It still strikes me as unbelievable that the most powerful nation in the world is unable to properly organise an election. I understand it's not easy in a pandemic, but setting aside a couple of billion for postal voting services should surely not be very difficult. The whole system just seems so archaic and unreliable.
The problems are more by design than by accident IMO. A large amount of the Republican party doesn't want an election where all eligible voters can easily vote.
The irony is that this guy is a Labour Councillor so by the standards of Cambridge college porters he is probably a raving Leftie. I'm not sure the word "servant" is really appropriate here, but if the Spectator wants to go full on Class War then who am I to stand in its way.
The biggest problem with online-only learning is that you have no "relationship" with any of the teaching staff.
Malcolm Bradbury would have some fun with today's identity and crit theory lecturers no doubt.
The Tory culture war bollox about universities being overrun by cultural Marxists hell bent on corrupting the nation's youth seems to have been based entirely on The History Man. To be fair it is a great book.
Cultural Marxism is such old hat, it's Cultural Maoism all the way, baby.
So Darren's hot take is that a fringe party registering with the Electoral Commission very probably isn't going to grab the keys to Downing Street in the foreseeable future?
Thank goodness the nation can rely on his laser-like insight and super-forecasting powers.
I suppose this doesn't bode well for quite a lot of the 351 currently registered political parties in the UK. Who's going to break it to them?
I just wonder how a radical Marxist differs from an ordinary one?
Well, a radical Marxist would probably want to put some Marxism into practice.
Unlike the titled, wealthy, rentier Marxist-Leninist of my aquaintance, for example.
That tweet is completely misleading as the question was not about "liking/disliking" a country but whether the respondent has a "positive/negative" view of them. So, for example, it is not that 61% dislike Syria but that 61% have a negative view (unsurprising as there has been a massive civil war)
One of HY's recycled tweet posts was misleading? I refuse to believe it.
Come on, you'd expect the YouGov account to be pretty good.
This is an interesting exercise by Electoral Calculus but I suspect overstates the likely impact, as it starts from an entirely clean slate and draws up seats which may be logical but depart quite a bit from the current electoral map.
In practice, the Boundary Commissions tend to shuffle based on the current map, particularly in localities where demographic change hasn't been huge and the requirements can be met by moving a ward here and there - they don't tend to shift one ward out and another in to get 100 voters closer to achieving the average electorate everywhere when they are already within the 5% margin of error. Only in localities with major demographic change do they rethink the entire thing.
For that reason, I think the Lib Dem change is particularly unlikely - their seats are very vulnerable if sliced and diced but, in practice, most of their seats are very close to (or above) the quota so won't see that much change (they could of course gain or lose based on swing, but probably not based on boundary changes alone).
They've produced the map by computer which has given way too much weight to arithmetical equality, and none at all to community ties (other than wide council area boundaries), as you say. Zoom in and look at your own area and you'll see seats that don't make much sense and would be very unlikely to be proposed by the BC let alone adopted after consultation; looking at my old patch in NE London, this is definitely the case there.
However for the medium term I can see the BC starting to use such algorithms - one with a heavy weighting for not disrupting existing boundaries would probably be a quick way of producing a set of initial recommendations; a job that is laborious work and normally takes the Commission months.
I am reminded of the route planning software used to plan delivery and collection routes by Royal Mail, a task originally done by hand (indeed one of my first jobs), slowly the use of automated route planning software has helped the task (although some of the early versions could produce some bizarre ideas and needed close monitoring). I believe nowadays the task is almost entirely automated, at least before both management and unions get to do some tweaking.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but look at this:
- The Republicans have just won a Supreme Court case preventing mail ballots received after election day in Wisconsin from being considered valid. - In a similar case, Republicans are trying to get a Supreme Court ruling that would block a Pennsylvania ballot receipt extension that would allow ballots to be counted if they are received within three days of Election Day, even without a legible postmark. - Republicans in North Carolina are asking the Supreme Court to block a nine-day extension of the counting of ballots if they are received by Election Day and reinstate a three-day extension established by the legislature last June.
At the moment, Joe Biden has a massive early- and mail-voting advantage. His supporters are returning ballots faster and in larger quantities than Trump's. But lots of Trump supporters have requested mail ballots, which they haven't yet returned (see figures on the excellent https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html). So you'd expect late mail-in ballots to be more likely to favour Trump than Biden.
Are these Republican lawsuits not aimed at their own feet?
That's what I thought, but then I remembered that this is the GOP, they'll try and get as many Biden votes thrown out as possible and SCOTUS will support them.
This is an interesting exercise by Electoral Calculus but I suspect overstates the likely impact, as it starts from an entirely clean slate and draws up seats which may be logical but depart quite a bit from the current electoral map.
In practice, the Boundary Commissions tend to shuffle based on the current map, particularly in localities where demographic change hasn't been huge and the requirements can be met by moving a ward here and there - they don't tend to shift one ward out and another in to get 100 voters closer to achieving the average electorate everywhere when they are already within the 5% margin of error. Only in localities with major demographic change do they rethink the entire thing.
For that reason, I think the Lib Dem change is particularly unlikely - their seats are very vulnerable if sliced and diced but, in practice, most of their seats are very close to (or above) the quota so won't see that much change (they could of course gain or lose based on swing, but probably not based on boundary changes alone).
They've produced the map by computer which has given way too much weight to arithmetical equality, and none at all to community ties, as you say. Zoom in and look at your own area and you'll see seats that don't make much sense and would be very unlikely to be proposed by the BC let alone adopted after consultation; looking at my old patch in NE London, this is definitely the case there.
However for the medium term I can see the BC starting to use such algorithms - one with a heavy weighting for not disrupting existing boundaries would probably be a quick way of producing a set of initial recommendations; a job that is laborious work and normally takes the Commission months.
I am reminded of the route planning software used to plan delivery and collection routes by Royal Mail, a task originally done by hand (indeed one of my first jobs), slowly the use of automated route planning software has helped the task (although some of the early versions could produce some bizarre ideas and needed close monitoring). I believe nowadays the task is almost entirely automated, at least before both management and unions get to do some tweaking.
I built some capacity and planning simulation systems back in the day - properly used automation of this kind is extremely useful in *suggesting* novel solutions. But nearly always needs to be backed by human judgement.
I think I have pretty much given up on the Conservatives trying to update the boundaries after 10 years of trying and failing but if they did ever get around to it this would mean in practice SKS would be facing as big a mountain as Cameron did in 2010.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but look at this:
- The Republicans have just won a Supreme Court case preventing mail ballots received after election day in Wisconsin from being considered valid. - In a similar case, Republicans are trying to get a Supreme Court ruling that would block a Pennsylvania ballot receipt extension that would allow ballots to be counted if they are received within three days of Election Day, even without a legible postmark. - Republicans in North Carolina are asking the Supreme Court to block a nine-day extension of the counting of ballots if they are received by Election Day and reinstate a three-day extension established by the legislature last June.
At the moment, Joe Biden has a massive early- and mail-voting advantage. His supporters are returning ballots faster and in larger quantities than Trump's. But lots of Trump supporters have requested mail ballots, which they haven't yet returned (see figures on the excellent https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html). So you'd expect late mail-in ballots to be more likely to favour Trump than Biden.
Are these Republican lawsuits not aimed at their own feet?
It's quite possible that these postal votes will be less unfavourable but still not favourable. But stopping votes actually being counted is getting close to a religion in the Republican party, it doesn't have to be rational.
The irony is that this guy is a Labour Councillor so by the standards of Cambridge college porters he is probably a raving Leftie. I'm not sure the word "servant" is really appropriate here, but if the Spectator wants to go full on Class War then who am I to stand in its way.
IF they are the kind of student politicians I am thinking of, they probably think that Corbyn was hard right....
I think they are tapping into the irony of the right-on types "punching down".
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
Sorry I'm ignoring that poll as it is not from Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is relevant for the rustbelt swing states as they proved in 2016, less so for GOP primary polls, though those polls suggest if Trump loses then Mike Pence or Donald Trump Jnr will be the likely opponent for President Biden in 2024 if he seeks re election or for Vice President Harris if he does not, with a small chance of Nikki Haley if Trump-Pence is trounced and the GOP decide to pcik a moderate.
Though of course the Democrats still picked Mondale in 1984 despite Reagan's trouncing of Carter-Mondale in 1980
I'd be interested to know if primary polls four years out are a good predictor of who will get the nomination.
I appreciate the example of Walter Mondale, but strongly suspect that the world will move on fairly fast (and moves on faster than it did forty years ago). Pence will be yesterday's man if Trump loses, and Trump Jnr is ultimately a pale tribute act to his old man.
I'd also dispute the characterisation of Nikki Haley as a moderate. Her style is more conventional than Trump, and she's clearly not an out there, Q-Anon type. But she's got strong conservative credentials that she'd no doubt burnish further for a Presidential primaries tilt. She's no John Kasich!
I think the 2004 London Mayoral/Assembly/Locals/European elections were the last election I voted in person.
Agree with Alistair. I miss going to the polling station but life is so unpredictable I can never be sure I'll be around on polling day so it's been post for me for years now.
I think Mike is still wrong about a 50/50 tie - that counts as no overall majority.
" A majority of seats requires either party to control at least 51 of the 100 Seats in the US Senate. Independent or any other party Representatives caucusing with either the Democrats or Republicans will NOT count for the purposes of this market."
On topic: Yes - the rules wording is key.
The Democrats need 53+ seats to be a majority. 52 including two independents is NOT a majority.
The Republicans need 51+ seats to be a majority.
So the range 50-52 including the two independents is "No Majority."
Looking at the latest 538 simulations for number of senate seats it shows:
Reps 51+ 24.8% (i.e. 4.03 in Betfair terms) Actual 4.2 Dems 53+ 34.7% (i.e. 2.88 in Betfair terms) Actual 3.2 50-52 (No Majority) 40.5% (i.e. 2.47 in Betfair terms) Actual 2.18
So the No Majority bet is the value bet if a) my reasoning and arithmetic are correct and b) the 538 simulations are the best estimates available.
I think the 2004 London Mayoral/Assembly/Locals/European elections were the last election I voted in person.
Agree with Alistair. I miss going to the polling station but life is so unpredictable I can never be sure I'll be around on polling day so it's been post for me for years now.
Sigh.
Be a teller, it's even more fun that voting in person.
Though nothing beats knocking up the voters on election day.
It still strikes me as unbelievable that the most powerful nation in the world is unable to properly organise an election. I understand it's not easy in a pandemic, but setting aside a couple of billion for postal voting services should surely not be very difficult. The whole system just seems so archaic and unreliable.
The problems are more by design than by accident IMO. A large amount of the Republican party doesn't want an election where all eligible voters can easily vote.
The Trump-appointed head of the USPS removed some sorting machines. This would have (or has had) the effect of slowing delivery of votes. The Supreme Court ordered their reinstatement. A lower court has also ordered that the USPS pre-approves overtime where needed. Whether the USPS complies in time...
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
I reckon if you ran a the same poll for GOP nomination in 2028 you would get pretty much the same result. Pence is leading because he's the one in the news all the time, while on the campaign trail and can be imagined being the president. It is nothing more than name recognition, and bears no relationship to what is likely to happen over the next 4 or 8 years.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but look at this:
- The Republicans have just won a Supreme Court case preventing mail ballots received after election day in Wisconsin from being considered valid. - In a similar case, Republicans are trying to get a Supreme Court ruling that would block a Pennsylvania ballot receipt extension that would allow ballots to be counted if they are received within three days of Election Day, even without a legible postmark. - Republicans in North Carolina are asking the Supreme Court to block a nine-day extension of the counting of ballots if they are received by Election Day and reinstate a three-day extension established by the legislature last June.
At the moment, Joe Biden has a massive early- and mail-voting advantage. His supporters are returning ballots faster and in larger quantities than Trump's. But lots of Trump supporters have requested mail ballots, which they haven't yet returned (see figures on the excellent https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html). So you'd expect late mail-in ballots to be more likely to favour Trump than Biden.
Are these Republican lawsuits not aimed at their own feet?
This is an interesting exercise by Electoral Calculus but I suspect overstates the likely impact, as it starts from an entirely clean slate and draws up seats which may be logical but depart quite a bit from the current electoral map.
In practice, the Boundary Commissions tend to shuffle based on the current map, particularly in localities where demographic change hasn't been huge and the requirements can be met by moving a ward here and there - they don't tend to shift one ward out and another in to get 100 voters closer to achieving the average electorate everywhere when they are already within the 5% margin of error. Only in localities with major demographic change do they rethink the entire thing.
For that reason, I think the Lib Dem change is particularly unlikely - their seats are very vulnerable if sliced and diced but, in practice, most of their seats are very close to (or above) the quota so won't see that much change (they could of course gain or lose based on swing, but probably not based on boundary changes alone).
They've produced the map by computer which has given way too much weight to arithmetical equality, and none at all to community ties (other than wide council area boundaries), as you say. Zoom in and look at your own area and you'll see seats that don't make much sense and would be very unlikely to be proposed by the BC let alone adopted after consultation; looking at my old patch in NE London, this is definitely the case there.
However for the medium term I can see the BC starting to use such algorithms - one with a heavy weighting for not disrupting existing boundaries would probably be a quick way of producing a set of initial recommendations; a job that is laborious work and normally takes the Commission months.
I am reminded of the route planning software used to plan delivery and collection routes by Royal Mail, a task originally done by hand (indeed one of my first jobs), slowly the use of automated route planning software has helped the task (although some of the early versions could produce some bizarre ideas and needed close monitoring). I believe nowadays the task is almost entirely automated, at least before both management and unions get to do some tweaking.
This is an interesting exercise by Electoral Calculus but I suspect overstates the likely impact, as it starts from an entirely clean slate and draws up seats which may be logical but depart quite a bit from the current electoral map.
In practice, the Boundary Commissions tend to shuffle based on the current map, particularly in localities where demographic change hasn't been huge and the requirements can be met by moving a ward here and there - they don't tend to shift one ward out and another in to get 100 voters closer to achieving the average electorate everywhere when they are already within the 5% margin of error. Only in localities with major demographic change do they rethink the entire thing.
For that reason, I think the Lib Dem change is particularly unlikely - their seats are very vulnerable if sliced and diced but, in practice, most of their seats are very close to (or above) the quota so won't see that much change (they could of course gain or lose based on swing, but probably not based on boundary changes alone).
They've produced the map by computer which has given way too much weight to arithmetical equality, and none at all to community ties (other than wide council area boundaries), as you say. Zoom in and look at your own area and you'll see seats that don't make much sense and would be very unlikely to be proposed by the BC let alone adopted after consultation; looking at my old patch in NE London, this is definitely the case there.
However for the medium term I can see the BC starting to use such algorithms - one with a heavy weighting for not disrupting existing boundaries would probably be a quick way of producing a set of initial recommendations; a job that is laborious work and normally takes the Commission months.
I am reminded of the route planning software used to plan delivery and collection routes by Royal Mail, a task originally done by hand (indeed one of my first jobs), slowly the use of automated route planning software has helped the task (although some of the early versions could produce some bizarre ideas and needed close monitoring). I believe nowadays the task is almost entirely automated, at least before both management and unions get to do some tweaking.
Here's a game for you. Find two places in the same "new" constituency, and plot a driving route between them. Count how many times you would cross a constituency boundary. Your target is to beat my score of 8: Frankwell, Shrewsbury to Spennells, Kidderminster.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
I think the 2004 London Mayoral/Assembly/Locals/European elections were the last election I voted in person.
Agree with Alistair. I miss going to the polling station but life is so unpredictable I can never be sure I'll be around on polling day so it's been post for me for years now.
Sigh.
Be a teller, it's even more fun that voting in person.
Though nothing beats knocking up the voters on election day.
That's one way to get out the vote!
You must be energetic but my wife would object if I spent the day trying to knock people up.
I think the 2004 London Mayoral/Assembly/Locals/European elections were the last election I voted in person.
Agree with Alistair. I miss going to the polling station but life is so unpredictable I can never be sure I'll be around on polling day so it's been post for me for years now.
Sigh.
Be a teller, it's even more fun that voting in person.
Though nothing beats knocking up the voters on election day.
Ah so now we know the source of the baby boom in the North.
This is an interesting exercise by Electoral Calculus but I suspect overstates the likely impact, as it starts from an entirely clean slate and draws up seats which may be logical but depart quite a bit from the current electoral map.
In practice, the Boundary Commissions tend to shuffle based on the current map, particularly in localities where demographic change hasn't been huge and the requirements can be met by moving a ward here and there - they don't tend to shift one ward out and another in to get 100 voters closer to achieving the average electorate everywhere when they are already within the 5% margin of error. Only in localities with major demographic change do they rethink the entire thing.
For that reason, I think the Lib Dem change is particularly unlikely - their seats are very vulnerable if sliced and diced but, in practice, most of their seats are very close to (or above) the quota so won't see that much change (they could of course gain or lose based on swing, but probably not based on boundary changes alone).
They've produced the map by computer which has given way too much weight to arithmetical equality, and none at all to community ties (other than wide council area boundaries), as you say. Zoom in and look at your own area and you'll see seats that don't make much sense and would be very unlikely to be proposed by the BC let alone adopted after consultation; looking at my old patch in NE London, this is definitely the case there.
However for the medium term I can see the BC starting to use such algorithms - one with a heavy weighting for not disrupting existing boundaries would probably be a quick way of producing a set of initial recommendations; a job that is laborious work and normally takes the Commission months.
I am reminded of the route planning software used to plan delivery and collection routes by Royal Mail, a task originally done by hand (indeed one of my first jobs), slowly the use of automated route planning software has helped the task (although some of the early versions could produce some bizarre ideas and needed close monitoring). I believe nowadays the task is almost entirely automated, at least before both management and unions get to do some tweaking.
This is an interesting exercise by Electoral Calculus but I suspect overstates the likely impact, as it starts from an entirely clean slate and draws up seats which may be logical but depart quite a bit from the current electoral map.
In practice, the Boundary Commissions tend to shuffle based on the current map, particularly in localities where demographic change hasn't been huge and the requirements can be met by moving a ward here and there - they don't tend to shift one ward out and another in to get 100 voters closer to achieving the average electorate everywhere when they are already within the 5% margin of error. Only in localities with major demographic change do they rethink the entire thing.
For that reason, I think the Lib Dem change is particularly unlikely - their seats are very vulnerable if sliced and diced but, in practice, most of their seats are very close to (or above) the quota so won't see that much change (they could of course gain or lose based on swing, but probably not based on boundary changes alone).
They've produced the map by computer which has given way too much weight to arithmetical equality, and none at all to community ties (other than wide council area boundaries), as you say. Zoom in and look at your own area and you'll see seats that don't make much sense and would be very unlikely to be proposed by the BC let alone adopted after consultation; looking at my old patch in NE London, this is definitely the case there.
However for the medium term I can see the BC starting to use such algorithms - one with a heavy weighting for not disrupting existing boundaries would probably be a quick way of producing a set of initial recommendations; a job that is laborious work and normally takes the Commission months.
I am reminded of the route planning software used to plan delivery and collection routes by Royal Mail, a task originally done by hand (indeed one of my first jobs), slowly the use of automated route planning software has helped the task (although some of the early versions could produce some bizarre ideas and needed close monitoring). I believe nowadays the task is almost entirely automated, at least before both management and unions get to do some tweaking.
Here's a game for you. Find two places in the same "new" constituency, and plot a driving route between them. Count how many times you would cross a constituency boundary. Your target is to beat my score of 8: Frankwell, Shrewsbury to Spennells, Kidderminster.
Correction: 10 from Dolgellau to Morriston. Holy shit.
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
Sorry I'm ignoring that poll as it is not from Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is relevant for the rustbelt swing states as they proved in 2016, less so for GOP primary polls, though those polls suggest if Trump loses then Mike Pence or Donald Trump Jnr will be the likely opponent for President Biden in 2024 if he seeks re election or for Vice President Harris if he does not, with a small chance of Nikki Haley if Trump-Pence is trounced and the GOP decide to pcik a moderate.
Though of course the Democrats still picked Mondale in 1984 despite Reagan's trouncing of Carter-Mondale in 1980
I'd be interested to know if primary polls four years out are a good predictor of who will get the nomination.
I appreciate the example of Walter Mondale, but strongly suspect that the world will move on fairly fast (and moves on faster than it did forty years ago). Pence will be yesterday's man if Trump loses, and Trump Jnr is ultimately a pale tribute act to his old man.
I'd also dispute the characterisation of Nikki Haley as a moderate. Her style is more conventional than Trump, and she's clearly not an out there, Q-Anon type. But she's got strong conservative credentials that she'd no doubt burnish further for a Presidential primaries tilt. She's no John Kasich!
I'm pretty sure 3 of the four last US presidents would not even have made it onto a similar polling table 4 years before their election win. The only one who might have is GW Bush, who was both Govenor of Texas and the son of the previous president.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
Or both? There is a serious issue in this though - it is pertinent to know who is dying. I suspect the average age will still be around 80 or higher. Does that make it in anyway better - of course not, but it should be part of the conversation.
The only reason I can think of for delving into that sort of detail is to do some kind of QALY-type analysis, so work out the "price" of Covid deaths. I'm not objecting to that per se, but if that is done, it must not be a the end of the analysis. Covid bestows harm on people short of killing them, and adding that into the equation would be necessary before any conclusion is drawn about which interventions are desirable and which are not.
QALYs should account for that - if there is long term harm then a 20 year old surviving COVID might lose more QALYs (say 0.1 per year of life) than an elderly person dying.
The problem* in these analyses, which absolutely should be done, is that most economic evaluations are narrowly focused on health care (i.e. NHS) costs as that's what NICE wants. Under those conditions, elderly COVID deaths might have a negative healthcare cost if they eliminate years of care for chronic conditions, while also obviously having a dis-benefit of reduced QALYs. But take into account the societal cost and any measures to constain COVID become far more cost effective - the costs in the economy of COVID and NPIs will dwarf direct healthcare costs.
(For those who don't know, typical economic evaluation of a policy/treatment will put it in one of four categories: reduced cost + increased benefit -> choose this; increased cost + reduced benefit -> don't choose this; increased cost + increased benefit OR decreased cost and decreased benefit -> depends on value put on benefit gained/lost. COVID treatment/prevention from a purely healthcare cost perspective is likely in increased cost + increased benefit category, but from a whole society perspective is very likely in decreased cost + increased benefit caegory)
*The other problem is measuring any of this at this point - e.g. the long term QALY loss for survivors when neither the longevity nor severity of long term effects is really known at this point.
It still strikes me as unbelievable that the most powerful nation in the world is unable to properly organise an election. I understand it's not easy in a pandemic, but setting aside a couple of billion for postal voting services should surely not be very difficult. The whole system just seems so archaic and unreliable.
The problems are more by design than by accident IMO. A large amount of the Republican party doesn't want an election where all eligible voters can easily vote.
The Trump-appointed head of the USPS removed some sorting machines. This would have (or has had) the effect of slowing delivery of votes. The Supreme Court ordered their reinstatement. A lower court has also ordered that the USPS pre-approves overtime where needed. Whether the USPS complies in time...
That's pretty shocking. In the UK if an election loomed and an office was likely to fail - for example one of the LSMs conks out on the eve of poll, I am pretty sure they'd get a few posties to rifle through the waiting mail and fish out the postal votes, which are in easy to spot envelopes.
Or both? There is a serious issue in this though - it is pertinent to know who is dying. I suspect the average age will still be around 80 or higher. Does that make it in anyway better - of course not, but it should be part of the conversation.
The only reason I can think of for delving into that sort of detail is to do some kind of QALY-type analysis, so work out the "price" of Covid deaths. I'm not objecting to that per se, but if that is done, it must not be a the end of the analysis. Covid bestows harm on people short of killing them, and adding that into the equation would be necessary before any conclusion is drawn about which interventions are desirable and which are not.
QALYs should account for that - if there is long term harm then a 20 year old surviving COVID might lose more QALYs (say 0.1 per year of life) than an elderly person dying.
The problem* in these analyses, which absolutely should be done, is that most economic evaluations are narrowly focused on health care (i.e. NHS) costs as that's what NICE wants. Under those conditions, elderly COVID deaths might have a negative healthcare cost if they eliminate years of care for chronic conditions, while also obviously having a dis-benefit of reduced QALYs. But take into account the societal cost and any measures to constain COVID become far more cost effective - the costs in the economy of COVID and NPIs will dwarf direct healthcare costs.
(For those who don't know, typical economic evaluation of a policy/treatment will put it in one of four categories: reduced cost + increased benefit -> choose this; increased cost + reduced benefit -> don't choose this; increased cost + increased benefit OR decreased cost and decreased benefit -> depends on value put on benefit gained/lost. COVID treatment/prevention from a purely healthcare cost perspective is likely in increased cost + increased benefit category, but from a whole society perspective is very likely in decreased cost + increased benefit caegory)
*The other problem is measuring any of this at this point - e.g. the long term QALY loss for survivors when neither the longevity nor severity of long term effects is really known at this point.
Maybe I am not understanding this. The decision of the Court is that votes that are date stamped the date of the election (3rd) but don't actually arrive until after the election should not be counted?
That is surely the same decision as we would make in this country. Votes that are in the post but do not arrive until after polling day don't count because they arrive too late. Of course in this country the counting would be finished before the postie was out on his rounds.
Don't get me wrong, it is obvious that the willingness of the SC to interfere in trivial matters like this is a menace to what is laughingly called American democracy, not a bulwark of it. The inconsistency of their decisions make them look partisan and selective. The constitutional base for this involvement is highly suspect. But I am wondering if I have missed something about this particular decision that makes it so egregious.
Thanks for that, David. It's my opinion too and I was wondering if I was odd for so thinking.
If you want to vote, get the ballot in the post in plenty of time or get your arse down to the polling station. Relying on a postmark seems fraught with danger and difficulty. Why take the chance?
Yes, if it gets to the day and you haven't got around to it you should stand in line and drop it in the ballot box. I take @Alistair's point that this is not the way that the rules have been up to now but that has simply contributed to the farce where votes are still wandering in a week or two after election day, often from foreign service personnel. It's ridiculous but so much of the American system is.
In Pennsylvania it is not allowed to deliver mail in ballots by hand. Although it appears that, unlike in the UK, receipt of a mail-in ballot doesn't prevent you from voting in person.
But i think a lot of the underlying concern relates to some of the rationale behind the decisions. And what it potentially means for a post election Supreme Court fight.
eg. there are apparently 18 states which take the "count based on post mark date". Could any and all of them potentially be challengeable if one party suddenly realises it could make a difference?
As I said I agree with @Alistair that the role the SC play in these decisions seems inconsistent, irrational, to have no clear basis in law and to be partisan to boot. The threat of the Court getting involved in determining the result of this election Bush-v-Gore style is real.
I can't help reflecting that those who profess such a love of the rule of law overriding democratic decisions really should reflect on this a bit more. This is where giving excessive powers to courts to overrule democratic decisions leads. Its not a path we want to go down.
Bit of a straw man argument, that. Who is arguing for giving our courts powers beyond those they currently exercise ? The pressure for change seems to be very much in the other direction from our current administration.
Just look at the fuss over the Internal Markets Bill because it might result in a Minister breaking an international agreement in the future, the hysteria about trying to limit judicial review, the decision of the Supreme Court in the prorogation of Parliament case. Many people argue on these threads and elsewhere that our political class needs to be constrained by the law, ruled by the law and restricted by the law in what they can do. The sovereignty of Parliament is just a bit too wild for them, a democratic dictatorship.
My concern is that when Justices make decisions about political matters they undermine democratic legitimacy to the system and we should be careful what we wish for. For hundreds of years Courts took the view that into these areas they should not tread but that is no longer the view. The actions of the American Supreme Court are a good example of the hazards of that.
No, what you’re arguing for is that government not be bound by law at all.
The problem is that binding the government by the constitution means that controlling the constitution becomes government.
So in the US, they are, in effect, electing the Supreme Court.
I would argue that a flexible constitutional settlement, regularly updated is what is required. Which would reduce the amount of "interpretational law" that the Supreme Court is required to do.
Which is what the US used to have - Lincoln didn't find some judges who would rule that due to an interpretation of the constitution re interstate commerce bounced at an angle off the right to privacy, that slavery had never existed.
He got the 13th Amendment passed.
As James Anthony Froude observed - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
I'm pretty sure liberals would agree with you on the latter point. Conservative originalists not so much. "What the US used to have" certainly hasn't been true since the SC gutted the 14th amendment back in 1873. Much of today's complicated and contested reasoning could be argued to flow directly from the consequences of that.
The point of updating the constitution is that it brings in the originalists (the real ones, not the shills using it as a smoke screen for their own partisan rulings) -
We need to change the law. The law now says.... And the originalists can now go to work on your re-written law.
The point of changing the constitution is that in the current political environment it's virtually impossible. Just look at the ERA.
Oh dear, it is unravelling for the Civil servants and SNP top brass involved in the failed attempt to have Alex Salmond jailed through lies and cheating or "unintended inaccuracy " as they term it.
Civil servant confirms receiving Permanent Secretary text after Alex Salmond won judicial review
A senior civil servant has confirmed she did receive a text message from Permanent Secretary Lesley Evans on the day Alex Salmond won the judicial review of the handling of complaints against him, despite previously denying knowledge of the message.
Barbara Allison, former head of HR at the Scottish Government, has written to the Holyrood committee looking into the botched process for handling the harassment complaints to “correct the unintended inaccuracy” in her previous statement.
The text message was from Permanent Secretary Lesley Evans on the day the probe was found to be unlawful by the Court of Session.
It read: “Thanks Barbara – battle maybe lost but not the war. Hope you are having lovely & well deserved break. L”.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
At some point during Election Day, usually dependent on the availability of volunteers, the committee room organiser will send people out to ‘Knock-Up’ your supporters who have not yet voted. It is usual practice to leave this until at least lunchtime as most people who don’t vote early tend to vote after work. If you know your area as you should you will know who is likely to be in and who is not. The simplest method of doing this is to equip the volunteers with a version of the Out Card which has a message on it reminding voters that this is Polling Day. These can be popped through letterboxes and can remind anyone who goes straight home after work that they really should visit the polling station. Just because it is your most important day does not mean it is theirs and some people do genuinely forget.
Don’t expect people to drop everything and run to the polls. Even in households where one partner is at home all day, a significant number will wait until the other partner returns from work before voting, which they most likely will do together. If someone tells you they will vote at 6 pm make a note that getas passed on each time that road is knocked-up and do NOT visit that person again until after 6pm.
UK elections usually occur on Thursdays, which for most of is a working day. In most areas there is a rush to the polls in the early morning and early evening so the evening knock-ups are vital. If you are short of volunteers and they can only help for a part of the day ask them if they help in the evening.
Keep your Knock-Up sheets as up to date as possible so that you send your knockers-up to the area with the largest number of supporters who have not yet voted but at the same time try to ensure that every area is visited during the course of the day. .
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but look at this:
- The Republicans have just won a Supreme Court case preventing mail ballots received after election day in Wisconsin from being considered valid. - In a similar case, Republicans are trying to get a Supreme Court ruling that would block a Pennsylvania ballot receipt extension that would allow ballots to be counted if they are received within three days of Election Day, even without a legible postmark. - Republicans in North Carolina are asking the Supreme Court to block a nine-day extension of the counting of ballots if they are received by Election Day and reinstate a three-day extension established by the legislature last June.
At the moment, Joe Biden has a massive early- and mail-voting advantage. His supporters are returning ballots faster and in larger quantities than Trump's. But lots of Trump supporters have requested mail ballots, which they haven't yet returned (see figures on the excellent https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html). So you'd expect late mail-in ballots to be more likely to favour Trump than Biden.
Are these Republican lawsuits not aimed at their own feet?
I don't know. It could be to create a situation where the law is that late mail ballots have to be rejected. They are. Someone gets hold of them and counts more late Republican votes. The hue and cry is raised that the election is being stolen from Republicans. The Stage legislature declares that all the confusion makes a fair count of the ballots impossible - so they must step in to select the electors for this state. The Supreme Court rules that they can't change the rules established by the State legislature. Trump is President.
Maximising confusion, even if it results in fewer votes being counted for your side, can benefit the Republicans.
Maybe I am not understanding this. The decision of the Court is that votes that are date stamped the date of the election (3rd) but don't actually arrive until after the election should not be counted?
That is surely the same decision as we would make in this country. Votes that are in the post but do not arrive until after polling day don't count because they arrive too late. Of course in this country the counting would be finished before the postie was out on his rounds.
Don't get me wrong, it is obvious that the willingness of the SC to interfere in trivial matters like this is a menace to what is laughingly called American democracy, not a bulwark of it. The inconsistency of their decisions make them look partisan and selective. The constitutional base for this involvement is highly suspect. But I am wondering if I have missed something about this particular decision that makes it so egregious.
Thanks for that, David. It's my opinion too and I was wondering if I was odd for so thinking.
If you want to vote, get the ballot in the post in plenty of time or get your arse down to the polling station. Relying on a postmark seems fraught with danger and difficulty. Why take the chance?
Yes, if it gets to the day and you haven't got around to it you should stand in line and drop it in the ballot box. I take @Alistair's point that this is not the way that the rules have been up to now but that has simply contributed to the farce where votes are still wandering in a week or two after election day, often from foreign service personnel. It's ridiculous but so much of the American system is.
In Pennsylvania it is not allowed to deliver mail in ballots by hand. Although it appears that, unlike in the UK, receipt of a mail-in ballot doesn't prevent you from voting in person.
But i think a lot of the underlying concern relates to some of the rationale behind the decisions. And what it potentially means for a post election Supreme Court fight.
eg. there are apparently 18 states which take the "count based on post mark date". Could any and all of them potentially be challengeable if one party suddenly realises it could make a difference?
As I said I agree with @Alistair that the role the SC play in these decisions seems inconsistent, irrational, to have no clear basis in law and to be partisan to boot. The threat of the Court getting involved in determining the result of this election Bush-v-Gore style is real.
I can't help reflecting that those who profess such a love of the rule of law overriding democratic decisions really should reflect on this a bit more. This is where giving excessive powers to courts to overrule democratic decisions leads. Its not a path we want to go down.
Bit of a straw man argument, that. Who is arguing for giving our courts powers beyond those they currently exercise ? The pressure for change seems to be very much in the other direction from our current administration.
Just look at the fuss over the Internal Markets Bill because it might result in a Minister breaking an international agreement in the future, the hysteria about trying to limit judicial review, the decision of the Supreme Court in the prorogation of Parliament case. Many people argue on these threads and elsewhere that our political class needs to be constrained by the law, ruled by the law and restricted by the law in what they can do. The sovereignty of Parliament is just a bit too wild for them, a democratic dictatorship.
My concern is that when Justices make decisions about political matters they undermine democratic legitimacy to the system and we should be careful what we wish for. For hundreds of years Courts took the view that into these areas they should not tread but that is no longer the view. The actions of the American Supreme Court are a good example of the hazards of that.
No, what you’re arguing for is that government not be bound by law at all.
The problem is that binding the government by the constitution means that controlling the constitution becomes government.
So in the US, they are, in effect, electing the Supreme Court.
I would argue that a flexible constitutional settlement, regularly updated is what is required. Which would reduce the amount of "interpretational law" that the Supreme Court is required to do.
Which is what the US used to have - Lincoln didn't find some judges who would rule that due to an interpretation of the constitution re interstate commerce bounced at an angle off the right to privacy, that slavery had never existed.
He got the 13th Amendment passed.
As James Anthony Froude observed - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
I'm pretty sure liberals would agree with you on the latter point. Conservative originalists not so much. "What the US used to have" certainly hasn't been true since the SC gutted the 14th amendment back in 1873. Much of today's complicated and contested reasoning could be argued to flow directly from the consequences of that.
The point of updating the constitution is that it brings in the originalists (the real ones, not the shills using it as a smoke screen for their own partisan rulings) -
We need to change the law. The law now says.... And the originalists can now go to work on your re-written law.
The point of changing the constitution is that in the current political environment it's virtually impossible. Just look at the ERA.
What does an innefective baseball pitching statistic have to do with the US Constitution?
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
Sorry I'm ignoring that poll as it is not from Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is relevant for the rustbelt swing states as they proved in 2016, less so for GOP primary polls, though those polls suggest if Trump loses then Mike Pence or Donald Trump Jnr will be the likely opponent for President Biden in 2024 if he seeks re election or for Vice President Harris if he does not, with a small chance of Nikki Haley if Trump-Pence is trounced and the GOP decide to pcik a moderate.
Though of course the Democrats still picked Mondale in 1984 despite Reagan's trouncing of Carter-Mondale in 1980
I'd be interested to know if primary polls four years out are a good predictor of who will get the nomination.
I appreciate the example of Walter Mondale, but strongly suspect that the world will move on fairly fast (and moves on faster than it did forty years ago). Pence will be yesterday's man if Trump loses, and Trump Jnr is ultimately a pale tribute act to his old man.
I'd also dispute the characterisation of Nikki Haley as a moderate. Her style is more conventional than Trump, and she's clearly not an out there, Q-Anon type. But she's got strong conservative credentials that she'd no doubt burnish further for a Presidential primaries tilt. She's no John Kasich!
I'm pretty sure 3 of the four last US presidents would not even have made it onto a similar polling table 4 years before their election win. The only one who might have is GW Bush, who was both Govenor of Texas and the son of the previous president.
The irony is that this guy is a Labour Councillor so by the standards of Cambridge college porters he is probably a raving Leftie. I'm not sure the word "servant" is really appropriate here, but if the Spectator wants to go full on Class War then who am I to stand in its way.
IF they are the kind of student politicians I am thinking of, they probably think that Corbyn was hard right....
I think they are tapping into the irony of the right-on types "punching down".
I can't stand hard left student politicians. It's weird that the Tories want them in the House of Lords. Cambridge college porters are a funny lot, or at least they were 25 years ago. Definitely a kind or racist uncle vibe with a few of them. They tended to be obsequious with the posh students too, which was a bit revolting to behold. Still, they had to put up with a lot of shit from drunk over-privileged twats so fair play to them. On the question at hand, as long as they can demonstrate they will treat all students equally and follow college rules on safeguarding their opinions should be their own business.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
At some point during Election Day, usually dependent on the availability of volunteers, the committee room organiser will send people out to ‘Knock-Up’ your supporters who have not yet voted. It is usual practice to leave this until at least lunchtime as most people who don’t vote early tend to vote after work. If you know your area as you should you will know who is likely to be in and who is not. The simplest method of doing this is to equip the volunteers with a version of the Out Card which has a message on it reminding voters that this is Polling Day. These can be popped through letterboxes and can remind anyone who goes straight home after work that they really should visit the polling station. Just because it is your most important day does not mean it is theirs and some people do genuinely forget.
Don’t expect people to drop everything and run to the polls. Even in households where one partner is at home all day, a significant number will wait until the other partner returns from work before voting, which they most likely will do together. If someone tells you they will vote at 6 pm make a note that getas passed on each time that road is knocked-up and do NOT visit that person again until after 6pm.
UK elections usually occur on Thursdays, which for most of is a working day. In most areas there is a rush to the polls in the early morning and early evening so the evening knock-ups are vital. If you are short of volunteers and they can only help for a part of the day ask them if they help in the evening.
Keep your Knock-Up sheets as up to date as possible so that you send your knockers-up to the area with the largest number of supporters who have not yet voted but at the same time try to ensure that every area is visited during the course of the day. .
Times: Coronavirus survivors may be at risk of lasting cognitive damage, according to a study that found that in the worst cases the infection can cause mental decline equivalent to an 8.5-point fall in IQ or the brain ageing ten years.
The “brain fog” reported by many people weeks and months after their recovering from the virus may be a symptom of more serious cognitive deficits, scientists have said.
Research involving 84,285 people who had recovered from confirmed or suspected Covid-19 found that damage to the brain had happened to varying extents, depending upon the severity of the infection. However, more work is needed to identify how long this lasts.
“This is a large enough difference that as an individual you would notice an impact on the ability to cope with your normal job and everyday life,” Dr Hampshire said. “The results align with the ‘brain fog’ reported by many people who, even months after recovery, say they are unable to concentrate on work or focus how they did before.”
The team, from Imperial College, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago and King’s College London, also found that compared to people who had not had the virus survivors scored poorly on tests for logic and the meaning of words, spatial orientation, maintaining attention and processing their emotions.
God's sake, that's horrific. I wonder if this is connected to the fall in oxygen in the blood that @Foxy has mentioned as a symptom.
"Brain fog" was a very common reported symptom of post-viral syndrome well before Covid, so this isn't really a great surprise. Though the numbers and duration of reported cases are. No one has a very clear idea of what might cause it (and there's quite likely no single cause) - hence 'syndrome'. One positive aspect of this is that doctors will take it seriously, which many hadn't previously, and the research into causes and treatment will be greatly accelerated.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
I reckon if you ran a the same poll for GOP nomination in 2028 you would get pretty much the same result. Pence is leading because he's the one in the news all the time, while on the campaign trail and can be imagined being the president. It is nothing more than name recognition, and bears no relationship to what is likely to happen over the next 4 or 8 years.
Of course it does, if Trump is re elected Pence as VP will almost certainly be nominee as Nixon was in 1960 and Bush Snr was in 1988 (and Ford of course was Nixon's VP before he became President and was nominee in 1976).
If Trump is not re elected then it will be more open but only one President has lost his re election fight after only 1 term of his party in the White House, Carter in 1980 and in 1984 his VP Mondale was the Democratic nominee to take on President Reagan
I once requested a postal ballot, it never arrived. It's the only election I haven't voted in.
The last time I requested a postal ballot was when I was working in Norway. I flew out on the Sunday before the election. My ballot arrived at my home on the Monday.
At some point during Election Day, usually dependent on the availability of volunteers, the committee room organiser will send people out to ‘Knock-Up’ your supporters who have not yet voted. It is usual practice to leave this until at least lunchtime as most people who don’t vote early tend to vote after work. If you know your area as you should you will know who is likely to be in and who is not. The simplest method of doing this is to equip the volunteers with a version of the Out Card which has a message on it reminding voters that this is Polling Day. These can be popped through letterboxes and can remind anyone who goes straight home after work that they really should visit the polling station. Just because it is your most important day does not mean it is theirs and some people do genuinely forget.
Don’t expect people to drop everything and run to the polls. Even in households where one partner is at home all day, a significant number will wait until the other partner returns from work before voting, which they most likely will do together. If someone tells you they will vote at 6 pm make a note that getas passed on each time that road is knocked-up and do NOT visit that person again until after 6pm.
UK elections usually occur on Thursdays, which for most of is a working day. In most areas there is a rush to the polls in the early morning and early evening so the evening knock-ups are vital. If you are short of volunteers and they can only help for a part of the day ask them if they help in the evening.
Keep your Knock-Up sheets as up to date as possible so that you send your knockers-up to the area with the largest number of supporters who have not yet voted but at the same time try to ensure that every area is visited during the course of the day. .
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
Sorry I'm ignoring that poll as it is not from Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is relevant for the rustbelt swing states as they proved in 2016, less so for GOP primary polls, though those polls suggest if Trump loses then Mike Pence or Donald Trump Jnr will be the likely opponent for President Biden in 2024 if he seeks re election or for Vice President Harris if he does not, with a small chance of Nikki Haley if Trump-Pence is trounced and the GOP decide to pcik a moderate.
Though of course the Democrats still picked Mondale in 1984 despite Reagan's trouncing of Carter-Mondale in 1980
I'd be interested to know if primary polls four years out are a good predictor of who will get the nomination.
I appreciate the example of Walter Mondale, but strongly suspect that the world will move on fairly fast (and moves on faster than it did forty years ago). Pence will be yesterday's man if Trump loses, and Trump Jnr is ultimately a pale tribute act to his old man.
I'd also dispute the characterisation of Nikki Haley as a moderate. Her style is more conventional than Trump, and she's clearly not an out there, Q-Anon type. But she's got strong conservative credentials that she'd no doubt burnish further for a Presidential primaries tilt. She's no John Kasich!
The GOP base who select the nominee will only move to a moderate if Trump is trounced, as Labour's membership only picked Starmer after Corbyn was trounced last year, Starmer is no Blairite just as Haley is no ultra centrist but they are both as moderate as their respective party bases will allow to lead them for the foreseeable future.
John Kasich endorsed Biden this year, zero chance the GOP base will pick him in 2024
It is partly explained by the Welsh seats being (i) all very small and (ii) mostly become smaller because of demographics.
They were meant to have been re-distributed after devolution (as the Scottish ones were) -- but unaccountably they were not (I wonder why )
Still, the Welsh Labour party is keen to increase the size of the Senedd to 90 AMs (up from 60).
I expect there will be Welsh Westminster by-elections shortly -- as Labour MPs who find their Westminster constituency is vanishing jump to the greener pastures of the expanding Senedd.
The irony is that this guy is a Labour Councillor so by the standards of Cambridge college porters he is probably a raving Leftie. I'm not sure the word "servant" is really appropriate here, but if the Spectator wants to go full on Class War then who am I to stand in its way.
Why is it ironic? I know a lot of women who are left wing politically, who are quite uncomfortable around issues stemming from men who transition to women.. It isn't just JK Rowling.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
Technically that isn't County Durham as Darlington is not in County Durham. I also suspect that the Darlington constituency will remain roughly as it is as the size of the council equals the size of a single constituency so it's a simple starting point for the surrounding areas.
Court packing won't happen this time because a) Dems won't get 50 senators in support b)` Biden still believes in the false dream of bipartisanship.
But I think it will happen at some point because the Supreme Court are only going to get more involved in politics.
Wouldn't the Supreme Court majority find a reason to declare the packing bill unconstitutional anyway? Something something separation of powers, along with some newspaper clippings about how it's all about Biden/Congress taking control of the Supreme Court.
Welcome. I think the constitution states that congress can set the composition and size of the court.
Thanks!
As far I could see it only explicitly gives that power to Congress for lower courts: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
Which I guess leaves it up to convention and case law, and hence interpretation by the Supreme Court itself.
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
Oh dear, it is unravelling for the Civil servants and SNP top brass involved in the failed attempt to have Alex Salmond jailed through lies and cheating or "unintended inaccuracy " as they term it.
Civil servant confirms receiving Permanent Secretary text after Alex Salmond won judicial review
A senior civil servant has confirmed she did receive a text message from Permanent Secretary Lesley Evans on the day Alex Salmond won the judicial review of the handling of complaints against him, despite previously denying knowledge of the message.
Barbara Allison, former head of HR at the Scottish Government, has written to the Holyrood committee looking into the botched process for handling the harassment complaints to “correct the unintended inaccuracy” in her previous statement.
The text message was from Permanent Secretary Lesley Evans on the day the probe was found to be unlawful by the Court of Session.
It read: “Thanks Barbara – battle maybe lost but not the war. Hope you are having lovely & well deserved break. L”.
Why do the SNP top brass have it in for Alex Salmond?
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
Technically that isn't County Durham as Darlington is not in County Durham. I also suspect that the Darlington constituency will remain roughly as it is as the size of the council equals the size of a single constituency so it's a simple starting point for the surrounding areas.
Darlington is in County Durham, it just isn't under Durham County Council!
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
Sorry I'm ignoring that poll as it is not from Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is relevant for the rustbelt swing states as they proved in 2016, less so for GOP primary polls, though those polls suggest if Trump loses then Mike Pence or Donald Trump Jnr will be the likely opponent for President Biden in 2024 if he seeks re election or for Vice President Harris if he does not, with a small chance of Nikki Haley if Trump-Pence is trounced and the GOP decide to pcik a moderate.
Though of course the Democrats still picked Mondale in 1984 despite Reagan's trouncing of Carter-Mondale in 1980
I'd be interested to know if primary polls four years out are a good predictor of who will get the nomination.
I appreciate the example of Walter Mondale, but strongly suspect that the world will move on fairly fast (and moves on faster than it did forty years ago). Pence will be yesterday's man if Trump loses, and Trump Jnr is ultimately a pale tribute act to his old man.
I'd also dispute the characterisation of Nikki Haley as a moderate. Her style is more conventional than Trump, and she's clearly not an out there, Q-Anon type. But she's got strong conservative credentials that she'd no doubt burnish further for a Presidential primaries tilt. She's no John Kasich!
I'm pretty sure 3 of the four last US presidents would not even have made it onto a similar polling table 4 years before their election win. The only one who might have is GW Bush, who was both Govenor of Texas and the son of the previous president.
Obama and Bush and Trump were not challenging a sitting President, so obviously a different scenario to 2024 if Trump loses in terms of the GOP nominee to take on President Biden in 2024, of candidates who took on an incumbent President in recent decades, Biden, Romney, Kerry, Dole, Mondale etc all were established party figures with the exception of Bill Clinton and he was running after 12 years of the GOP in power not only 4 years of the Democrats in power as would be the case in 2024.
If Trump wins then normally the Vice President of the re elected President is the nominee if they want it, Gore, Bush Snr, Humphrey, Nixon etc, the only exceptions recently McCain in 2008 and Hillary in 2016 who were also both well established party figures anyway
Times: Coronavirus survivors may be at risk of lasting cognitive damage, according to a study that found that in the worst cases the infection can cause mental decline equivalent to an 8.5-point fall in IQ or the brain ageing ten years.
The “brain fog” reported by many people weeks and months after their recovering from the virus may be a symptom of more serious cognitive deficits, scientists have said.
Research involving 84,285 people who had recovered from confirmed or suspected Covid-19 found that damage to the brain had happened to varying extents, depending upon the severity of the infection. However, more work is needed to identify how long this lasts.
“This is a large enough difference that as an individual you would notice an impact on the ability to cope with your normal job and everyday life,” Dr Hampshire said. “The results align with the ‘brain fog’ reported by many people who, even months after recovery, say they are unable to concentrate on work or focus how they did before.”
The team, from Imperial College, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago and King’s College London, also found that compared to people who had not had the virus survivors scored poorly on tests for logic and the meaning of words, spatial orientation, maintaining attention and processing their emotions.
God, these false positives can be dangerous at times.
Surely something something something Sweden? Or something about how taking it seriously means a lack of character?
I confess, I'm not fully up to date with Toby and his Disciples, so I'm not sure of the latest message.
It still strikes me as unbelievable that the most powerful nation in the world is unable to properly organise an election. I understand it's not easy in a pandemic, but setting aside a couple of billion for postal voting services should surely not be very difficult. The whole system just seems so archaic and unreliable.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
Technically that isn't County Durham as Darlington is not in County Durham. I also suspect that the Darlington constituency will remain roughly as it is as the size of the council equals the size of a single constituency so it's a simple starting point for the surrounding areas.
You've put your finger on one of the flaws of creating a proposal manually. The way the Commission usually works is to first divide the country up into regions (Greater London being an obvious example, Kent another) and then to start somewhere and map new seats across the patch. They might iterate a few times if they run into problems, but quite often you can see where within an area they "started" and where they "finished", with the latter often creating one or two arbitrary seats made up of the wards left over.
One advantage of a computerised model is that it could run zillions of permutations and then use some area-wide criteria to choose the most optimal.
Times: Coronavirus survivors may be at risk of lasting cognitive damage, according to a study that found that in the worst cases the infection can cause mental decline equivalent to an 8.5-point fall in IQ or the brain ageing ten years.
The “brain fog” reported by many people weeks and months after their recovering from the virus may be a symptom of more serious cognitive deficits, scientists have said.
Research involving 84,285 people who had recovered from confirmed or suspected Covid-19 found that damage to the brain had happened to varying extents, depending upon the severity of the infection. However, more work is needed to identify how long this lasts.
“This is a large enough difference that as an individual you would notice an impact on the ability to cope with your normal job and everyday life,” Dr Hampshire said. “The results align with the ‘brain fog’ reported by many people who, even months after recovery, say they are unable to concentrate on work or focus how they did before.”
The team, from Imperial College, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago and King’s College London, also found that compared to people who had not had the virus survivors scored poorly on tests for logic and the meaning of words, spatial orientation, maintaining attention and processing their emotions.
God, these false positives can be dangerous at times.
Surely something something something Sweden? Or something about how taking it seriously means a lack of character?
I confess, I'm not fully up to date with Toby and his Disciples, so I'm not sure of the latest message.
I think soon no one will admit they backed herd immunity.
Anti-Semitism is also seen as a serious problem by 62 per cent of Britons. Noticeably, attitudes towards anti-Semitism are most mixed among Progressive Activists. They are in line with the population average in saying that anti-Semitism is a serious problem, but are also the most likely segment to say that anti-Semitism is not a serious problem in the UK (with 32 per cent holding this view compared to 26 per cent of the wider population).
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
The British media and science....its like the British and learning foreign languages....if you just shout some English words with what is a stereotypical word ending for that langauge, that should be good enough.
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
I'm still amused/bemused that by early April PB was aware of the weekend effect in case numbers and deaths but to this day there are still journos who aren't aware of it.
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
Sorry I'm ignoring that poll as it is not from Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is relevant for the rustbelt swing states as they proved in 2016, less so for GOP primary polls, though those polls suggest if Trump loses then Mike Pence or Donald Trump Jnr will be the likely opponent for President Biden in 2024 if he seeks re election or for Vice President Harris if he does not, with a small chance of Nikki Haley if Trump-Pence is trounced and the GOP decide to pcik a moderate.
Though of course the Democrats still picked Mondale in 1984 despite Reagan's trouncing of Carter-Mondale in 1980
I can see it being Pence vs Harris in 2024 and Pence may have a good chance in that scenario as without the backdrop of the pandemic Harris may well annoy voters across the spectrum like Clinton did.
On the other hand it will be interesting to see what the left does and the combative Nina Turner may well have a shot.
Times: Coronavirus survivors may be at risk of lasting cognitive damage, according to a study that found that in the worst cases the infection can cause mental decline equivalent to an 8.5-point fall in IQ or the brain ageing ten years.
The “brain fog” reported by many people weeks and months after their recovering from the virus may be a symptom of more serious cognitive deficits, scientists have said.
Research involving 84,285 people who had recovered from confirmed or suspected Covid-19 found that damage to the brain had happened to varying extents, depending upon the severity of the infection. However, more work is needed to identify how long this lasts.
“This is a large enough difference that as an individual you would notice an impact on the ability to cope with your normal job and everyday life,” Dr Hampshire said. “The results align with the ‘brain fog’ reported by many people who, even months after recovery, say they are unable to concentrate on work or focus how they did before.”
The team, from Imperial College, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago and King’s College London, also found that compared to people who had not had the virus survivors scored poorly on tests for logic and the meaning of words, spatial orientation, maintaining attention and processing their emotions.
God, these false positives can be dangerous at times.
Surely something something something Sweden? Or something about how taking it seriously means a lack of character?
I confess, I'm not fully up to date with Toby and his Disciples, so I'm not sure of the latest message.
Maybe they're being entirely rational - after all, if they got it, how could you tell?
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
Technically that isn't County Durham as Darlington is not in County Durham. I also suspect that the Darlington constituency will remain roughly as it is as the size of the council equals the size of a single constituency so it's a simple starting point for the surrounding areas.
Darlington is in County Durham, it just isn't under Durham County Council!
Anyway this is how their algorithm has done it.
Looking at that picture they've done it on postcode areas and populations then - which isn't valid as postcode regions don't reflect council areas..
So it's an insane approach which doesn't reflect reality and creates strange random outlines that reflect nothing more than postman walking routes and sorting offices between 1959 and 74.
That Darlington constituency would contain areas that are part of Darlington council, areas that are part of Durham County Council and places in Stockton.
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
Sorry I'm ignoring that poll as it is not from Trafalgar.
Trafalgar is relevant for the rustbelt swing states as they proved in 2016, less so for GOP primary polls, though those polls suggest if Trump loses then Mike Pence or Donald Trump Jnr will be the likely opponent for President Biden in 2024 if he seeks re election or for Vice President Harris if he does not, with a small chance of Nikki Haley if Trump-Pence is trounced and the GOP decide to pcik a moderate.
Though of course the Democrats still picked Mondale in 1984 despite Reagan's trouncing of Carter-Mondale in 1980
I can see it being Pence vs Harris in 2024 and Pence may have a good chance in that scenario as without the backdrop of the pandemic Harris may well annoy voters across the spectrum like Clinton did.
On the other hand it will be interesting to see what the left does and the combative Nina Turner may well have a shot.
Biden if he wins I could see being re elected if he decides to run again even if near senile, a sort of Democratic Reagan, however Harris would be much easier to beat for the GOP and the GOP would have an even better chance if the Democrats had their own Corbyn moment if Biden decides not to run for re election and pick a far left candidate like Turner or AOC, in that case Pence would even look the sensible and moderate candidate relative to them
New Zealand is the world's most overrated country. Great landscapes (although many other countries also have great landscapes) – but deathly boring and nothing to do, nothing good to eat and nowhere nice to drink in large portions of it – including many of the 'big' towns.
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
I reckon if you ran a the same poll for GOP nomination in 2028 you would get pretty much the same result. Pence is leading because he's the one in the news all the time, while on the campaign trail and can be imagined being the president. It is nothing more than name recognition, and bears no relationship to what is likely to happen over the next 4 or 8 years.
Irrespective of the Pence numbers, it's quite incredible that anyone would consider the Trump spawn qualified for dogcatcher, let alone President.
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
I'm still amused/bemused that by early April PB was aware of the weekend effect in case numbers and deaths but to this day there are still journos who aren't aware of it.
No, the ultimate revelation was that the media were unaware that the ONS have tracked loads of data around deaths since the dark ages & is all available....not just the past 5 years.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
Technically that isn't County Durham as Darlington is not in County Durham. I also suspect that the Darlington constituency will remain roughly as it is as the size of the council equals the size of a single constituency so it's a simple starting point for the surrounding areas.
You've put your finger on one of the flaws of creating a proposal manually. The way the Commission usually works is to first divide the country up into regions (Greater London being an obvious example, Kent another) and then to start somewhere and map new seats across the patch. They might iterate a few times if they run into problems, but quite often you can see where within an area they "started" and where they "finished", with the latter often creating one or two arbitrary seats made up of the wards left over.
One advantage of a computerised model is that it could run zillions of permutations and then use some area-wide criteria to choose the most optimal.
For example, if a computer could weight the following:
- proposals that retain as many existing boundaries as possible (or are in some more sophisticated metric the most similar to current state) - preference for following council boundaries at all levels down to town/parish, and for not dividing town or parish council areas - something on sensible shaping - internal communication links, so that the main roads and railways connect parts of a seat and preferably don't run via neighbouring seats; making sure there aren't separated bits of a seat like my Hayling Island example
Then you'd probably be pretty close to reflecting human-assessed "community ties"
Times: Coronavirus survivors may be at risk of lasting cognitive damage, according to a study that found that in the worst cases the infection can cause mental decline equivalent to an 8.5-point fall in IQ or the brain ageing ten years.
The “brain fog” reported by many people weeks and months after their recovering from the virus may be a symptom of more serious cognitive deficits, scientists have said.
Research involving 84,285 people who had recovered from confirmed or suspected Covid-19 found that damage to the brain had happened to varying extents, depending upon the severity of the infection. However, more work is needed to identify how long this lasts.
“This is a large enough difference that as an individual you would notice an impact on the ability to cope with your normal job and everyday life,” Dr Hampshire said. “The results align with the ‘brain fog’ reported by many people who, even months after recovery, say they are unable to concentrate on work or focus how they did before.”
The team, from Imperial College, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago and King’s College London, also found that compared to people who had not had the virus survivors scored poorly on tests for logic and the meaning of words, spatial orientation, maintaining attention and processing their emotions.
God, these false positives can be dangerous at times.
Surely something something something Sweden? Or something about how taking it seriously means a lack of character?
I confess, I'm not fully up to date with Toby and his Disciples, so I'm not sure of the latest message.
I think soon no one will admit they backed herd immunity.
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
I reckon if you ran a the same poll for GOP nomination in 2028 you would get pretty much the same result. Pence is leading because he's the one in the news all the time, while on the campaign trail and can be imagined being the president. It is nothing more than name recognition, and bears no relationship to what is likely to happen over the next 4 or 8 years.
Irrespective of the Pence numbers, it's quite incredible that anyone would consider the Trump spawn qualified for dogcatcher, let alone President.
4 years experience at the centre of Government must have some value...
It still strikes me as unbelievable that the most powerful nation in the world is unable to properly organise an election. I understand it's not easy in a pandemic, but setting aside a couple of billion for postal voting services should surely not be very difficult. The whole system just seems so archaic and unreliable.
New Zealand is the world's most overrated country. Great landscapes (although many other countries also have great landscapes) – but deathly boring and nothing to do, nothing good to eat and nowhere nice to drink in large portions of it – including many of the 'big' towns.
Indeed, if I lived anywhere other than the UK it would be New England or New York or France, New Zealand is a beautiful country to visit with nice people on the whole who live there but not exactly full of culture and gastronomy, with no really big global city and thousands of miles from anywhere
Times: Coronavirus survivors may be at risk of lasting cognitive damage, according to a study that found that in the worst cases the infection can cause mental decline equivalent to an 8.5-point fall in IQ or the brain ageing ten years.
The “brain fog” reported by many people weeks and months after their recovering from the virus may be a symptom of more serious cognitive deficits, scientists have said.
Research involving 84,285 people who had recovered from confirmed or suspected Covid-19 found that damage to the brain had happened to varying extents, depending upon the severity of the infection. However, more work is needed to identify how long this lasts.
“This is a large enough difference that as an individual you would notice an impact on the ability to cope with your normal job and everyday life,” Dr Hampshire said. “The results align with the ‘brain fog’ reported by many people who, even months after recovery, say they are unable to concentrate on work or focus how they did before.”
The team, from Imperial College, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago and King’s College London, also found that compared to people who had not had the virus survivors scored poorly on tests for logic and the meaning of words, spatial orientation, maintaining attention and processing their emotions.
God, these false positives can be dangerous at times.
Surely something something something Sweden? Or something about how taking it seriously means a lack of character?
I confess, I'm not fully up to date with Toby and his Disciples, so I'm not sure of the latest message.
I think soon no one will admit they backed herd immunity.
Already discussed above - the immune system is a complex beast and does not consist of only antibodies...
I know, but I'm talking about the likes of Toby Young, Karol Sikora, and Alistair Hames who follow the latest fashions and thus will now pretend they never supported herd immunity above all else because they don't understand science properly.
Maybe I am not understanding this. The decision of the Court is that votes that are date stamped the date of the election (3rd) but don't actually arrive until after the election should not be counted?
That is surely the same decision as we would make in this country. Votes that are in the post but do not arrive until after polling day don't count because they arrive too late. Of course in this country the counting would be finished before the postie was out on his rounds.
Don't get me wrong, it is obvious that the willingness of the SC to interfere in trivial matters like this is a menace to what is laughingly called American democracy, not a bulwark of it. The inconsistency of their decisions make them look partisan and selective. The constitutional base for this involvement is highly suspect. But I am wondering if I have missed something about this particular decision that makes it so egregious.
Thanks for that, David. It's my opinion too and I was wondering if I was odd for so thinking.
If you want to vote, get the ballot in the post in plenty of time or get your arse down to the polling station. Relying on a postmark seems fraught with danger and difficulty. Why take the chance?
Yes, if it gets to the day and you haven't got around to it you should stand in line and drop it in the ballot box. I take @Alistair's point that this is not the way that the rules have been up to now but that has simply contributed to the farce where votes are still wandering in a week or two after election day, often from foreign service personnel. It's ridiculous but so much of the American system is.
In Pennsylvania it is not allowed to deliver mail in ballots by hand. Although it appears that, unlike in the UK, receipt of a mail-in ballot doesn't prevent you from voting in person.
But i think a lot of the underlying concern relates to some of the rationale behind the decisions. And what it potentially means for a post election Supreme Court fight.
eg. there are apparently 18 states which take the "count based on post mark date". Could any and all of them potentially be challengeable if one party suddenly realises it could make a difference?
As I said I agree with @Alistair that the role the SC play in these decisions seems inconsistent, irrational, to have no clear basis in law and to be partisan to boot. The threat of the Court getting involved in determining the result of this election Bush-v-Gore style is real.
I can't help reflecting that those who profess such a love of the rule of law overriding democratic decisions really should reflect on this a bit more. This is where giving excessive powers to courts to overrule democratic decisions leads. Its not a path we want to go down.
Bit of a straw man argument, that. Who is arguing for giving our courts powers beyond those they currently exercise ? The pressure for change seems to be very much in the other direction from our current administration.
Just look at the fuss over the Internal Markets Bill because it might result in a Minister breaking an international agreement in the future, the hysteria about trying to limit judicial review, the decision of the Supreme Court in the prorogation of Parliament case. Many people argue on these threads and elsewhere that our political class needs to be constrained by the law, ruled by the law and restricted by the law in what they can do. The sovereignty of Parliament is just a bit too wild for them, a democratic dictatorship.
My concern is that when Justices make decisions about political matters they undermine democratic legitimacy to the system and we should be careful what we wish for. For hundreds of years Courts took the view that into these areas they should not tread but that is no longer the view. The actions of the American Supreme Court are a good example of the hazards of that.
No, what you’re arguing for is that government not be bound by law at all.
The problem is that binding the government by the constitution means that controlling the constitution becomes government.
So in the US, they are, in effect, electing the Supreme Court.
I would argue that a flexible constitutional settlement, regularly updated is what is required. Which would reduce the amount of "interpretational law" that the Supreme Court is required to do.
Which is what the US used to have - Lincoln didn't find some judges who would rule that due to an interpretation of the constitution re interstate commerce bounced at an angle off the right to privacy, that slavery had never existed.
He got the 13th Amendment passed.
As James Anthony Froude observed - "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
I'm pretty sure liberals would agree with you on the latter point. Conservative originalists not so much. "What the US used to have" certainly hasn't been true since the SC gutted the 14th amendment back in 1873. Much of today's complicated and contested reasoning could be argued to flow directly from the consequences of that.
The point of updating the constitution is that it brings in the originalists (the real ones, not the shills using it as a smoke screen for their own partisan rulings) -
We need to change the law. The law now says.... And the originalists can now go to work on your re-written law.
The point of changing the constitution is that in the current political environment it's virtually impossible. Just look at the ERA.
What does an innefective baseball pitching statistic have to do with the US Constitution?
New Zealand is the world's most overrated country. Great landscapes (although many other countries also have great landscapes) – but deathly boring and nothing to do, nothing good to eat and nowhere nice to drink in large portions of it – including many of the 'big' towns.
And piss poor opportunities for high paying jobs for the educated. Why so many educated youngsters move to Australia.
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
I reckon if you ran a the same poll for GOP nomination in 2028 you would get pretty much the same result. Pence is leading because he's the one in the news all the time, while on the campaign trail and can be imagined being the president. It is nothing more than name recognition, and bears no relationship to what is likely to happen over the next 4 or 8 years.
Irrespective of the Pence numbers, it's quite incredible that anyone would consider the Trump spawn qualified for dogcatcher, let alone President.
4 years experience at the centre of Government must have some value...
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
Yes, nothing on the fact that the immune system isn't just antibodies.....
If it leads, it bleeds.
The problem is that no news = good news. Maybe. Sometimes.
A thought for a news model for the 21st cent. Some stories are continuous - they deserve continuous coverage.... a mini-blog each? For example, the various trials and programs for fast tests.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
I mean you can't see the full size of the other constituency. It's a lot larger on these second images.
New Zealand is the world's most overrated country. Great landscapes (although many other countries also have great landscapes) – but deathly boring and nothing to do, nothing good to eat and nowhere nice to drink in large portions of it – including many of the 'big' towns.
Indeed, if I lived anywhere other than the UK it would be New England or New York or France, New Zealand is a beautiful country to visit with nice people on the whole who live there but not exactly full of culture and gastronomy, with no really big global city and thousands of miles from anywhere
Agreed. I haven't actually visited New England but it appeals massively. New York I found vastly inferior to London although I visited in a horrible heatwave, so wasn't able to fairly judge. I'll go again post-pandemic in the autumn or early springtime.
There are perceptions of double standards from celebrities and environmental campaigners, with 52 per cent of the population agreeing that ‘environmental campaigners are mostly hypocrites who fly on holiday while lecturing the rest of us about how to live’. Only 16 per cent of Progressive Activists agree with this premise.
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
Yes, nothing on the fact that the immune system isn't just antibodies.....
If it leads, it bleeds.
The problem is that no news = good news. Maybe. Sometimes.
A thought for a news model for the 21st cent. Some stories are continuous - they deserve continuous coverage.... a mini-blog each? For example, the various trials and programs for fast tests.
It's a very large and potentially interesting data set, though.
Not sure we have anything even close for other viral infections ?
The relief in America when Trump and his clan are ejected can only be imagined. Like the final scene in the Magnificent seven. Around the world the bells will be ringing. In a UK context only 1997 comes anywhere near it. But that was pretty special. A country getting its smile back
1997 was after 18 years of the Tories in power, the GOP have only held the White House for 4 years so not exactly the same
Imagine the carnage after four Trump terms. Don and Jnr
Pence would beat Jnr for the GOP nomination in 2024 even if Trump was re elected
I reckon if you ran a the same poll for GOP nomination in 2028 you would get pretty much the same result. Pence is leading because he's the one in the news all the time, while on the campaign trail and can be imagined being the president. It is nothing more than name recognition, and bears no relationship to what is likely to happen over the next 4 or 8 years.
Irrespective of the Pence numbers, it's quite incredible that anyone would consider the Trump spawn qualified for dogcatcher, let alone President.
Ivanka would actually likely be a better President than her father, she is actually moderate, urbane and has degrees from Georgetown and the University of Pennsylvania.
Don Trump Jnr though I agree would probably make you wish his father was back in charge
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
Yes, nothing on the fact that the immune system isn't just antibodies.....
If it leads, it bleeds.
The problem is that no news = good news. Maybe. Sometimes.
A thought for a news model for the 21st cent. Some stories are continuous - they deserve continuous coverage.... a mini-blog each? For example, the various trials and programs for fast tests.
Seems like there is opportunity the Athletic type approach to wider news....however if you can actually make it economically viable is a different matter.
Have to say the coverage of the React-2 study is lamentable. The media seem to be falling over themselves talking about how immunity lasts for just a few months without getting expert opinion on B and T cell based immunity. Just because antibody levels fall or disappear it doesn't mean that people who have prior infections don't have antibody memory to produce them again should T cells then encounter the same virus.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
Yes, nothing on the fact that the immune system isn't just antibodies.....
If it leads, it bleeds.
The problem is that no news = good news. Maybe. Sometimes.
A thought for a news model for the 21st cent. Some stories are continuous - they deserve continuous coverage.... a mini-blog each? For example, the various trials and programs for fast tests.
Other way around – if it bleeds, it leads
Also, I find people are getting bored of endless one-sided bad news despite the assumption that the public greedily devour endless misery.
They have used an algorithm that has come up with some horrendous boundaries!
To flag just one bizarre example, on the south coast - the computer has divided Hayling Island in half, added the western half to Portsmouth South (different council area and no direct road connection at all, the two parts of the seat entirely divided by water) and used the eastern half of the island to create a mare of a seat: a long thin strip running from the bottom of Chichester Harbour, taking in Emsworth, an arbitrary half of Havant, running right up to and including all of Petersfield and indeed some of the country to its North and West!!!
A complete non starter of a proposal.
Some of them give appearances of gerrymandering.
Those look like ward boundaries. Hard to see how big the blue one is.
Yeah they are all complete ward boundaries. But we're not going to have constituencies like this, are we?
I think it's a bit unfair to zoom in on a small part of the boundary of what is undoubtedly a large rural constituency. In any case, remove that part sticking out, and you have to add other wards in to compensate, resulting in similarly-shaped features.
What are you talking about? It's not zoomed right in. These are the current County Durham boundaries:
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
Technically that isn't County Durham as Darlington is not in County Durham. I also suspect that the Darlington constituency will remain roughly as it is as the size of the council equals the size of a single constituency so it's a simple starting point for the surrounding areas.
Darlington is in County Durham, it just isn't under Durham County Council!
Anyway this is how their algorithm has done it.
Looking at that picture they've done it on postcode areas and populations then - which isn't valid as postcode regions don't reflect council areas..
So it's an insane approach which doesn't reflect reality and creates strange random outlines that reflect nothing more than postman walking routes and sorting offices between 1959 and 74.
That Darlington constituency would contain areas that are part of Darlington council, areas that are part of Durham County Council and places in Stockton.
I know the current Sedgefield constituency includes areas under Darlington Borough Council, the actual current Darlington constituency barely extends to the town borders itself, but there is no crossing of county borders at least.
Comments
I'm not sure the word "servant" is really appropriate here, but if the Spectator wants to go full on Class War then who am I to stand in its way.
Unlike the titled, wealthy, rentier Marxist-Leninist of my aquaintance, for example.
However for the medium term I can see the BC starting to use such algorithms - one with a heavy weighting for not disrupting existing boundaries would probably be a quick way of producing a set of initial recommendations; a job that is laborious work and normally takes the Commission months.
I am reminded of the route planning software used to plan delivery and collection routes by Royal Mail, a task originally done by hand (indeed one of my first jobs), slowly the use of automated route planning software has helped the task (although some of the early versions could produce some bizarre ideas and needed close monitoring). I believe nowadays the task is almost entirely automated, at least before both management and unions get to do some tweaking.
I think they are tapping into the irony of the right-on types "punching down".
I appreciate the example of Walter Mondale, but strongly suspect that the world will move on fairly fast (and moves on faster than it did forty years ago). Pence will be yesterday's man if Trump loses, and Trump Jnr is ultimately a pale tribute act to his old man.
I'd also dispute the characterisation of Nikki Haley as a moderate. Her style is more conventional than Trump, and she's clearly not an out there, Q-Anon type. But she's got strong conservative credentials that she'd no doubt burnish further for a Presidential primaries tilt. She's no John Kasich!
Sigh.
The Democrats need 53+ seats to be a majority.
52 including two independents is NOT a majority.
The Republicans need 51+ seats to be a majority.
So the range 50-52 including the two independents is "No Majority."
Looking at the latest 538 simulations for number of senate seats it shows:
Reps 51+ 24.8% (i.e. 4.03 in Betfair terms) Actual 4.2
Dems 53+ 34.7% (i.e. 2.88 in Betfair terms) Actual 3.2
50-52 (No Majority) 40.5% (i.e. 2.47 in Betfair terms) Actual 2.18
So the No Majority bet is the value bet if a) my reasoning and arithmetic are correct and b) the 538 simulations are the best estimates available.
Though nothing beats knocking up the voters on election day.
That is brilliant if true.
Your target is to beat my score of 8: Frankwell, Shrewsbury to Spennells, Kidderminster.
A complete non starter of a proposal.
You must be energetic but my wife would object if I spent the day trying to knock people up.
10 from Dolgellau to Morriston. Holy shit.
The problem* in these analyses, which absolutely should be done, is that most economic evaluations are narrowly focused on health care (i.e. NHS) costs as that's what NICE wants. Under those conditions, elderly COVID deaths might have a negative healthcare cost if they eliminate years of care for chronic conditions, while also obviously having a dis-benefit of reduced QALYs. But take into account the societal cost and any measures to constain COVID become far more cost effective - the costs in the economy of COVID and NPIs will dwarf direct healthcare costs.
(For those who don't know, typical economic evaluation of a policy/treatment will put it in one of four categories: reduced cost + increased benefit -> choose this; increased cost + reduced benefit -> don't choose this; increased cost + increased benefit OR decreased cost and decreased benefit -> depends on value put on benefit gained/lost. COVID treatment/prevention from a purely healthcare cost perspective is likely in increased cost + increased benefit category, but from a whole society perspective is very likely in decreased cost + increased benefit caegory)
*The other problem is measuring any of this at this point - e.g. the long term QALY loss for survivors when neither the longevity nor severity of long term effects is really known at this point.
Just look at the ERA.
Civil servant confirms receiving Permanent Secretary text after Alex Salmond won judicial review
A senior civil servant has confirmed she did receive a text message from Permanent Secretary Lesley Evans on the day Alex Salmond won the judicial review of the handling of complaints against him, despite previously denying knowledge of the message.
Barbara Allison, former head of HR at the Scottish Government, has written to the Holyrood committee looking into the botched process for handling the harassment complaints to “correct the unintended inaccuracy” in her previous statement.
The text message was from Permanent Secretary Lesley Evans on the day the probe was found to be unlawful by the Court of Session.
It read: “Thanks Barbara – battle maybe lost but not the war. Hope you are having lovely & well deserved break. L”.
This is what knocking up the voters is.
Knocking-up
At some point during Election Day, usually dependent on the availability of volunteers, the committee room organiser will send people out to ‘Knock-Up’ your supporters who have not yet voted. It is usual practice to leave this until at least lunchtime as most people who don’t vote early tend to vote after work. If you know your area as you should you will know who is likely to be in and who is not. The simplest method of doing this is to equip the volunteers with a version of the Out Card which has a message on it reminding voters that this is Polling Day. These can be popped through letterboxes and can remind anyone who goes straight home after work that they really should visit the polling station. Just because it is your most important day does not mean it is theirs and some people do genuinely forget.
Don’t expect people to drop everything and run to the polls. Even in households where one partner is at home all day, a significant number will wait until the other partner returns from work before voting, which they most likely will do together. If someone tells you they will vote at 6 pm make a note that getas passed on each time that road is knocked-up and do NOT visit that person again until after 6pm.
UK elections usually occur on Thursdays, which for most of is a working day. In most areas there is a rush to the polls in the early morning and early evening so the evening knock-ups are vital. If you are short of volunteers and they can only help for a part of the day ask them if they help in the evening.
Keep your Knock-Up sheets as up to date as possible so that you send your knockers-up to the area with the largest number of supporters who have not yet voted but at the same time try to ensure that every area is visited during the course of the day.
.
http://www.howtowinelections.co.uk/knocking-up.shtml
Maximising confusion, even if it results in fewer votes being counted for your side, can benefit the Republicans.
Cambridge college porters are a funny lot, or at least they were 25 years ago. Definitely a kind or racist uncle vibe with a few of them. They tended to be obsequious with the posh students too, which was a bit revolting to behold. Still, they had to put up with a lot of shit from drunk over-privileged twats so fair play to them.
On the question at hand, as long as they can demonstrate they will treat all students equally and follow college rules on safeguarding their opinions should be their own business.
No one has a very clear idea of what might cause it (and there's quite likely no single cause) - hence 'syndrome'. One positive aspect of this is that doctors will take it seriously, which many hadn't previously, and the research into causes and treatment will be greatly accelerated.
And these are the current Northumberland boundaries:
(Although lower-right should be blue).
If Trump is not re elected then it will be more open but only one President has lost his re election fight after only 1 term of his party in the White House, Carter in 1980 and in 1984 his VP Mondale was the Democratic nominee to take on President Reagan
John Kasich endorsed Biden this year, zero chance the GOP base will pick him in 2024
They were meant to have been re-distributed after devolution (as the Scottish ones were) -- but unaccountably they were not (I wonder why
Still, the Welsh Labour party is keen to increase the size of the Senedd to 90 AMs (up from 60).
I expect there will be Welsh Westminster by-elections shortly -- as Labour MPs who find their Westminster constituency is vanishing jump to the greener pastures of the expanding Senedd.
As far I could see it only explicitly gives that power to Congress for lower courts: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
Which I guess leaves it up to convention and case law, and hence interpretation by the Supreme Court itself.
It's almost as if the UK media is addicted to the doom loop news and will jump on anything that helps them push the doom narrative.
Anyway this is how their algorithm has done it.
If Trump wins then normally the Vice President of the re elected President is the nominee if they want it, Gore, Bush Snr, Humphrey, Nixon etc, the only exceptions recently McCain in 2008 and Hillary in 2016 who were also both well established party figures anyway
Surely something something something Sweden?
Or something about how taking it seriously means a lack of character?
I confess, I'm not fully up to date with Toby and his Disciples, so I'm not sure of the latest message.
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/12/house-democrats-propose-3-6-billion-for-expanding-voter-access/
One advantage of a computerised model is that it could run zillions of permutations and then use some area-wide criteria to choose the most optimal.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-herd-immunity-hopes-dashed-as-study-shows-covid-19-antibodies-fall-rapidly-after-recovery-12115510
Anti-Semitism is also seen as a serious problem by 62 per cent of Britons. Noticeably, attitudes towards anti-Semitism are most mixed among Progressive Activists. They are in line with the population average in saying that anti-Semitism is a serious problem, but are also the most likely segment to say that anti-Semitism is not a serious problem in the UK (with 32 per cent holding this view compared to 26 per cent of the wider population).
https://www.britainschoice.uk/media/4yulkygt/moreincommon_britainschoice_report.pdf
On the other hand it will be interesting to see what the left does and the combative Nina Turner may well have a shot.
So it's an insane approach which doesn't reflect reality and creates strange random outlines that reflect nothing more than postman walking routes and sorting offices between 1959 and 74.
That Darlington constituency would contain areas that are part of Darlington council, areas that are part of Durham County Council and places in Stockton.
- proposals that retain as many existing boundaries as possible (or are in some more sophisticated metric the most similar to current state)
- preference for following council boundaries at all levels down to town/parish, and for not dividing town or parish council areas
- something on sensible shaping
- internal communication links, so that the main roads and railways connect parts of a seat and preferably don't run via neighbouring seats; making sure there aren't separated bits of a seat like my Hayling Island example
Then you'd probably be pretty close to reflecting human-assessed "community ties"
https://twitter.com/rodkelly50/status/1320837773604114437
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
If it leads, it bleeds.
The problem is that no news = good news. Maybe. Sometimes.
A thought for a news model for the 21st cent. Some stories are continuous - they deserve continuous coverage.... a mini-blog each? For example, the various trials and programs for fast tests.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1321051933654863872
France I absolutely love.
There are perceptions of double standards from celebrities and environmental campaigners, with 52 per cent of the population agreeing that ‘environmental campaigners are mostly hypocrites who fly on holiday while lecturing the rest of us about how to live’. Only 16 per cent of Progressive Activists agree with this premise.
Not sure we have anything even close for other viral infections ?
Don Trump Jnr though I agree would probably make you wish his father was back in charge
Other way around – if it bleeds, it leads
Also, I find people are getting bored of endless one-sided bad news despite the assumption that the public greedily devour endless misery.