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Veteran commentator Peter Oborne on the real reasons why Cummings had to go – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited November 2020 in General
imageVeteran commentator Peter Oborne on the real reasons why Cummings had to go – politicalbetting.com

Interesting article in Middle East Eye from Peter Oborne on what he says are the real reasons why Cummings is no longer at Number 10. He writes:

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • First
  • Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?
  • On topic, it is down to campaigning is vastly different to actual competent government isn't it?

    Something both BJ and Cummings have learned the hard way, it has been a difficult lesson for them to swallow.

    (That's enough - Innuendo editor.)
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Just the usual bollocks.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    Ahem. My post of 14 November: "My hunch is that Cummings was prepared to play hard-ball more than Johnson is - and the PM is now freer to sign up to a poor deal for the UK. Cummings couldn`t stomach this, so has gone."
  • Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
  • In a saner world it would not be a surprise that the majority view of Cabinet ministers takes precedence over the views of one senior advisor.

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

  • Except that the whole beauty of Biden is that he is the antithesis of a woke, word-policing soy-boy. But the voters took one look at the dross in the rest of the party, and said 'Fewer House seats, and no Senate for you, thanks'...

    Is a "soy-boy" a kind of bean, or is it more of a NutNut?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735

    No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    The same way he sold them dumping the withdrawal agreement they got elected on
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,138

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    Or that the rest work even harder to make up for the ..,.
  • In a saner world it would not be a surprise that the majority view of Cabinet ministers takes precedence over the views of one senior advisor.

    What can we say? Caligula really liked that horse.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,138

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Just the usual bollocks.
    He couldn't even count his own, it seems.
  • OT electricity stuff. The big scientific news a couple of weeks ago is achieving room-temperature (15 degrees C) superconductivity, admittedly at very high pressure. If we can get this out of the lab, it might revolutionise generation and transmission of power.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onB0w3_Su9I
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,138
    Roy_G_Biv said:

    In a saner world it would not be a surprise that the majority view of Cabinet ministers takes precedence over the views of one senior advisor.

    What can we say? Caligula really liked that horse.
    It was Caligula got the chop (what happened to Incitatus the nag by the way?).
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Roy_G_Biv said:


    Except that the whole beauty of Biden is that he is the antithesis of a woke, word-policing soy-boy. But the voters took one look at the dross in the rest of the party, and said 'Fewer House seats, and no Senate for you, thanks'...

    Is a "soy-boy" a kind of bean, or is it more of a NutNut?
    I think BlueBlue is spouting Greek again.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Misses the wider point. The whole Cummings schtick was Trump. Repeat dubious over simplifications of slogans repetitively. When these collide with reality, lie. Or say the complete opposite. And deny you ever said differently. This worked like magic for a few years.
    Until it didn't. That this strategy may be highly successful in winning referendums and attaining power was shown on November 3rd to have a limited shelf life in government. That's why he went.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    edited November 2020

    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

    Just show the Tory MPs the damage caused by sustained no deal.

    I've spent most of today in briefings on how impacts the country, spoiler alert: very badly, cf Kent, or Northern Ireland.

    Just blame breaching the government red lines on the pandemic, and put down a clause in the EU deal that it has a review clause 24 months after we've all been vaccinated.
  • The government's Green Homes Initiative (subsidies for heat pumps etc) has been extended a to 2022. So far as I can see, there is no more money so this probably reflects what I'd been told by someone in the game, that the scheme was a complete shambles because its announcement had stopped all work until the vouchers arrived, but either the vouchers were too slow to be issued or there were not enough installers in town X.

    Anyway, the extension is probably good news.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/green-homes-grant-extended-for-extra-year
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    On topic, the Oborne article sounds rather unpersuasive to me.
    "But with a US trade deal essential to a post-Brexit Britain"... isn't just begging the question, it's plain nonsense.

    Though I suppose those in government might actually believe it.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    A few graphs so that those like Toby can see the actual IFR rather than blundering.

    Current IFR in England, using ONS survey data, with daily deaths from coronavirus dashboard lagged 19 days from daily infection and with 7-day average (date of infection along x-axis)


    Hospitalisation rates for England, using ONS survey data, with daily admissions from coronavirus dashboard lagged 10 days from daily infection and with 7-day average (date of infection along x-axis)


    Hospitalisation fatality rate for England, using hospital admissions from coronavirus dashboard and deaths from coronavirus dashboard, with deaths lagged 9 days from admission and 7-day average (admission date along x-axis)



    My extrapolation to see what deaths are "baked in", using 0.85% fatalities from date of infection (yellow columns) and, as a comparator, 26.5% fatalities from hospitalisations (blue column); deaths are red columns. Note that, unlike the above, this is UK estimates with an additional step: numbers of infections and hospitalisations are taken from the English ones and multiplied by 1.2 (necessary as Wales does not treat the numbers in a comparable way to the others), but with actual UK-wide deaths.



  • Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
  • Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    A great analysis of Trump's better than expected performance by the Jamelle Bouie:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/trump-election-stimulus.html

    "Two narratives about what happened stand out. First, the idea that left-wing slogans like “defund the police” cratered the Democratic Party in down ballot fights for the House and Senate, and second, that President Trump’s modest gains with Black and Hispanic voters herald the arrival of a working-class, multiracial Republican Party.

    "There are obvious objections to both stories. There is no hard evidence that voters turned against Democratic congressional candidates because of “defund the police” and other radical slogans. It does not show up in the congressional generic ballot — there is no decline that corresponds with the unrest of the summer — and there’s little other data to support the idea of a direct causal relationship between the slogans and the performance of Democratic candidates.

    "What we have, instead, are the words of moderate Democratic lawmakers who believe those slogans left them unusually vulnerable to Republican attacks. But this is a textbook case of assuming one thing caused the other because they followed in chronological order. Perhaps Democrats slipped because they were associated with “defund the police” or perhaps — as Democrats as different as Doug Jones, Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have suggested — it had something to do with poor campaign infrastructure and a message that was unresponsive to the electorate. ....

    "The problem with the second narrative — Republicans have built a new working-class, multiracial coalition — is that it takes Trump out of the context of past election results. If preliminary exit polls are any indication — and they have real flaws as measurement tools — Trump did hardly any better with Black voters than George W. Bush in 2004 and quite a bit worse with Hispanic voters. Far from a seismic shift, Trump, with 32 percent support among Hispanics (a four-point upswing from his first run) is doing about as well as John McCain did in 2008.

    "But even as we throw cold water on these narratives — at least until there’s more evidence to back them up — we’re still left with the unanswered question of how Trump performed as well as he did. He may not have transformed the Republican coalition, but he held onto much of his 2016 support and even enlarged it, if not in percentage terms then in absolute ones. Democrats who thought he would be swamped by high turnout were wrong; not only did he benefit, but his ability to turn nonvoters into voters is what likely kept him in the game.

    "At the risk of committing the same sin as other observers and getting ahead of the data, I want to propose an alternative explanation for the election results, one that accounts for the president’s relative improvement as well as that of the entire Republican Party.

    "It’s the money, stupid. At the end of March, President Trump signed the Cares Act"
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    Even worse, Blair, Cameron and May.
  • On topic, Oborne might be right but the case he makes is pretty thin. It might be true that Cummings is leaving just before the solids hit the fan in the new year but that does not prove a causal relationship. More likely, his departure is what it seems, falling out with Boris by insulting the mother of his infant child after he'd already moved out of Number 10 and renewed his alliance with PM-wannabe Gove.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    TimT said:

    A great analysis of Trump's better than expected performance by the Jamelle Bouie:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/trump-election-stimulus.html

    "Two narratives about what happened stand out. First, the idea that left-wing slogans like “defund the police” cratered the Democratic Party in down ballot fights for the House and Senate, and second, that President Trump’s modest gains with Black and Hispanic voters herald the arrival of a working-class, multiracial Republican Party.

    "There are obvious objections to both stories. There is no hard evidence that voters turned against Democratic congressional candidates because of “defund the police” and other radical slogans. It does not show up in the congressional generic ballot — there is no decline that corresponds with the unrest of the summer — and there’s little other data to support the idea of a direct causal relationship between the slogans and the performance of Democratic candidates.

    "What we have, instead, are the words of moderate Democratic lawmakers who believe those slogans left them unusually vulnerable to Republican attacks. But this is a textbook case of assuming one thing caused the other because they followed in chronological order. Perhaps Democrats slipped because they were associated with “defund the police” or perhaps — as Democrats as different as Doug Jones, Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have suggested — it had something to do with poor campaign infrastructure and a message that was unresponsive to the electorate. ....

    "The problem with the second narrative — Republicans have built a new working-class, multiracial coalition — is that it takes Trump out of the context of past election results. If preliminary exit polls are any indication — and they have real flaws as measurement tools — Trump did hardly any better with Black voters than George W. Bush in 2004 and quite a bit worse with Hispanic voters. Far from a seismic shift, Trump, with 32 percent support among Hispanics (a four-point upswing from his first run) is doing about as well as John McCain did in 2008.

    "But even as we throw cold water on these narratives — at least until there’s more evidence to back them up — we’re still left with the unanswered question of how Trump performed as well as he did. He may not have transformed the Republican coalition, but he held onto much of his 2016 support and even enlarged it, if not in percentage terms then in absolute ones. Democrats who thought he would be swamped by high turnout were wrong; not only did he benefit, but his ability to turn nonvoters into voters is what likely kept him in the game.

    "At the risk of committing the same sin as other observers and getting ahead of the data, I want to propose an alternative explanation for the election results, one that accounts for the president’s relative improvement as well as that of the entire Republican Party.

    "It’s the money, stupid. At the end of March, President Trump signed the Cares Act"

    So it was the $1200 that did it ?
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787

    OT electricity stuff. The big scientific news a couple of weeks ago is achieving room-temperature (15 degrees C) superconductivity, admittedly at very high pressure. If we can get this out of the lab, it might revolutionise generation and transmission of power.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onB0w3_Su9I

    It really really is very high pressure though, isn't it? Millions of atmospheres I think I read. I'd've thought that that less easy to make practical than the existing low-temperature requiring superconductors.
  • tlg86 said:

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    Even worse, Blair, Cameron and May.
    And Osborne.....

    And in its defence, Thatcher

  • Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    Oxford also didn’t produce nearly as many spies as Cambridge (or else the ones it did didn’t get caught).
  • O/T - Season four of The Crown is as historically inaccurate as an American war film, it is more full of bollocks than a jockstrap and clearly written by a Thatcher hater.

    I don't mind writers engaging in a dramatic licence but this was bullshit of the highest order.
  • Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    Oxford also didn’t produce nearly as many spies as Cambridge (or else the ones it did didn’t get caught).
    The Cambridge spy ring were triple agents still working for the UK, the Oxford spy ring was a nest of true traitors.

    I'm planning on doing a piece on Sir Roger Hollis soon.
  • 19609 new cases.
  • Friedman writes on the narrow escape that US democracy just had.



    "I am still terrified that, but for a few thousand votes in key states, how easily it could have been our last election."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/opinion/trump-democracy-republican-party.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
  • Why do i have a feeling 31st December we will be talking about 4th period of over-time...
  • This government really does hate the North.

    The government will announce a £300 milion rescue package for sport tomorrow with rugby union set to be the main beneficiary.

    The emergency funding package will not include Premier League and EFL football nor cricket, but will target other 11 sports which have suffered from the coronavirus pandemic.

    Horse racing, rugby league, basketball, netball and Women’s Super League football are understood to be among the other sports that will benefit.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/government-agrees-to-give-sport-300m-bailout-xvkdh7q9b
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited November 2020

    O/T - Season four of The Crown is as historically inaccurate as an American war film, it is more full of bollocks than a jockstrap and clearly written by a Thatcher hater.

    I don't mind writers engaging in a dramatic licence but this was bullshit of the highest order.

    Given that every film now comes with a warning that its contains racist, sexist, homophobic tropes and twitter loves the fake news tag, perhaps we need the same for films.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    edited November 2020
    Pulpstar said:

    TimT said:

    A great analysis of Trump's better than expected performance by the Jamelle Bouie:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/trump-election-stimulus.html

    "Two narratives about what happened stand out. First, the idea that left-wing slogans like “defund the police” cratered the Democratic Party in down ballot fights for the House and Senate, and second, that President Trump’s modest gains with Black and Hispanic voters herald the arrival of a working-class, multiracial Republican Party.

    "There are obvious objections to both stories. There is no hard evidence that voters turned against Democratic congressional candidates because of “defund the police” and other radical slogans. It does not show up in the congressional generic ballot — there is no decline that corresponds with the unrest of the summer — and there’s little other data to support the idea of a direct causal relationship between the slogans and the performance of Democratic candidates.

    "What we have, instead, are the words of moderate Democratic lawmakers who believe those slogans left them unusually vulnerable to Republican attacks. But this is a textbook case of assuming one thing caused the other because they followed in chronological order. Perhaps Democrats slipped because they were associated with “defund the police” or perhaps — as Democrats as different as Doug Jones, Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have suggested — it had something to do with poor campaign infrastructure and a message that was unresponsive to the electorate. ....

    "The problem with the second narrative — Republicans have built a new working-class, multiracial coalition — is that it takes Trump out of the context of past election results. If preliminary exit polls are any indication — and they have real flaws as measurement tools — Trump did hardly any better with Black voters than George W. Bush in 2004 and quite a bit worse with Hispanic voters. Far from a seismic shift, Trump, with 32 percent support among Hispanics (a four-point upswing from his first run) is doing about as well as John McCain did in 2008.

    "But even as we throw cold water on these narratives — at least until there’s more evidence to back them up — we’re still left with the unanswered question of how Trump performed as well as he did. He may not have transformed the Republican coalition, but he held onto much of his 2016 support and even enlarged it, if not in percentage terms then in absolute ones. Democrats who thought he would be swamped by high turnout were wrong; not only did he benefit, but his ability to turn nonvoters into voters is what likely kept him in the game.

    "At the risk of committing the same sin as other observers and getting ahead of the data, I want to propose an alternative explanation for the election results, one that accounts for the president’s relative improvement as well as that of the entire Republican Party.

    "It’s the money, stupid. At the end of March, President Trump signed the Cares Act"

    So it was the $1200 that did it ?
    I am not so convinced of his punchline as I am in his other points - and I think there may still be a shy Trump factor in his analysis of "Defund the Police" A couple of friends have surprised me by admitting that they are disappointed Biden won and that they voted for Trump (despite the man) because they were worried about the Democratic Party in power taking a hard tack left. These are highly educated people (Ivy League, world-ranked business schools), and it appears that some of the Trump fear campaign worked on them.

    I do wonder whether at least some of these people were truly turned off by the defund the police slogan, but do not want to be explicit about that for fear of being labelled racist, and so instead focus emphasize the 'hard left tack' fear.

    PS But such people probably are only at the margins. Trump biggest success was turning non-voting rednecks into voters.
  • johntjohnt Posts: 86

    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

    Given that Conservative MPs stood on a manifesto to sign Johnsons withdrawal agreement, won, signed it and then passed a law to say they wouldn’t follow it I suspect they may be more willing to comply than you suggest.
  • TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    TimT said:

    A great analysis of Trump's better than expected performance by the Jamelle Bouie:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/trump-election-stimulus.html

    "Two narratives about what happened stand out. First, the idea that left-wing slogans like “defund the police” cratered the Democratic Party in down ballot fights for the House and Senate, and second, that President Trump’s modest gains with Black and Hispanic voters herald the arrival of a working-class, multiracial Republican Party.

    "There are obvious objections to both stories. There is no hard evidence that voters turned against Democratic congressional candidates because of “defund the police” and other radical slogans. It does not show up in the congressional generic ballot — there is no decline that corresponds with the unrest of the summer — and there’s little other data to support the idea of a direct causal relationship between the slogans and the performance of Democratic candidates.

    "What we have, instead, are the words of moderate Democratic lawmakers who believe those slogans left them unusually vulnerable to Republican attacks. But this is a textbook case of assuming one thing caused the other because they followed in chronological order. Perhaps Democrats slipped because they were associated with “defund the police” or perhaps — as Democrats as different as Doug Jones, Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have suggested — it had something to do with poor campaign infrastructure and a message that was unresponsive to the electorate. ....

    "The problem with the second narrative — Republicans have built a new working-class, multiracial coalition — is that it takes Trump out of the context of past election results. If preliminary exit polls are any indication — and they have real flaws as measurement tools — Trump did hardly any better with Black voters than George W. Bush in 2004 and quite a bit worse with Hispanic voters. Far from a seismic shift, Trump, with 32 percent support among Hispanics (a four-point upswing from his first run) is doing about as well as John McCain did in 2008.

    "But even as we throw cold water on these narratives — at least until there’s more evidence to back them up — we’re still left with the unanswered question of how Trump performed as well as he did. He may not have transformed the Republican coalition, but he held onto much of his 2016 support and even enlarged it, if not in percentage terms then in absolute ones. Democrats who thought he would be swamped by high turnout were wrong; not only did he benefit, but his ability to turn nonvoters into voters is what likely kept him in the game.

    "At the risk of committing the same sin as other observers and getting ahead of the data, I want to propose an alternative explanation for the election results, one that accounts for the president’s relative improvement as well as that of the entire Republican Party.

    "It’s the money, stupid. At the end of March, President Trump signed the Cares Act"

    So it was the $1200 that did it ?
    I am not so convinced of his punchline as I am in his other points - and I think there may still be a shy Trump factor in his analysis of "Defund the Police" A couple of friends have surprised me by admitting that they are disappointed Biden won and that they voted for Trump (despite the man) because they were worried about the Democratic Party in power taking a hard tack left. These are highly educated people (Ivy League, world-ranked business schools), and it appears that some of the Trump fear campaign worked on them.

    I do wonder whether at least some of these people were truly turned off by the defund the police slogan, but do not want to be explicit about that for fear of being labelled racist, and so instead focus emphasize the 'hard left tack' fear.
    Didn't Trump underperform compared to Republican House and Senate votes?
    If so, it's more a case of shy Republicans who can't stand Trump, and they probably made the difference. The Lincoln Project was probably exactly on the crux of this election.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793

    A few graphs so that those like Toby can see the actual IFR rather than blundering.

    Current IFR in England, using ONS survey data, with daily deaths from coronavirus dashboard lagged 19 days from daily infection and with 7-day average (date of infection along x-axis)


    Hospitalisation rates for England, using ONS survey data, with daily admissions from coronavirus dashboard lagged 10 days from daily infection and with 7-day average (date of infection along x-axis)


    Hospitalisation fatality rate for England, using hospital admissions from coronavirus dashboard and deaths from coronavirus dashboard, with deaths lagged 9 days from admission and 7-day average (admission date along x-axis)



    My extrapolation to see what deaths are "baked in", using 0.85% fatalities from date of infection (yellow columns) and, as a comparator, 26.5% fatalities from hospitalisations (blue column); deaths are red columns. Note that, unlike the above, this is UK estimates with an additional step: numbers of infections and hospitalisations are taken from the English ones and multiplied by 1.2 (necessary as Wales does not treat the numbers in a comparable way to the others), but with actual UK-wide deaths.



    For clarity, I’m assuming that lockdown reduces R to 0.9 as of the 5th of November.
  • O/T - Season four of The Crown is as historically inaccurate as an American war film, it is more full of bollocks than a jockstrap and clearly written by a Thatcher hater.

    I don't mind writers engaging in a dramatic licence but this was bullshit of the highest order.

    One bit that I was convinced they'd got wrong - but in fact had got correct, was the queen appointing Thatcher to the Order of Merit days after her ousting - in fact she was, nine days after she was deposed. For the glacial processes of Buckingham Palace that's practically Warp Speed. No PM has been appointed subsequently, and prior to that MacMillan had been appointed 13 years after he left office. Which rather gives the lie to them loathing each other, as the OM is entirely within the monarch's gift.
  • This government really does hate the North.

    The government will announce a £300 milion rescue package for sport tomorrow with rugby union set to be the main beneficiary.

    The emergency funding package will not include Premier League and EFL football nor cricket, but will target other 11 sports which have suffered from the coronavirus pandemic.

    Horse racing, rugby league, basketball, netball and Women’s Super League football are understood to be among the other sports that will benefit.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/government-agrees-to-give-sport-300m-bailout-xvkdh7q9b

    I thought the EPL were going to bail out the EFL? Rugby league is proper northern.
  • TimT said:

    A great analysis of Trump's better than expected performance by the Jamelle Bouie:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/trump-election-stimulus.html

    "Two narratives about what happened stand out. First, the idea that left-wing slogans like “defund the police” cratered the Democratic Party in down ballot fights for the House and Senate, and second, that President Trump’s modest gains with Black and Hispanic voters herald the arrival of a working-class, multiracial Republican Party.

    "There are obvious objections to both stories. There is no hard evidence that voters turned against Democratic congressional candidates because of “defund the police” and other radical slogans. It does not show up in the congressional generic ballot — there is no decline that corresponds with the unrest of the summer — and there’s little other data to support the idea of a direct causal relationship between the slogans and the performance of Democratic candidates.

    "What we have, instead, are the words of moderate Democratic lawmakers who believe those slogans left them unusually vulnerable to Republican attacks. But this is a textbook case of assuming one thing caused the other because they followed in chronological order. Perhaps Democrats slipped because they were associated with “defund the police” or perhaps — as Democrats as different as Doug Jones, Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have suggested — it had something to do with poor campaign infrastructure and a message that was unresponsive to the electorate. ....

    "The problem with the second narrative — Republicans have built a new working-class, multiracial coalition — is that it takes Trump out of the context of past election results. If preliminary exit polls are any indication — and they have real flaws as measurement tools — Trump did hardly any better with Black voters than George W. Bush in 2004 and quite a bit worse with Hispanic voters. Far from a seismic shift, Trump, with 32 percent support among Hispanics (a four-point upswing from his first run) is doing about as well as John McCain did in 2008.

    "But even as we throw cold water on these narratives — at least until there’s more evidence to back them up — we’re still left with the unanswered question of how Trump performed as well as he did. He may not have transformed the Republican coalition, but he held onto much of his 2016 support and even enlarged it, if not in percentage terms then in absolute ones. Democrats who thought he would be swamped by high turnout were wrong; not only did he benefit, but his ability to turn nonvoters into voters is what likely kept him in the game.

    "At the risk of committing the same sin as other observers and getting ahead of the data, I want to propose an alternative explanation for the election results, one that accounts for the president’s relative improvement as well as that of the entire Republican Party.

    "It’s the money, stupid. At the end of March, President Trump signed the Cares Act"

    Great analysis EXCEPT that it is wrong, in trying to deny that the excesses of BLM had zero impact on the race. This is simply parroting the AOC line. Personally ain't buying this bilge.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    isam said:
    31 Labour MPs, and Claudia Webbe.
  • isam said:
    28 MPs and 4 Lords
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    I see (in the Swiss NZZ) that Pfizer have announced that the final results of their vaccine trial shows 95% effectiveness (the previous announcement was an interim one).

    My understanding is that this and the Modema vacccine work in essentially the same way, so it's not surprising that they end up with the same outcome. Good, thouigh!
  • O/T - Season four of The Crown is as historically inaccurate as an American war film, it is more full of bollocks than a jockstrap and clearly written by a Thatcher hater.

    I don't mind writers engaging in a dramatic licence but this was bullshit of the highest order.

    One bit that I was convinced they'd got wrong - but in fact had got correct, was the queen appointing Thatcher to the Order of Merit days after her ousting - in fact she was, nine days after she was deposed. For the glacial processes of Buckingham Palace that's practically Warp Speed. No PM has been appointed subsequently, and prior to that MacMillan had been appointed 13 years after he left office. Which rather gives the lie to them loathing each other, as the OM is entirely within the monarch's gift.
    There was an article around the time Lady Thatcher died which pointed out The Queen liked Lady Thatcher a lot, there was the OM, and the fact she attended Thatcher's 80th birthday, there were a lot of ways the Queen could have dissed Lady Thatcher but she didn't.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited November 2020
    IshmaelZ said:

    isam said:
    31 Labour MPs, and Claudia Webbe.
    Has Ms Begum not had the whip removed, given her ongoing legal issues?
  • Scott_xP said:
    The thing is, when most elements of the far left have spent every day since Starmer was elected launching absolutely blistering attacks on Keir Starmer and practising serial diloyalty, after a while it ceases to become anything of note.
  • This government really does hate the North.

    The government will announce a £300 milion rescue package for sport tomorrow with rugby union set to be the main beneficiary.

    The emergency funding package will not include Premier League and EFL football nor cricket, but will target other 11 sports which have suffered from the coronavirus pandemic.

    Horse racing, rugby league, basketball, netball and Women’s Super League football are understood to be among the other sports that will benefit.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/government-agrees-to-give-sport-300m-bailout-xvkdh7q9b

    I thought the EPL were going to bail out the EFL? Rugby league is proper northern.
    The EFL/EPL thing hasn't been properly sorted IIRC.

    Some PL want to give it in loans, whilst the EFL want non repayable grants.

    Some PL clubs have pointed out that some EFL clubs have richer owners than them, also do they want to bail out clubs which have been poorly run for years, just so they can replace them in the PL.

    As for rugby league, I'm a proper Northerner, and I don't like the sport.

    Fifth rule tackle is for big girl's blouses.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    isam said:
    28 MPs and 4 Lords
    and at least seventy tories are against the government's whole covd strategy. Maybe more.

    The major parties are exhausted and starting to implode.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    isam said:
    28 MPs and 4 Lords
    A deeply unimpressive list to put it mildly. The thing is he really cannot back down now. No way back for Corbyn so those MPs have a decision to make - they could try asking advice from Chuka Umunna......
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

    The problem is that conservative MPs don't want no deal, and they don't want a bad deal, and many of them saw Brexit as part of a reorientation of the uk away from the continent and towards the Atlantic.

    In other words, the question is not whether they will be unhappy (they will), but with whom will they be unhappy.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited November 2020

    Scott_xP said:
    The thing is, when most elements of the far left have spent every day since Starmer was elected launching absolutely blistering attacks on Keir Starmer and practising serial diloyalty, after a while it ceases to become anything of note.
    And vice versa during Corbyn's hegemony? If Labour is to form the next government then these factions have to find a way to work together and that means ending provocations from either side.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited November 2020
    rcs1000 said:

    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

    The problem is that conservative MPs don't want no deal, and they don't want a bad deal, and many of them saw Brexit as part of a reorientation of the uk away from the continent and towards the Atlantic.

    In other words, the question is not whether they will be unhappy (they will), but with whom will they be unhappy.
    Again this goes back to the failure of Cameron and later May to force the Brexiteers to settle on a shared vision of Brexit. We are six weeks away from 2021 and not only do we not know what Brexit will look like, we do not even know what we want it to look like.

    ETA the point is that if MPs have widely differing expectations of Brexit, most of them will necessarily be disappointed, however it works out. Possibly all of them.
  • Scott_xP said:
    The thing is, when most elements of the far left have spent every day since Starmer was elected launching absolutely blistering attacks on Keir Starmer and practising serial diloyalty, after a while it ceases to become anything of note.
    And vice versa during Corbyn's hegemony? If Labour is to form the next government then these factions have to find a way to work together and that means ending provocations from either side.
    Not vice versa as far as Starmer was concerned.

    Starmer was a sycophantic toady to Corbyn when he was in the Shadow Cabinet only finding a moral consciousness after he got the top job.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    On topic, the US stuff in the article is pure speculation, and unconvincing speculation at that.
  • https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1329115695217577986

    Keir successfully swerves bad press, makes it look like the NEC aren't on his side and will reform it, a blinder
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,849
    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    Amusing to see Corbyn in front of the slogan "standing up not standing by". This is of a kind with "forward not back" and "for the many not the few" - i.e. "X not Y". Is there a name for this kind of formulation?
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,920
    edited November 2020
    felix said:

    isam said:
    28 MPs and 4 Lords
    A deeply unimpressive list to put it mildly. The thing is he really cannot back down now. No way back for Corbyn so those MPs have a decision to make - they could try asking advice from Chuka Umunna......
    None of them would represent a loss in terms of the quality of their contribution to debates. And really interesting to think about those who didn’t sign: most of those who were in his shadow cabinet a mere year ago.

    In short it really does go to show how Corbyn is history.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

    Just show the Tory MPs the damage caused by sustained no deal.

    I've spent most of today in briefings on how impacts the country, spoiler alert: very badly, cf Kent, or Northern Ireland.

    Just blame breaching the government red lines on the pandemic, and put down a clause in the EU deal that it has a review clause 24 months after we've all been vaccinated.
    One way review only
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,056

    Scott_xP said:
    The thing is, when most elements of the far left have spent every day since Starmer was elected launching absolutely blistering attacks on Keir Starmer and practising serial diloyalty, after a while it ceases to become anything of note.
    And vice versa during Corbyn's hegemony? If Labour is to form the next government then these factions have to find a way to work together and that means ending provocations from either side.
    Not vice versa as far as Starmer was concerned.

    Starmer was a sycophantic toady to Corbyn when he was in the Shadow Cabinet only finding a moral consciousness after he got the top job.
    Well, like Kruschev under Stalin, Deng Xiopeng under Mao, Thatcher under Heath, or Major under Thatcher, sometimes you have to hold your tongue and position in order to achieve the ability to act. It is not unique to any particular political party.
  • rcs1000 said:

    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

    The problem is that conservative MPs don't want no deal, and they don't want a bad deal, and many of them saw Brexit as part of a reorientation of the uk away from the continent and towards the Atlantic.

    In other words, the question is not whether they will be unhappy (they will), but with whom will they be unhappy.
    Wait til it gets to Christmas and they find out that not only that a US trade deal was never going to happen, but Santa is just made up too!
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    That was Alan Turning who argued against the US knocking up a version of Enigma that could always crack the code because it was “inelegant”
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342

    rcs1000 said:

    Whether Cummings is within Downing Street or out is incidental. A deal that Cummings doesn't like is a deal the Conservtive MPs won't like either. No idea how Boris sells them anything that conflicts with what they got elected on less than a year ago.

    They might just consider putting off a US trade deal until a new President comes along is a price that has to be paid.

    The problem is that conservative MPs don't want no deal, and they don't want a bad deal, and many of them saw Brexit as part of a reorientation of the uk away from the continent and towards the Atlantic.

    In other words, the question is not whether they will be unhappy (they will), but with whom will they be unhappy.
    Again this goes back to the failure of Cameron and later May to force the Brexiteers to settle on a shared vision of Brexit. We are six weeks away from 2021 and not only do we not know what Brexit will look like, we do not even know what we want it to look like.

    ETA the point is that if MPs have widely differing expectations of Brexit, most of them will necessarily be disappointed, however it works out. Possibly all of them.
    This goes back much further, to the decades of membership of the EU and its predecessors without the wholehearted consent of the population, and with permanently grudging acquiescence from Conservative governments, going on for so long that there is are no good options for UK unity either by staying or leaving.

  • Charles said:

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    That was Alan Turning who argued against the US knocking up a version of Enigma that could always crack the code because it was “inelegant”
    Without Alan Turing millions more people would have died. Shameful post from you.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited November 2020
    Pulpstar said:
    An extraordinarily young man to have committed such a heinous act.
    (Assuming he did. Which of course we shouldn't).
  • Can expect no less from @Charles and his sycophantic support of Dido.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,613

    Charles said:

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    That was Alan Turning who argued against the US knocking up a version of Enigma that could always crack the code because it was “inelegant”
    Without Alan Turing millions more people would have died. Shameful post from you.
    Alan Turing made major contributions to the ULTRA decryptions.

    However, to claim that it was all down to him, is simply wrong. Engima was broken before he got involved.

    Dilly Knox did more, but is ignored in the popular imagination. As is Tommy Flowers.

  • Charles said:

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    That was Alan Turning who argued against the US knocking up a version of Enigma that could always crack the code because it was “inelegant”
    Without Alan Turing millions more people would have died. Shameful post from you.
    Alan Turing made major contributions to the ULTRA decryptions.

    However, to claim that it was all down to him, is simply wrong. Engima was broken before he got involved.

    Dilly Knox did more, but is ignored in the popular imagination. As is Tommy Flowers.

    Don't forget the role of the Poles.
  • FlannerFlanner Posts: 405



    There was an article around the time Lady Thatcher died which pointed out The Queen liked Lady Thatcher a lot, there was the OM, and the fact she attended Thatcher's 80th birthday, there were a lot of ways the Queen could have dissed Lady Thatcher but she didn't.

    Don't you think that the Queen - and probably both her father and grandfather - would regard "disliking" virtually any PM as profoundly unprofessional?
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    kinabalu said:

    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.

    You`re slightly missing the point. It`s not that no deal is the destination, it`s that the threat of it secures a better deal for us.

    Cummings et al wanted to play chicken with the EU, believing (as they do) that the EU needs a deal more than we do and therefore that we "hold the cards". Johnson in the end lacked the stomach for a game of chicken, and Cummings came to see the writing on the wall which will be a poor deal for the UK tarted up by Johnson as a great deal and Cummings upped sticks, wanting no further part in this.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Pulpstar said:
    Blimey.

    Before my time but my medical sgt had held his gf while she died in his arms there.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741
    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.

    You`re slightly missing the point. It`s not that no deal is the destination, it`s that the threat of it secures a better deal for us.

    Cummings et al wanted to play chicken with the EU, believing (as they do) that the EU needs a deal more than we do and therefore that we "hold the cards". Johnson in the end lacked the stomach for a game of chicken, and Cummings came to see the writing on the wall which will be a poor deal for the UK tarted up by Johnson as a great deal and Cummings upped sticks, wanting no further part in this.
    Since we do not hold all the cards, and only Mr Thicky believed we did, playing chicken would ultimately have been (and indeed has been) a foolish strategy.

    When you play chicken with no cards, you end up getting stuffed.
  • .
    kinabalu said:

    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.

    Not months but days or even hours between Boris trying to make Lee Cain Chief of Staff and booting the pair of them out the door. Surely this was personal, not political.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,613

    Charles said:

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    That was Alan Turning who argued against the US knocking up a version of Enigma that could always crack the code because it was “inelegant”
    Without Alan Turing millions more people would have died. Shameful post from you.
    Alan Turing made major contributions to the ULTRA decryptions.

    However, to claim that it was all down to him, is simply wrong. Engima was broken before he got involved.

    Dilly Knox did more, but is ignored in the popular imagination. As is Tommy Flowers.

    Don't forget the role of the Poles.
    Indeed. When someone asks "Who broke Enigma?" the sensible questions include

    1) Do you mean Enigma or do you actually mean another cipher, such as Fish (which may have been more important)
    2) Which version of the Enigma machine
    3) Which keying/setup system
    4) Which rotors
    5) Which Enigma network (combines 2, 3 & 4 with an actual usage)
    6) Do you mean a real break, rather than a theoretical demonstration
    7) Do you mean a daily break
    8) Do you mean a break of the majority of the traffic

    I had a go at building a table of this stuff a long time ago - should really finish it and add it the Wikipedia article on ULTRA
  • The idea No Deal was ever a route to a better deal is insane
  • Lock em up.....

    BBC News - Coronavirus: Police fine 29 at Blackburn wedding party
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-54985449
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,920
    edited November 2020

    .

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.

    Not months but days or even hours between Boris trying to make Lee Cain Chief of Staff and booting the pair of them out the door. Surely this was personal, not political.
    I fear you’re right, but you’d have thought a man with his legendary sense of humour would have relished the name, Princess Nut Nut.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.

    You`re slightly missing the point. It`s not that no deal is the destination, it`s that the threat of it secures a better deal for us.

    Cummings et al wanted to play chicken with the EU, believing (as they do) that the EU needs a deal more than we do and therefore that we "hold the cards". Johnson in the end lacked the stomach for a game of chicken, and Cummings came to see the writing on the wall which will be a poor deal for the UK tarted up by Johnson as a great deal and Cummings upped sticks, wanting no further part in this.
    The threat of No Deal does not secure a better deal for us, since the threat is primarily directed against ourselves. The EU knows that when it comes down to it, no matter how credibly we threaten it, we are the ones who will back down. We've seen this movie before.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited November 2020
    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.

    You`re slightly missing the point. It`s not that no deal is the destination, it`s that the threat of it secures a better deal for us.

    Cummings et al wanted to play chicken with the EU, believing (as they do) that the EU needs a deal more than we do and therefore that we "hold the cards". Johnson in the end lacked the stomach for a game of chicken, and Cummings came to see the writing on the wall which will be a poor deal for the UK tarted up by Johnson as a great deal and Cummings upped sticks, wanting no further part in this.
    It was always going to be a poor deal - Brexiters just didn't grasp that once we rejected freedom of movement the deal was always going to be crap.

    What's stupid is that freedom of movement is only a problem because we never fixed it in the 15 odd years it's been an obvious problem,
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653

    Charles said:

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    That was Alan Turning who argued against the US knocking up a version of Enigma that could always crack the code because it was “inelegant”
    Without Alan Turing millions more people would have died. Shameful post from you.
    Alan Turing made major contributions to the ULTRA decryptions.

    However, to claim that it was all down to him, is simply wrong. Engima was broken before he got involved.

    Dilly Knox did more, but is ignored in the popular imagination. As is Tommy Flowers.

    Don't forget the role of the Poles.
    Indeed. When someone asks "Who broke Enigma?" the sensible questions include

    1) Do you mean Enigma or do you actually mean another cipher, such as Fish (which may have been more important)
    2) Which version of the Enigma machine
    3) Which keying/setup system
    4) Which rotors
    5) Which Enigma network (combines 2, 3 & 4 with an actual usage)
    6) Do you mean a real break, rather than a theoretical demonstration
    7) Do you mean a daily break
    8) Do you mean a break of the majority of the traffic

    I had a go at building a table of this stuff a long time ago - should really finish it and add it the Wikipedia article on ULTRA
    I`m not sure that Turing`s fame is primarily based on his cracking the code is it? I think it`s more to do with the appalling way that he, as a homosexual, was treated.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,138
    Stocky said:

    Charles said:

    Been rather busy today, what idiocy did Toby Young do today that he had to delete?

    Mess up calculating 50 000 / 5 000 000.

    The "Toby Young" who is into traditional academic values and had a part in setting up a genuinely good secondary school must be furious that there's a gibbering fool who keeps popping up spouting rubbish who shares the same name.
    Further proof that the University of Oxford is a complete dump.
    As no Cambridge graduate would ever make a fool of herself with numbers on live TV.
    We gave the world Alan Turing, you gave the world Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Toby Young.
    That was Alan Turning who argued against the US knocking up a version of Enigma that could always crack the code because it was “inelegant”
    Without Alan Turing millions more people would have died. Shameful post from you.
    Alan Turing made major contributions to the ULTRA decryptions.

    However, to claim that it was all down to him, is simply wrong. Engima was broken before he got involved.

    Dilly Knox did more, but is ignored in the popular imagination. As is Tommy Flowers.

    Don't forget the role of the Poles.
    Indeed. When someone asks "Who broke Enigma?" the sensible questions include

    1) Do you mean Enigma or do you actually mean another cipher, such as Fish (which may have been more important)
    2) Which version of the Enigma machine
    3) Which keying/setup system
    4) Which rotors
    5) Which Enigma network (combines 2, 3 & 4 with an actual usage)
    6) Do you mean a real break, rather than a theoretical demonstration
    7) Do you mean a daily break
    8) Do you mean a break of the majority of the traffic

    I had a go at building a table of this stuff a long time ago - should really finish it and add it the Wikipedia article on ULTRA
    I`m not sure that Turing`s fame is primarily based on his cracking the code is it? I think it`s more to do with the appalling way that he, as a homosexual, was treated.
    Surely that came later. He did formulate the concept of the programmable Turing Machine. Or maybe as a nerdy type that made more of an impression on me - also when the Enigma revelations happ[ened in the 1970s and 1980s less was made of Mr T's dfemise.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    edited November 2020
    eek said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Interesting. But I don't buy it because imo No Deal was never a possibility, Biden or no Biden, Cummings there or not. Still, Johnson has sacked the man he made a fool of himself protecting a few months ago. It is odd. Something must have changed. Perhaps it was personal and to do with Carrie, as per one of the stories.

    You`re slightly missing the point. It`s not that no deal is the destination, it`s that the threat of it secures a better deal for us.

    Cummings et al wanted to play chicken with the EU, believing (as they do) that the EU needs a deal more than we do and therefore that we "hold the cards". Johnson in the end lacked the stomach for a game of chicken, and Cummings came to see the writing on the wall which will be a poor deal for the UK tarted up by Johnson as a great deal and Cummings upped sticks, wanting no further part in this.
    It was always going to be a poor deal - Brexiters just didn't realise it
    Sure, I`m not disagreeing, I`m just giving my view on why Cummings left, which chimes with Oborne`s.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,138
    Flanner said:



    There was an article around the time Lady Thatcher died which pointed out The Queen liked Lady Thatcher a lot, there was the OM, and the fact she attended Thatcher's 80th birthday, there were a lot of ways the Queen could have dissed Lady Thatcher but she didn't.

    Don't you think that the Queen - and probably both her father and grandfather - would regard "disliking" virtually any PM as profoundly unprofessional?
    Her great-uncle certainly had personal reason to dislike at least two PMs. But he was suio generis, one imagines.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,613
    UK cases by specimen date

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