Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises.
Doubt it's that, the increase actually starts at 2004 it seems
You're misunderstanding the graph. Anything negative is indicative of improving outcomes. The rate of improvement may have slowed until about 2012, but it was only after that that outcomes started to deteriorate.
You mean, when the effects of Austerity policies started to bite?
The thinking behind my theory that the candidate with more personality has a big advantage that VI polls miss. Modern life is all about killer soundbites and image, and there are more people are fooled by them than bother to really think
America in 2016-2020: the Celebration of Ignorance. Sums up Trump and those who voted or him. Such a pity it was allowed to flourish by the Democrats and their Celebration of Nepotism.
Nepotism? She was a former Secretary of State and Senator.
There's many reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton but to say she got the nomination down to nepotism is a bizarre reading of the facts, even more so when you consider she won the popular vote.
Heck you can say she was eminently more qualified to be POTUS than the GOP's last bit of nepotism, back in 2000 when they picked the son of a former President.
She was a shockingly bad candidate. She lost to Donald Trump. I rest my case.
The Democrats seem in thrall to family dynasties. Kennedy's, Clintons.... Not that the Republican are much better. The 2016 member of the Bush dynasty was also a shockingly bad candidate. He lost to Donald Trump.
Family dynasties are a problem in all parties on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether you are a Kinnock, Rees Mogg, Milliband, Johnson, Hurd, Benn or Gummer, the family connection is a huge advantage.
Yes, I have always thought it an amusing irony that the hereditary principle was not extinguished by the Wedgewood Benn family with the Peerage Act 1963. That said it is unsurprising that children or nieces or nephews follow in the footsteps of their forebears. It happens in all sorts of other professions and walks of life
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
It can be until its not. The Italian monarchy didn't stop Mussolini nor did the Greek monarchy stop the Colonels.
There is something exciting about watching a bubble bursting. That half the US couldn't see the insanity the rest of the world has been seeing for at least four years until yesterday is quite biblical.
I'm still hopeful that that the 50% who can't see the insanity that's engulfed this country over the last four years will face a similar lightening bolt.
The bubble hasn't burst. The problems are only just beginning. Initial polling suggests that most Republican voters believe that the election was stolen and storming of Congress was justified.
I'd be interested to know EXACTLY when the polling was done. It was probably quite possible at the early stages for someone who'd seen little if any news coverage, to see it all as a student sit-in or publicity stunt. That's harder once you've sat down and watched it more, heard of deaths and so on.
I'm sure a proportion of Republicans will continue to believe it was justified. Just not sure it will remain at that level.
Also note that 40% or so of your self-identified supporters being appalled is terrible, even if 60% remain blindly loyal.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
The thinking behind my theory that the candidate with more personality has a big advantage that VI polls miss. Modern life is all about killer soundbites and image, and there are more people are fooled by them than bother to really think
America in 2016-2020: the Celebration of Ignorance. Sums up Trump and those who voted or him. Such a pity it was allowed to flourish by the Democrats and their Celebration of Nepotism.
Nepotism? She was a former Secretary of State and Senator.
There's many reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton but to say she got the nomination down to nepotism is a bizarre reading of the facts, even more so when you consider she won the popular vote.
Heck you can say she was eminently more qualified to be POTUS than the GOP's last bit of nepotism, back in 2000 when they picked the son of a former President.
She was a shockingly bad candidate. She lost to Donald Trump. I rest my case.
The Democrats seem in thrall to family dynasties. Kennedy's, Clintons.... Not that the Republican are much better. The 2016 member of the Bush dynasty was also a shockingly bad candidate. He lost to Donald Trump.
Family dynasties are a problem in all parties on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether you are a Kinnock, Rees Mogg, Milliband, Johnson, Hurd, Benn or Gummer, the family connection is a huge advantage.
Just like the sons and daughters of doctors find it much easier to get a place at Med School.
Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises (in 2010 excess deaths were still negative, indicating an improving health system).
This massive lack of funding?
Yes. Look at 2010 to 2015. Given the population was growing during that time, that's a real reduction in spend per person.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
A good point. It’s quite amazing that Trump and Sanders managed to gatecrash the nomination process of parties of which there were not even members.
The U.K. equivalent would be Farage standing for the Tories, or George Galloway for Labour. Thankfully the U.K. parties restrict who can stand for election.
Maybe the US Reps and Dems will follow suit, insisting that candidates for President already hold elected office as Senators or Governors representing their party.
It now looks like Pence could even be the main moderate candidate in the 2024 GOP presidential nomination primaries, assuming Trump or Trump Jnr and Cruz are his main rivals, quite the turn of events
Pence ain’t moderate.
He is by the standards of most of the current Republican Party.
Mike Pence, the GOP Keir Starmer? You heard it here first
I think it unlikely. His natural base now considers him a Judas
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
A good point. It’s quite amazing that Trump and Sanders managed to gatecrash the nomination process of parties of which there were not even members.
The U.K. equivalent would be Farage standing for the Tories, or George Galloway for Labour. Thankfully the U.K. parties restrict who can stand for election.
Maybe the US Reps and Dems will follow suit, insisting that candidates for President already hold elected office as Senators or Governors representing their party.
Or top generals, which would still have included Eisenhower and Grant or obviously Vice Presidents
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
Donald Trump spends less time on Twitter than Philip does on PB is a difference . The main element is that Philip is a populist nationalist. Also, he voted for Nigel Farage. He said he did not care that Putin was pleased with Brexit. He thinks Boris Johnson is a good leader (lol).That is pretty close to the views of Donald Trump at a top line level. Other than his claimed dislike of Trump, I can see very little lack of alignment to his often stated views on most things that he feels keen to share with us all.
Bit strange, the number of deaths w Covid on the certificate was 72 less in week 52 than week 51, but the number of deaths above the 5 year average went from 1463 to 3566
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
The thinking behind my theory that the candidate with more personality has a big advantage that VI polls miss. Modern life is all about killer soundbites and image, and there are more people are fooled by them than bother to really think
America in 2016-2020: the Celebration of Ignorance. Sums up Trump and those who voted or him. Such a pity it was allowed to flourish by the Democrats and their Celebration of Nepotism.
Nepotism? She was a former Secretary of State and Senator.
There's many reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton but to say she got the nomination down to nepotism is a bizarre reading of the facts, even more so when you consider she won the popular vote.
Heck you can say she was eminently more qualified to be POTUS than the GOP's last bit of nepotism, back in 2000 when they picked the son of a former President.
She was a shockingly bad candidate. She lost to Donald Trump. I rest my case.
The Democrats seem in thrall to family dynasties. Kennedy's, Clintons.... Not that the Republican are much better. The 2016 member of the Bush dynasty was also a shockingly bad candidate. He lost to Donald Trump.
Family dynasties are a problem in all parties on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether you are a Kinnock, Rees Mogg, Milliband, Johnson, Hurd, Benn or Gummer, the family connection is a huge advantage.
Just like the sons and daughters of doctors find it much easier to get a place at Med School.
It's not what you know, it's who you know.
A friend in a previous job, was a lefty from a family with a very famous Labour name.
He had next to no interest or contact in professional politics.
He was appalled to be approached, too stand as a Labour candidate, more than once. Just for the name.
Bit strange, the number of deaths w Covid on the certificate was 72 less in week 52 than week 51, but the number of deaths above the 5 year average went from 1463 to 3566
Only one bank holiday in Week 52 this year. There are two bank holidays for 2016 to 2019 for the five-year average baseline.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
It can be until its not. The Italian monarchy didn't stop Mussolini nor did the Greek monarchy stop the Colonels.
The Kaiser supported Hitler at the end of his iife too.
Britain's constitutional monarchy has its major drawbacks and advantages. There is one interesting difference with the British constitutional monarchy, even as I am not a particular monarchist - counter-intuitively for an elite model, it's born out of a generally dissenting, questioning Whig tradition. Several of the American revolutionaries also saw themselves as reforming Whigs, but anti-monarchical ones.
Following this Whig logic, however, arguably the monarchy should already have been more scaled down in size and wealth by now.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
That was a reasonable thing to think until the prorogation palava, then it turned out that the monarchy is entirely useless, and the only check on a rogue leader is the courts.
The practical problem in the US system is the combination of party primaries and FPTP. Gerrymandering makes it worse, because it means most politicians are more scared of their respective bases than the voters at large.
I think this is an interesting argument by Sagan, but isn't really a description of what's going on.
Is the issue seriously that people were watching too much Beavis and Butthead in the 1990s? The programme was a parody, by the way, and Sagan is falling into the Bush Snr "Americans should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons" error. An educated person patronisingly believing the plebs don't get the joke (or possibly not getting the joke themselves).
It also paints an extraordinarily distorted picture of the standard of political discourse and public understanding in the America of the past. A US where, for example, marshals had to escort little black girls to recently desegregated schools due to threat of physical violence against them. A US where Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined lives and careers, contributing to suicides of good people.
I think recent events aren't about changes that occurred that have made Americans dumber (or indeed Brits or anyone else). They simply underscore a more general truth that democracy is fragile and the veneer of civilisation is thinner than we like to believe.
People think of Norman Rockwell only as a painter of the anodyne. The cuddly myth of America etc.
It's a quite brilliant painting, and all the more so because it is painted from the perspective of another child who has been taken to the protest by their father (the height is child's height, and the tomato comes from the direction of viewing).
The thinking behind my theory that the candidate with more personality has a big advantage that VI polls miss. Modern life is all about killer soundbites and image, and there are more people are fooled by them than bother to really think
America in 2016-2020: the Celebration of Ignorance. Sums up Trump and those who voted or him. Such a pity it was allowed to flourish by the Democrats and their Celebration of Nepotism.
Nepotism? She was a former Secretary of State and Senator.
There's many reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton but to say she got the nomination down to nepotism is a bizarre reading of the facts, even more so when you consider she won the popular vote.
Heck you can say she was eminently more qualified to be POTUS than the GOP's last bit of nepotism, back in 2000 when they picked the son of a former President.
She was a shockingly bad candidate. She lost to Donald Trump. I rest my case.
The Democrats seem in thrall to family dynasties. Kennedy's, Clintons.... Not that the Republican are much better. The 2016 member of the Bush dynasty was also a shockingly bad candidate. He lost to Donald Trump.
Family dynasties are a problem in all parties on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether you are a Kinnock, Rees Mogg, Milliband, Johnson, Hurd, Benn or Gummer, the family connection is a huge advantage.
Just like the sons and daughters of doctors find it much easier to get a place at Med School.
It's not what you know, it's who you know.
It's true in all professions, not just politics. And it's not only because of whom you know. It's also because if you are brought up in a political (acting/medical/legal) family, where the talk around the dinner table is about politics (acting/medicine/law) it gives you a head start in knowledge, as well as contacts. You get your 10,000 hours in much earlier than most people, if you like.
Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises (in 2010 excess deaths were still negative, indicating an improving health system).
This massive lack of funding?
Yes. Look at 2010 to 2015. Given the population was growing during that time, that's a real reduction in spend per person.
Not really. 2015 is actually above the trendline from 2005-2009 excluding the extreme election year spike of 2010. So was 2005-2019 chronically underspent?
Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises (in 2010 excess deaths were still negative, indicating an improving health system).
This massive lack of funding?
Yes. Look at 2010 to 2015. Given the population was growing during that time, that's a real reduction in spend per person.
Not really. 2015 is actually above the trendline from 2005-2009 excluding the extreme election year spike of 2010. So was 2005-2019 chronically underspent?
The Democrats didn't win the a Presidential election for nearly a quarter of a century after the start of the Civil War, perhaps the GOP will be out of the White House for even longer after Trump goes.
Unless you count Tilden in 1876, who really *did* have the election stolen from him.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
It now looks like Pence could even be the main moderate candidate in the 2024 GOP presidential nomination primaries, assuming Trump or Trump Jnr and Cruz are his main rivals, quite the turn of events
Pence ain’t moderate.
He is by the standards of most of the current GOP.
Mike Pence, the GOP Keir Starmer? You heard it here first
As you've been wrong on virtually everything regarding American politics, I shall give your US tips a wide berth. Here's a reminder of one of your recent gems:
The latest polling suggests the GOP will hold the Georgia Senate seats in the run off and I agree.
Biden was not elected on the back of a Democratic landslide to sweep the US to the left, he was elected purely to beat Trump and Georgia swing voters having voted Biden to beat the incumbent President will now vote GOP to ensure the woke, far left does not get too much power and the Senate stays GOP.
Hence Biden will be the first incoming President not to take office with his party in control of both chambers of Congress since Bush Snr in 1989. That would be about right, US voters want him to compromise with the GOP and to reduce the polarisation
I said either
The mark of greatness is to admit it when you're wrong. As I was on the 2019 General Election and in my critique of Alastair's doomsday thread in March.
You do yourself no favours by flogging this. You were wrong, plain wrong as Maggie used to say, on the US Presidential election. Just admit it and move on.
Family dynasties are a problem in all parties on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether you are a Kinnock, Rees Mogg, Milliband, Johnson, Hurd, Benn or Gummer, the family connection is a huge advantage.
A+++++. This is a huge problem, & not just in politics.
Many desirable professions (BBC, academia, media, acting) all suffer from this defect. In fact, in many professions, it is quite blatant.
It makes explicit how far from real equality of opportunity we are.
Nonetheless in politics, it is IMO exceptionally dangerous. There are only 650 MPs, and Parliament works best if our MPs represent as wide a set of backgrounds as possible.
Families providing phalanxes of MPs are restricting diversity of views. The same goes for husband-and-wife MPs.
Wouldn't it be a start if, to be a Republican candidate, you had to actually be a member of the Republican Party? We almost had a situation of Trump v Sanders representing parties they never deigned to join!
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
I think @isam is right here. They were crying wolf - we're seeing what a real crisis looks like - I suspect we not hear quite so much about winter health crises in future years.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
Cons think the NHS is bad (suboptimal) because of its inherent centralised inefficiencies; while Lab think it's bad because it is underfunded. So both parties criticise the other over its handling.
As to the once in a century event, it is tricky (and might not be popular) to resource the NHS for such an eventuality although I have said I am not sure what the govt has done over the past 10 months to aid it through this emergency - apparently staffing is the issue which can't be addressed in such a time frame.
Finally, the British public has shown time and again that it is unwilling to bear a higher tax burden in order to allocate more money to the NHS.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
Ah, that old endearing tone of yours. It only works if you really never do miss a point
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
It can be until its not. The Italian monarchy didn't stop Mussolini nor did the Greek monarchy stop the Colonels.
The Kaiser supported Hitler at the end of his iife too.
Britain's constitutional monarchy has its major drawbacks and advantages. There is one interesting difference with the British constitutional monarchy, even as I an not a great monarchist - counter-intuitively for an elite model, it's born out of a generally dissenting, questioning Whig tradition. Several of the American revolutionaries also saw themselves as reforming Whigs, but anti-monarchical ones.
Following this Whig logic, however, arguably the monarchy should already have been more scaled down in size and wealth by now.
On your last point, that would be counterproductive - it's the monarchy's aura of immemorial majesty, culturally accepted by most of the elite and public alike, that underpins its unspoken constitutional role of inhibiting military coups and dictatorships.
I'd be more worried about whether we have adequate supplies of gas for the next three months.
Many more homes will be being heated to a higher temperature, and our CCGT usage has skyrocketed due to a lack of wind. Heck, even the coal stations are nearing full power generation for the first time in about two years.
It's true in all professions, not just politics. And it's not only because of whom you know. It's also because if you are brought up in a political (acting/medical/legal) family, where the talk around the dinner table is about politics (acting/medicine/law) it gives you a head start in knowledge, as well as contacts. You get your 10,000 hours in much earlier than most people, if you like.
Perhaps even more important is that it puts that career choice on your radar. That is why it is so important for disadvantaged children to be helped to broaden their worldview, for example by schools inviting in mentors or by links with local businesses, or by the schemes run by the City livery companies and other organisations.
It is often the case that whatever happens in the US we end up with a slightly milder version. In the US the Republicans have in large part been taken over by crypto-fascists supported by obsessive swiveleyed dimwits. Here the Tory Party of which I was once a member and activist has been taken over by a similar, if not quite so extreme (one hopes) faction . Hopefully moderation will eventually prevail. One thing we can be sure of, Putin is laughing his head off. Patriots these people are definitely not!
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
Donald Trump spends less time on Twitter than Philip does on PB is a difference . The main element is that Philip is a populist nationalist. Also, he voted for Nigel Farage. He said he did not care that Putin was pleased with Brexit. He thinks Boris Johnson is a good leader (lol).That is pretty close to the views of Donald Trump at a top line level. Other than his claimed dislike of Trump, I can see very little lack of alignment to his often stated views on most things that he feels keen to share with us all.
Philip despises white nationalism, is sympathetic to BLM, dislikes religion in politics, is a strong proponent of gay rights. Those are not Trumpian views.
Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises (in 2010 excess deaths were still negative, indicating an improving health system).
This massive lack of funding?
Yes. Look at 2010 to 2015. Given the population was growing during that time, that's a real reduction in spend per person.
We are, or were in 2017, slightly above the OECD median (PPP) - above Spain and Italy, but below France, Germany and the US. No conclusive evidence either of lavish funding, or of a lack of funding.
Great header cyclefree. I know Sadiq Khan the London mayor gets a lot of stick from certain quarters on here. However he was correct on Trump from the get go.
I do worry that US is coming close to being like Spain in the early thirties, Two large blocs of 45% or so of the population who completely despise each other.
I'm pretty sure the rioters would have murdered Nancy Pelosi, had they got their hands on her.
Some may think it over the top but cyclefree is dead on. A lot of people treated it like a game and still do not care what damage has been done.
Others think going after Trump would make it worse, but you cannot deal with a cancer by ignoring it.
Those who enabled him and who may falsely claim regret at what happened that they helped encourage like Cruz will face zero consequences, but he must, as an example to all.
In unalloyed good news, just had £1075 off ERNIE. I'll take that in itself and as an omen for the year.
Well done. Nice to know where my interest is going ☹️
Sorry about that.
Was dubious about posting, but it just about qualifies as winning a political bet if you think about it. Especially pleasing that it is - I think - after the scaling down of prize rates.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
It can be until its not. The Italian monarchy didn't stop Mussolini nor did the Greek monarchy stop the Colonels.
The Kaiser supported Hitler at the end of his iife too.
Britain's constitutional monarchy has its major drawbacks and advantages. There is one interesting difference with the British constitutional monarchy, even as I an not a great monarchist - counter-intuitively for an elite model, it's born out of a generally dissenting, questioning Whig tradition. Several of the American revolutionaries also saw themselves as reforming Whigs, but anti-monarchical ones.
Following this Whig logic, however, arguably the monarchy should already have been more scaled down in size and wealth by now.
On your last point, that would be counterproductive - it's the monarchy's aura of immemorial majesty, culturally accepted by most of the elite and public alike, that underpins its unspoken constitutional role of inhibiting military coups and dictatorships.
Yes, but that's the substance of 18th century Toryism, whereas the actual constitutional limitations and legal role of the Queen come from 18th century Whiggery. This dichotomy is why the monarchy is still only partly popular, and the question feels more uncertain and less resolved than it probably should.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
A good point. It’s quite amazing that Trump and Sanders managed to gatecrash the nomination process of parties of which there were not even members.
The U.K. equivalent would be Farage standing for the Tories, or George Galloway for Labour. Thankfully the U.K. parties restrict who can stand for election.
Maybe the US Reps and Dems will follow suit, insisting that candidates for President already hold elected office as Senators or Governors representing their party.
Or top generals, which would still have included Eisenhower and Grant or obviously Vice Presidents
No reason why they can't first stand for a different elected office in Senate or suchlike. Not sure it would stop the likes of Trump. Let's face it we have still ended up with Johnson and Corbyn as leaders of our two parties, and the systems for this are very imperfect, though let's face it, no system is!
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
Or proof that they were right and that running with zero spare capacity in a good year might not be a good idea
Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises (in 2010 excess deaths were still negative, indicating an improving health system).
This massive lack of funding?
Yes. Look at 2010 to 2015. Given the population was growing during that time, that's a real reduction in spend per person.
We are, or were in 2017, slightly above the OECD median (PPP) - above Spain and Italy, but below France, Germany and the US. No conclusive evidence either of lavish funding, or of a lack of funding.
Yep I think that is the reality. For all its popularity as a political football/shibboleth/bete noire, the NHS is funded more or less as per everywhere else.
I have seen people posting studies of its relative efficiency vs other countries but can't remember the conclusion those drew.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
Or proof that they were right and that running with zero spare capacity in a good year might not be a good idea
Don't disagree but as I have said, we have told the Parties time and again that we are not prepared to pay for extra funding.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
A good point. It’s quite amazing that Trump and Sanders managed to gatecrash the nomination process of parties of which there were not even members.
The U.K. equivalent would be Farage standing for the Tories, or George Galloway for Labour. Thankfully the U.K. parties restrict who can stand for election.
Maybe the US Reps and Dems will follow suit, insisting that candidates for President already hold elected office as Senators or Governors representing their party.
Or top generals, which would still have included Eisenhower and Grant or obviously Vice Presidents
No reason why they can't first stand for a different elected office in Senate or suchlike. Not sure it would stop the likes of Trump. Let's face it we have still ended up with Johnson and Corbyn as leaders of our two parties, and the systems for this are very imperfect, though let's face it, no system is!
It would require amending the constitution, which stipulates only that candidates for the Presidency must be natural born citizens aged over 35. Any attempt to restrict that would probably fail in the Supreme Court, even if it was just an attempt to vet primary candidates.
Terrifying. And it wasnt a goddamn protest. When you break into places in a democracy it's a riot. When you do so to prevent a constitutional duty its insurrection.
And yes I dont think protestors on the other side who riot should still be called protestors.
Reports that J&J have begun the data analysis on their single shot vaccine and are nearing submission. Also that they are ready to deliver from the middle of February to early contract holders (US, UK). If that's true and a single jab has 80%+ efficacy then it is a game changer as it has all of the same advantages of the AZ vaccine in terms of storage and distribution. With 30m of those doses on early order we could bring forwards our herd immunity date quite significantly.
It would also be interesting to see how well it couples with a second shot of AZ which also uses an adenovirus vector but may not have viral vector immunity issues as may be the case for two shots of AZ.
Terrifying. And it wasnt a goddamn protest. When you break into places in a democracy it's a riot. When you do so to prevent a constitutional duty its insurrection.
And yes I dont think protestors on the other side who riot should still be called protestors.
So about 20-25% of the US population is in the MAGA zone? Arrrrrrrrrrrgh.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
It can be until its not. The Italian monarchy didn't stop Mussolini nor did the Greek monarchy stop the Colonels.
The Kaiser supported Hitler at the end of his iife too.
Britain's constitutional monarchy has its major drawbacks and advantages. There is one interesting difference with the British constitutional monarchy, even as I an not a great monarchist - counter-intuitively for an elite model, it's born out of a generally dissenting, questioning Whig tradition. Several of the American revolutionaries also saw themselves as reforming Whigs, but anti-monarchical ones.
Following this Whig logic, however, arguably the monarchy should already have been more scaled down in size and wealth by now.
On your last point, that would be counterproductive - it's the monarchy's aura of immemorial majesty, culturally accepted by most of the elite and public alike, that underpins its unspoken constitutional role of inhibiting military coups and dictatorships.
Yes, but that's the substance of 18th century Toryism, whereas the actual constitutional limitations and legal role of the Queen come from 18th century Whiggery. This dichotomy is why the monarchy is still only partly popular, and the question feels more uncertain and less resolved than it probably should.
18th-century Toryism is still alive and well in the 21st...
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
How exactly would Trump have been "weeded out"? Short of abolishing the primary system entirely, it's hard to see how a party can stop a candidate winning their nomination if they get a critical mass of support, which Trump did. Unless they say the nomination is only open to someone who is already an elected politician in that party
Wouldn't it be a start if, to be a Republican candidate, you had to actually be a member of the Republican Party? We almost had a situation of Trump v Sanders representing parties they never deigned to join!
The CDU managed to have Chancellor who was never a member of the CDU...
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
I took his point to be that the reason some people are not believing there's a massive NHS crisis due to Covid which could lead to the system collapsing is because in previous years there have been less serious NHS crises not due to Covid which did not lead to the system collapsing.
Not sure my reply proves that point but, yes, I'm sure some people do think that way. Winter. NHS. Same old, same old.
I'd be more worried about whether we have adequate supplies of gas for the next three months.
Many more homes will be being heated to a higher temperature, and our CCGT usage has skyrocketed due to a lack of wind. Heck, even the coal stations are nearing full power generation for the first time in about two years.
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
It can be until its not. The Italian monarchy didn't stop Mussolini nor did the Greek monarchy stop the Colonels.
The Kaiser supported Hitler at the end of his iife too.
Britain's constitutional monarchy has its major drawbacks and advantages. There is one interesting difference with the British constitutional monarchy, even as I an not a great monarchist - counter-intuitively for an elite model, it's born out of a generally dissenting, questioning Whig tradition. Several of the American revolutionaries also saw themselves as reforming Whigs, but anti-monarchical ones.
Following this Whig logic, however, arguably the monarchy should already have been more scaled down in size and wealth by now.
On your last point, that would be counterproductive - it's the monarchy's aura of immemorial majesty, culturally accepted by most of the elite and public alike, that underpins its unspoken constitutional role of inhibiting military coups and dictatorships.
Yes, but that's the substance of 18th century Toryism, whereas the actual constitutional limitations and legal role of the Queen come from 18th century Whiggery. This dichotomy is why the monarchy is still only partly popular, and the question feels more uncertain and less resolved than it probably should.
18th-century Toryism is still alive and well in the 21st...
It is, but so is the British protestant dissenting and reforming tradition. Although Charles is more engaged with various cultural issues than William, I get the feeling his son understands this intuitively a bit better , and will probably look to trim down.
I think this is an interesting argument by Sagan, but isn't really a description of what's going on.
Is the issue seriously that people were watching too much Beavis and Butthead in the 1990s? The programme was a parody, by the way, and Sagan is falling into the Bush Snr "Americans should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons" error. An educated person patronisingly believing the plebs don't get the joke (or possibly not getting the joke themselves).
It also paints an extraordinarily distorted picture of the standard of political discourse and public understanding in the America of the past. A US where, for example, marshals had to escort little black girls to recently desegregated schools due to threat of physical violence against them. A US where Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined lives and careers, contributing to suicides of good people.
I think recent events aren't about changes that occurred that have made Americans dumber (or indeed Brits or anyone else). They simply underscore a more general truth that democracy is fragile and the veneer of civilisation is thinner than we like to believe.
People think of Norman Rockwell only as a painter of the anodyne. The cuddly myth of America etc.
It's a quite brilliant painting, and all the more so because it is painted from the perspective of another child who has been taken to the protest by their father (the height is child's height, and the tomato comes from the direction of viewing).
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Patel is pretty disgraceful but qualitatively its different as Trump obsessively whipped people up over months to do a specific thing, she makes occasionally stupid or dangerous remarks.
It's true in all professions, not just politics. And it's not only because of whom you know. It's also because if you are brought up in a political (acting/medical/legal) family, where the talk around the dinner table is about politics (acting/medicine/law) it gives you a head start in knowledge, as well as contacts. You get your 10,000 hours in much earlier than most people, if you like.
Perhaps even more important is that it puts that career choice on your radar. That is why it is so important for disadvantaged children to be helped to broaden their worldview, for example by schools inviting in mentors or by links with local businesses, or by the schemes run by the City livery companies and other organisations.
This is very true. My father was a clerk and my mother a housewife. My father would have aspired, with more opportunities, I think, to be either an engineer or an accountant. My brother is an accountant, I studied physics at university, with an eye to an engineering type role afterwards (physics rather than engineering as I wasn't certain and wanted a few more options and was also interested in the more fundamental parts of physics).
I'm now in a career (epidemiological research) that I did not know existed until well after I had made my undergraduate choices and into which I fell completely by accident (needing money post-PhD - which was in a physics/geochemistry mix - and having some programming skills that got me a short contract in healthcare modelling). At interview for my current post, I was asked to explain my unusual career path, which was pretty easy, I had absolutely no idea that jobs like mine existed when I made those earlier choices.
There are of course also who-you-know advantages which is why, as you suggest, mentorship schemes and the like are so important.
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
Donald Trump spends less time on Twitter than Philip does on PB is a difference . The main element is that Philip is a populist nationalist. Also, he voted for Nigel Farage. He said he did not care that Putin was pleased with Brexit. He thinks Boris Johnson is a good leader (lol).That is pretty close to the views of Donald Trump at a top line level. Other than his claimed dislike of Trump, I can see very little lack of alignment to his often stated views on most things that he feels keen to share with us all.
Philip despises white nationalism, is sympathetic to BLM, dislikes religion in politics, is a strong proponent of gay rights. Those are not Trumpian views.
If they are his views and not a desperate attempt to seem more balanced then he is to be commended for those, though I haven't seen all his posts obviously - let us face it, who has?
Fundamentally he is a divisive populist nationalist, i.e. very close to Trump. Furthermore, he makes very strong pronouncements on matters he clearly has very little understanding or experience of, much more so than most others on here. I have often responded to these which I must confess maybe a little too mocking, which is why he often attacks me so I respond in kind.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
Or proof that they were right and that running with zero spare capacity in a good year might not be a good idea
Well, as 2020 deaths above average means we have reached the point had the trend 210-2017 continued, maybe they were. That would mean the excess deaths this year were just regression to the mean after a couple of good years though, and that wont wash.
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
I really dont understand Nigels obsession here. People dont post hundreds of anti trump messages if they secretly like him, they say nothing or occasionally say they aren't a fan, though hes got good points etc.
Unless someone literally contradicts themselves it's just rude to claim they dont mean what they say.
It now looks like Pence could even be the main moderate candidate in the 2024 GOP presidential nomination primaries, assuming Trump or Trump Jnr and Cruz are his main rivals, quite the turn of events
Pence ain’t moderate.
He is by the standards of most of the current GOP.
Mike Pence, the GOP Keir Starmer? You heard it here first
As you've been wrong on virtually everything regarding American politics, I shall give your US tips a wide berth. Here's a reminder of one of your recent gems:
The latest polling suggests the GOP will hold the Georgia Senate seats in the run off and I agree.
Biden was not elected on the back of a Democratic landslide to sweep the US to the left, he was elected purely to beat Trump and Georgia swing voters having voted Biden to beat the incumbent President will now vote GOP to ensure the woke, far left does not get too much power and the Senate stays GOP.
Hence Biden will be the first incoming President not to take office with his party in control of both chambers of Congress since Bush Snr in 1989. That would be about right, US voters want him to compromise with the GOP and to reduce the polarisation
I said either
The mark of greatness is to admit it when you're wrong. As I was on the 2019 General Election and in my critique of Alastair's doomsday thread in March.
You do yourself no favours by flogging this. You were wrong, plain wrong as Maggie used to say, on the US Presidential election. Just admit it and move on.
Don't be a little man. Leave that to Trump.
Have I said I was right? No.
I did get it wrong but I was not a million miles out either, certainly I was right in the sense it was no Biden landslide and no Democratic wave, the Democrats lost seats in the House and there is now a Democratic House majority over the GOP of just 10 and the Democrats narrowly scraped to a 50 50 tie in the Senate
For me one of the lessons is the importance of political party governance and ensuring that unfit candidates are not selected. The tragedy is that Trump managed to gate-crash the Republican Party and win the nomination by appealing above the heads of the establishment direct to the masses of primary voters. He should have been weeded out well beforehand by the pros.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
A good point. It’s quite amazing that Trump and Sanders managed to gatecrash the nomination process of parties of which there were not even members.
The U.K. equivalent would be Farage standing for the Tories, or George Galloway for Labour. Thankfully the U.K. parties restrict who can stand for election.
Maybe the US Reps and Dems will follow suit, insisting that candidates for President already hold elected office as Senators or Governors representing their party.
Or top generals, which would still have included Eisenhower and Grant or obviously Vice Presidents
No reason why they can't first stand for a different elected office in Senate or suchlike. Not sure it would stop the likes of Trump. Let's face it we have still ended up with Johnson and Corbyn as leaders of our two parties, and the systems for this are very imperfect, though let's face it, no system is!
It would require amending the constitution, which stipulates only that candidates for the Presidency must be natural born citizens aged over 35. Any attempt to restrict that would probably fail in the Supreme Court, even if it was just an attempt to vet primary candidates.
No-one is suggesting that eligible people can’t stand for the presidency - hell, even Kanye West managed to get his name on the ballot in some states last year.
The suggestion is that political parties should ensure their own candidates are actually members of their party, and that someone wanting to stand for a major party for the highest office should at least have some experience in senior elected office for that party.
I'm not surprised because this seems to be their modus operandi. Ladbrokes in my experience are much quicker and I expect others too.
You may say, well it's only a matter of hours and it's only the networks etc. but we all know now that Jon Ossoff has won by a significantly indisputable margin.
Except Donald Trump. Obvs.
My Ossoff bets were settled an hour ago -- all the Senate bets were: Georgia run-offs (Ossoff & Warnock); numbers of seats; no overall majority. ETA that's the Exchange; perhaps Betfair Sportsbook is still waiting if that is where you bet.
Me too. Dem double (Reps 50 seats) at 3.5 on the exchange. No drama this time. Least on the Betfair front. Plenty elsewhere of course.
It now looks like Pence could even be the main moderate candidate in the 2024 GOP presidential nomination primaries, assuming Trump or Trump Jnr and Cruz are his main rivals, quite the turn of events
Pence ain’t moderate.
He is by the standards of most of the current GOP.
Mike Pence, the GOP Keir Starmer? You heard it here first
As you've been wrong on virtually everything regarding American politics, I shall give your US tips a wide berth. Here's a reminder of one of your recent gems:
The latest polling suggests the GOP will hold the Georgia Senate seats in the run off and I agree.
Biden was not elected on the back of a Democratic landslide to sweep the US to the left, he was elected purely to beat Trump and Georgia swing voters having voted Biden to beat the incumbent President will now vote GOP to ensure the woke, far left does not get too much power and the Senate stays GOP.
Hence Biden will be the first incoming President not to take office with his party in control of both chambers of Congress since Bush Snr in 1989. That would be about right, US voters want him to compromise with the GOP and to reduce the polarisation
I said either
The mark of greatness is to admit it when you're wrong. As I was on the 2019 General Election and in my critique of Alastair's doomsday thread in March.
You do yourself no favours by flogging this. You were wrong, plain wrong as Maggie used to say, on the US Presidential election. Just admit it and move on.
Don't be a little man. Leave that to Trump.
Have I said I was right? No.
I did get it wrong but I was not a million miles out either, certainly I was right in the sense it was no Biden landslide and no Democratic wave, the Democrats lost seats in the House and narrowly scraped to a 50 50 tie in the Senate
I think the great thing about you HYUFD is that unlike the poster above you have never been so immodest to claim to have "the mark of greatness". I don't always agree with you, but as I have said before I admire your politeness, which is, partic in a forum like this, a mark of greatness!
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Patel is pretty disgraceful but qualitatively its different as Trump obsessively whipped people up over months to do a specific thing, she makes occasionally stupid or dangerous remarks.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
I took his point to be that the reason some people are not believing there's a massive NHS crisis due to Covid which could lead to the system collapsing is because in previous years there have been less serious NHS crises not due to Covid which did not lead to the system collapsing.
Not sure my reply proves that point but, yes, I'm sure some people do think that way. Winter. NHS. Same old, same old.
What can you do?
Elect the LibDems who wanted an NHS hypothecated tax.
But as I have said for now this is the third time, the country doesn't want to spend more on the NHS.
The thinking behind my theory that the candidate with more personality has a big advantage that VI polls miss. Modern life is all about killer soundbites and image, and there are more people are fooled by them than bother to really think
America in 2016-2020: the Celebration of Ignorance. Sums up Trump and those who voted or him. Such a pity it was allowed to flourish by the Democrats and their Celebration of Nepotism.
Nepotism? She was a former Secretary of State and Senator.
There's many reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton but to say she got the nomination down to nepotism is a bizarre reading of the facts, even more so when you consider she won the popular vote.
Heck you can say she was eminently more qualified to be POTUS than the GOP's last bit of nepotism, back in 2000 when they picked the son of a former President.
She was a shockingly bad candidate. She lost to Donald Trump. I rest my case.
The Democrats seem in thrall to family dynasties. Kennedy's, Clintons.... Not that the Republican are much better. The 2016 member of the Bush dynasty was also a shockingly bad candidate. He lost to Donald Trump.
Family dynasties are a problem in all parties on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether you are a Kinnock, Rees Mogg, Milliband, Johnson, Hurd, Benn or Gummer, the family connection is a huge advantage.
Yes, I have always thought it an amusing irony that the hereditary principle was not extinguished by the Wedgewood Benn family with the Peerage Act 1963. That said it is unsurprising that children or nieces or nephews follow in the footsteps of their forebears. It happens in all sorts of other professions and walks of life
It does. Whilst Emily Benn is apparently a decent and talented person it was risible when she talked about being a normal person, when normal people, no matter how brilliant they are, dont get selected as parliamentary candidates at age 17, without a dynasty.
When we talk about averages, we have mean, median, and mode, of course.
Mean: add them all up and divide by how many "them" there were Median: Order "them" numerically and pick the one in the middle Mode: Most common one of "them."
These each provide a valid perspective on "average" - the expected value, the value where you can expect as many above as below (and where if you shift from it, the other direction is now a majority), and the most common value.
In 2016-2018, the mean age of death for males in the UK was 79.3. The median was 82.5. (primary cause of difference is that it's not symmetrical - someone who dies at 5 is never "balanced out" by someone who dies at 155) The modal age of death was 86.
The last has changed the most. In 1966, and for every single year before that, the modal age of death in males in the UK was 0. Infant mortality claimed so many before their first birthday, that "zero" was the most common age of death.
Bit of an eye-opener, that.
In 1967, it jumped to 67, then 72, then 74, and has climbed ever since.
(Thanks go to William Hartston and his book "Numb and Number")
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
I really dont understand Nigels obsession here. People dont post hundreds of anti trump messages if they secretly like him, they say nothing or occasionally say they aren't a fan, though hes got good points etc.
Unless someone literally contradicts themselves it's just rude to claim they dont mean what they say.
There is a certain type of psychology that would, yes. Some of it, I have to confess is a desire to troll Philip which I don't feel toward others on here, well maybe except the nationalists. I hope I am to be forgiven, but in his own way he gives as good as he gets.
Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises.
Doubt it's that, the increase actually starts at 2004 it seems
You're misunderstanding the graph. Anything negative is indicative of improving outcomes. The rate of improvement may have slowed until about 2012, but it was only after that that outcomes started to deteriorate.
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
Small hands?
Not that I can talk on that one. Mine are not particularly large. Never used to bother me but it does now for some reason.
I think this is an interesting argument by Sagan, but isn't really a description of what's going on.
Is the issue seriously that people were watching too much Beavis and Butthead in the 1990s? The programme was a parody, by the way, and Sagan is falling into the Bush Snr "Americans should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons" error. An educated person patronisingly believing the plebs don't get the joke (or possibly not getting the joke themselves).
It also paints an extraordinarily distorted picture of the standard of political discourse and public understanding in the America of the past. A US where, for example, marshals had to escort little black girls to recently desegregated schools due to threat of physical violence against them. A US where Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined lives and careers, contributing to suicides of good people.
I think recent events aren't about changes that occurred that have made Americans dumber (or indeed Brits or anyone else). They simply underscore a more general truth that democracy is fragile and the veneer of civilisation is thinner than we like to believe.
People think of Norman Rockwell only as a painter of the anodyne. The cuddly myth of America etc.
It's a quite brilliant painting, and all the more so because it is painted from the perspective of another child who has been taken to the protest by their father (the height is child's height, and the tomato comes from the direction of viewing).
Yes - the composition is extremely good.
I do really like Norman Rockwell, and it reminds me I must go to the Norman Rockwell Museum when this is all over and I next go to New York or Boston (it's often been on my list but is a hell of a faff to get to I think as it's in the arse end of nowhereville)
Comments
What an amazing coincidence.
Although time-served professional politicians are often decried, in fact having an apprenticeship in the political ecosystem, experiencing the ups-and-downs of the electoral cycle, accepting that you will win and lose, is pretty well essential for the system to work.
This whole sorry saga, is also a pretty good advertisement for the benefits of a constitutional monarchy. Ironically having a hereditary non-elected head of state is a pretty good guarantor, in extremis, of democracy.
I'm sure a proportion of Republicans will continue to believe it was justified. Just not sure it will remain at that level.
Also note that 40% or so of your self-identified supporters being appalled is terrible, even if 60% remain blindly loyal.
It's not what you know, it's who you know.
The U.K. equivalent would be Farage standing for the Tories, or George Galloway for Labour. Thankfully the U.K. parties restrict who can stand for election.
Maybe the US Reps and Dems will follow suit, insisting that candidates for President already hold elected office as Senators or Governors representing their party.
PS Some of these allegations may be untrue.
.BBC News - British Gas staff start five-day strike in 'fire and rehire' row
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55562904
Bit strange, the number of deaths w Covid on the certificate was 72 less in week 52 than week 51, but the number of deaths above the 5 year average went from 1463 to 3566
He had next to no interest or contact in professional politics.
He was appalled to be approached, too stand as a Labour candidate, more than once. Just for the name.
Britain's constitutional monarchy has its major drawbacks and advantages. There is one interesting difference with the British constitutional monarchy, even as I am not a particular monarchist - counter-intuitively for an elite model, it's born out of a generally dissenting, questioning Whig tradition. Several of the American revolutionaries also saw themselves as reforming Whigs, but anti-monarchical ones.
Following this Whig logic, however, arguably the monarchy should already have been more scaled down in size and wealth by now.
The practical problem in the US system is the combination of party primaries and FPTP. Gerrymandering makes it worse, because it means most politicians are more scared of their respective bases than the voters at large.
Out of date, unforgiveably.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/
Amazingly, by his own party.
I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
You do yourself no favours by flogging this. You were wrong, plain wrong as Maggie used to say, on the US Presidential election. Just admit it and move on.
Don't be a little man. Leave that to Trump.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
Many desirable professions (BBC, academia, media, acting) all suffer from this defect. In fact, in many professions, it is quite blatant.
It makes explicit how far from real equality of opportunity we are.
Nonetheless in politics, it is IMO exceptionally dangerous. There are only 650 MPs, and Parliament works best if our MPs represent as wide a set of backgrounds as possible.
Families providing phalanxes of MPs are restricting diversity of views. The same goes for husband-and-wife MPs.
As to the once in a century event, it is tricky (and might not be popular) to resource the NHS for such an eventuality although I have said I am not sure what the govt has done over the past 10 months to aid it through this emergency - apparently staffing is the issue which can't be addressed in such a time frame.
Finally, the British public has shown time and again that it is unwilling to bear a higher tax burden in order to allocate more money to the NHS.
Many more homes will be being heated to a higher temperature, and our CCGT usage has skyrocketed due to a lack of wind. Heck, even the coal stations are nearing full power generation for the first time in about two years.
I know Sadiq Khan the London mayor gets a lot of stick from certain quarters on here.
However he was correct on Trump from the get go.
I'm pretty sure the rioters would have murdered Nancy Pelosi, had they got their hands on her.
Others think going after Trump would make it worse, but you cannot deal with a cancer by ignoring it.
Those who enabled him and who may falsely claim regret at what happened that they helped encourage like Cruz will face zero consequences, but he must, as an example to all.
Was dubious about posting, but it just about qualifies as winning a political bet if you think about it. Especially pleasing that it is - I think - after the scaling down of prize rates.
I have seen people posting studies of its relative efficiency vs other countries but can't remember the conclusion those drew.
And yes I dont think protestors on the other side who riot should still be called protestors.
It would also be interesting to see how well it couples with a second shot of AZ which also uses an adenovirus vector but may not have viral vector immunity issues as may be the case for two shots of AZ.
Not sure my reply proves that point but, yes, I'm sure some people do think that way. Winter. NHS. Same old, same old.
What can you do?
https://twitter.com/ng_eso/status/1346130806666891264
Iraq’s judiciary issues arrest warrant for Trump over killing of Qassim Soleimani
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/jan/07/joe-biden-donald-trump-mike-pence-capitol-congress-us-election-coronavirus-live-updates
I'm now in a career (epidemiological research) that I did not know existed until well after I had made my undergraduate choices and into which I fell completely by accident (needing money post-PhD - which was in a physics/geochemistry mix - and having some programming skills that got me a short contract in healthcare modelling). At interview for my current post, I was asked to explain my unusual career path, which was pretty easy, I had absolutely no idea that jobs like mine existed when I made those earlier choices.
There are of course also who-you-know advantages which is why, as you suggest, mentorship schemes and the like are so important.
Fundamentally he is a divisive populist nationalist, i.e. very close to Trump. Furthermore, he makes very strong pronouncements on matters he clearly has very little understanding or experience of, much more so than most others on here. I have often responded to these which I must confess maybe a little too mocking, which is why he often attacks me so I respond in kind.
Good of you to defend him though, credit to you.
This Atlantic article in similar vein is also very good:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/what-trump-and-his-mob-taught-world-about-america/617579/
Unless someone literally contradicts themselves it's just rude to claim they dont mean what they say.
I did get it wrong but I was not a million miles out either, certainly I was right in the sense it was no Biden landslide and no Democratic wave, the Democrats lost seats in the House and there is now a Democratic House majority over the GOP of just 10 and the Democrats narrowly scraped to a 50 50 tie in the Senate
The suggestion is that political parties should ensure their own candidates are actually members of their party, and that someone wanting to stand for a major party for the highest office should at least have some experience in senior elected office for that party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
If Trump were to be charged with criminal incitement, the First Amendment would not help him.
But as I have said for now this is the third time, the country doesn't want to spend more on the NHS.
Mean: add them all up and divide by how many "them" there were
Median: Order "them" numerically and pick the one in the middle
Mode: Most common one of "them."
These each provide a valid perspective on "average" - the expected value, the value where you can expect as many above as below (and where if you shift from it, the other direction is now a majority), and the most common value.
In 2016-2018, the mean age of death for males in the UK was 79.3.
The median was 82.5.
(primary cause of difference is that it's not symmetrical - someone who dies at 5 is never "balanced out" by someone who dies at 155)
The modal age of death was 86.
The last has changed the most. In 1966, and for every single year before that, the modal age of death in males in the UK was 0.
Infant mortality claimed so many before their first birthday, that "zero" was the most common age of death.
Bit of an eye-opener, that.
In 1967, it jumped to 67, then 72, then 74, and has climbed ever since.
(Thanks go to William Hartston and his book "Numb and Number")
This results in a lot of paperwork and delays.
Not that I can talk on that one. Mine are not particularly large. Never used to bother me but it does now for some reason.