity. They need the extra capacity for when things get worse. This came up a week or two back (not on PB?) and that was the reason.
The evidence so far is that if the testing gets to more than 90% of capacity, then we start seeing constraints/problems - The last few tests being at test centres that are extremely far away etc. This is entirely un-surprising from an OR point of view.
Scotland's testing is running at 60% of FOI admitted capacity, 37% of First Minister claimed available capacity and 25% of First Minister claimed target capacity.
I suspect that is down to the politicians not shoving the "use all the tests" line as hard in Scotland.
There is considerable resistance to idea of mass testing in the UK medical establishment, in general.
Note how every time any kind of increase in capacity is talked of, the press get briefed by various people that this is a bad idea.
Yes the UK health establishment seems to be wedded to the idea of health rationing, see the initial comments about how the vaccine would also be rationed and used only for over 60s and vulnerable people which was quickly rowed back by the politicians.
- higher social security net in the UK - abortion.
Abortion isn't an issue any more. Both jurisdictions now permit it.
The cross-party consensus on Sláintecare will see the differences in health provision eliminated if implemented, and I don't know that social security support is otherwise that much better in NI.
There would still be the concern that NI doesn't generate the tax revenue to pay its way, but that's why the Republic are keen to improve travel links between Belfast and Dublin - in the hope that the economic strength of Dublin will thereby invigorate Belfast and reduce that problem.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Anyway, on the POTUS betting, I was today able to back Trump Michigan at 4.16 on SPIN's binary and lay same at 3.25 on Betfair. That's quite a juicy arb.
The prices have converged now but it's obviously worth checking sometimes if they can get as unaligned as that.
In 2016 the markets gave Trump a lower chance than the 538 model at the off.
The punters had their fingers burned last time out and are incredibly cautious this time. There's a lot of people like HYUFD out there who see a Trafalgar poll and have their biases confirmed. Whatever the polls say this time people are still scarred by 2016.
Yeah, but if Biden wins a landslide (which is not even improbable) they'll get burned again.
There must be more mug punters out there than I would ever have imgined.
You can see how much has been staked on each selection now on Betfair.
Biden has had 59 million staked on him, Trump 72 million.
Hilary Clinton half a million.
What?! There are people staking money on Hillary Clinton?
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia etc etc. Gove is a snake, the worst kind of self-serving, lying, pig-ignorant hack. I reckon he will be our next PM.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
'Drain the Swamp', 'Lock her up', 'Build the Wall', 'Make America Great Again'... have any of these actually happened?
And yet... without Covid and his abyssmal handling of it, I suspect he'd still be favourite right now.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
America is a 50 smaller countries in a country, federal policy will only really be about helping individuals rather than any specific virus measures which will be left to the states. Merkel has just run into that same issue in Germany and Boris only controls policy in England so we have a similar phenomenon here,
He's your hero, isn't he? That's why you're upset and offended.
What happened to when they go low, we go high?
You may not have noticed, but it didn't work.
Obama won on a positive platform.
Francis, what I posted was just a Twitter clip from a random bloke. Puerile but made me laugh as such things sometimes do. It wasn't from Joe. He's running quite a positive campaign.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
Except they will get the benefit of a vaccine next year.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
America is a 50 smaller countries in a country, federal policy will only really be about helping individuals rather than any specific virus measures which will be left to the states. Merkel has just run into that same issue in Germany and Boris only controls policy in England so we have a similar phenomenon here,
Well quite, and it's not like the Dem run states have done especially well.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
'Drain the Swamp', 'Lock her up', 'Build the Wall', 'Make America Great Again'... have any of these actually happened?
I think in his characteristic chaotic manner Trump may have gotten things mixed up, and he Drained the Great America and Built the Swamp.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
He's a morally repulsive individual, greedy, dishonest and with the concentration of a goldfish (apologies to any goldfish reading this).
But if we hadn't had Covid and this had been entirely about his handling of the economy I think that we would be having a very different election. Covid showed all his inadequacies and the consequences of his short sightedness in very sharp relief. In some respects he was unlucky and he is likely to console himself with that afterwards.
"There will be a short delay in publishing today’s figures. We will update shortly. We were notified late last week of a testing capacity issue with the UK Government Lighthouse facility in Glasgow.
This has meant around 64,000 tests from across the UK, including Scotland, will be rerouted this weekend (Fri-Sun) to other testing sites in the UK and Northern Ireland, including tests from our physical testing sites, for example Regional Tests sites. It is important to note that the majority of these tests are still well within the 24 and 48 hour timeframe for results albeit we do expect to see an increase in the level of positives on Monday and Tuesday when the results are reported.
The Scottish Government is urgently trying to establish with the UK Government what exactly is causing the delay in testing but this is mainly due to demand from out with Scotland.
We continue to reroute routine testing of care home staff through NHS Scotland testing facilities to ensure prompt turnaround times."
The Scottish government's priority is clearly how to leverage Coronavirus to win Independence, rather than to cooperate to control the virus across Britain.
He's your hero, isn't he? That's why you're upset and offended.
What happened to when they go low, we go high?
You may not have noticed, but it didn't work.
Obama won on a positive platform.
Francis, what I posted was just a Twitter clip from a random bloke. Puerile but made me laugh as such things sometimes do. It wasn't from Joe. He's running quite a positive campaign.
I am aware of that. My general point was the general level of discourse. It is now totally standard to scream fascists / nazi at a lot of people who aren't anything of the sort....and the ok its to punch a nazi stuff....which then descends into Proud Boys vs Antifa stuff.
When Ben said, but but but it didn't work as we got Trump in the first place and I just stated Obama era was much more positive.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
Except they will get the benefit of a vaccine next year.
Will they? I thought there was an issue with their regulatory people being ultra-cautious meaning they might be, err, at the back of the queue.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
The problem is the government aren't willing to pay the sums you're talking about. You're talking about many billions a month ... The argument between Burnham and the government is about millions not billions a month.
£1000 per week in isolation for all 450,000 who currently have the virus (per the ONS) works out to £450m per week and a bit extra in administration costs. It's a cheap policy compared to the jobs support scheme and allows the rest of the economy to stay open without many restrictions.
I don't think so, the numbers do not add up. The basic support schemes would need to be paid as well as this not instead of this, since even if you do this the virus will still be spreading asymptomatically and presymptomatically.
The Tier 3 support scheme that has been announced is not running at anywhere close to half a billion pounds per week.
Half a billion pounds per week may have seemed "cheap" in April but not compared to what is being done now with the localised restrictions.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
Except they will get the benefit of a vaccine next year.
Will they? I thought there was an issue with their regulatory people being ultra-cautious meaning they might be, err, at the back of the queue.
My guess is that a reasonably effective vaccine will be rolled out across the developed world next year. I could be wrong but that's my guess.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
Except they will get the benefit of a vaccine next year.
Will they? I thought there was an issue with their regulatory people being ultra-cautious meaning they might be, err, at the back of the queue.
My guess is that a reasonably effective vaccine will be rolled out across the developed world next year. I could be wrong but that's my guess.
And my guess is that the roll out of a vaccine will be a complete mess in the USA.
Well it's not as like they will admit to it leading to higher taxation even if it is the case, and pretty sure it was said last time and they still got 45%. Just focus on the positive vision stuff and hope 5% of people feel differently than last time, and it's quite possible, nay probable.
Plus not enough greedy grasping Tories to swing it, more people who have at least some care for their fellow human beings
He's your hero, isn't he? That's why you're upset and offended.
What happened to when they go low, we go high?
You may not have noticed, but it didn't work.
Obama won on a positive platform.
Francis, what I posted was just a Twitter clip from a random bloke. Puerile but made me laugh as such things sometimes do. It wasn't from Joe. He's running quite a positive campaign.
I am aware of that. My general point was the general level of discourse. It is now totally standard to scream fascists / nazi at a lot of people who aren't anything of the sort....and the ok its to punch a nazi stuff....which then descends into Proud Boys vs Antifa stuff.
When Ben said, but but but it didn't work as we got Trump in the first place and I just stated Obama era was much more positive.
Fair point, and tbh I'd much prefer a more positive campaign, but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
Much that has been made that the UK government rejecting the SAGE circuit breaker idea, more and more government are diverging from "following the science" now.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
If, hopefully, Trump is handily defeated the electoral lesson will be: eliminate Covid = win landslide, allow your population to die = slump to historic defeat.
Trump is losing because he's been rubbish as POTUS.
Undoubtedly Jacinda Ardern reaped the rewards from her aggressive COVID stratgey, but I'm far from certain that Trump's suffering all that much due to COVID. It will be fascinating to see how things change when the Dems are in complete control. My suspicion is, not a lot.
Except they will get the benefit of a vaccine next year.
Will they? I thought there was an issue with their regulatory people being ultra-cautious meaning they might be, err, at the back of the queue.
My guess is that a reasonably effective vaccine will be rolled out across the developed world next year. I could be wrong but that's my guess.
And my guess is that the roll out of a vaccine will be a complete mess in the USA.
It certainly will be if the current regime is still in power.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
El. Oh. El.
Keep claiming you aren't a Trump fan. Somebody will believe you one day I am sure
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
El. Oh. El.
Keep claiming you aren't a Trump fan. Somebody will believe you one day I am sure
It was a genuine question that I was interested in finding the answer to.
If stuff has been proven against Trump then fair enough the charges on Biden are less important.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
No one has ever been able to legally "prove" anything against a President because the jury set up to adjudge on the truth of any allegations against him (the Senate) is politically partisan. The closest we came to it was Nixon but he resigned first. So, in the legal sense, it's next to impossible to "prove" accusatins against him. People have to make their own minds up but it will never be proof enough for some - even if he were to found leaning over a fresh corpse with freshly discharged revolver in his hand the Senate would probably acquit.
Merkel has the same problem as Boris, the regional leaders aren't agreeing to local lockdowns or targeted measures. Lockdown fatigue has definitely set in across all of Europe and no country in Europe has taken the big step of specific targeting of people who get the virus with GPS tracking to ensure they stay indoors. I think that the UK should be leading the way here.
The problem is the government aren't willing to pay the sums you're talking about. You're talking about many billions a month ... The argument between Burnham and the government is about millions not billions a month.
£1000 per week in isolation for all 450,000 who currently have the virus (per the ONS) works out to £450m per week and a bit extra in administration costs. It's a cheap policy compared to the jobs support scheme and allows the rest of the economy to stay open without many restrictions.
I don't think so, the numbers do not add up. The basic support schemes would need to be paid as well as this not instead of this, since even if you do this the virus will still be spreading asymptomatically and presymptomatically.
The Tier 3 support scheme that has been announced is not running at anywhere close to half a billion pounds per week.
Half a billion pounds per week may have seemed "cheap" in April but not compared to what is being done now with the localised restrictions.
The whole point of the policy is that it produces a huge negative R value as you go from 20% isolation adherence to 100% so the £450m per week becomes a small number very quickly until it's just a few hundred people per week in the system. What it also does is bring the numbers down quickly enough so that tracing and testing works quickly and any contacts of people are isolated within a two or three days of catching it. You also aren't in a stupid position where there isn't enough testing capacity for everyone who has been contacted to have a test as there are far fewer people with symptoms. I think the other big change that could be made is that self-certified test bookings should be called to a close, the only way to get a test is from one of the track and trace teams or if you have a high temperature (verified at the drive through centre). There are too many worried well in the system taking up processing capacity.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
No one has ever been able to legally "prove" anything against a President because the jury set up to adjudge on the truth of any allegations against him (the Senate) is politically partisan. The closest we came to it was Nixon but he resigned first. So, in the legal sense, it's next to impossible to "prove" accusatins against him. People have to make their own minds up but it will never be proof enough for some - even if he were to found leaning over a fresh corpse with freshly discharged revolver in his hand the Senate would probably acquit.
He has joked about being able to shoot someone and not lose any voters of course.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
He's your hero, isn't he? That's why you're upset and offended.
What happened to when they go low, we go high?
You may not have noticed, but it didn't work.
Obama won on a positive platform.
Francis, what I posted was just a Twitter clip from a random bloke. Puerile but made me laugh as such things sometimes do. It wasn't from Joe. He's running quite a positive campaign.
I am aware of that. My general point was the general level of discourse. It is now totally standard to scream fascists / nazi at a lot of people who aren't anything of the sort....and the ok its to punch a nazi stuff....which then descends into Proud Boys vs Antifa stuff.
When Ben said, but but but it didn't work as we got Trump in the first place and I just stated Obama era was much more positive.
That sounds like Spiro Agnew back in the late 60s early 70s. He hated the tone of the feminists and the various other counter-culture and race activists back then. Getting this from those "Frost Tapes" which have just come out on podcast. Lots of Agnew on there sounding urbane and slightly non-plussed.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
No one has ever been able to legally "prove" anything against a President because the jury set up to adjudge on the truth of any allegations against him (the Senate) is politically partisan. The closest we came to it was Nixon but he resigned first. So, in the legal sense, it's next to impossible to "prove" accusatins against him. People have to make their own minds up but it will never be proof enough for some - even if he were to found leaning over a fresh corpse with freshly discharged revolver in his hand the Senate would probably acquit.
He has joked about being able to shoot someone and not lose any voters of course.
Yes - my first draft used a dagger but I remembered that quote, and also the more prevalent "smoking gun", metaphor, so changed it.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
Apart from the Mueller Report, the Senate Russian Interference Report, the prosecution and dissolution of the fraudulent Trump Foundation?
There seem to be capacity issues at the moment (possibly knock on from Roche's fuckup earlier in the month) so I'd take that with a small grain of salt.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
Apart from the Mueller Report, the Senate Russian Interference Report, the prosecution and dissolution of the fraudulent Trump Foundation?
Quite. Trumpkins, no matter which side of the Atlantic they're from, will happily say "bUt TheREs No PrOof" despite evidence of corruption, fraud and other legally ineligable chicanery stretching back to the early 80s in all of Trump's business dealings.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
Apart from the Mueller Report, the Senate Russian Interference Report, the prosecution and dissolution of the fraudulent Trump Foundation?
The Mueller Report that found no evidence of wrong-doing whatsoever?
What does any of that have to do with the accusation that "Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars" ?
He's your hero, isn't he? That's why you're upset and offended.
I don't particularly like him, I just find the hysteria and ludicrous insults of anyone the left disapproves of tiresome.
How exactly is he fascist? It's just endless pointless insults doled out by half-wits.
Oh come on. You LOVE the guy.
Why, just yesterday you, Donald J Alexander, were calling for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering our country until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
Apart from the Mueller Report, the Senate Russian Interference Report, the prosecution and dissolution of the fraudulent Trump Foundation?
And Trump University of course - the enterprise that required him to pay $25 million to settle a claim by New York State and two class actions.
Because the scientists aren't accountable to the people for their idiotic suggestions. Ultimately, Boris and the other elected leaders in other countries need to answer to the people and they know that once the two weeks are up and cases aren't falling the same scientists will advocate for another two weeks, and another etc... and we'll have three months in lockdown. The politicians are, rightly, worried that it dooms their chance of being elected next time.
It is an interesting question as to what the responsibilities of the scientists are.
Much of the work is publicly funded. And the scientists are publicly rewarded (honours).
The independent review (when it comes) will focus on (i) was the scientific advice correct (given the uncertainties at the time), and (ii) did politicians correctly interpret & implement the advice.
As to (ii), I don't know. But as to (i), I think the answer is clearly no.
I think it is is striking that the less cerebral the COVID response (New Zealand, Norway), the more successful the outcome.
It is the politicians who did not have access to detailed theoretical modelling, or who panicked, who have come out of this the best.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
The fact that the Trump real estate empire has been chosen to host Federal events and activities and has been charging the Federal taxpayers as a result is all in the public domain.
A non grifter might consider that a conflict of interest.
He's your hero, isn't he? That's why you're upset and offended.
I don't particularly like him, I just find the hysteria and ludicrous insults of anyone the left disapproves of tiresome.
How exactly is he fascist? It's just endless pointless insults doled out by half-wits.
Oh come on. You LOVE the guy.
Why, just yesterday you, Donald J Alexander, were calling for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering our country until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
Well that's not quite what I said, but yes I am worried about teachers being beheaded in the streets in broad daylight. Crazy I know.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
Apart from the Mueller Report, the Senate Russian Interference Report, the prosecution and dissolution of the fraudulent Trump Foundation?
And Trump University of course - the enterprise that required him to pay $25 million to settle a claim by New York State and two class actions.
To be fair that scam was entirely before he became president.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
The fact that the Trump real estate empire has been chosen to host Federal events and activities and has been charging the Federal taxpayers as a result is all in the public domain.
A non grifter might consider that a conflict of interest.
Well it could be dodgy I agree. How does it compare to the use of Trump owned venues before he became president?
The fact that the Trump real estate empire has been chosen to host Federal events and activities and has been charging the Federal taxpayers as a result is all in the public domain.
A non grifter might consider that a conflict of interest.
I suppose I have this old-fashioned notion that taking public office should be about public service, duty, seeking to improve the lot of the citizen and not about seeing how much profit you can make for you, your friends and/or their corporations.
To be fair, political office as a means of personal gain was how we operated not so long ago and I suppose the kudos of paid after-dinner speaking, directorates and the like probably softens the blow when your party or the electorate throw you out of a job.
There's a difference between personal gain from office when you are no longer serving in that office (memoirs are the same) and personal gain while you are in the office and discharging your responsibilities as the holder of that office. The former is no issue, the latter for me is unacceptable.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
Apart from the Mueller Report, the Senate Russian Interference Report, the prosecution and dissolution of the fraudulent Trump Foundation?
The Mueller Report that found no evidence of wrong-doing whatsoever?
What does any of that have to do with the accusation that "Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars" ?
Trump's admitted being involved with the mob in getting 1980s consruction projects through in NYC. A New Jersey investigation in 1995 found he helped a banker in the pocket of the Scarfo family get a casino license and constructed a casino using their funds. Mafiosi don't generally pay tax. As a result of that, and the fact he has paid virtually no Federal Income Tax for at least the last decade, means he has been indirectly getting rich by failing, largely, to pay what is due to be paid to the Federal Government and then hosting Presidential events in places with just a hint of the mob about them.
He's your hero, isn't he? That's why you're upset and offended.
I don't particularly like him, I just find the hysteria and ludicrous insults of anyone the left disapproves of tiresome.
How exactly is he fascist? It's just endless pointless insults doled out by half-wits.
Oh come on. You LOVE the guy.
Why, just yesterday you, Donald J Alexander, were calling for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering our country until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
Well that's not quite what I said, but yes I am worried about teachers being beheaded in the streets in broad daylight. Crazy I know.
We are all worried about that.
Calling for a complete and total shutdown of an entire religious group of billions of people from being able to enter the country is what is considered odd as a solution.
We didn't respond to the Troubles (which killed an order of magnitude more people in this country) by a complete and total shutdown of Catholics from entering the country.
The Hunter Biden bollocks just seems utterly inconsequential when the entire Trump clan and business empire have been troughing at the teat of Federal expenditure for the past four years.
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
Biden corruption is inconsequential because reasons.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
That Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars has been proven.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
What has been proven exactly?
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
The fact that the Trump real estate empire has been chosen to host Federal events and activities and has been charging the Federal taxpayers as a result is all in the public domain.
A non grifter might consider that a conflict of interest.
Well it could be dodgy I agree. How does it compare to the use of Trump owned venues before he became president?
The ones he built with Mafia help? The ones that the Mafia still likely have an interest in and, as a result, he is directs Federal money into organised crime. Those ones?
Comments
The problems to be addressed are just too big for that.
Being able to make it sound unexciting and reasonable might well be an advantage, though.
Biden has had 59 million staked on him, Trump 72 million.
Hilary Clinton half a million.
One of the worst aspects of being an academic is being forced to spend time with spiteful and pole-climbing b******s.
Note that not *all* of my colleagues fall into the second category.
--AS
Very political in that sense.
- I am being decent
- you are being controversial
- he/she has started a culture war
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1317825484495880192?s=20
The phrase mote and beam comes to mind.
--AS
Is there no need to use available capacity?
On August 17, the First Minister in a Covid-19 briefing said the current weekday capacity in Scotland was just over 40,000 tests a day. And she said they were working to increase that to 65,000 tests a day.
But in an October 2 Freedom of Information response, the Scottish Government said the overall normal weekday capacity is approximately 24,000 - 16,000 less - as the nation enters a second wave of the virus.
According to official figures, the average number of daily tests being carried out in Scotland over the eight days to October 6, was just 15,776.
Ireland and France have both rejected proposals in the past month or so.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54589241
There is considerable resistance to idea of mass testing in the UK medical establishment, in general.
Note how every time any kind of increase in capacity is talked of, the press get briefed by various people that this is a bad idea.
Anyone want to bet on that.
Good job it isn't a £15 PPV game.
The cross-party consensus on Sláintecare will see the differences in health provision eliminated if implemented, and I don't know that social security support is otherwise that much better in NI.
There would still be the concern that NI doesn't generate the tax revenue to pay its way, but that's why the Republic are keen to improve travel links between Belfast and Dublin - in the hope that the economic strength of Dublin will thereby invigorate Belfast and reduce that problem.
So why do you think they would?
The prices have converged now but it's obviously worth checking sometimes if they can get as unaligned as that.
It needs to be slow.
And yet... without Covid and his abyssmal handling of it, I suspect he'd still be favourite right now.
But if we hadn't had Covid and this had been entirely about his handling of the economy I think that we would be having a very different election. Covid showed all his inadequacies and the consequences of his short sightedness in very sharp relief. In some respects he was unlucky and he is likely to console himself with that afterwards.
Alternatively, they create records in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimint database - which what they are explicitly instructed to do.
"There will be a short delay in publishing today’s figures. We will update shortly.
We were notified late last week of a testing capacity issue with the UK Government Lighthouse facility in Glasgow.
This has meant around 64,000 tests from across the UK, including Scotland, will be rerouted this weekend (Fri-Sun) to other testing sites in the UK and Northern Ireland, including tests from our physical testing sites, for example Regional Tests sites. It is important to note that the majority of these tests are still well within the 24 and 48 hour timeframe for results albeit we do expect to see an increase in the level of positives on Monday and Tuesday when the results are reported.
The Scottish Government is urgently trying to establish with the UK Government what exactly is causing the delay in testing but this is mainly due to demand from out with Scotland.
We continue to reroute routine testing of care home staff through NHS Scotland testing facilities to ensure prompt turnaround times."
The Scottish government's priority is clearly how to leverage Coronavirus to win Independence, rather than to cooperate to control the virus across Britain.
Bunch of rogues and charlatans.
When Ben said, but but but it didn't work as we got Trump in the first place and I just stated Obama era was much more positive.
The Tier 3 support scheme that has been announced is not running at anywhere close to half a billion pounds per week.
Half a billion pounds per week may have seemed "cheap" in April but not compared to what is being done now with the localised restrictions.
Any Trafalgar poll out?
How exactly is he fascist? It's just endless pointless insults doled out by half-wits.
What has been proven against Trump exactly?
Oh.
El.
Keep claiming you aren't a Trump fan. Somebody will believe you one day I am sure
If stuff has been proven against Trump then fair enough the charges on Biden are less important.
No corruption has been proven against Biden, just some very weak and stretched out allegations that are a fraction of what Trump has done.
I can believe this is true, I'm just looking for some hard evidence.
What does any of that have to do with the accusation that "Trump and his family and his business have been draining millions upon millions of federal dollars" ?
Why, just yesterday you, Donald J Alexander, were calling for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering our country until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
Much of the work is publicly funded. And the scientists are publicly rewarded (honours).
The independent review (when it comes) will focus on (i) was the scientific advice correct (given the uncertainties at the time), and (ii) did politicians correctly interpret & implement the advice.
As to (ii), I don't know. But as to (i), I think the answer is clearly no.
I think it is is striking that the less cerebral the COVID response (New Zealand, Norway), the more successful the outcome.
It is the politicians who did not have access to detailed theoretical modelling, or who panicked, who have come out of this the best.
A non grifter might consider that a conflict of interest.
To be fair, political office as a means of personal gain was how we operated not so long ago and I suppose the kudos of paid after-dinner speaking, directorates and the like probably softens the blow when your party or the electorate throw you out of a job.
There's a difference between personal gain from office when you are no longer serving in that office (memoirs are the same) and personal gain while you are in the office and discharging your responsibilities as the holder of that office. The former is no issue, the latter for me is unacceptable.
Calling for a complete and total shutdown of an entire religious group of billions of people from being able to enter the country is what is considered odd as a solution.
We didn't respond to the Troubles (which killed an order of magnitude more people in this country) by a complete and total shutdown of Catholics from entering the country.