Movie scenes to make you weep: the ending of L'Italien des Roses, the best film you've never heard of. I saw it in Paris in the 1970s, and was absolutely gobsmacked by it. It should come with a mental-health warning, though: it's about a suicidal young man, and is not easy watching.
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
@Philip_Thompson re our discussion the other day re potential tax rises. One we discussed was the reversal of the the vat reduction on hospitality. We agreed on the inelasticity of demand hence why I thought it would be a good one to reverse. You countered with the suggestion of leaving well alone so those businesses hardest hit could take advantage of the bigger margin rather than it go to the treasury. I concede I hadn't thought of that.
Later that day l thought of this some more. If I were 20 years younger I would consider an investment into hospitality because of the hollowing out of supply, the increase in gearing on those who have survived and the increase in demand. Why should I (who would be exploiting the situation) benefit in addition by the reduced vat rate boosting my margin?
Would it not be better to help existing businesses another way, eg regarding the loans they have taken out.
The sector needs massive investment, it has been rocked to its core and many businesses have not survived. Those shuttered premises attract crime and disorder, are a lost opportunity, lost potential taxes and lost potential employment.
If you invest seeking to "exploit the situation" then that is fixing a hole in the economy and in a couple of years time (since I suggested keeping VAT down for 2 years) you would be paying the Exchequer significant taxes by then. If you survived that long of course, its a notoriously difficult sector to make a profit in.
I agree it is a difficult industry, often driven by a desire rather than a spreadsheet.
As a newcomer though I would be getting a competitive advantage (that I hadn't earned because of Covid) over the existing suppliers because I wouldn't be burdened by the increase in loans and depleted cash balances, so wouldn't it be better to level out that playing field as much as possible. There is still an incentive for me to invest because of reduced supply and increase in demand.
I used the term exploiting the situation deliberately to be emotive and of course we need people to do that. It was emphasize the point that I was less deserving of the generous suggestion you make than existing suppliers and wondered if there was a fairer way of achieving your aim.
As someone who was made redundant from a management position due to Covid, then I would urge caution in investing in the existing businesses. I have seen businesses that were really great pubs which has multiple revenue streams such as weddings / events, drinking, and restaurant that have gone out of business just because they had maximised the income on a site whereas the small pub run by an owner couple with limited staff support which doesn't make much money has been supported by grants, rent concessions and business rates relief, whilst also allowing them time to undertake repairs / decorations to come back better. These sites are unlikely to make good money in the long term and I would not be looking to invest.
Reflecting on @Gardenwalker 's proposal that we all be allowed to be legally drugged up with Ganja.
I'd want a legally regulated production side. ISTM that Holland may have the worst of both worlds - 5g is allowed on your person by blinf ee enforcement, but it cannot be grown legally.
I like the idea of UK having a cannabis surplus in our trade balance.
Colorado makes 100s of millions in taxes, and Canada's export trade is nearly billions.
Lots of possibilities if properly regulated.
Can they stop it smelling like shit? I absolutely detest the smell, it's revolting.
I thought I would give an update from EU rollout land:
Our PM Mette F is off to Israel with Sebastian Kurz from Austria to discuss with Bibi how to work together to be more self-reliant in vaccine production - in other words the Danes have decided it's time to sort shit out
There is a big plan for mass vaccination from end of March - we have capacity for 100,000 doses a day from the health service - story is private contractors will be brought in to work in shopping centres and other public spaces with a further 300,000 a day (but only guaranteed payment for 30% of that - so 'up to 300k')
As Berlingske newspaper put it though - this is all very exciting but where will the doses come from - last week we got 160,000 for the whole week.
If it actually happened we would all be jabbed with first dose over a 14 day perriod - not convinced this is likely but Danes are exceptionally good at delivery of stuff when they make the decision.
I also keep seeing reporting about Denmark having vaccinated over 500,000 people so far - not sure where that number comes from but for 1st doses we are still sub 400,000.
There is little outrage it seems about the EU vaccine catastrophe and no change on not using AZ for over 65s it seems.
Wales has an average 47 day gap between jabs right now. Noone's really noticed it yet because they're in the lead but if Big G's appointment time is typical, and the data suggests it is then Wales will start to run into an issue with 1st jab numbers relative to the rest of the UK in March.
Just to confirm
First vaccination was Saturday 23rd January
Confirmed second is Sunday 7th March
Total 43 days
Both in the Venue Cymru Theatre and Conference Centre on the Promenade in Llandudno
My first (Pfizer) was Jan 16th. In an snowstorm in the (Colchester) Colne Valley
No booking for the second yet. Was told at the time of the first that it would be mid-March.
Morning all. There is no route for Starmer that doesn’t go through Scotland. Above all other places, that’s where he needs to spend his efforts. He also needs to decide whether to prioritise young metropolitans or ‘red wall’ northern seats - the policies that appeal to these two groups are mutually exclusive.
The moron has already pissed off Scotland with his colonial master overtones. They have elected a donkey to the regional sub office leadership, there is only so much self harm they can do to themselves.
Hmm. Actually. the recent developments up here have changed the morale of the respective parties quite considerably.
For once, SLAB has actually done itself a favour. Sarwar's election is no guarantee of a recovery but he, at least, isn't a roadblock to one as Leonard surely was.
The end of the run of pro-Indy opinion polls is also significant. They were beloved of the pro-Nat twitterati.
And Swinney being threatened with a No Confidence vote for not releasing the Salmond case legal advice is noteworthy. Repeatedly defying the will of the Scottish Parliament by an SNP Government which is big on "the sovereign will of the Scottish people" is not a good look.
My guess is that all this, if it has any significant effect, will be on turn-out in May, rather than on people wholesale changing their minds on Indy in principle. Country is split 50/50. Low SNP turnout is what cost them seats in the 2017 GE - could it happen in May? We shall see.
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
I don't think it's that. I think that the organs of state doing the recording don't particularly like the Government. They have no interest in a national PR exercise - the NHS has always (in recent times anyway) presented itself as in crisis, as that's how it gets more money.
Wales has an average 47 day gap between jabs right now. Noone's really noticed it yet because they're in the lead but if Big G's appointment time is typical, and the data suggests it is then Wales will start to run into an issue with 1st jab numbers relative to the rest of the UK in March.
Just to confirm
First vaccination was Saturday 23rd January
Confirmed second is Sunday 7th March
Total 43 days
Both in the Venue Cymru Theatre and Conference Centre on the Promenade in Llandudno
My first (Pfizer) was Jan 16th. In an snowstorm in the (Colchester) Colne Valley
No booking for the second yet. Was told at the time of the first that it would be mid-March.
Reflecting on @Gardenwalker 's proposal that we all be allowed to be legally drugged up with Ganja.
I'd want a legally regulated production side. ISTM that Holland may have the worst of both worlds - 5g is allowed on your person by blinf ee enforcement, but it cannot be grown legally.
I like the idea of UK having a cannabis surplus in our trade balance.
Colorado makes 100s of millions in taxes, and Canada's export trade is nearly billions.
Lots of possibilities if properly regulated.
Or we can continue to spend billions on trying to police the unpolicable in a free society, plus the billions more on dealing with the consequences of gang warfare driven by the drugs trade.
I’d go down the making drugs properly and taxing them route. The alternative is the Bangkok/Singapore/UAE route, of building lots of prisons and filling them with first time drug offenders.
Wales has an average 47 day gap between jabs right now. Noone's really noticed it yet because they're in the lead but if Big G's appointment time is typical, and the data suggests it is then Wales will start to run into an issue with 1st jab numbers relative to the rest of the UK in March.
Just to confirm
First vaccination was Saturday 23rd January
Confirmed second is Sunday 7th March
Total 43 days
Both in the Venue Cymru Theatre and Conference Centre on the Promenade in Llandudno
My first (Pfizer) was Jan 16th. In an snowstorm in the (Colchester) Colne Valley
No booking for the second yet. Was told at the time of the first that it would be mid-March.
The polling figures also show that Boris is clearly the most popular Tory leader in a generation in the North and Midlands but also ironically probably the least popular Tory leader in a generation in London, despite the fact he was Mayor of the city
BoJo is good at making himself likeable on first encounter, but bad at maintaining relationships?
Bozo will fool some of the voters all of the time (there is one I can think of that posts on here), some of them some of the time (quite a few on here), but I suspect by the time of the next election a lot of his lies, and particularly his incompetence, will out run his luck on other matters. $ years is a long time to keep saying "..but the vaccine roll out, the vaccine rollout. Surely you must credit him with the vaccine rollout?"
I don’t see how the NY Times article is “ignorant”. The government has spent the last year using the official stats to bully us into one of the most restrictive (but also inefficient) lockdowns in the world, so it can hardly complain when people take them at their word.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
I don't think it's that. I think that the organs of state doing the recording don't particularly like the Government. They have no interest in a national PR exercise - the NHS has always (in recent times anyway) presented itself as in crisis, as that's how it gets more money.
I agree with the first paragraph. However, while I think we've been consistent in reporting that deaths were due to Covid if they occurred within 28 days of a positive test, and it's quite likely other countries, for understandable reasons, use different criteria, it doesn't follow that the UK's don't overstate the position. Friends of mine have died in hospital of other causes shortly after a positive Covid test, but it would appear that they have been attributed to virus. And what happens about those poor souls who linger on, twixt death and life, for several weeks until final their over-stretched systems collapse. Are they attributed to Covid or what?
Boris’ great strength as PM is the very thing that so irritates people like Max Hastings and a few others on here below. He’s a chameleon, perfectly capable of shifting his position for expediency. He’s a pragmatist.
Like Tony Blair before him, there’s almost no substance. A vague centrist social mush and that’s it. It’s to his brilliant advantage that he doesn’t believe in anything. He did the one thing required of him by the people who mattered: he delivered Brexit. They will remember that until they die and also that Starmer was pro EU and tried to get us to remain.
For sure Boris is both insecure and narcissistic but he has a great fiancee who is politically astute. She has shown a deft hand in getting rid of the malign influence of Cummings who utterly dragged down the Government. Cummings is an Opposition man never for government. He’s a reactionary and the last thing you need is one of those in power. He did his job and then, at last, was shown the door. Ever since then Boris and the Conservatives have been cut free from the chain and they are flying high.
Boris has a moral compass that doesn’t point true north but then since when did that matter in a PM? We are electing a politician. Not a vicar.
Blair was and is various things, some better than others, but not a chameleon. His defining characteristic is to make up his mind and go for it with formidable powers of persuasion - Clause 4, the election win, the NHS turnaround, Iraq, private provision of public service. He's sometimes very wrong IMO, and a weakness is an inability to realise it, but he's always interesting.
Boris has considerable charm as well as a ruthless streak, and the combination has got him where he is, but he is rarely interesting in the sense of having any particular ideas on what needs to be done. I agree that he's a pragmatist in the sense you describe, and that he's doing pretty well at the moment, but I'm not convinced that level of pragmatism is a durable asset. We shall see.
Boris is someone most blokes would like to have a pint of beer with and many ladies would like to spend a night with. He’s extremely interesting.
Blair was a vacuous chameleon who, like Boris, was never a good public speaker. He has never said a single interesting thing and he shifted himself and his party for entirely pragmatic grounds.
Blair was a left winger once until he realised it would get him and Labour nowhere so he took the chameleon pathway, reinventing everything that they apparently stood for under a ‘New Labour’ banner. The clue is in the word ‘New.’
Blair’s so called formidable powers of persuasion that you cite were exactly what Boris did with Brexit and he equally ruthlessly expunged those from his cabinet who didn’t believe in Brexit. Boris ruthlessly and brilliantly delivered Brexit. Even though I doubt he actually believed in it. He and Blair are very similar. Perfect pragmatists. Equally empty of real ideology. Which is why Boris is starting to make an excellent PM.
Interesting post. Not sure I necessarily agree with the premise but thought-provoking none the less...
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
I don't think it's that. I think that the organs of state doing the recording don't particularly like the Government. They have no interest in a national PR exercise - the NHS has always (in recent times anyway) presented itself as in crisis, as that's how it gets more money.
No that would only be the case if the problems were exaggerated wildly here. They're not really. It's pretty accurate.
The problem is wildly underestimated in most of the world. That's the difference.
Morning all. There is no route for Starmer that doesn’t go through Scotland. Above all other places, that’s where he needs to spend his efforts. He also needs to decide whether to prioritise young metropolitans or ‘red wall’ northern seats - the policies that appeal to these two groups are mutually exclusive.
I'm currently working on my first header for pb.com, on the subject of "which seats does Labour prioritise to fight the next election?" Not giving too much away to suggest it is a horrible thing to be a Labour strategist next time out....
Re: likeabilty for PMs: Kinnock always much scored higher than Thatcher on the "who would you like to come to tea?" test but Thatcher won on the "who should run the country ?" test.
After a thread on films that made you cry, how about a thread on films that tipped over from pathos to kitsch? I remember a review of "The Revenant" which said that after Leonardo Di Caprio fell off the cliff for the second time, the audience started to laugh.
I don’t see how the NY Times article is “ignorant”. The government has spent the last year using the official stats to bully us into one of the most restrictive (but also inefficient) lockdowns in the world, so it can hardly complain when people take them at their word.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
The Government has used this country's stats which are accurate.
What they've not used which the NYT has is the garbage inaccurate data from other countries to make dodgy false comparisons.
Excess deaths are the gold standard for very good reasons. It's the measurement of who has actually died not the guestimates in some countries of who has.
The polling figures also show that Boris is clearly the most popular Tory leader in a generation in the North and Midlands but also ironically probably the least popular Tory leader in a generation in London, despite the fact he was Mayor of the city
BoJo is good at making himself likeable on first encounter, but bad at maintaining relationships?
Bozo will fool some of the voters all of the time (there is one I can think of that posts on here), some of them some of the time (quite a few on here), but I suspect by the time of the next election a lot of his lies, and particularly his incompetence, will out run his luck on other matters. $ years is a long time to keep saying "..but the vaccine roll out, the vaccine rollout. Surely you must credit him with the vaccine rollout?"
You keep saying this - and yet he keeps winning.....
What we have under Boris is a nominally Tory government which is not afraid of state intervention or of spending the cash in a very big way funded by borrowing. The traditional Labour cry of no more Tory austerity is likely to have very little resonance at the next election in the same way that Blair was able to capture so much Tory turf on law and order, public sector reform and perceived economic competence. This gives Labour the same definitional problems that Blair gave the Tories where they are driven off the middle ground just to be heard and to say something different.
What I expect that we will see in the budget, despite soaring deficits, is a generous package to see people out of lockdown and to kick start the recovery with a particular emphasis on spending in the north and midlands. We will see funds being set aside to kick start other industries in the way that the government did with the vaccines to create the jobs of tomorrow. The Hammond wing of the Tories, in so far as it still exists, are likely to be quietly appalled just as the Labour left were appalled by so much that Blair did but Boris won't care.
SKS will be left looking for small groups that have been overlooked or picking at the edges in a way that seems to endorse the broad thrust of government policy. It is not a good look and repeats the flawed approach he has taken to lockdown and the virus.
Sunak gave an interview yesterday claiming that the average rent for pubs and restaurants was between £14,000 and £20,000 pa. This is so far out, so wrong, as to be laughable. Who the hell is advising him when he comes out with bollocks like that? And why should we believe anything else he says when he or his team cannot do even the most basic research. This is a Chancellor who was taking advice from the discredited Professor Gupta last autumn, for heaven's sake.
Starmer needs a much much better Shadow Chancellor. I know I go against the PB grain but Sunak is overrated. A good Shadow would be picking on his mistakes. A Shadow would be asking how the economy is going to grow - let alone the areas the government claims to care about - when the government's main policy has been one which is harming many exporting businesses. But we have a Labour leadership scared of its own shadow and too many people thinking that a mini-consumer boom when we all go out again will pay the bills. It's naive and dangerous.
Its pretty consistent with what Sunak says. Obviously rental varies from area to area.
I agree about Dodds. She has no presence and no impact. It is inevitable that there will be mistakes and misjudgments in the next year or two and SKS requires someone capable of exploiting them as well as building up the credibility of the alternative after the fiasco of Corybn and McDonnell
The polling figures also show that Boris is clearly the most popular Tory leader in a generation in the North and Midlands but also ironically probably the least popular Tory leader in a generation in London, despite the fact he was Mayor of the city
BoJo is good at making himself likeable on first encounter, but bad at maintaining relationships?
Bozo will fool some of the voters all of the time (there is one I can think of that posts on here), some of them some of the time (quite a few on here), but I suspect by the time of the next election a lot of his lies, and particularly his incompetence, will out run his luck on other matters. $ years is a long time to keep saying "..but the vaccine roll out, the vaccine rollout. Surely you must credit him with the vaccine rollout?"
"You can fool some of the people all of the time - and those are the ones you want to concentrate on..." George W Bush.
I don’t see how the NY Times article is “ignorant”. The government has spent the last year using the official stats to bully us into one of the most restrictive (but also inefficient) lockdowns in the world, so it can hardly complain when people take them at their word.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
The Government has used this country's stats which are accurate.
What they've not used which the NYT has is the garbage inaccurate data from other countries to make dodgy false comparisons.
Excess deaths are the gold standard for very good reasons. It's the measurement of who has actually died not the guestimates in some countries of who has.
AIUI we haven't used excess deaths. However, to be fair it's very difficult to be absolute.
Morning all. There is no route for Starmer that doesn’t go through Scotland. Above all other places, that’s where he needs to spend his efforts. He also needs to decide whether to prioritise young metropolitans or ‘red wall’ northern seats - the policies that appeal to these two groups are mutually exclusive.
I'm currently working on my first header for pb.com, on the subject of "which seats does Labour prioritise to fight the next election?" Not giving too much away to suggest it is a horrible thing to be a Labour strategist next time out....
If you look at the Labour target list, several seats in London and the South East which have been Tory since 2010 like Chipping Barnet, Hendon, Watford, Hastings and Rye and Reading West and Wycombe are now in the top 50 Labour target seats as well as Kensington, which the Tories won back in 2019 and Chingford and Woodford Green which was Tory even in 1997 and 2001 but is now just 13th on the Labour target list.
On the other hand some Northern and Midlands Redwall seats which stayed Labour even in 2010, 2015 and 2017 like Bishop Auckland, Scunthorpe and Great Grimsby are not even in the top 100 Labour target seats and West Bromwich West for example is only 62nd now on the Labour target list.
In that sense Starmer's better ratings in London and the South than the North and Midlands may not be so damaging for him, he only needs to win back some RedWall seats to become PM not all as long as he also picks up Tory seats in London and the South
Interesting article by Rajeev Syal in today's Guardian, under the heading 'Does Boris Johnson stir up team conflict to help make up his mind?"
A quote: 'Those who worked closely with him say Johnson encourages rows and tensions over policies as he considers all sides of the argument and figures out what he will do next.'
Where does one draw the line between stirring up conflict and enabling everyone to speak their views?
It's not a bad way to gather a lot of widely diverging input on a topic. That's one of the reasons I value this site so much. The vigorous debate airs aspects that would never occur to me, which is invaluable in helping me form my own views.
Good morning, everyone.
Completely agree .The worse thing in any management team is groupthink or waiting for the most senior person to say their view and then agree with them. It is one of Boris strong points that he does not want to be imposing his take on things all the time
I think in some institutions the rule is that the most junior of those involved should speak first in order to avoid that trap.
I thought I would give an update from EU rollout land:
Our PM Mette F is off to Israel with Sebastian Kurz from Austria to discuss with Bibi how to work together to be more self-reliant in vaccine production - in other words the Danes have decided it's time to sort shit out
There is a big plan for mass vaccination from end of March - we have capacity for 100,000 doses a day from the health service - story is private contractors will be brought in to work in shopping centres and other public spaces with a further 300,000 a day (but only guaranteed payment for 30% of that - so 'up to 300k')
As Berlingske newspaper put it though - this is all very exciting but where will the doses come from - last week we got 160,000 for the whole week.
If it actually happened we would all be jabbed with first dose over a 14 day perriod - not convinced this is likely but Danes are exceptionally good at delivery of stuff when they make the decision.
I also keep seeing reporting about Denmark having vaccinated over 500,000 people so far - not sure where that number comes from but for 1st doses we are still sub 400,000.
There is little outrage it seems about the EU vaccine catastrophe and no change on not using AZ for over 65s it seems.
Reflecting on @Gardenwalker 's proposal that we all be allowed to be legally drugged up with Ganja.
I'd want a legally regulated production side. ISTM that Holland may have the worst of both worlds - 5g is allowed on your person by blinf ee enforcement, but it cannot be grown legally.
I like the idea of UK having a cannabis surplus in our trade balance.
Colorado makes 100s of millions in taxes, and Canada's export trade is nearly billions.
Lots of possibilities if properly regulated.
Or we can continue to spend billions on trying to police the unpolicable in a free society, plus the billions more on dealing with the consequences of gang warfare driven by the drugs trade.
I’d go down the making drugs properly and taxing them route. The alternative is the Bangkok/Singapore/UAE route, of building lots of prisons and filling them with first time drug offenders.
I haven't done any tax revenue detailed estimates, but Colorado seems to get £250m pa from a population of 5 million people ish plus the industry after a few years of legalisation.
The polling figures also show that Boris is clearly the most popular Tory leader in a generation in the North and Midlands but also ironically probably the least popular Tory leader in a generation in London, despite the fact he was Mayor of the city
BoJo is good at making himself likeable on first encounter, but bad at maintaining relationships?
Bozo will fool some of the voters all of the time (there is one I can think of that posts on here), some of them some of the time (quite a few on here), but I suspect by the time of the next election a lot of his lies, and particularly his incompetence, will out run his luck on other matters. $ years is a long time to keep saying "..but the vaccine roll out, the vaccine rollout. Surely you must credit him with the vaccine rollout?"
You keep saying this - and yet he keeps winning.....
He's been driven mad by Brexiteers and is now fooled all of the time.
Quite sad really. I pity him to have so much fear, anger and hatred in his heart. Someone else too.
But PM? [Keir Starmer] is looking like the Labour IDS - a leader who won't get to fight an election.
What an interesting piece from Mr Smithson. And that’s also an interesting comparison with IDS. I certainly think KS has something of the John Smith about him. Capable, decent, solid.
And uninspiring.
John Smith was also thoroughly Scottish so he had a massive advantage over Starmer there: he could attract Labour support where it was needed.
I can’t see Labour winning a General Election or even (to pick up one of Mr Smithson’s previous posts) preventing an outright Conservative win.
What on earth do Labour do about this? They have leader who seems decent but who is electorally unattractive and uninspiring.
I wpould not put Starmer in the same league as John Smith - he's barely in the same universe.
The main thing PB Tories want in a Labour leader is that he (for it is a he, yes) has been out of office for at least a couple of decades. Dead is best, of course.
Hence all the bollocks now about "Kinnock's bravery", when at the time you would have been behind the Sun's light bulb.
PS This is not an endorsement of Neil Kinnock.
Well the thing with John Smith is that he was in position such a tragically short length of time that we can all - Labour and non-Labour - project on to him that how he would have worked out is how we think Labour and ultimately the country should have worked out. The problem with being around for a long time is that you build up scars of misfortune and tough decisions and bad decisions.
I had to read Smithers' post a couple of times - first of all, I looked slightly askance at the claim he could attract Labour support where it was needed - thinking that he was hardly Blair in attracting the vote of Worcester woman. But of course that was in the day when Labour could rely on Scotland. There always used to be the old saw that Labour only ever had a Scottish or Welsh leader (Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown) or one with a Scottish or Welsh constituency (Callaghan, Foot, Smith, Brown). But maybe that is what Labour need? Though it would now be increasingly constitutionally tricky for a PM to have a Scottish or Welsh seat. (Which in itself should be an illustration of what a dog's dinner our constitutional arrangements now are.)
On Kinnock, it is perfectly possible to admire him for what he did for the party - and also for his undoubted skills as an orator - while still not wanting him to have been in government. He was a good party leader, but only really persuaded those already in the Labour camp. He wasn't great at getting switchers.
Midlands seeks to have gone Tory in a big way in recent decades.
Hugely. The East and West Midlands were once classic swing regions, but now solidly Conservative, save Birmingham, Leicester, and Nottingham. Birmingham itself is now solidly Labour, whereas once a marginal city.
Do we have the data to compare this with the Boris v Corbyn numbers in 2019?
The London numbers are all the more remarkable when you consider Boris was a reasonably well regarded Mayor of London who won two terms there. Looks like Starmer would have been a good candidate for that job himself. But PM? He's looking like the Labour IDS - a leader who won't get to fight an election.
‘Remarkable’ is code for Londoners having had the advantage (not that it was) of having seen the clown in action closer to hand?
Boris was the perfect front man for London during the Olympics.
And he is always going to be remembered more fondly than the current incumbent London Mayor. Khan has proved to be a blank page - without any crayons.
The olympics is the perfect example - the decisions and leg work were all done, and all he had to do was walk about waving a flag, looking mildly silly whilst not touching anything.
I agree that Khan is deeply unimpressive, even though he has mostly tried to focus on the day job.
It's hard to think of what "achievements" Khan has had in his day job. Can anyone think of any one policy that he has done that has made a meaningful impact on the positive side. As Felix side, his record on knife crime (and crime) is not exactly stellar.
He seems to be copying the style of the big US city mayors and not in a good way. Shy away from tough decisions, go for the photo op and hint at discrimination if people oppose him.
Things are pretty bad in Labour when the likes of Khan are wheeled out as an 'improvement' on Starmer 2 days after SLab choose Sanwar. Desperate stuff.
I make no judgment on whether Khan would be an improvement on Starmer, but I do recognise that Labour's centre of gravity is in London, and if you are looking for a third Labour leader in a row from London then he is an obvious choice.
The last thing Labour need to win the red wall seats to gain office is another London based leader
I don’t see how the NY Times article is “ignorant”. The government has spent the last year using the official stats to bully us into one of the most restrictive (but also inefficient) lockdowns in the world, so it can hardly complain when people take them at their word.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
The Government has used this country's stats which are accurate.
What they've not used which the NYT has is the garbage inaccurate data from other countries to make dodgy false comparisons.
Excess deaths are the gold standard for very good reasons. It's the measurement of who has actually died not the guestimates in some countries of who has.
AIUI we haven't used excess deaths. However, to be fair it's very difficult to be absolute.
We produce lots of different numbers, including excess deaths figures produced by the ONS.
They've recently changed the calculation of excess deaths to attempt to account for the long-term trend in reducing death rates. This produces a more accurate estimate than comparing to the five-year average (but even then there are things like different rates of flu, improvements in air quality, etc, that are impossible to account for).
Unfortunately, it makes the figures less suitable for comparison with other countries. So we have another set of statistics and have to be careful to use the right one for international comparisons, and perhaps a different one for internal use.
Morning all. There is no route for Starmer that doesn’t go through Scotland. Above all other places, that’s where he needs to spend his efforts. He also needs to decide whether to prioritise young metropolitans or ‘red wall’ northern seats - the policies that appeal to these two groups are mutually exclusive.
I'm currently working on my first header for pb.com, on the subject of "which seats does Labour prioritise to fight the next election?" Not giving too much away to suggest it is a horrible thing to be a Labour strategist next time out....
Prof Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told Times Radio this morning that people should be “somewhat worried” about the discovery of the Brazilian variant P1 in the UK. Asked how worried people should be, he replied:
Somewhat worried but not total panic, perhaps.
It’s somewhat more worrying than the UK variant, the Kent variant, that we’re used to talking about, because it covers the double whammy, we think, of being more transmissible and somewhat better at evading neutralising antibodies.
Altmann said research in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where many people were thought to be immune because so many people were infected during the first wave, suggested the new variant was “breaking through” antibodies built up by previous infection. He said:
It was expected that there would be quite a high level of protection there because analysis of antibodies in blood bank samples showed [Manaus] had one of the highest levels of immunity in the world coming into the second wave, perhaps more than 70%, and yet they’re seeing this enormous wave of reinfections.
So, if you put two and two together their assumption is that’s because the new variant is breaking through those antibodies. But if that hadn’t really been proven yet, it looks likely.
AFAIK, this 70% figures that is widely quoted never made it into the peer reviewed paper, it was from a pre-print, that the authors now don't include / included with a massive caveat, after a number of people pulled them up on the methodology that lead to it.
I thought I would give an update from EU rollout land:
Our PM Mette F is off to Israel with Sebastian Kurz from Austria to discuss with Bibi how to work together to be more self-reliant in vaccine production - in other words the Danes have decided it's time to sort shit out
There is a big plan for mass vaccination from end of March - we have capacity for 100,000 doses a day from the health service - story is private contractors will be brought in to work in shopping centres and other public spaces with a further 300,000 a day (but only guaranteed payment for 30% of that - so 'up to 300k')
As Berlingske newspaper put it though - this is all very exciting but where will the doses come from - last week we got 160,000 for the whole week.
If it actually happened we would all be jabbed with first dose over a 14 day perriod - not convinced this is likely but Danes are exceptionally good at delivery of stuff when they make the decision.
I also keep seeing reporting about Denmark having vaccinated over 500,000 people so far - not sure where that number comes from but for 1st doses we are still sub 400,000.
There is little outrage it seems about the EU vaccine catastrophe and no change on not using AZ for over 65s it seems.
Reflecting on @Gardenwalker 's proposal that we all be allowed to be legally drugged up with Ganja.
I'd want a legally regulated production side. ISTM that Holland may have the worst of both worlds - 5g is allowed on your person by blinf ee enforcement, but it cannot be grown legally.
I like the idea of UK having a cannabis surplus in our trade balance.
Colorado makes 100s of millions in taxes, and Canada's export trade is nearly billions.
Lots of possibilities if properly regulated.
Or we can continue to spend billions on trying to police the unpolicable in a free society, plus the billions more on dealing with the consequences of gang warfare driven by the drugs trade.
I’d go down the making drugs properly and taxing them route. The alternative is the Bangkok/Singapore/UAE route, of building lots of prisons and filling them with first time drug offenders.
I don't feel strongly. But evidence differs as to whether legalisation of cannabis actually reduces the drug trade, in the long term.
I don’t see how the NY Times article is “ignorant”. The government has spent the last year using the official stats to bully us into one of the most restrictive (but also inefficient) lockdowns in the world, so it can hardly complain when people take them at their word.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
The Government has used this country's stats which are accurate.
What they've not used which the NYT has is the garbage inaccurate data from other countries to make dodgy false comparisons.
Excess deaths are the gold standard for very good reasons. It's the measurement of who has actually died not the guestimates in some countries of who has.
AIUI we haven't used excess deaths. However, to be fair it's very difficult to be absolute.
We haven't needed to domestically as our domestic reporting of deaths is pretty accurate and pretty much matches the excess deaths figure. Actually slightly higher reported than excess but not too much.
That's not the case elsewhere. Hence making comparisons against other countries wrong.
If out reporting figures were missing half the excess deaths, like Italy, would that make our situation better?
I wonder if there's an effect against taller men as well ? 14 stone is about as light as I'll be able to get before my turn is due, I'd be around 19% body fat at that point though.
Midlands seeks to have gone Tory in a big way in recent decades.
Hugely. The East and West Midlands were once classic swing regions, but now solidly Conservative, save Birmingham, Leicester, and Nottingham. Birmingham itself is now solidly Labour, whereas once a marginal city.
That's not exactly surprising or against any national trends. It's simply a case of 'towns' voting Tory and large metropolitan university cities voting Labour.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
Since he and Carrie showed Cummings, Cain and Oliver the door, Boris has become markedly better. He has grown in stature: ending the petulant internal anarchism which was such an Opposition mindset and is now displaying gravitas and sangfroid. He is looking like a genuinely great Prime Minister. And he has parked his bus right on top of Labour’s lawn.
I just can’t see what Labour can do about this. I suspect they will be out of power for at least another decade.
Do they still have a football team in Hartlepool?
The owner is however dodgy and I don't expect them to survive for that long...
He asked about Hartlepool not Liverpool
The Monkey Hangers are third in the National League and so could make a welcome return to League 2, the foot of which they have adorned so often. They beat Barnet 1-0 on Saturday. Other teams' fans love them because it gives them something to say, as in 'Who hung the monkey?'
Matches against Darlington are traditionally lively affairs and they always receive a standing ovation at Brunton Park. Sadly all currently in different leagues.
I've been there once I think when both Leeds and Hartlepool were briefly in League One in 2008 or 2009. Their ground is a fucking tip. I remember the announcer taking pains to point out that he was also a driving instructor and then giving his phone number.
It is true that Hartlepool have spent time in League 1, but this is contrary to the natural order of things. Glad you enjoyed the visit; you capture the culture but not the sheer grace and charm of the Co Durham coast in general and Victoria Park in particular.
The fans were pretty genial as I remember. It was nothing like a trip to St Andrew's or Boundary Park with 50p coins bouncing off your skull.
Happy days
You could end up with a nice collection of batteries too. They never worked though.
Midlands seeks to have gone Tory in a big way in recent decades.
Hugely. The East and West Midlands were once classic swing regions, but now solidly Conservative, save Birmingham, Leicester, and Nottingham. Birmingham itself is now solidly Labour, whereas once a marginal city.
Yes. It's still faintly shocking to see Conservative MPs from places like Blyth and North West Durham and Leigh and Rother Valley - but this is only what happened a generation ago in places like Cannock and South Derbyshire.
The example at the other end of the spectrum is provided by Nottingham. The Tories winning Nottingham North in the 80s was a bit of a fluke, but they were always competitive in South and East. Now all three are solidly Labour.
But Labour's problem in the North is that they don't have Nottingham south style seats to target in compensation for losing the coalfields - they already hold the likes of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Manchester Withington, Liverpool Wavertree.
The shifting tides of electoral geography are fascinating!
I thought I would give an update from EU rollout land:
Our PM Mette F is off to Israel with Sebastian Kurz from Austria to discuss with Bibi how to work together to be more self-reliant in vaccine production - in other words the Danes have decided it's time to sort shit out
There is a big plan for mass vaccination from end of March - we have capacity for 100,000 doses a day from the health service - story is private contractors will be brought in to work in shopping centres and other public spaces with a further 300,000 a day (but only guaranteed payment for 30% of that - so 'up to 300k')
As Berlingske newspaper put it though - this is all very exciting but where will the doses come from - last week we got 160,000 for the whole week.
If it actually happened we would all be jabbed with first dose over a 14 day perriod - not convinced this is likely but Danes are exceptionally good at delivery of stuff when they make the decision.
I also keep seeing reporting about Denmark having vaccinated over 500,000 people so far - not sure where that number comes from but for 1st doses we are still sub 400,000.
There is little outrage it seems about the EU vaccine catastrophe and no change on not using AZ for over 65s it seems.
Which has 418,870 for "Påbegyndt vaccinerede" - "Started vaccinated"??
and
183,106 for "Færdigvaccinerede' - "Completely vaccinated"??
Denmark have extended their dose interval which helps.
yes the six weeks helps but still describing further extension as 'risky'
a sfor the vaccination numbers - why not just get the number from the SSI which is responsibe for them? as of 28 Feb it was 418,000 - no need to get it via three other websites!
Prof Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told Times Radio this morning that people should be “somewhat worried” about the discovery of the Brazilian variant P1 in the UK. Asked how worried people should be, he replied:
Somewhat worried but not total panic, perhaps.
It’s somewhat more worrying than the UK variant, the Kent variant, that we’re used to talking about, because it covers the double whammy, we think, of being more transmissible and somewhat better at evading neutralising antibodies.
Altmann said research in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where many people were thought to be immune because so many people were infected during the first wave, suggested the new variant was “breaking through” antibodies built up by previous infection. He said:
It was expected that there would be quite a high level of protection there because analysis of antibodies in blood bank samples showed [Manaus] had one of the highest levels of immunity in the world coming into the second wave, perhaps more than 70%, and yet they’re seeing this enormous wave of reinfections.
So, if you put two and two together their assumption is that’s because the new variant is breaking through those antibodies. But if that hadn’t really been proven yet, it looks likely.
AFAIK, this 70% figures that is widely quoted never made it into the peer reviewed paper, it was from a pre-print, that the authors now don't include / included with a massive caveat, after a number of people pulled them up on the methodology that lead to it.
I’ve posted the below a couple of times regarding Manaus. It casts a lot of doubt on the 70%+ figure. I think “concern” as opposed to full on freak out is the right response.
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
Chariots of Fire - When Abrahams wins gold and Sam is punching his hat from the hotel . Oliver - When Nancy is murdered Memphis Belle - when the plane lands after struggling (for some reason dodgy plane landings get me emotional - same with the film about the Hudson landing ) I Tonya - When Tonya Harding mother insists on the posh ice dance school taking her on as a four year old despite her having no money to pay for lessons - Great spirit
The way to the stars... has a tear jerker at the end..
A railway station, the cheery station master apologising to the puzzled girl for being too friendly "on a day like this", the smoke and steam as the train pulls out, the man appearing and the girl running to him, arms outstretched. "Daddy, my Daddy!" Then the perfect freeze frame as they embrace and smile at each other.
Has me in bits every time.
Also the prelude to "Up", Toy Story 3 in the furnace, Dumbo when his mother is taken away. And - yes - another railway station setting: the end of Brief Encounter when he puts his hand on her shoulder briefly and leaves while the annoying friend witters on and they are unable to say goodbye. The singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca makes the lips tremble a bit too.
I have a former colleague, just a few years younger than me, who would blub if you just said "Daddy, my daddy..." The single greatest moment of the joy of childhood reunion in cinema history?
Left field one here, but at the end of Stan and Ollie, when you learn that after Ollie's death Stan spent the next 7 years still writing scripts for the pair of them to perform. Pathos gets me every time.
And Field of Dreams. For guys, about saying "goodbye, I loved you" to your father. Rarely covered, but hellish powerful. Even with Kevin Costner. God knows how broken up I'd be if it was somebody sympathetic....
Had a friend who went on a blind date with a chap to see Gorillas in the Mist. By the end of the film, he had a hugely sodden shoulder she had sobbed into.
Several of us went to see The Piano when it came out. One our party ended the film inconsolable.
The last scene in "Now Voyager" when Paul Heinreid lights 2 cigarettes and asks Bette Davis "But will you be happy?" "Oh Jerry, why ask for the moon when we have the stars".
There is a film called Pan y Vin I saw as a child about a boy who loses his mother which had me weeping copiously throughout and for days after.
The Wizard of Oz by contrast had me shrieking in terror when they go into the forest, so much so that we had to leave the cinema. To this day I have never seen it the whole way through - and when my children saw it I had to leave the room as I could still remember the terror I felt.
I saw Shadowlands in the theatre with Nigel Hawthorne and that had me in tears too.
The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù): a fabulous film, and the ending, if it's redemptive tears you're after...
I wonder if there's an effect against taller men as well ? 14 stone is about as light as I'll be able to get before my turn is due, I'd be around 19% body fat at that point though.
It could be related to Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is fat soluble so you need more of it if you are obese to get to optimal immune system efficiency.
I wonder if or when they'll finally twig that other countries reporting their excess Covid deaths as not due to Covid doesn't mean more have died here?
I was talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday. He expressed bafflement that - apparently uniquely in the world - the British state appears to have been at pains to make its handling of the pandemic appear as bad as possible. I don't know, yet, exactly how bad things have been here compared to elsewhere. But we seem to have been at pains to report as many deaths as possible, as many positives as possible in a way that other countries haven't been. I'm not suggesting everyone else is outright lying, but few other countries seem as keen to make things look as bad as possible as we do. Is this a deliberate policy to try and encourage people to follow lockdown restrictions?
No it's a long standing tradition in this country of honesty. No sniggering in the back.
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
I don't think it's that. I think that the organs of state doing the recording don't particularly like the Government. They have no interest in a national PR exercise - the NHS has always (in recent times anyway) presented itself as in crisis, as that's how it gets more money.
No that would only be the case if the problems were exaggerated wildly here. They're not really. It's pretty accurate.
The problem is wildly underestimated in most of the world. That's the difference.
We've had anecdotal evidence on PB alone of over-reporting as Covid. Now it's a national story. I am sure there has been some underreporting elsewhere. The degree to which both these have happened is very difficult to ascertain.
I wonder if there's an effect against taller men as well ? 14 stone is about as light as I'll be able to get before my turn is due, I'd be around 19% body fat at that point though.
It could be related to Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is fat soluble so you need more of it if you are obese to get to optimal immune system efficiency.
I am not familiar with that explanation of vitamin D, do you have a source? A vitamin being fat soluble usually means you need to consume fat alongside it to absorb it. I believe most obese people do have lower levels of vitamin D, but I've always put it down to accompanying issues.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
Medics, statisticians, public health officials and others think that excess deaths is the better measure. The reason they think that is it deals with all the variations of diagnosis, testing, and recording disease that exist between countries, and excess deaths captures the indirect deaths as well.
Think about it like this, a country could have no COVID-19 testing capacity, and because of that simply end up recording a lot of pneumonia related deaths, does it mean they were spared by the disease? Of course not.
There is no perfect measure of the effects of a pandemic, but excess deaths is probably the best we have.
I wonder if there's an effect against taller men as well ? 14 stone is about as light as I'll be able to get before my turn is due, I'd be around 19% body fat at that point though.
It could be related to Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is fat soluble so you need more of it if you are obese to get to optimal immune system efficiency.
I am not familiar with that explanation of vitamin D, do you have a source? A vitamin being fat soluble usually means you need to consume fat alongside it to absorb it. I believe most obese people do have lower levels of vitamin D, but I've always put it down to accompanying issues.
Reflecting on @Gardenwalker 's proposal that we all be allowed to be legally drugged up with Ganja.
I'd want a legally regulated production side. ISTM that Holland may have the worst of both worlds - 5g is allowed on your person by blinf ee enforcement, but it cannot be grown legally.
I like the idea of UK having a cannabis surplus in our trade balance.
Colorado makes 100s of millions in taxes, and Canada's export trade is nearly billions.
Lots of possibilities if properly regulated.
Or we can continue to spend billions on trying to police the unpolicable in a free society, plus the billions more on dealing with the consequences of gang warfare driven by the drugs trade.
I’d go down the making drugs properly and taxing them route. The alternative is the Bangkok/Singapore/UAE route, of building lots of prisons and filling them with first time drug offenders.
I don't feel strongly. But evidence differs as to whether legalisation of cannabis actually reduces the drug trade, in the long term.
Do you mean the drug trade in general or the cannabis sector specifically? I would have thought after legalisation & government approved commodification that the illegal cannabis trade would be reduced to even less than sketchy alcohol represents today. There might be a market for skunk I guess which I imagine governments wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.
So the only county with a Tory council at one point in the nineties is the same as the only state with a socialist senator? I'll give that one a miss I think.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
Medics, statisticians, public health officials and others think that excess deaths is the better measure. The reason they think that is it deals with all the variations of diagnosis, testing, and recording disease that exist between countries, and excess deaths captures the indirect deaths as well.
Think about it like this, a country could have no COVID-19 testing capacity, and because of that simply end up recording a lot of pneumonia related deaths, does it mean they were spared by the disease? Of course not.
There is no perfect measure of the effects of a pandemic, but excess deaths is probably the best we have.
Yes - in addition to catching *all* extra deaths, not just the ones missed by testing/diagnosis issues, excess deaths measures the indirect casualties of the COVID epidemic.
Think of the shutdown of much of the work of the NHS, for example.
Wales has an average 47 day gap between jabs right now. Noone's really noticed it yet because they're in the lead but if Big G's appointment time is typical, and the data suggests it is then Wales will start to run into an issue with 1st jab numbers relative to the rest of the UK in March.
Just to confirm
First vaccination was Saturday 23rd January
Confirmed second is Sunday 7th March
Total 43 days
Both in the Venue Cymru Theatre and Conference Centre on the Promenade in Llandudno
Went to Venue Cymru a couple of years ago.....for a 60s pop concert. Nice place. I like Llandudno.
Reflecting on @Gardenwalker 's proposal that we all be allowed to be legally drugged up with Ganja.
I'd want a legally regulated production side. ISTM that Holland may have the worst of both worlds - 5g is allowed on your person by blinf ee enforcement, but it cannot be grown legally.
I like the idea of UK having a cannabis surplus in our trade balance.
Colorado makes 100s of millions in taxes, and Canada's export trade is nearly billions.
Lots of possibilities if properly regulated.
Or we can continue to spend billions on trying to police the unpolicable in a free society, plus the billions more on dealing with the consequences of gang warfare driven by the drugs trade.
I’d go down the making drugs properly and taxing them route. The alternative is the Bangkok/Singapore/UAE route, of building lots of prisons and filling them with first time drug offenders.
I don't feel strongly. But evidence differs as to whether legalisation of cannabis actually reduces the drug trade, in the long term.
Do you mean the drug trade in general or the cannabis sector specifically? I would have thought after legalisation & government approved commodification that the illegal cannabis trade would be reduced to even less than sketchy alcohol represents today. There might be a market for skunk I guess which I imagine governments wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.
The drug trade in general.
Policies such as decriminalisation/legalisation are generally argued that illegal cannabis supports the drug trade. As a result, the harm caused or said to be caused by cannabis itself is put into the shadows by even a modest increase or decrease in heroin, coke, etc.
The example at the other end of the spectrum is provided by Nottingham. The Tories winning Nottingham North in the 80s was a bit of a fluke, but they were always competitive in South and East. Now all three are solidly Labour.
But Labour's problem in the North is that they don't have Nottingham south style seats to target in compensation for losing the coalfields - they already hold the likes of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Manchester Withington, Liverpool Wavertree.
The shifting tides of electoral geography are fascinating!
Nottingham was always a Labour town, the Tories got lucky in 1983.
Nottingham South contains parts of 2 universities, Nottingham East is ethnically very diverse.
Both these factors have contributed to poorish Tory performance in Nottingham, but the Tories never really held these Notts seats in the way Labour held the red wall. They are not really the other side of the spectrum.
The other side of the spectrum is probably the University seats. Cambridge, Canterbury, Portsmouth South, Oxford, the Brighton seats.
How many University-dominated seats remain in Tory hands?
Probably very, very few (Broxtowe?), but they are ones I might expect the Tories to lose next time.
The example at the other end of the spectrum is provided by Nottingham. The Tories winning Nottingham North in the 80s was a bit of a fluke, but they were always competitive in South and East. Now all three are solidly Labour.
But Labour's problem in the North is that they don't have Nottingham south style seats to target in compensation for losing the coalfields - they already hold the likes of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Manchester Withington, Liverpool Wavertree.
The shifting tides of electoral geography are fascinating!
Nottingham was always a Labour town, the Tories got lucky in 1983.
Nottingham South contains parts of 2 universities, Nottingham East is ethnically very diverse.
Both these factors have contributed to poorish Tory performance in Nottingham, but the Tories never really held these Notts seats in the way Labour held the red wall. They are not really the other side of the spectrum.
The other side of the spectrum is probably the University seats. Cambridge, Canterbury, Portsmouth South, Oxford, the Brighton seats.
How many University-dominated seats remain in Tory hands?
Probably very, very few (Broxtowe?), but they are ones I might expect the Tories to lose next time.
No, I agree, the Tories never dominated the likes of Nottingham South - but nor were they absolutely miles behind in the way they are now. The swing to Labour in the University cities has been the reverse of the swing to the Tories in the coalfields. But Labour started from a position of being fairly competitive in the university cities.
Reflecting on @Gardenwalker 's proposal that we all be allowed to be legally drugged up with Ganja.
I'd want a legally regulated production side. ISTM that Holland may have the worst of both worlds - 5g is allowed on your person by blinf ee enforcement, but it cannot be grown legally.
I like the idea of UK having a cannabis surplus in our trade balance.
Colorado makes 100s of millions in taxes, and Canada's export trade is nearly billions.
Lots of possibilities if properly regulated.
Or we can continue to spend billions on trying to police the unpolicable in a free society, plus the billions more on dealing with the consequences of gang warfare driven by the drugs trade.
I’d go down the making drugs properly and taxing them route. The alternative is the Bangkok/Singapore/UAE route, of building lots of prisons and filling them with first time drug offenders.
I don't feel strongly. But evidence differs as to whether legalisation of cannabis actually reduces the drug trade, in the long term.
Do you mean the drug trade in general or the cannabis sector specifically? I would have thought after legalisation & government approved commodification that the illegal cannabis trade would be reduced to even less than sketchy alcohol represents today. There might be a market for skunk I guess which I imagine governments wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.
If done sensibly, the legalisation *should* aim to do the following -
- Reduce the price a small, but significant amount. To wipe out the illegal offerings. - Keep the price below any illegal offerings. This shouldn't be hard. Studies of the drug trade have shown that criminal organisations are very, very badly run. Legal manufacturer should be an order of magnitude cheaper. - Offer increased quality - Mange the taxation as above - Ensure that the ownership of production is fully legal
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
The example at the other end of the spectrum is provided by Nottingham. The Tories winning Nottingham North in the 80s was a bit of a fluke, but they were always competitive in South and East. Now all three are solidly Labour.
But Labour's problem in the North is that they don't have Nottingham south style seats to target in compensation for losing the coalfields - they already hold the likes of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Manchester Withington, Liverpool Wavertree.
The shifting tides of electoral geography are fascinating!
Nottingham was always a Labour town, the Tories got lucky in 1983.
Nottingham South contains parts of 2 universities, Nottingham East is ethnically very diverse.
Both these factors have contributed to poorish Tory performance in Nottingham, but the Tories never really held these Notts seats in the way Labour held the red wall. They are not really the other side of the spectrum.
The other side of the spectrum is probably the University seats. Cambridge, Canterbury, Portsmouth South, Oxford, the Brighton seats.
How many University-dominated seats remain in Tory hands?
Probably very, very few (Broxtowe?), but they are ones I might expect the Tories to lose next time.
Colchester? And Chelmsford's got part of Anglia Ruskin.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
The example at the other end of the spectrum is provided by Nottingham. The Tories winning Nottingham North in the 80s was a bit of a fluke, but they were always competitive in South and East. Now all three are solidly Labour.
But Labour's problem in the North is that they don't have Nottingham south style seats to target in compensation for losing the coalfields - they already hold the likes of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Manchester Withington, Liverpool Wavertree.
The shifting tides of electoral geography are fascinating!
Nottingham was always a Labour town, the Tories got lucky in 1983.
Nottingham South contains parts of 2 universities, Nottingham East is ethnically very diverse.
Both these factors have contributed to poorish Tory performance in Nottingham, but the Tories never really held these Notts seats in the way Labour held the red wall. They are not really the other side of the spectrum.
The other side of the spectrum is probably the University seats. Cambridge, Canterbury, Portsmouth South, Oxford, the Brighton seats.
How many University-dominated seats remain in Tory hands?
Probably very, very few (Broxtowe?), but they are ones I might expect the Tories to lose next time.
No, I agree, the Tories never dominated the likes of Nottingham South - but nor were they absolutely miles behind in the way they are now. The swing to Labour in the University cities has been the reverse of the swing to the Tories in the coalfields. But Labour started from a position of being fairly competitive in the university cities.
There remain quite a few Conservative university constitutencies but they are Conservative despite, rather than because, of the university presence.
Guildford, Runnymede & Weighbridge, Welywn Hatfield, Reading East, Colchester come to mind. Cirencester is probably the only one where the university votes in line with the rest.
I make it that if we hit 4 million per week for the next ten weeks, then we just need an increase to 5 million per week for three weeks after that to hit all adults by the end of MAY.
Have I made an arithmetic error? (Week ending 28th of Feb is estimated; the following four weeks are adjusted to get it to end up marrying up 1st doses for 12 weeks previously with 2nd doses given during the week. Constant 4 million total doses assumed for w/e 7 March to w/e 9 May; 5 million per week after that. Approximately 52 million adults to receive vaccinations.)
The example at the other end of the spectrum is provided by Nottingham. The Tories winning Nottingham North in the 80s was a bit of a fluke, but they were always competitive in South and East. Now all three are solidly Labour.
But Labour's problem in the North is that they don't have Nottingham south style seats to target in compensation for losing the coalfields - they already hold the likes of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Manchester Withington, Liverpool Wavertree.
The shifting tides of electoral geography are fascinating!
Nottingham was always a Labour town, the Tories got lucky in 1983.
Nottingham South contains parts of 2 universities, Nottingham East is ethnically very diverse.
Both these factors have contributed to poorish Tory performance in Nottingham, but the Tories never really held these Notts seats in the way Labour held the red wall. They are not really the other side of the spectrum.
The other side of the spectrum is probably the University seats. Cambridge, Canterbury, Portsmouth South, Oxford, the Brighton seats.
How many University-dominated seats remain in Tory hands?
Probably very, very few (Broxtowe?), but they are ones I might expect the Tories to lose next time.
No, I agree, the Tories never dominated the likes of Nottingham South - but nor were they absolutely miles behind in the way they are now. The swing to Labour in the University cities has been the reverse of the swing to the Tories in the coalfields. But Labour started from a position of being fairly competitive in the university cities.
There remain quite a few Conservative university constitutencies but they are Conservative despite, rather than because, of the university presence.
Guildford, Runnymede & Weighbridge, Welywn Hatfield, Reading East, Colchester come to mind. Cirencester is probably the only one where the university votes in line with the rest.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
Leigh is another example of this. There is barely a person under 60 who went down the pit. But there is a heck of a lot of cheap family housing within easy reach of Manchester. Bolton West too. Although that was never Red Wall, being traditionally more affluent and rural, it has swung in a similar way.
Things do look rather hopeless for Starmer in the short term, especially those regional figures. But one thing I'd been wondering about the reported exodus from London since the pandemic started: might this be seeding a new more Labour or Lib-Dem inclined strain of metropolitan types in the home counties? There are a few quite marginal Con-LD seats across Surrey and Hampshire for example where a handful of home working ex-Londoners in their 30s and 40s might swing things.
The same has been happening for years in the US with Texas, Arizona etc. picking up Dems migrating out of the cold.
Just as likely to be Tories leaving the London sinking ship. The trendy lefties hang on to the dream till the bitter end.
It's possible. Will be interesting to watch what if any impact these demographic shifts have at local level when we finally have some real elections to look at.
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
I'm not entirely convinced by that last para. It is more varied than that.
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
That's also potentially the long-term fate of Blyth Valley, Durham NW, and even Hexham.
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
Hexham is strange. We must be the only NE constituency, and one of the few in the rural North to have seen a net Con to Lab swing between 2015 and 2019.
I make it that if we hit 4 million per week for the next ten weeks, then we just need an increase to 5 million per week for three weeks after that to hit all adults by the end of MAY.
Have I made an arithmetic error? (Week ending 28th of Feb is estimated; the following four weeks are adjusted to get it to end up marrying up 1st doses for 12 weeks previously with 2nd doses given during the week. Constant 4 million total doses assumed for w/e 7 March to w/e 9 May; 5 million per week after that. Approximately 52 million adults to receive vaccinations.)
Hmm. Looking at the numbers in each JCVI category, and the date of 1st jab plus 21 days, you get:
Categories 1-4 protected (dose+21 days) by 8th of March Categories 1-6 protected by 29th of March Categories 1-9 protected by 12th of April Above plus all over 40s and half of 30-39s protected by 17th of May All adults protected by 21st of June.
I'm sure I've seen those dates somewhere before...
(The only one that doesn't perfectly fit the timetable is the 17th of May, but if they'd been doing 5 year chunks as before, it would have fit very nicely indeed)
When I was at university I'd say students were split between Labour and the Liberal Democrats with a small minority (c.25%) Tory. The Greens were proper hippie/swampy types, and few in number.
The Lib Dems soaked up a lot of the New Labour zupport after Iraq and peaked at GE2010.
Nowadays, I imagine students are overwhelmingly Labour but increasingly Green, where disillusioned Corbynites can quickly switch en masse with social media and well organised grassroots campaigns.
Bristol West is fascinating. By GE2024 it's possible that every single mainstream UK party will have held the seat (with slightly different boundaries) in a GE over a 35 year period, except UKIP.
There remain quite a few Conservative university constitutencies but they are Conservative despite, rather than because, of the university presence.
Guildford, Runnymede & Weighbridge, Welywn Hatfield, Reading East, Colchester come to mind. Cirencester is probably the only one where the university votes in line with the rest.
Point of order - Reading East is Labour-held. Captured in 2017 on a 10% swing, and held in 2019 with a furtther two-party swing (Lab slightly down, Tories down more).
In Guildford, the LibDems have successfully cornered much of the potential Labour vote on the usual tactical basis. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the County elections - Labour is said to be working hard there this time.
Comments
Births, deaths and marriages have been reported with honesty and integrity for centuries. To understand what is happening and what has happened requires integrity in your data.
Not every country has the same traditions. If things are reported as bad in this country it's not an exaggeration, it's that it is bad during a pandemic. If things aren't reported as being as bad elsewhere it doesn't mean the pandemic is better elsewhere it just means the reporting isn't as good.
One problem some struggle to understand is just how inaccurate the data elsewhere is. So they fall into the easy mistake of making false comparisons and drawing false conclusions as a result.
Our PM Mette F is off to Israel with Sebastian Kurz from Austria to discuss with Bibi how to work together to be more self-reliant in vaccine production - in other words the Danes have decided it's time to sort shit out
There is a big plan for mass vaccination from end of March - we have capacity for 100,000 doses a day from the health service - story is private contractors will be brought in to work in shopping centres and other public spaces with a further 300,000 a day (but only guaranteed payment for 30% of that - so 'up to 300k')
As Berlingske newspaper put it though - this is all very exciting but where will the doses come from - last week we got 160,000 for the whole week.
If it actually happened we would all be jabbed with first dose over a 14 day perriod - not convinced this is likely but Danes are exceptionally good at delivery of stuff when they make the decision.
I also keep seeing reporting about Denmark having vaccinated over 500,000 people so far - not sure where that number comes from but for 1st doses we are still sub 400,000.
There is little outrage it seems about the EU vaccine catastrophe and no change on not using AZ for over 65s it seems.
No booking for the second yet. Was told at the time of the first that it would be mid-March.
So on that basis Wales is doing better.
For once, SLAB has actually done itself a favour. Sarwar's election is no guarantee of a recovery but he, at least, isn't a roadblock to one as Leonard surely was.
The end of the run of pro-Indy opinion polls is also significant. They were beloved of the pro-Nat twitterati.
And Swinney being threatened with a No Confidence vote for not releasing the Salmond case legal advice is noteworthy. Repeatedly defying the will of the Scottish Parliament by an SNP Government which is big on "the sovereign will of the Scottish people" is not a good look.
My guess is that all this, if it has any significant effect, will be on turn-out in May, rather than on people wholesale changing their minds on Indy in principle. Country is split 50/50. Low SNP turnout is what cost them seats in the 2017 GE - could it happen in May? We shall see.
I’d go down the making drugs properly and taxing them route. The alternative is the Bangkok/Singapore/UAE route, of building lots of prisons and filling them with first time drug offenders.
Anyway, who's to say that excess deaths is actually a better measure than the official stats? After all, excess death is just comparing the current death rate with overall average of the last five years.
However, while I think we've been consistent in reporting that deaths were due to Covid if they occurred within 28 days of a positive test, and it's quite likely other countries, for understandable reasons, use different criteria, it doesn't follow that the UK's don't overstate the position. Friends of mine have died in hospital of other causes shortly after a positive Covid test, but it would appear that they have been attributed to virus.
And what happens about those poor souls who linger on, twixt death and life, for several weeks until final their over-stretched systems collapse. Are they attributed to Covid or what?
The problem is wildly underestimated in most of the world. That's the difference.
After a thread on films that made you cry, how about a thread on films that tipped over from pathos to kitsch? I remember a review of "The Revenant" which said that after Leonardo Di Caprio fell off the cliff for the second time, the audience started to laugh.
What they've not used which the NYT has is the garbage inaccurate data from other countries to make dodgy false comparisons.
Excess deaths are the gold standard for very good reasons. It's the measurement of who has actually died not the guestimates in some countries of who has.
Its pretty consistent with what Sunak says. Obviously rental varies from area to area.
I agree about Dodds. She has no presence and no impact. It is inevitable that there will be mistakes and misjudgments in the next year or two and SKS requires someone capable of exploiting them as well as building up the credibility of the alternative after the fiasco of Corybn and McDonnell
On the other hand some Northern and Midlands Redwall seats which stayed Labour even in 2010, 2015 and 2017 like Bishop Auckland, Scunthorpe and Great Grimsby are not even in the top 100 Labour target seats and West Bromwich West for example is only 62nd now on the Labour target list.
In that sense Starmer's better ratings in London and the South than the North and Midlands may not be so damaging for him, he only needs to win back some RedWall seats to become PM not all as long as he also picks up Tory seats in London and the South
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour
which in turn references https://covid19.ssi.dk/overvagningsdata/vaccinationstilslutning
which in turn points to
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/1c7ff08f6cef4e2784df7532d16312f1
Which has 418,870 for "Påbegyndt vaccinerede" - "Started vaccinated"??
and
183,106 for "Færdigvaccinerede' - "Completely vaccinated"??
Which suggests a few billion - worth having.
Quite sad really. I pity him to have so much fear, anger and hatred in his heart. Someone else too.
I had to read Smithers' post a couple of times - first of all, I looked slightly askance at the claim he could attract Labour support where it was needed - thinking that he was hardly Blair in attracting the vote of Worcester woman. But of course that was in the day when Labour could rely on Scotland. There always used to be the old saw that Labour only ever had a Scottish or Welsh leader (Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown) or one with a Scottish or Welsh constituency (Callaghan, Foot, Smith, Brown). But maybe that is what Labour need? Though it would now be increasingly constitutionally tricky for a PM to have a Scottish or Welsh seat. (Which in itself should be an illustration of what a dog's dinner our constitutional arrangements now are.)
On Kinnock, it is perfectly possible to admire him for what he did for the party - and also for his undoubted skills as an orator - while still not wanting him to have been in government. He was a good party leader, but only really persuaded those already in the Labour camp. He wasn't great at getting switchers.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9311629/Pfizer-vaccine-effective-people-obesity-says-study.html
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1366338126097055744?s=20
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1366343175376433152?s=20
They've recently changed the calculation of excess deaths to attempt to account for the long-term trend in reducing death rates. This produces a more accurate estimate than comparing to the five-year average (but even then there are things like different rates of flu, improvements in air quality, etc, that are impossible to account for).
Unfortunately, it makes the figures less suitable for comparison with other countries. So we have another set of statistics and have to be careful to use the right one for international comparisons, and perhaps a different one for internal use.
Lots of scope for bad-faith shenanigans.
Somewhat worried but not total panic, perhaps.
It’s somewhat more worrying than the UK variant, the Kent variant, that we’re used to talking about, because it covers the double whammy, we think, of being more transmissible and somewhat better at evading neutralising antibodies.
Altmann said research in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where many people were thought to be immune because so many people were infected during the first wave, suggested the new variant was “breaking through” antibodies built up by previous infection. He said:
It was expected that there would be quite a high level of protection there because analysis of antibodies in blood bank samples showed [Manaus] had one of the highest levels of immunity in the world coming into the second wave, perhaps more than 70%, and yet they’re seeing this enormous wave of reinfections.
So, if you put two and two together their assumption is that’s because the new variant is breaking through those antibodies. But if that hadn’t really been proven yet, it looks likely.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/mar/01/uk-covid-live-news-coronavirus-brazil-variant-vaccine
AFAIK, this 70% figures that is widely quoted never made it into the peer reviewed paper, it was from a pre-print, that the authors now don't include / included with a massive caveat, after a number of people pulled them up on the methodology that lead to it.
That's not the case elsewhere. Hence making comparisons against other countries wrong.
If out reporting figures were missing half the excess deaths, like Italy, would that make our situation better?
I'm a little sceptical that 700k people really have left London since the pandemic started. If they have, and the reasons being postulated are correct, then we're talking white-collar office workers who are able to work from home, fed up of the daily commute and hankering after some fresh air and country scenes. Most won't have gone that far, just out into parts of the home counties that might previously have been a little hard to commute from.
That's a very different demographic from other recent waves of movement out of London: people of retirement age moving out to the suburbs or beyond, and poorer families priced out of the city by housing benefits caps. This is more like the 1970s and 80s exodus into the commuter belt. I expect they will reduce the average age of the constituencies they move into.
Demographic shifts between elections are always fascinating to track and they often show up surprises. The red wall is a case in point - it's aged more rapidly than the rest of the country and many of those constituencies are now full of retired people. So it's not surprising they've turned Tory.
The example at the other end of the spectrum is provided by Nottingham. The Tories winning Nottingham North in the 80s was a bit of a fluke, but they were always competitive in South and East. Now all three are solidly Labour.
But Labour's problem in the North is that they don't have Nottingham south style seats to target in compensation for losing the coalfields - they already hold the likes of Sheffield Hallam, Leeds North West, Manchester Withington, Liverpool Wavertree.
The shifting tides of electoral geography are fascinating!
a sfor the vaccination numbers - why not just get the number from the SSI which is responsibe for them? as of 28 Feb it was 418,000 - no need to get it via three other websites!
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1364963342129971202
The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù): a fabulous film, and the ending, if it's redemptive tears you're after...
He has a new book out tomorrow, and it features a robot.
Think about it like this, a country could have no COVID-19 testing capacity, and because of that simply end up recording a lot of pneumonia related deaths, does it mean they were spared by the disease? Of course not.
There is no perfect measure of the effects of a pandemic, but excess deaths is probably the best we have.
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1366349817274892289?s=20
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1366338988454387716?s=20
Think of the shutdown of much of the work of the NHS, for example.
Policies such as decriminalisation/legalisation are generally argued that illegal cannabis supports the drug trade. As a result, the harm caused or said to be caused by cannabis itself is put into the shadows by even a modest increase or decrease in heroin, coke, etc.
Nottingham South contains parts of 2 universities, Nottingham East is ethnically very diverse.
Both these factors have contributed to poorish Tory performance in Nottingham, but the Tories never really held these Notts seats in the way Labour held the red wall. They are not really the other side of the spectrum.
The other side of the spectrum is probably the University seats. Cambridge, Canterbury, Portsmouth South, Oxford, the Brighton seats.
How many University-dominated seats remain in Tory hands?
Probably very, very few (Broxtowe?), but they are ones I might expect the Tories to lose next time.
https://twitter.com/AlexInAir/status/1366350540087697412?s=20
The swing to Labour in the University cities has been the reverse of the swing to the Tories in the coalfields. But Labour started from a position of being fairly competitive in the university cities.
https://twitter.com/glenlyon17/status/1366098598539239434?s=21
I'd settle for that!
- Reduce the price a small, but significant amount. To wipe out the illegal offerings.
- Keep the price below any illegal offerings. This shouldn't be hard. Studies of the drug trade have shown that criminal organisations are very, very badly run. Legal manufacturer should be an order of magnitude cheaper.
- Offer increased quality
- Mange the taxation as above
- Ensure that the ownership of production is fully legal
eg red wall constituencies known to me have been picking up younger commuters into cities 20-30 miles away because this is where signficant amounts of housing have been built over 20-30 years.
eg places like Hucknall are now effectively part of metropolitan Nottingham, which is a shift.
I'd need to see an analysis from various areas.
https://twitter.com/rosamundurwin/status/1366348509805481985?s=21
Of course the Labour hegemony in big metropolitan areas is unlikely to last forever.
https://twitter.com/jamesmatthewsky/status/1366348449340358664?s=20
Bearing in mind that we were told
"We hold all the cards,"
what did we do with them?
And it's been answered thus: very obvious. We were playing misere and had to lose every trick !!
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1366353014274084867?s=20
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1366353628378914817?s=20
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1366353634485817348?s=20
Guildford, Runnymede & Weighbridge, Welywn Hatfield, Reading East, Colchester come to mind. Cirencester is probably the only one where the university votes in line with the rest.
Have I made an arithmetic error?
(Week ending 28th of Feb is estimated; the following four weeks are adjusted to get it to end up marrying up 1st doses for 12 weeks previously with 2nd doses given during the week. Constant 4 million total doses assumed for w/e 7 March to w/e 9 May; 5 million per week after that.
Approximately 52 million adults to receive vaccinations.)
But there is a heck of a lot of cheap family housing within easy reach of Manchester. Bolton West too. Although that was never Red Wall, being traditionally more affluent and rural, it has swung in a similar way.
https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1366355544810938372
https://twitter.com/FTusa284/status/1366359536941080588?s=20
Looking at the numbers in each JCVI category, and the date of 1st jab plus 21 days, you get:
Categories 1-4 protected (dose+21 days) by 8th of March
Categories 1-6 protected by 29th of March
Categories 1-9 protected by 12th of April
Above plus all over 40s and half of 30-39s protected by 17th of May
All adults protected by 21st of June.
I'm sure I've seen those dates somewhere before...
(The only one that doesn't perfectly fit the timetable is the 17th of May, but if they'd been doing 5 year chunks as before, it would have fit very nicely indeed)
The Lib Dems soaked up a lot of the New Labour zupport after Iraq and peaked at GE2010.
Nowadays, I imagine students are overwhelmingly Labour but increasingly Green, where disillusioned Corbynites can quickly switch en masse with social media and well organised grassroots campaigns.
Bristol West is fascinating. By GE2024 it's possible that every single mainstream UK party will have held the seat (with slightly different boundaries) in a GE over a 35 year period, except UKIP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_East_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
In Guildford, the LibDems have successfully cornered much of the potential Labour vote on the usual tactical basis. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the County elections - Labour is said to be working hard there this time.